5.4.15

Isang buwan na lang!

I can't believe I've reached the last month. Where has the time gone?! The good thing is that I'm companions with Elder Chapple and he is super hard working and still has the super gung-ho attitude still about everything so we work pretty hard! It keeps me going!

This past week our numbers went down a bit, but we managed to set 3 baptismal dates! Even though the work was a bit rough we got 3 baptisms schedule, one for June 28! It's really weird to me to schedule things knowing that I'm not going to be here! Just makes everything seem weird! It's also really weird to see mission events schedule for after that as well!

But one of the baptisms we have schedule is for Joy Sabordo! She is the younger sister of our recent convert Ching-Ching! At first she didn't want to listen to us when I first got here. We'd enter the house to teach Ching-Ching and then she'd walk out the back. I did my best to try and talk to her and invite her but she just wouldn't stay in the house. Then one day we told her to just listen and that we wouldn't ask her questions or have her do anything and from that point on she just progressed! We re-taught Ching-Ching while teaching Joy and she didn't even realize it! She's now been to church like 6 of the last 7 weeks! And she's scheduled to be baptized my last Saturday here! I'm so excited for her and so are her sisters Ching-Ching and Eden!

We also had a baptism yesterday after church for Sister Bambie! She is a close friend of Sister Mary Jane who is the biggest help to our work. So she also goes to Mary Jane's house for us to teach her! So she was baptized yesterday and then Sister Carmelita who was baptized on May 25th was confirmed yesterday!

It rained a bit this past week to so we've had lots of fun walking around in the rain! Elder Chapple just loves the rain, so it's been good! I really love this kid, he keeps me going strong! So glad I've been given the chance to train!

Well, next week is Mother's Day, so Happy Mother's day to all of you mothers who may be reading this! Can't wait to chat with the family next week! :) Love you all!

4.27.15

Training!

Training is way fun but also very challenging! It's definitely making me want to be better than I have been recently! My new companion is Elder Chapple! He's from Idaho! He's my first American companion since my own trainer, Elder Hawk! So it's been a blast these past few days! We started off with a baptism this past Saturday as well! Sister Carmelita Jagdon was baptized! She however showed up like 5 minutes to late yesterday for her confirmation, but it's all good! She'll just be confirmed next week!

We've hit a few road blocks in our work, but that won't keep us from moving forward! We'll continue to pray and do our best to find more investigators and to bring more sheep unto the fold of Christ! Nothing can stop this work, except the people from within! It all starts with our desire to serve! Once we let pride in that's when things start to fall apart! That's one problem we've seen here in our ward, and we're hoping to find ways to fix it! Hopefully we can be the example! :)

I don't have too many other exciting things to share! Elder Chapple and I are going to have a blast these last 5 weeks though! Hope everyone has a wonderful week! Love you all!

4.20.15

Transfer Week

This week was crazy! That's about all there is to say!

Elder Alfeche went home on Saturday, so that left me with no companion for 2 days until transfer day! So I got to work with good ole Elder PACK! I love and miss that kid! We had a blast. We didn't get too much accomplished this week with either Elder Alfeche or with Elder Pack just because things were crazy. Once I was with Elder Pack we worked for a bit in my area then attended their baptism in the 3rd Ward. They had 4 people being baptized and we had the 3 APs and me baptize them! It was pretty awesome to see all of us in white! Then we went back to work in 2nd ward and then had to back to the office to work on transfer stuff. We didn't leave the office until 12am! It was a long night. Then Elder Pack and I were the speakers at 2nd Ward, and everybody loved our talks. They told us they were the most entertaining talks that they had heard in a while! It was way fun! Then we went and did a baptismal interview in Santa Fe, and then we headed back to the office to make transfer calls! Even though I am not an AP they let me make a few calls, it was kinda fun!

I am no longer a District Leader or a Zone Leader, but I will now be a TRAINER! I'm super excited! I don't know who my companion is and I won't find out until Thursday morning when I meet him! I am super pumped though. 6 more weeks to teach this new Elder all I can! I hope I can be a good leader and example and companion for him! It's so hard to believe that I am now in my last transfer. I have 6 weeks left. I can't believe it. I am super excited to get to work though! We still have people to find, people to teach, and people to baptize! :) The work never ends! :)

We had the baptism of Brother Nestor Planilla this past Saturday! He was baptized by his son Raymond! It was super awesome! Then on Sunday he was confirmed along with Jasper and Joshua Gamboa who were baptized the week before! I continue to enjoy each and every minute here in the Philippines Bacolod Mission, and I'm kinda sad to see it getting closer and closer to an end, but that will not keep me from doing the best I can to help the work of the Lord to continue!

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you!

4.13.15

Conference Week
This week was a pretty normal week! Nothing too crazy happened other than General Conference. It was awesome! President Ferrin had pizza for all of us missionaries for between sessions! He loves us! It was so good! Also worked great since we didn't bring any food with us!

I really enjoyed this conference! There were lots of great quotes and things talked about! I enjoyed the statement "Just hang in there is not a principle of the gospel!" I loved Elder Hollands talk as well about the arms of our brother who saved us from our certain death! Our life has so much more to it than us just living than dying. Christ is our savior and through is atoning sacrifice we can live beyond the bands of a physical death! We can return to live with our Heavenly Father is we live the gospel! But just like President Uchtdorf said, "we don't buy our salvation with good works." It helps us along the path, but we can't just buy our salvation. The first law of heaven is obedience. We are obedient to the commandments because our Heavenly Father told us we need to be, and by doing so we show our love and faith for all that he hath given is! Conference is so amazing! I find myself losing focus about mid-way through the Sunday afternoon session, but it's all good! There's so much information packed into 10 hours of conference it's amazing! I hope one of these next conferences we have a Filipino speak in their native language! That would make it awesome! haha

Well we have dinner appointments scheduled for every night this week since Elder Alfeche goes home on Saturday, so that's awesome! We also have dinner with President Ferrin on Wednesday! So that's sweet! Elder Pack is going to be my companion for Saturday and Sunday, so that's going to be sweet. For those of you who don't remember, and for those that do, he was my companion in the MTC! Going to be good time!

Love you all have a great week! :)

4.6.15

ASL!
So this week was just another week in the Bacolod 2nd Ward! But it was fun! I went on exchanges with Elder Brinton again, but this time in 2nd Ward! He had an absolute blast when we taught Christine, in sign language! He thought it was awesome! After our exhanges we had dinner with the Petero family, I love them! They fed us because we ran out of support and we had like no food in the house, so that was sweet! haha

We set two more baptismal dates this week! As of now we have 6 people committed to be baptized in the next 4 weeks! I'm super excited. The younger sister of Ching-Ching, our RC, has finally started listening and showing an interest as well! She never would join us last transfer but now she joins us, she'll read if we ask her too, and she's been to church for 3 weeks in a row! The first two we just to witness the confirmation of Ching-Ching and after sacrament she just went home. Then on Friday we had two members work with us and one of them is a 17 year old girl, she bore her testimony and cried, and then Joy went to church again, and she attended all 3 hours of class! It was awesome! She was one that I really wanted to baptize, now we just need to get her a baptismal date! :)

Yesterday at church we had a really awesome experience. It about brought tears to my eyes. We had promised ourselves and the member who joins us to teach Christine that at this Fast & Testimony meeting that we would bear our testimony in Sign Language (hence the ASL title). So that is what we did. I was so nervous, but I knew I needed to do it. So I walked up to the podium, and I pulled out the step to make me taller, which I obviously don't need to do. Then the 1st Counselor asked me "Elder, what are you going to do?" Then the members began to laugh! Then I explained to them in Hiligaynon why I was standing on the latter and how they have a new member in their ward who cannot hear but needs to understand what we're talking about. Then I spoke English as I bore my testimony. THe faces of the members were priceless. They were so amazed and so happy . Christine as well had a giant smile on her face and almost cried, just as I did. It was so awesome. Christine told Mary Jane that she was so happy because it was the first time that she actually understood and enjoyed Sacrament meeting. I encouraged the members to try and learn and communicate with her to help her feel more loved. It was just so awesome. I'm truly going to miss Christine and being able to speak ASL with her! It's so fun!

Well Elder Alfeche goes home on April 18. 4 days early so that means I'll have a new companion for a few days before transfer day on the 20. Should be interesting to see what happens! All is going well! I love you all! Have a great week!

3.30.15

First time in English
This week was just about the same as last week! We had our Special MLC on Wednesday and talked about the reasons why our missions numbers are on a heavy decrease right now and hopefully we can pick them back up in the next few weeks! Our numbers are still very good he continues to remind us, but they have been even better in the past! Our zone training meeting on Friday was a bit interesting. I felt as though we were chastising the missionaries for having low numbers, it was kinda weird, because we don't have super high numbers either!

Our streak of weekly baptisms came to end this weekend :/, but we confirmed 2 yesterday! We will pick back up with weekly baptisms on April 11! Yesterday I confirmed Christine. She is our deaf investigator. So just picture how that would go in your mind for a second. She can't hear, yet you're giving her a blessing. So what we did was rather than take forever and try to have Sister Mary Jane sign what I was saying, we got President Ferrin's permission to record the blessing and tomorrow i will type it up and give it to her so that she can read it and understand what was said! I also gave the entire blessing in English. Which was the first time that I've ever confirmed someone in English. You would think that that would make it easier, but it almost didn't. It just felt weird! It was pretty awesome though!

Our work is progressing here in the Bacolod 2nd Ward, and I love it! It is all because of members. Most of our progressing investigators are referrals or are from part member families so they already have an instant support system. That is the "better way" of missionary work that President Hinckley talks about in Preach my Gospel. Missionary work is not very successful when we're knocking on doors, members are the true key to success! They find, we teach! * Finding + Teaching = Baptism! * That's how it gets done!

Nothing else too exiting going on here! Hope you all have a great week! I love you all and can't wait to see you beautiful faces in a couple months! :)

3.23.15

Tapos na naman ang Simana!
This week was a very interesting week. I started off going on exchanges with Elder Brinton again! While on the exchange Elder Brinton enlightened me on some of the things his companion had been doing that he shouldn't be. I also became aware of communication he had with other missionaries in the mission that are outside our zone and tried to fix that myself, but one of the missionaries I corrected did not take it very well and made some pretty rude comments in return. So I scheduled an appointment with President Ferrin before we switched back to our normal companions, and we talked it all out. In result of my conversation with President, he has called an emergency/special MLC this next week to discuss rules and other problems that have been happening within the mission. President also asked me if we should take that missionaries phone. The decision was all up to me. I decided to give him another chance! But we'll see what happens in the upcoming weeks.

Other than that crazy incident, nothing too much happened this week. Our numbers went down a bit, but we still had a baptism and still have more scheduled! The members here in the Bacolod 2nd Ward are such a great help to the success of missionary work, I love them! We would not have much success at all if it wasn't for all their help! This week was the Baptism of Charlie Lantape. We've now baptized the father, mother, and 1 of the 2 kids in that family. Their daughter, Cherry Pie, is 21 years old and wants to be baptized, but she works everyday which doesn't allow her to attend church. She told me after the baptism of her brother that she wants me to baptize her before I go home. So that doesn't give her too much time to find a new job! I hope she can pull through because I would really love to be able to be here and be the one to baptize her as well!

I love you all and hope that you continue with your Book of Mormon reading! I am now in Alma 34! I only need to read 3.3 pages a day to finish on time! I hope you all can finish too!