(These first lines are answers to questions, and things in the letter I wrote to him.) so yes they do show the twilight movies here, its playing right now at the movie theatre right next to the computer place I'm at. and that's awesome all he needs now is his own car. (referring to the new TV Tyler bought during Black Friday) lol! but with the ipod someone always has to have a newer one, just like i had the iphone 4 after you wanted it, it happens. (Kamrie got the new iPod touch, so now Chad and Scott want newer ones!) I'm really missing football too. but oh well, no one has footballs here! (Guess what's in his Christmas package!) but they sell soccer balls and i have a basketball. and the thing with cooper is ridiculous, my soccer ball fell down into the big hole that drops down for the basement level windows and i climbed down it and got my ball and climbed back up and no one even cared. i think some one was over reacting, but oh well. (His cousin Cooper is still in the MTC, and one day grabbed a light pole and swung around it. There was leader that saw him and really let him have it, telling him he could be sent home for that! Crazy!)
Christmas conference is coming up and we get to have a p day in tacloban with all of the missionaries in the whole mission. it ll be crazy! our zone leaders are setting up a b ball tourney with tacloban zone so it'll be super fun!
so to start out i am now the second counselor in the branch presidency in dulag. (now you understand) and the whole goal of the entire Philippines for missionaries has changed. we are no longer allowed to go tracting. (this is gong door to door looking for people to talk to about the gospel, this is what almost all missionaries do) we are only supposed to teach members, because there are 25000 members in the Philippines and about 17000 are inactive. so lots of work to do here. the only investigators we are supposed to be teaching are ones we already had or referrals from members, otherwise we don't teach any one but members. one goal we have set as a district is to make sure that people are visiting each other and the inactives. bringing active members with us to share with other active members and inactive members because they don't know how to visit each other without gossiping, which is the cause of a lot of inactive members here. so its going to be even harder now than before.
so of all the things this week we have taught 2 lessons now to the family that doesn't speak warry warry and i am learning so much tagalog its crazy. and on Thursday this week elder ostler had a training meeting in tacloban so i worked with the other elder in our apartment who has only been here for 3 weeks and only speaks tagalog and cebuano. so he spoke tagalog all day, it was nice, i would start talking to people and they would just speak warry until he start talking then they would switch to tagalog and i would get so lost. but we ended up walking to a part of my area i have never been to to try to find an inactive family. i thought it didn't look to far so we walked and walked and walked and after and hour and a half when we got there it was time for his appointment in mayorga. so we had to find a motor to take us to the highway so we could catch a ride to mayorga. so we did that and got there, his investigator is from manila and speaks tagalog cebuano ilacano ilango and warry-warry! so it was an interesting lesson mostly tagalog but i was able to follow along and help him out a little. then we caught a bus back and went to my tagalog investigator family, yay! so basicly tagalog all day, it gave me a headache, but i was able to learn so much.
so then on to Sunday. we got up in the morning and i went out back to go pee and slipped on some moss stuff on our back porch and sliced the skin off the outside of my pinky toe. then there was no water so i had to wait forever to be able to make my breakfast which was delicious Pillsbury pancakes. but it was extremely difficult to walk. so then i put my church stuff on and put my shoes on and it hurt quite badly, but i was like oh well I'll be sitting all day I'll worry about it later. then i spoke in sacrament (Sacrament Meeting is the meeting at church where all the congregation is together. In other churches the minister or pastor would give his sermon. In our church the members are asked to speak.) about reverence and taking upon ourselves the name of Christ. i found a story in an ensign (a church magazine)nephi 4:8-10 about them fearing God and not the massive army, and how they were protected. i then related that to our day to day lives, how we need to just do what we know we are supposed to and don't fear the people but fear what God will think if you rebel against him. then after church we had planning for our Christmas party, and then we had to count tithing, then we had a meeting right after. so no lunch. we went to tolosa and didn't get home until around 6 and president elder ostler had a temple recommend interview so we went to do that. then sent the tithing stuff on the computer because the internet was down before. then we did our planning and went home around 9, still no food and i am now in a lot of pain from my foot. so we ate, i wrote in my journal and went to bed around 10. then got up at 5 to do my laundry this morning and this whole week feels like we did no missionary work when in reality that's our new purpose, and its going to be weird and hard getting used to. we have lots of plans to reactivate some old branch presidents and we have already seen a little change in their hearts. we haven't talked to them really, but we got the members to go visit them because they don't like the leaders of the church. so we won't really be visiting to much but i know it will work out as long as we do our best.
well that's really all for this week sorry if its not all clear but that gives me more questions to answer next week i love you all baboosh
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Week 23 - Dulag 11/20/2011
A little info about the workings of our church. Our congregations are divided geographically. Where you live determines which ward or branch (a smaller congregation) you are in. Which building you will attend and what time. Each ward/branch is staffed by it's members. We are the teachers and leaders. The head honcho of the ward is a Bishop, in a branch he is the Branch President. The Bishop/Branch President has two counselors that assist him in tending to the members.
ok so that's cool that they are in porters mission! (some local friends parents are serving in my nephew Porter's mission, and his brother is the Mission President.) and i think its funny that dad climbed in through the play room window.
this week has been crazy since my new companion is the branch president we have been meeting with every member i know and we were able to get our attendance up to 40! its crazy, i think we are really going to make a difference this transfer. so one day we got a text from someone who said their name was anna marie and we were talking to her. she said she knew us but i couldn't remember her so we asked when we could come visit her and she said Wednesday. so we asked what we need to ask people to find her house and she told us her name was kenneth lopez? we were like what the, that isn't even close and she lives in one of the farther out parts of our area. so we went and asked around for her and found her house she was across the street helping her mom with the school but she had no idea who we were. but in the end she was like well sorry, but you can share with me. she said she doesn't even know anyone named anna marie but her name is kenneth. so she had all these great questions and it was amazing but still have no idea who texted us. elder ostler said it was a referral from God! i think he may be right. so then another day we went to see an apostate member who used to be the branch president i don't really know to much about him but we talked and we thought he was starting to soften up but then he just got mad and rode of on his peddy cab. so we walked down another street and then back by his house to his neighbors and i kind of had a feeling we should stop, but elder ostler said something so we did, and turns out a girl is working there she is from tacloban and she is a member but doesnt know where the church is. so we ended up sharing with her and her to friends who are the grand kids of the owner and they came to church, yay! and then on friday we got a text from the district president saying he wanted to meet with elder ostler for some quick training, so i am going through a lot of this training as well. its kind of cool all the stuff we get to do now. then we had a lesson with a guy we met the other day who is from manila so he only speaks tagalog and so does his family. amazingly i was able to follow along and actually say some things in tagalog as well. the lord is amazing, but i really need to start studying tagalog as well now if we are going to keep teaching him. then we had basically a rolling black out all day on saturday from 6-6. it was not fun it was about 90 degrees and its the first day it hadn't rained in like 4 days. so it was super humid. so finally they turned it on at 6 and then back off at 7 we were like, what the heck! so then when we got home we were sitting trying to cool off a little before we had planning and i went to turn the fan on and as soon as i hit the button the fan came on and the neighbors lights came on it was awesome. then sunday elder ostler got sustained as branch president and the old branch president gave him a hug. i laughed a little, he was really excited to be getting released. so then we had some more training until about 1 then we ate and went to tolosa for the branch presidents meeting they have every 1st and 3rd sunday. so that will be fun. our sundays are basically full from now on and we have to do tithing so we have to take it to a money sender and then go to tacloban every p day now so we can send the receipt to manila. I'm actually a little excited about it, I'm in tacloban right now in the AC is really nice, and we can buy real food now. I've been eating hot dogs and tuna and corned beef lately. I'm excited for thursday, mashed potatoes gravy and a chicken because that's all we got, and turkey is extremely expensive.
so all in all a great week and i know there are many more to come its going to be long days from here on out but i know we can turn this place around i love you all bye bye ngan paghinay ha mga aswang
i wear a size 10 and i would really like an english to tagalog dictionary if you can find one and of course my contacts and solution and we have christmas conference on dec 12 and 13 so the next time i can get a package after that is the 23 but that's only if i transfer because transfer day is 2 days before christmas so ya i really hope i don't transfer that would be a weird christmas
ok so that's cool that they are in porters mission! (some local friends parents are serving in my nephew Porter's mission, and his brother is the Mission President.) and i think its funny that dad climbed in through the play room window.
this week has been crazy since my new companion is the branch president we have been meeting with every member i know and we were able to get our attendance up to 40! its crazy, i think we are really going to make a difference this transfer. so one day we got a text from someone who said their name was anna marie and we were talking to her. she said she knew us but i couldn't remember her so we asked when we could come visit her and she said Wednesday. so we asked what we need to ask people to find her house and she told us her name was kenneth lopez? we were like what the, that isn't even close and she lives in one of the farther out parts of our area. so we went and asked around for her and found her house she was across the street helping her mom with the school but she had no idea who we were. but in the end she was like well sorry, but you can share with me. she said she doesn't even know anyone named anna marie but her name is kenneth. so she had all these great questions and it was amazing but still have no idea who texted us. elder ostler said it was a referral from God! i think he may be right. so then another day we went to see an apostate member who used to be the branch president i don't really know to much about him but we talked and we thought he was starting to soften up but then he just got mad and rode of on his peddy cab. so we walked down another street and then back by his house to his neighbors and i kind of had a feeling we should stop, but elder ostler said something so we did, and turns out a girl is working there she is from tacloban and she is a member but doesnt know where the church is. so we ended up sharing with her and her to friends who are the grand kids of the owner and they came to church, yay! and then on friday we got a text from the district president saying he wanted to meet with elder ostler for some quick training, so i am going through a lot of this training as well. its kind of cool all the stuff we get to do now. then we had a lesson with a guy we met the other day who is from manila so he only speaks tagalog and so does his family. amazingly i was able to follow along and actually say some things in tagalog as well. the lord is amazing, but i really need to start studying tagalog as well now if we are going to keep teaching him. then we had basically a rolling black out all day on saturday from 6-6. it was not fun it was about 90 degrees and its the first day it hadn't rained in like 4 days. so it was super humid. so finally they turned it on at 6 and then back off at 7 we were like, what the heck! so then when we got home we were sitting trying to cool off a little before we had planning and i went to turn the fan on and as soon as i hit the button the fan came on and the neighbors lights came on it was awesome. then sunday elder ostler got sustained as branch president and the old branch president gave him a hug. i laughed a little, he was really excited to be getting released. so then we had some more training until about 1 then we ate and went to tolosa for the branch presidents meeting they have every 1st and 3rd sunday. so that will be fun. our sundays are basically full from now on and we have to do tithing so we have to take it to a money sender and then go to tacloban every p day now so we can send the receipt to manila. I'm actually a little excited about it, I'm in tacloban right now in the AC is really nice, and we can buy real food now. I've been eating hot dogs and tuna and corned beef lately. I'm excited for thursday, mashed potatoes gravy and a chicken because that's all we got, and turkey is extremely expensive.
so all in all a great week and i know there are many more to come its going to be long days from here on out but i know we can turn this place around i love you all bye bye ngan paghinay ha mga aswang
i wear a size 10 and i would really like an english to tagalog dictionary if you can find one and of course my contacts and solution and we have christmas conference on dec 12 and 13 so the next time i can get a package after that is the 23 but that's only if i transfer because transfer day is 2 days before christmas so ya i really hope i don't transfer that would be a weird christmas
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Week 22 - Dulag 11/13/2011
so to start off i got the package and i cant wait until thanksgiving now! (We sent instant mashed potatoes and gravy mix!) i am getting a chicken and mashed potatoes and apparently there is stuffing somewhere i just have to find it.
but anyway this week was interesting, just a lot of walking. no lessons but lots of potential investigators. and then Wednesday came around and we were on the back of a motor and received a phone call from our zone leaders and elder Andrus is transferring! so we finished out our day and went home. we had some extra elders at our apartment because half of our zone got transferred and some are training new missionaries. so its exciting. so thursday the ones who were training left in the morning to go to their training in Tacloban and me and elder andrus went to Rizzal to share with one of our potential investigators. i thought i was gunna die on the way he drove so fast but its all good, buhi pa. so then we went to a member to ask where he lived and she walked us to his house. turns out its her nephew so she stayed and i was excited to have a fellowshipper there. but it all went down hill he started talking about how he wants to know what church is true so he has been going to a lot of them and i was super excited. but as we were teaching the member wouldn't let us teach! as soon as we said something she would go off on stuff that wasn't important like what Gods name is and things like that. and when she started explaining about the quorum of the 70 i took the picture from her and bore my testimony and asked her to give the prayer before it went any farther. me and elder andrus went back for lunch and after we made BR's, or pages for our book of remembrance. its pretty cool thing, when missionaries transfer you make them for each other and you put them in your book so you can remember them and people have members do it too. its going to be a really good thing to help me remember people. but then he packed and we went out so he could say bye to all of our friends and investigators and all the members. then it started pouring down rain and we had forgotten our umbrellas so we ran to the members restaurant and ate there and waited for the rain to stop, then back home and he finished packing.
so then friday we got up and got ready and went to tacloban at about 7:30, and then to one of the other church buildings. its 2 story, its awesome but i got there and elder leishmen and mits (His companions from the MTC) were there and i got to hang out with them! so then the meeting started and they handed out the transfer announcements and i saw an elder walking back and I'm like that's my new companion. i heard him say dulag behind me and i said ya that will be fun but didn't tell him i was his new companion until after the meeting. but elders mits and leishman are in the same district now and still speaking cebuano, darn! I'm still in the same place but i am really confident in my language skill right now. my companion is elder ostler he has been here one transfer less than elder andrus he was assigned warry warry when he first got here but has been in cebuano for about 5 months now. he was zone leader before but has come to be my follow up trainer and the new dulag branch president. yay, as if we didn't have enough work as it is here in dulag. but i think it will be great he is an amazing missionary! he is from utah and is ready to work! so after the meeting he went for an interview, then back to dulag and we went to eat and to meet as many members as we could in a few short hours.
in the morning we had a meeting with a lady from Kazakhstan so it was in english really weird but turns out she was only there to try to prove us wrong. it was crazy we kind of just listened and she had us open to bible verses and anytime we had her look at one she would just say but here it says this what does that mean. so it went down hill really fast. she thinks she received a vision from god and he gave her power. so elder ostler said i don't care what you say, i ask you in the name of Christ to stop disrupting me i have received power from God to say this and i ask you to read this book before you say anything else. and ya so we will see. we have another appointment with her next week. on accident their driver asked us if we could come talk again next week and elder ostler didn't know he was their driver so he said yes. so one more and hopefully never again. but yes he is amazing and i cant wait to see what else he can do.
later no one was home so we went to go exploring and i saw a house out of the corner of my eye and said i know this place i think its a member who had a stroke. so we waited outside and he finally came and we talked to him and he asked for a blessing. we set up an appointment with him for later today and then we went to other members and shared and set up more appointments. i can see this transfer is going to be really good and i can see dulag branch growing already.
then sunday me and elder ostler spoke and i told the members it isn't just our job, they have a resposabillity to help grow this branch and that we cant do it alone. and most of them had a smile on their faces when i was done. i was excited! so then church went on and we went home for study and lunch and then out to visit but the person was at work. so we went finding and got a few potential investigators. then went to share with an inactive member and i really think this time she might come back to church. we keep finding more and more members that are inactive, that have never actually had a testimony but they got baptized. so we are having to convert them for the first time and its a lot harder now then it would have been the first time. so we are going around just trying to reactive any one and every one. when we added up our numbers for the week elder ostler got to write them in with his numbers from his old area. he went from 170 attendance as a his goal to only having 26, so ya we have a lot of work to do and we are really excited. i can see the members getting excited too, so and i know this is going to be the transfer that gets this place going again. we just have to work hard and help these people to the best of our ability. i know you all can do the same as well. if you just ask the lord for help we can do anything. i love you all and want you all to know that i love this work and i know it is exactly what i am supposed to do. thank you for all the support
so for christmas i want a pair of athletic SHOES!!!! lol mine are starting to fall apart and all the ones here are fake and will just fall apart. and i lost the cord for my camera so i cant send pictures. i found a charger that works, but i need either a card reader or a new cord before you will get any new pictures. sorry. we had a typhoon come through this morning and our front porch started to flood but luckily it slowed up before it was enough to come in out apartment. well that's really all. just please don't forget to send the contacts, magic tricks, the cds and an english to tagalog dictionary if you can find one. and when i opened the package and saw the see's i was like no way! and the other missionaries from cali were like your so lucky! then i opened it yes, the most sweet thing i will eat on my whole mission oh and i am really going to enjoy the burrito tortillas after i get some refreid beans next time i got to tacloban YESSSS!!! thank you
but anyway this week was interesting, just a lot of walking. no lessons but lots of potential investigators. and then Wednesday came around and we were on the back of a motor and received a phone call from our zone leaders and elder Andrus is transferring! so we finished out our day and went home. we had some extra elders at our apartment because half of our zone got transferred and some are training new missionaries. so its exciting. so thursday the ones who were training left in the morning to go to their training in Tacloban and me and elder andrus went to Rizzal to share with one of our potential investigators. i thought i was gunna die on the way he drove so fast but its all good, buhi pa. so then we went to a member to ask where he lived and she walked us to his house. turns out its her nephew so she stayed and i was excited to have a fellowshipper there. but it all went down hill he started talking about how he wants to know what church is true so he has been going to a lot of them and i was super excited. but as we were teaching the member wouldn't let us teach! as soon as we said something she would go off on stuff that wasn't important like what Gods name is and things like that. and when she started explaining about the quorum of the 70 i took the picture from her and bore my testimony and asked her to give the prayer before it went any farther. me and elder andrus went back for lunch and after we made BR's, or pages for our book of remembrance. its pretty cool thing, when missionaries transfer you make them for each other and you put them in your book so you can remember them and people have members do it too. its going to be a really good thing to help me remember people. but then he packed and we went out so he could say bye to all of our friends and investigators and all the members. then it started pouring down rain and we had forgotten our umbrellas so we ran to the members restaurant and ate there and waited for the rain to stop, then back home and he finished packing.
so then friday we got up and got ready and went to tacloban at about 7:30, and then to one of the other church buildings. its 2 story, its awesome but i got there and elder leishmen and mits (His companions from the MTC) were there and i got to hang out with them! so then the meeting started and they handed out the transfer announcements and i saw an elder walking back and I'm like that's my new companion. i heard him say dulag behind me and i said ya that will be fun but didn't tell him i was his new companion until after the meeting. but elders mits and leishman are in the same district now and still speaking cebuano, darn! I'm still in the same place but i am really confident in my language skill right now. my companion is elder ostler he has been here one transfer less than elder andrus he was assigned warry warry when he first got here but has been in cebuano for about 5 months now. he was zone leader before but has come to be my follow up trainer and the new dulag branch president. yay, as if we didn't have enough work as it is here in dulag. but i think it will be great he is an amazing missionary! he is from utah and is ready to work! so after the meeting he went for an interview, then back to dulag and we went to eat and to meet as many members as we could in a few short hours.
in the morning we had a meeting with a lady from Kazakhstan so it was in english really weird but turns out she was only there to try to prove us wrong. it was crazy we kind of just listened and she had us open to bible verses and anytime we had her look at one she would just say but here it says this what does that mean. so it went down hill really fast. she thinks she received a vision from god and he gave her power. so elder ostler said i don't care what you say, i ask you in the name of Christ to stop disrupting me i have received power from God to say this and i ask you to read this book before you say anything else. and ya so we will see. we have another appointment with her next week. on accident their driver asked us if we could come talk again next week and elder ostler didn't know he was their driver so he said yes. so one more and hopefully never again. but yes he is amazing and i cant wait to see what else he can do.
later no one was home so we went to go exploring and i saw a house out of the corner of my eye and said i know this place i think its a member who had a stroke. so we waited outside and he finally came and we talked to him and he asked for a blessing. we set up an appointment with him for later today and then we went to other members and shared and set up more appointments. i can see this transfer is going to be really good and i can see dulag branch growing already.
then sunday me and elder ostler spoke and i told the members it isn't just our job, they have a resposabillity to help grow this branch and that we cant do it alone. and most of them had a smile on their faces when i was done. i was excited! so then church went on and we went home for study and lunch and then out to visit but the person was at work. so we went finding and got a few potential investigators. then went to share with an inactive member and i really think this time she might come back to church. we keep finding more and more members that are inactive, that have never actually had a testimony but they got baptized. so we are having to convert them for the first time and its a lot harder now then it would have been the first time. so we are going around just trying to reactive any one and every one. when we added up our numbers for the week elder ostler got to write them in with his numbers from his old area. he went from 170 attendance as a his goal to only having 26, so ya we have a lot of work to do and we are really excited. i can see the members getting excited too, so and i know this is going to be the transfer that gets this place going again. we just have to work hard and help these people to the best of our ability. i know you all can do the same as well. if you just ask the lord for help we can do anything. i love you all and want you all to know that i love this work and i know it is exactly what i am supposed to do. thank you for all the support
so for christmas i want a pair of athletic SHOES!!!! lol mine are starting to fall apart and all the ones here are fake and will just fall apart. and i lost the cord for my camera so i cant send pictures. i found a charger that works, but i need either a card reader or a new cord before you will get any new pictures. sorry. we had a typhoon come through this morning and our front porch started to flood but luckily it slowed up before it was enough to come in out apartment. well that's really all. just please don't forget to send the contacts, magic tricks, the cds and an english to tagalog dictionary if you can find one. and when i opened the package and saw the see's i was like no way! and the other missionaries from cali were like your so lucky! then i opened it yes, the most sweet thing i will eat on my whole mission oh and i am really going to enjoy the burrito tortillas after i get some refreid beans next time i got to tacloban YESSSS!!! thank you
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Week 21 - Dulag 11/6/2011
this week was fun halloween and then nov 1st and second is basically party in the cemetery. yay! so lots of people weren't home because of that but we were still able to do most of the things we had planned. that's kinda funny that the bronco is going and mom got hit all in the same week. lol.
(I got rear ended, and the Bronco Tyler and Jim bought last week, is already for sale!)
but this week we didn't have a lot of lessons but the ones we did have were amazing. with the new planning we started doing, we are so prepared when we get there all we have to worry about is that there are no distractions. we started off going to a member and during my reading i found a verse, i don't remember exactly where it is now, but it says - in a little wrath i hid my face from thee but with everlasting kindness will i welcome thee into my kingdom. or something like that. she read the first line and started crying and said tamat elder. i was like wow, that really works. since that was our first lesson using the new planning. turns out she hasn't been at church because her kids all moved out and she had a tooth ache. so the spirit said offer her a blessing and i kinda was hesitant but i finally did she said yes, please elders i was hoping you would ask that. yay im so happy now that i have been having lessons like that all week. we have one sister, she cant get baptized because she has to get married first, but we wanted to make sure she had had a spiritual witness. so we had her pray like elder top had me do and ask god if he loved her but her friend that was there started laughing and was very distracting after the prayer when we asked her to wait for her answer. me and elder andrus felt it, so we just asked her to do it before she went to sleep. i really want all of you to do the same its amazing what it can do for you. if you haven't done it yet because "sure God loves everyone" but do you know for yourself that he loves you individually? it makes life go so much more smoothly because you know God loves you and will provide for you everyday if all you do is ask. like in conference a couple of the talks were about asking for small things like to find change in the road or for his 5 dollars to still be there, because if God will answer those simple prayers why wont he answer the big ones? i really think this is a big part of our life, knowing that there is always a way to know.
another fun lesson we had was with this old guy i think his name is loren not really sure, he is hard to understand. but, he asks ridiculous questions. our member started to bear his testimony about receiving answers through pray, he started out saying i know that if you have a question... and the guy said, "i know just say something, i already asked all my questions." we were like no for God not us. lol he is so funny he only has one leg and is in a wheel chair and when i asked him to come to church he said no that's to hard i cant walk. lol yay but ya either way he is awesome.
also i was able to give a training on tuesday about the new planning and how we as missionaries of the Philippines Tacloban Mission need to ask God if he loves us, and if we know that he loves our investigators as well we can better love them and know exactly what they need to go about their life.
so this week is transfer week and elder Andrus keeps telling me he is going to transfer and that i am going to train someone new. i don't know about that but i do think he might be transferred. and the letter you got from lisa, the same thing happened here in dulag with elder Andrus and his last companion and he is still learning new stuff about this place everyday. (our friend Lisa is on a mission in Washington. She wrote me a letter and told me that she was transferred into a new area, and her companion was also new to the area! So neither of them know anyone, or where anything is.) so i can understand that because i have still never been to a lot of my area because elder Andrus doesn't know how to get there. but this week i think we plan on going to some farther out barangay's.
but i want you all to know i love you and know that the lord loves you. I hope you all are doing your scripture study its one of the best ways to make your day go more smoothly, i learned that the hard way. i finished the BofM ( Book of Mormon) finally and started over and am excited to see what i can learn this time. i have one request for Christmas and i want you to try and guess what it is and ill tell you next week. its something that i wanted on all the time back home. (I am feeling like a really bad mom because I have NO IDEA what he wants!)
(I got rear ended, and the Bronco Tyler and Jim bought last week, is already for sale!)
but this week we didn't have a lot of lessons but the ones we did have were amazing. with the new planning we started doing, we are so prepared when we get there all we have to worry about is that there are no distractions. we started off going to a member and during my reading i found a verse, i don't remember exactly where it is now, but it says - in a little wrath i hid my face from thee but with everlasting kindness will i welcome thee into my kingdom. or something like that. she read the first line and started crying and said tamat elder. i was like wow, that really works. since that was our first lesson using the new planning. turns out she hasn't been at church because her kids all moved out and she had a tooth ache. so the spirit said offer her a blessing and i kinda was hesitant but i finally did she said yes, please elders i was hoping you would ask that. yay im so happy now that i have been having lessons like that all week. we have one sister, she cant get baptized because she has to get married first, but we wanted to make sure she had had a spiritual witness. so we had her pray like elder top had me do and ask god if he loved her but her friend that was there started laughing and was very distracting after the prayer when we asked her to wait for her answer. me and elder andrus felt it, so we just asked her to do it before she went to sleep. i really want all of you to do the same its amazing what it can do for you. if you haven't done it yet because "sure God loves everyone" but do you know for yourself that he loves you individually? it makes life go so much more smoothly because you know God loves you and will provide for you everyday if all you do is ask. like in conference a couple of the talks were about asking for small things like to find change in the road or for his 5 dollars to still be there, because if God will answer those simple prayers why wont he answer the big ones? i really think this is a big part of our life, knowing that there is always a way to know.
another fun lesson we had was with this old guy i think his name is loren not really sure, he is hard to understand. but, he asks ridiculous questions. our member started to bear his testimony about receiving answers through pray, he started out saying i know that if you have a question... and the guy said, "i know just say something, i already asked all my questions." we were like no for God not us. lol he is so funny he only has one leg and is in a wheel chair and when i asked him to come to church he said no that's to hard i cant walk. lol yay but ya either way he is awesome.
also i was able to give a training on tuesday about the new planning and how we as missionaries of the Philippines Tacloban Mission need to ask God if he loves us, and if we know that he loves our investigators as well we can better love them and know exactly what they need to go about their life.
so this week is transfer week and elder Andrus keeps telling me he is going to transfer and that i am going to train someone new. i don't know about that but i do think he might be transferred. and the letter you got from lisa, the same thing happened here in dulag with elder Andrus and his last companion and he is still learning new stuff about this place everyday. (our friend Lisa is on a mission in Washington. She wrote me a letter and told me that she was transferred into a new area, and her companion was also new to the area! So neither of them know anyone, or where anything is.) so i can understand that because i have still never been to a lot of my area because elder Andrus doesn't know how to get there. but this week i think we plan on going to some farther out barangay's.
but i want you all to know i love you and know that the lord loves you. I hope you all are doing your scripture study its one of the best ways to make your day go more smoothly, i learned that the hard way. i finished the BofM ( Book of Mormon) finally and started over and am excited to see what i can learn this time. i have one request for Christmas and i want you to try and guess what it is and ill tell you next week. its something that i wanted on all the time back home. (I am feeling like a really bad mom because I have NO IDEA what he wants!)
Monday, November 7, 2011
Week 20 - Dulag 10/30/2011
so to start off i forgot something last week. Wednesday night we came home and i was using the phone for something while elder andrus was doing something else. he went out back and i had this feeling which i have had a few times before in my life and every time something bad happened! like i tore my ACL! so there was no way i was ignoring it. it said leave. so i realized i couldn't hear elder andrus any more so as i walked out back i grabbed the kitchen knife and walked out side. he was just burning our trash but i still had the feeling so i went inside and he came in right after me. and i locked all the doors while he was in our room and he came back out and was like what are you doing? i said somethings bothering me and he said like what, i said i don't feel safe, he kind of thought i was being paranoid but he was nice about it and sang a hymn. i told him i feel like we need to leave but i don't know where to go. he said, i feel the same thing now, we will go to tolosa. so he texted the zone leaders said a prayer and asked them to as well that we would find a ride at 9 at night, and they called back and said don't worry you will get a ride. so then we went to a members restaurant in dulag and got one of her employees, who is also a member, and went to the highway to wait for a van. then he said sister yepeze's daughter can give you a ride on her motor. ok, so we went and she wasn't there. he said oh i have a friend but it will cost 150 pesos. ok, so then we got a ride and it was super fast and the farther we got from dulag the better i felt. yay, it was a fun experience and i know the lord looks out for his missionaries.
so really this week we just got a lot of potential investigators. we did lots of walking and not a lot of teaching. but the main thing was we went on splits with the A.P.s. i work with elder top in dulag and elder andrus went to tacloban with elder agustine it was amazing. he taught me an amazing way to plan the day and gave me a lot of other planning tips and keeps asking me if I'm ready to train. i always say no but they all tell me i can, oh well. (this means he would have a companion that has been out a shorter amount of time than him, and he will be responsible for training him) and elder andrus keeps saying he feels like he is going to transfer, noooooo! oh well, it has to happen eventually. so during my time with elder top he had me crying during companionship study. (I'm sure this was crying because he was touched by what they were studying, not because he was being treated badly) and while we where planning for an appointment that we didn't even end up teaching he asked me if i had ever asked god if he loved me? and i said no. he said well how do you know then, i said well i don't know, he loves everyone right? so then he said ok right now! we knelt and he had me pray and ask God if he loved me, and asked me not to open my eyes until i got an answer, and don't doubt or it wont come. so as i was asking i just felt happy and i knew, so after i said amen i still just sat for a second and opened my eyes and said thank you. he is an amazing missionary and i am really going to miss him when he goes home in 10 days. darn! and i just barely got to know him.
oh and i forgot i had splits with the district leader on wed and got to go to his area in abuyog and they speak cebuano in one half and warry warry in the other half! yay! i got to speak cebuano almost all day, it was amazing i still understand and i was able to still speak some. i love that we are able to have the gift of tongues. well i sent tyler a letter and in it i kind of talked about why this language can be hard at times and you will see why word can be spelled exactly the same just with stress on different letters and and have a totally different meaning. but luckily i haven't had to many mess ups because of that but all in all a great week and i cant wait I've almost been gone for 5 months now and its amazing i cant believe its going so fast i feel like i just wrote you like 3 days ago and i cant wait to be able to talk to you all at christmas. i love you and pray for you everyday and i hope you all know i want to be the best i can here in the mission and leave it better than i found it and I'm glad that's something you have taught me in my life, thank you.
so really this week we just got a lot of potential investigators. we did lots of walking and not a lot of teaching. but the main thing was we went on splits with the A.P.s. i work with elder top in dulag and elder andrus went to tacloban with elder agustine it was amazing. he taught me an amazing way to plan the day and gave me a lot of other planning tips and keeps asking me if I'm ready to train. i always say no but they all tell me i can, oh well. (this means he would have a companion that has been out a shorter amount of time than him, and he will be responsible for training him) and elder andrus keeps saying he feels like he is going to transfer, noooooo! oh well, it has to happen eventually. so during my time with elder top he had me crying during companionship study. (I'm sure this was crying because he was touched by what they were studying, not because he was being treated badly) and while we where planning for an appointment that we didn't even end up teaching he asked me if i had ever asked god if he loved me? and i said no. he said well how do you know then, i said well i don't know, he loves everyone right? so then he said ok right now! we knelt and he had me pray and ask God if he loved me, and asked me not to open my eyes until i got an answer, and don't doubt or it wont come. so as i was asking i just felt happy and i knew, so after i said amen i still just sat for a second and opened my eyes and said thank you. he is an amazing missionary and i am really going to miss him when he goes home in 10 days. darn! and i just barely got to know him.
oh and i forgot i had splits with the district leader on wed and got to go to his area in abuyog and they speak cebuano in one half and warry warry in the other half! yay! i got to speak cebuano almost all day, it was amazing i still understand and i was able to still speak some. i love that we are able to have the gift of tongues. well i sent tyler a letter and in it i kind of talked about why this language can be hard at times and you will see why word can be spelled exactly the same just with stress on different letters and and have a totally different meaning. but luckily i haven't had to many mess ups because of that but all in all a great week and i cant wait I've almost been gone for 5 months now and its amazing i cant believe its going so fast i feel like i just wrote you like 3 days ago and i cant wait to be able to talk to you all at christmas. i love you and pray for you everyday and i hope you all know i want to be the best i can here in the mission and leave it better than i found it and I'm glad that's something you have taught me in my life, thank you.
Weeks 19 - Dulag 10/23/2011
so to start off i was really missing mom yesterday during sacrament. it was the primary program, it was awesome! all 5 of them had 2 parts completely memorized and it was amazing! i almost cried, but whatever.
(In our church we have have responsibilities, or "callings". Mine is to teach the primary age kids 3-12 singing time. We work an a set of songs during the year and then perform a program for the congregation in the fall. )
so this week was fun, we had district meeting in abuyog and then rushed back for an appointment in rawis. it was really good. we taught the restoration and are going back this week too. we found lots of new investigators because for the month of october our zone has a goal of 20 and we planned for 7 a week. we need 7 more and it seems to be good because the more people you have the lower the chance of having nothing to do but talk to people. but in all the high lights came when we were with members. they are wanting to work with us now and we told the A.P.s (AP is assistant to the president, referring to the mission president) one of them used to be here in dulag when the attendance was 60 and he knows what happened. so he was kinda surprised when we told him they were working with us. so i guess we are doing something right. but I'm kinda scared aright now, the ap was talking to me about being ready to train next transfer! i was like i don't know this language well enough yet. although, i have had other missionaries tell me my language is good and i had an investigator feed us who said my accent is really good too. yay! i was told that's important in the mtc.
so i started reading the Warry Warry libro ni mormon (Book of Mormon) to help with my vocab and pronunciation because i was told when we finish the BofM in our language we will be fluent, so hopefully by christmas. we had interviews this week my first one it was cool. president seems to be happy with our work in dulag and he keeps telling me he understands the hardships we are going through. but of course i don't know any different so its just missionary work for now.
we went to teach lorena and stephanie the other day and stephanie is now shy of us she wont talk to us so we just taught lorena. she really wants to be baptised but cant read so we set up scripture study appointments with her and hopefully with in a few weeks she will be ready. so then sunday we had the primary program and an attendance of 37, yay! maguswag kami (no idea) then we had 3 members work with us after church. one works with us all the time, one always works and the other normally has school. but they all were free and on the same day, darn. but thats ok the one sister, sister jessa (in our church we call people "brother" and "sister" and then their last name) she is a college student is going to work with us friday. she is awesome! she knows everything about the gospel and has scriptures to go along with it. i hope she can work with us more later too. but we visited lorena and another lady named veronica, she would be a member already but she doesn't have a birth certificate so she cant get married. darn! but they are saving. she invited one of her friends to join but she is to shy. she got up and left after the prayer, lol, it was kinda weird. then we went and found a guy we met with the brach president on saturday. he is diabetic and he was going to get baptised about 10 years ago but he was a policemen and got reassigned and missed his own baptism. so that'll be fun, he is in a wheel chair and only has one leg, but we are excited to teach him. we also went to go see some inactives (this refers to people thta have been baptized members, but don't attend Sunday meetings) with the branch president. and turns out its normal for the members to listen to Jehovah's Witness. but its kinda funny they just like learning about the Bible from them. but the other missionaries don't know that, lol.
but ya so fun week! i made a shirt last p day that's red and in white writing it says bawal umihi dito its tagalog for don't pee here, like sister who I've forgot her name in our ward, whose sons name is von. but she said she wanted one when she was in manila for her mission. but everyone laughs when they see it, and the guy that made it for me said he might start selling them to people. well that's really all for this week but cant wait nov 12 is the end of my 2nd transfer and i don't think I'm going anywhere for a while but its all up to the lord. well i love you all
We got a second short email that said: oh and i remembered its barfeild -refferring to the name he couldn't remember.
(In our church we have have responsibilities, or "callings". Mine is to teach the primary age kids 3-12 singing time. We work an a set of songs during the year and then perform a program for the congregation in the fall. )
so this week was fun, we had district meeting in abuyog and then rushed back for an appointment in rawis. it was really good. we taught the restoration and are going back this week too. we found lots of new investigators because for the month of october our zone has a goal of 20 and we planned for 7 a week. we need 7 more and it seems to be good because the more people you have the lower the chance of having nothing to do but talk to people. but in all the high lights came when we were with members. they are wanting to work with us now and we told the A.P.s (AP is assistant to the president, referring to the mission president) one of them used to be here in dulag when the attendance was 60 and he knows what happened. so he was kinda surprised when we told him they were working with us. so i guess we are doing something right. but I'm kinda scared aright now, the ap was talking to me about being ready to train next transfer! i was like i don't know this language well enough yet. although, i have had other missionaries tell me my language is good and i had an investigator feed us who said my accent is really good too. yay! i was told that's important in the mtc.
so i started reading the Warry Warry libro ni mormon (Book of Mormon) to help with my vocab and pronunciation because i was told when we finish the BofM in our language we will be fluent, so hopefully by christmas. we had interviews this week my first one it was cool. president seems to be happy with our work in dulag and he keeps telling me he understands the hardships we are going through. but of course i don't know any different so its just missionary work for now.
we went to teach lorena and stephanie the other day and stephanie is now shy of us she wont talk to us so we just taught lorena. she really wants to be baptised but cant read so we set up scripture study appointments with her and hopefully with in a few weeks she will be ready. so then sunday we had the primary program and an attendance of 37, yay! maguswag kami (no idea) then we had 3 members work with us after church. one works with us all the time, one always works and the other normally has school. but they all were free and on the same day, darn. but thats ok the one sister, sister jessa (in our church we call people "brother" and "sister" and then their last name) she is a college student is going to work with us friday. she is awesome! she knows everything about the gospel and has scriptures to go along with it. i hope she can work with us more later too. but we visited lorena and another lady named veronica, she would be a member already but she doesn't have a birth certificate so she cant get married. darn! but they are saving. she invited one of her friends to join but she is to shy. she got up and left after the prayer, lol, it was kinda weird. then we went and found a guy we met with the brach president on saturday. he is diabetic and he was going to get baptised about 10 years ago but he was a policemen and got reassigned and missed his own baptism. so that'll be fun, he is in a wheel chair and only has one leg, but we are excited to teach him. we also went to go see some inactives (this refers to people thta have been baptized members, but don't attend Sunday meetings) with the branch president. and turns out its normal for the members to listen to Jehovah's Witness. but its kinda funny they just like learning about the Bible from them. but the other missionaries don't know that, lol.
but ya so fun week! i made a shirt last p day that's red and in white writing it says bawal umihi dito its tagalog for don't pee here, like sister who I've forgot her name in our ward, whose sons name is von. but she said she wanted one when she was in manila for her mission. but everyone laughs when they see it, and the guy that made it for me said he might start selling them to people. well that's really all for this week but cant wait nov 12 is the end of my 2nd transfer and i don't think I'm going anywhere for a while but its all up to the lord. well i love you all
We got a second short email that said: oh and i remembered its barfeild -refferring to the name he couldn't remember.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Week 18 - Dulag 10/16/2011
so funny that your forgot what day you are going home (that was me, went to LAX on Sunday only to realize my ticket was for Monday! It wasn't funny at the time!)
so this week was good at first then it just went down hill. stephanie came from palo and she had gone to conference there by her self yay! so we went to teach her, we taught the law of chastity, ya my first one. kinda weird but oh well. its hard because the things we are supposed to tell them not to do are bastos, or like curse words here, so we have to work our way around it. she then told us we need to ask her mom if she can get baptised so we set an appointment for that. then we really only taught like 2 other people all week. it was kind of sad but we did get 7 new investigators which will be nice this week.
so we visited an inactive lady named marietta and her sister. she is 21 with one kid and her sister is 25 with one kid. her first child died and she wasn't sure where he was or if he would be ok without baptism. so we read from moroni about it and she was happy then. we asked them if they would come to church and she said they were offended just like everyone else in dulag. its all because of the old branch presidents wife who is now apostate. but the one lady said, my husband wont let me because he is only home on the weekend, and the other said maybe. so then thursday we went back to them and helped weed their peanut farm it was pretty fun. then later that day we went to stephanie, the one who was supposed to be getting baptised on the 29. so we talked to her mom and turns out she was offended by another inactive member. so we told her before you say no will you at least listen to what we are teaching your daughter? she said I'm busy, so we said 5 min, she said ok. so we taught a short restoration, i was so nervous i didn't want to mess that up. so then after, we asked her to pray to know if its true and if its good for her family and she ended up joining our tithing lesson with her daughter. she seemed happy after so we set and appointment for saturday.
friday we walked about 12 kilometers but we got 2 new investigators and its a family, yay. that was all no lessons. then saturday we got on a motor which are ridiculous! its a basic 150 engine with an extension on it and me elder andrus a member missionary and the driver all squished on. its fun sometimes but we were on it for about 15 minutes and the driver was like sitting in my lap. ewwww! but whatever, it happens every time we go some where because we are to big to fit inside the pedy cabs which are a bike with a cart on the side. so we take motors. and then we taught a member and went to another member who had referrals for us to teach, yay! so we went to their house, turns out their mom is an inactive drunk and thought we spoke tagalog. so she was telling a member stuff about her husband we weren't supposed to know in warry and talking to us in tagalog. dang it, i need to learn tagalog! i couldnt even answer her questions. finally the member that was with us starting getting frustrated so we taught really fast said godbye and left. but, she wants her kids to be baptized, yay!
then on to see stephanie she had "gotten in trouble for fighting with her brother" so we just taught mom and went home. so the next morning at church their fellowshipper sister susan came up to us at the doors to the church and said stephanie has a big problem. she went to go get her in the morning for church but her mom wouldn't let her in and said she was going to palo again. she thought something was weird so she went next door to get lorena but she wont go unless stephanie does. so then she saw the back door was open at stephanies, so she snuck in and apparently our law of chastity lesson wasn't good enough! oh well its just weird because she is only 15! but its ok we can help her repent and hopefully be baptized in a few more weeks. so really that's all that happened we just did a lot of walking we were only able to get about 5 lessons in but all that matters is that we are trying. the lord knows and will help us be better missionaries and help prepare these people here in dulag before its to late. but the members here are getting excited now that we told them how to get a building. and all the students are starting to come back because the semester is over. Yay, fellowshippers , they are awesome! the one girl is probably the best missionary I've ever met and she is only 18 and the only member in her family. i cant wait to be able to work with her.
so all in all a good week. just wish we could have taught more people, but its not our choice whether they are busy or not so it'll be ok in the end.
so mashed potatoes would be awesome and we (I asked if he would like us to send him some) don't have a microwave at all, its not broken. (I thought it was broken, guess they didn't even have one, I asked if maybe they could buy one) so I'm thinking i might get one, but i cant get one here in dulag. i have a little money from my account but its just reimbursement money from travel. i have about 4000 pesos so about $100. I'm going to start looking for Christmas presents now that i finally got chad and kamries b day presents sent last Monday. it cost about 4 dollars so not to bad, should be there in about another week or so. oh and chad just ask the girls to dance in warry-warry "buhaton ba nimo magsayaw upod ha akon " that means will you dance with me, it'll be cool, they'll be like what? lol but ya its fun here and when christmas comes i actually text you with our cell phone and you call me back on that number. so if there is anything else you all want to know how to say just let me know i love these languages and want to know warry-warry, tagalog, and cebuano before i go home it'll be awesome to be quad lingual and why not use the gift I've been given to learn and understand languages. it'll be an adventure. well i love you all and hope you get the letter with the presents
so this week was good at first then it just went down hill. stephanie came from palo and she had gone to conference there by her self yay! so we went to teach her, we taught the law of chastity, ya my first one. kinda weird but oh well. its hard because the things we are supposed to tell them not to do are bastos, or like curse words here, so we have to work our way around it. she then told us we need to ask her mom if she can get baptised so we set an appointment for that. then we really only taught like 2 other people all week. it was kind of sad but we did get 7 new investigators which will be nice this week.
so we visited an inactive lady named marietta and her sister. she is 21 with one kid and her sister is 25 with one kid. her first child died and she wasn't sure where he was or if he would be ok without baptism. so we read from moroni about it and she was happy then. we asked them if they would come to church and she said they were offended just like everyone else in dulag. its all because of the old branch presidents wife who is now apostate. but the one lady said, my husband wont let me because he is only home on the weekend, and the other said maybe. so then thursday we went back to them and helped weed their peanut farm it was pretty fun. then later that day we went to stephanie, the one who was supposed to be getting baptised on the 29. so we talked to her mom and turns out she was offended by another inactive member. so we told her before you say no will you at least listen to what we are teaching your daughter? she said I'm busy, so we said 5 min, she said ok. so we taught a short restoration, i was so nervous i didn't want to mess that up. so then after, we asked her to pray to know if its true and if its good for her family and she ended up joining our tithing lesson with her daughter. she seemed happy after so we set and appointment for saturday.
friday we walked about 12 kilometers but we got 2 new investigators and its a family, yay. that was all no lessons. then saturday we got on a motor which are ridiculous! its a basic 150 engine with an extension on it and me elder andrus a member missionary and the driver all squished on. its fun sometimes but we were on it for about 15 minutes and the driver was like sitting in my lap. ewwww! but whatever, it happens every time we go some where because we are to big to fit inside the pedy cabs which are a bike with a cart on the side. so we take motors. and then we taught a member and went to another member who had referrals for us to teach, yay! so we went to their house, turns out their mom is an inactive drunk and thought we spoke tagalog. so she was telling a member stuff about her husband we weren't supposed to know in warry and talking to us in tagalog. dang it, i need to learn tagalog! i couldnt even answer her questions. finally the member that was with us starting getting frustrated so we taught really fast said godbye and left. but, she wants her kids to be baptized, yay!
then on to see stephanie she had "gotten in trouble for fighting with her brother" so we just taught mom and went home. so the next morning at church their fellowshipper sister susan came up to us at the doors to the church and said stephanie has a big problem. she went to go get her in the morning for church but her mom wouldn't let her in and said she was going to palo again. she thought something was weird so she went next door to get lorena but she wont go unless stephanie does. so then she saw the back door was open at stephanies, so she snuck in and apparently our law of chastity lesson wasn't good enough! oh well its just weird because she is only 15! but its ok we can help her repent and hopefully be baptized in a few more weeks. so really that's all that happened we just did a lot of walking we were only able to get about 5 lessons in but all that matters is that we are trying. the lord knows and will help us be better missionaries and help prepare these people here in dulag before its to late. but the members here are getting excited now that we told them how to get a building. and all the students are starting to come back because the semester is over. Yay, fellowshippers , they are awesome! the one girl is probably the best missionary I've ever met and she is only 18 and the only member in her family. i cant wait to be able to work with her.
so all in all a good week. just wish we could have taught more people, but its not our choice whether they are busy or not so it'll be ok in the end.
so mashed potatoes would be awesome and we (I asked if he would like us to send him some) don't have a microwave at all, its not broken. (I thought it was broken, guess they didn't even have one, I asked if maybe they could buy one) so I'm thinking i might get one, but i cant get one here in dulag. i have a little money from my account but its just reimbursement money from travel. i have about 4000 pesos so about $100. I'm going to start looking for Christmas presents now that i finally got chad and kamries b day presents sent last Monday. it cost about 4 dollars so not to bad, should be there in about another week or so. oh and chad just ask the girls to dance in warry-warry "buhaton ba nimo magsayaw upod ha akon " that means will you dance with me, it'll be cool, they'll be like what? lol but ya its fun here and when christmas comes i actually text you with our cell phone and you call me back on that number. so if there is anything else you all want to know how to say just let me know i love these languages and want to know warry-warry, tagalog, and cebuano before i go home it'll be awesome to be quad lingual and why not use the gift I've been given to learn and understand languages. it'll be an adventure. well i love you all and hope you get the letter with the presents
Week 17 - Dulag 10/9/2011
so i only get mail about once a month and that's if it made it. i have gotten a few dear elders but not as many as before of course.
so my investigator who is supposed to be baptized on the 22 went to visit her dad last Sunday and hasn't come back. her phone is broken so we have no idea right now, i'm really hoping she comes back because her friend can't progress without her. we found out she cant read so she is really worried about not being able to be baptized, and i am too. so i emailed tyler a few weeks ago but i'm guessing it was the wrong email or he doesn't check it. (this is a response to his mom saying he should write his brother!) but any, way i have a few things more i want in the package if tyler still has that vertical leap increasing exercise program that would be nice. i need to be able to dunk so people stop bugging me. then i need a cd with the nearer my god to thee cd and a hymn revival. and then a i have an investigator who wants new american music if you could send some that would be nice. and any magic trick stuff i have cards but anything cool would be nice, i have completely run out i try to make up more but they are basically the same.
so this week we really didn't have much happen, really wish it would have but, oh well there is always tomorrow. I've decided that's how i will look at it after the talk in conference where he talked about climbing the volcano with his kids and said don't look at how far you have to go but how far you have come. so tomorrow is nothing compared to the life I've lived and can never be longer than any other day.
we were able to start teaching a family who have basically just been friends, finally! they are the ones who fed us dog. they are really cool people and our zone has a goal, and if we can get 20 new investigators this month we get a prize. and we decided we can get at least one a day with how often we get punted at appointments (I have no idea what that means). we just go talk to people.
so during conference i just kept waiting and waiting for the talk about the kid in japan. i wish i would have know it was like the last talk of conference*. I've never taken notes before during conference and i have 10 pages and i didn't even write half the stuff that stuck out to me. the mission is an amazing thing and i really want to do it again some day. i cant believe I've been gone for so long already, i swear i just got here like 2 days ago its crazy how fast time goes when in the service of God.
so i really need to get these letters and presents out to kamrie and chad and start finding christmas presents for everyone. not sure yet, though but ill figure out a way to get it there.
so right now i really feel like i want to stay here in dulag until they get a building but i worry the Lord will want something else. but i know it will be the right thing if i leave.
so my time is starting to run short since i pay by the minute here its interesting to think I'm like wow that's a lot of money when in reality I'm not even spending a dollar but i can buy a days worth of food for about $2.50 its ridiculous i think i am going to retire here when i get older
so the other day i had people asking me for my full name so they can add me on FB so we can talk when i get home and a couple members want to give me their phone number so i can practice my warry after my mission. I'm like wow i just got here, but it seems like with the way things are going its not far at all, and I'm not sure what all to do all the time yet, and i just hope i can learn it all in a short 2 years. but anyways the language is great, I'm starting to learn some tagalog too because people assume we speak it. but then we just tell them we only speak warry and a little cebuano and they usually switch, but not always so its fun. but any ways thank you for your prayers and your support i love you all.
oh and i forgot Wednesday we had a service project cutting grass for an investigators new house. but no lawn mower here, just use sundangs which is basically a machete. it was awesome! but i got some really bad blisters that started bleeding but I'm ok now. and i have some weird rash thing on my arm no one seems to know what it is, they just say put alcohol on it. so i do, its amazing, that's their answer for everything here.
*The reference he made to conference is something our church holds twice a year. Called General Conference it is a Sunday when the leaders of our church speak to us from Salt Lake via satellite.We actually get to watch from the comfort of our home. It is a great time to be uplifted spiritually. If you want to hear the story he is talking about you can listen here. He tells a story of a missionary that served in the same mission as his father. If you didn't know Jim also served a mission in the Philippines.
so my investigator who is supposed to be baptized on the 22 went to visit her dad last Sunday and hasn't come back. her phone is broken so we have no idea right now, i'm really hoping she comes back because her friend can't progress without her. we found out she cant read so she is really worried about not being able to be baptized, and i am too. so i emailed tyler a few weeks ago but i'm guessing it was the wrong email or he doesn't check it. (this is a response to his mom saying he should write his brother!) but any, way i have a few things more i want in the package if tyler still has that vertical leap increasing exercise program that would be nice. i need to be able to dunk so people stop bugging me. then i need a cd with the nearer my god to thee cd and a hymn revival. and then a i have an investigator who wants new american music if you could send some that would be nice. and any magic trick stuff i have cards but anything cool would be nice, i have completely run out i try to make up more but they are basically the same.
so this week we really didn't have much happen, really wish it would have but, oh well there is always tomorrow. I've decided that's how i will look at it after the talk in conference where he talked about climbing the volcano with his kids and said don't look at how far you have to go but how far you have come. so tomorrow is nothing compared to the life I've lived and can never be longer than any other day.
we were able to start teaching a family who have basically just been friends, finally! they are the ones who fed us dog. they are really cool people and our zone has a goal, and if we can get 20 new investigators this month we get a prize. and we decided we can get at least one a day with how often we get punted at appointments (I have no idea what that means). we just go talk to people.
so during conference i just kept waiting and waiting for the talk about the kid in japan. i wish i would have know it was like the last talk of conference*. I've never taken notes before during conference and i have 10 pages and i didn't even write half the stuff that stuck out to me. the mission is an amazing thing and i really want to do it again some day. i cant believe I've been gone for so long already, i swear i just got here like 2 days ago its crazy how fast time goes when in the service of God.
so i really need to get these letters and presents out to kamrie and chad and start finding christmas presents for everyone. not sure yet, though but ill figure out a way to get it there.
so right now i really feel like i want to stay here in dulag until they get a building but i worry the Lord will want something else. but i know it will be the right thing if i leave.
so my time is starting to run short since i pay by the minute here its interesting to think I'm like wow that's a lot of money when in reality I'm not even spending a dollar but i can buy a days worth of food for about $2.50 its ridiculous i think i am going to retire here when i get older
so the other day i had people asking me for my full name so they can add me on FB so we can talk when i get home and a couple members want to give me their phone number so i can practice my warry after my mission. I'm like wow i just got here, but it seems like with the way things are going its not far at all, and I'm not sure what all to do all the time yet, and i just hope i can learn it all in a short 2 years. but anyways the language is great, I'm starting to learn some tagalog too because people assume we speak it. but then we just tell them we only speak warry and a little cebuano and they usually switch, but not always so its fun. but any ways thank you for your prayers and your support i love you all.
oh and i forgot Wednesday we had a service project cutting grass for an investigators new house. but no lawn mower here, just use sundangs which is basically a machete. it was awesome! but i got some really bad blisters that started bleeding but I'm ok now. and i have some weird rash thing on my arm no one seems to know what it is, they just say put alcohol on it. so i do, its amazing, that's their answer for everything here.
*The reference he made to conference is something our church holds twice a year. Called General Conference it is a Sunday when the leaders of our church speak to us from Salt Lake via satellite.We actually get to watch from the comfort of our home. It is a great time to be uplifted spiritually. If you want to hear the story he is talking about you can listen here. He tells a story of a missionary that served in the same mission as his father. If you didn't know Jim also served a mission in the Philippines.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Week 16 - Dulag 10/2/2011
so first off this week has been great! i had my first transfer and im still in Dulag. so me and elder andrus are working hard, we haven't been able to teach the polotican guy again, he is really busy. but as of right now the baptism is on. their names are lorena and stephanie, one day this week we were teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and we were reading in the BOM and read a scripture it said repent ye repent ye, i think it was in 3 nephi but then stephanie said hey this is the scripture god showed me in my dream. i was like what? thats crazy, because earlier elder andrus was trying to explain faith and asked, have you ever seen God and they both said yes! what? and stephanie said ya he came to me in a dream. i cant wait until the 22nd it wil be awesome. so other than that we have another person that would be able to get baptized but she has to get married first. she is 19 with 2 kids, kinda crazy to think she is only a month younger than i am. but they cant afford birth certificates for their kids or a marriage license so they cant get married yet, and we were told not to help pay for it. her asawa or soon to be husband is an inactive member so his sister is the one who told us to go and visit them. but she is going to be in tacloban from oct 5 to the 30 so we have one more appointment with her then we have to wait. but its ok, i think she is getting money from her aunt working for her so she can get a marraige license and birth certificates. so 2 of the elders in my district tranfered so i had the opprotunity to work with another elder on thursday. we went to see a member who cant go to church because he has school sunday morning, but he wasnt there. so then the other elder, elder bondoc didnt want to walk back just yet so he asked his mom if we could share, and she talked after he shared a scripture for an hour. i tried to bare my testimony and close like 10 times but she wouldnt let me she just kept going on and on and on about nothing. just talked about her kids, i think its because she never leaves the house so she has no friends.
so on to the fun stuff we had lots of walking, and talking to freinds because again,everyone was busy, and we are about to drop and investigator because she never reads. and last night we had our first free meal outside of fiesta. an investigator invited us to eat dinner and we showed them a movie called together forever its pretty good and they really liked it. he was like ya how come in the marriage ceremony its only to death do you part? thats dumb, yay maybe we can get another appointment. and he really likes the city of memphis so he started asking me questions about the city and of course the only good things i could tell him is elvis' house is there and we have a really good zoo. then the other stuff he was like wow i thought it was all nice and happy and everyone is playing music of course all he really knows about the US is what he has seen in movies. so in reality nothing. then they started talking about the blind side and i was like yay that school is by my house. ya they were like so is it really like that the "black people" as he said all just yell and fight? lol wow memphis. but of course here they dont say black people they think they are black, they use some very choice words here. i thought it was funny at first but thats just normal here.
so we are in Tacloban again today and i have no money because I forgot my pin for my missionary card, but oh well i think ill survive. so im gunna try to send a few more pictures today if i can figure it out. oh and if you send a package all i need are like instant desserts i can cook without an oven or microwave because all we have is like a camping stove so we are kind of limited on stuff to cook but any ways thats all and if you can find a english to tagalog dictionary that would be nice i want to learn tagalog as well as warry-warry
so on to the fun stuff we had lots of walking, and talking to freinds because again,everyone was busy, and we are about to drop and investigator because she never reads. and last night we had our first free meal outside of fiesta. an investigator invited us to eat dinner and we showed them a movie called together forever its pretty good and they really liked it. he was like ya how come in the marriage ceremony its only to death do you part? thats dumb, yay maybe we can get another appointment. and he really likes the city of memphis so he started asking me questions about the city and of course the only good things i could tell him is elvis' house is there and we have a really good zoo. then the other stuff he was like wow i thought it was all nice and happy and everyone is playing music of course all he really knows about the US is what he has seen in movies. so in reality nothing. then they started talking about the blind side and i was like yay that school is by my house. ya they were like so is it really like that the "black people" as he said all just yell and fight? lol wow memphis. but of course here they dont say black people they think they are black, they use some very choice words here. i thought it was funny at first but thats just normal here.
so we are in Tacloban again today and i have no money because I forgot my pin for my missionary card, but oh well i think ill survive. so im gunna try to send a few more pictures today if i can figure it out. oh and if you send a package all i need are like instant desserts i can cook without an oven or microwave because all we have is like a camping stove so we are kind of limited on stuff to cook but any ways thats all and if you can find a english to tagalog dictionary that would be nice i want to learn tagalog as well as warry-warry
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Week 15 - Dulag 9/26/2011
(I was looking through the letters and adding dates, when I realized this one never got put on the blog.)
so this week was good still not so sure why the people feel like they need to feed their babies while we are teaching. so monday night we had a branch FHE and they asked us to teach about families being together forever. and we had 2 investigators there who we were going to teach the plan of salvation to the next day, i was like hey i have a pamphlet about that! so i hadn't taught that lesson yet in warry-warry but elder andrus wouldn't talk he just drew on the board and i was able to teach the whole thing and answer questions as well! it was cool! so now I've taught the plan of salvation like 4 or 5 times this week. one of our investigators is going to seminary and committed to baptism on the 22 of october but we may have to move it if her friend doesn't come to church. i think they want to join together so that will be nice to have a baptism. and so elder andrus had a meeting on thursday in Tacloban so i stayed in dulag with elder bondock who lives in our apartment with us and elder nelson who serves in abuyog. i had to plan out our whole day and i had to know where everything was. the hard thing is in abuyog they speak cebuano, so elder nelson speaks cebuano. and elder bondock only speaks tagalog. so it was interesting 3 languages in one lesson it was hard because i can follow cebuano but not tagalog. i only understood a little of it so it made it harder for me than the investigators. but it was good we got a lot done and didn't have anyone tell us they were to busy or not be home like normal. so really the rest of the week was cool elder nelsons companion ended up in the hospital after his health check in tacloban so elder nelson was with us for another day and ended up needing to go to tacloban as well because he had sores on his foot and his eye was all swollen up when he woke up and he couldnt open it. so we took him to tacloban and headed to tolosa for the family week celebration activity. it was cool we played games and ate and spent time with members and some lady was following us around taking pictures of the Americans playing basketball kinda weird. they were trying to hide it but i could hear the noise it made and see the flash from the camera. so then saturday we did a lot of walking and only got to teach once all day. we walked about 35 kilometers this week its awesome! so sunday we went from 5 investigators at church to 0 and 43 members to 30 again. yay but its ok there is always another week to come. i cant wait! oh and so we have this buang nga lalaki gawas ha amon apartment and elder bondock named him don armando he is literally crazy and he started living outside our apartment a few weeks ago. and he laughs all the time and yells at his feet about how they stole his wife and kids its funny sometimes but also kind of scary. he started coming in our gate and peeing on the pile of rocks outside and the other elders started yelling gawas na don he started laughing and went back outside the gate. yay not sure what to do though we are going to get district t-shirts that have a picture of him and don armando and put bawal umihi didto which is tagalog for it is prohibited to be peeing here. its awesome, its on all the walls and i saw it today while we were playing pool inside the building. this morning we invited our investigators who are the dulag grand champions for basketball to play it was cool. only one of them came and me elder andrus elder bondock and his companion elder zarrate played with him against some kids who were skiping school. it was fun, ive never been so tired from one game of basketball before in my life. i guess after 6 weeks of not playing an actual game is getting to me. and its super humid right now. we ran in to a baptist missionary earlier who told us there is a typhoon coming through! oh well just a month or two more and its rainy season and it will rain ever day for 3 months! yay! oh well i love you and miss you all and keep up the good work i cant wait to see you all again but thats ok this is going super fast im almost worried i wont be able to do enough in only 2 years but as long as im always working i know it will be ok. well oh and if you send another package can you send a couple pairs of contacts and solution for p days thanks if you can and im not so sure how mail works yet but im trying to figure it out so letter should be coming pretty soon but it will take about 2 weeks to get there
so this week was good still not so sure why the people feel like they need to feed their babies while we are teaching. so monday night we had a branch FHE and they asked us to teach about families being together forever. and we had 2 investigators there who we were going to teach the plan of salvation to the next day, i was like hey i have a pamphlet about that! so i hadn't taught that lesson yet in warry-warry but elder andrus wouldn't talk he just drew on the board and i was able to teach the whole thing and answer questions as well! it was cool! so now I've taught the plan of salvation like 4 or 5 times this week. one of our investigators is going to seminary and committed to baptism on the 22 of october but we may have to move it if her friend doesn't come to church. i think they want to join together so that will be nice to have a baptism. and so elder andrus had a meeting on thursday in Tacloban so i stayed in dulag with elder bondock who lives in our apartment with us and elder nelson who serves in abuyog. i had to plan out our whole day and i had to know where everything was. the hard thing is in abuyog they speak cebuano, so elder nelson speaks cebuano. and elder bondock only speaks tagalog. so it was interesting 3 languages in one lesson it was hard because i can follow cebuano but not tagalog. i only understood a little of it so it made it harder for me than the investigators. but it was good we got a lot done and didn't have anyone tell us they were to busy or not be home like normal. so really the rest of the week was cool elder nelsons companion ended up in the hospital after his health check in tacloban so elder nelson was with us for another day and ended up needing to go to tacloban as well because he had sores on his foot and his eye was all swollen up when he woke up and he couldnt open it. so we took him to tacloban and headed to tolosa for the family week celebration activity. it was cool we played games and ate and spent time with members and some lady was following us around taking pictures of the Americans playing basketball kinda weird. they were trying to hide it but i could hear the noise it made and see the flash from the camera. so then saturday we did a lot of walking and only got to teach once all day. we walked about 35 kilometers this week its awesome! so sunday we went from 5 investigators at church to 0 and 43 members to 30 again. yay but its ok there is always another week to come. i cant wait! oh and so we have this buang nga lalaki gawas ha amon apartment and elder bondock named him don armando he is literally crazy and he started living outside our apartment a few weeks ago. and he laughs all the time and yells at his feet about how they stole his wife and kids its funny sometimes but also kind of scary. he started coming in our gate and peeing on the pile of rocks outside and the other elders started yelling gawas na don he started laughing and went back outside the gate. yay not sure what to do though we are going to get district t-shirts that have a picture of him and don armando and put bawal umihi didto which is tagalog for it is prohibited to be peeing here. its awesome, its on all the walls and i saw it today while we were playing pool inside the building. this morning we invited our investigators who are the dulag grand champions for basketball to play it was cool. only one of them came and me elder andrus elder bondock and his companion elder zarrate played with him against some kids who were skiping school. it was fun, ive never been so tired from one game of basketball before in my life. i guess after 6 weeks of not playing an actual game is getting to me. and its super humid right now. we ran in to a baptist missionary earlier who told us there is a typhoon coming through! oh well just a month or two more and its rainy season and it will rain ever day for 3 months! yay! oh well i love you and miss you all and keep up the good work i cant wait to see you all again but thats ok this is going super fast im almost worried i wont be able to do enough in only 2 years but as long as im always working i know it will be ok. well oh and if you send another package can you send a couple pairs of contacts and solution for p days thanks if you can and im not so sure how mail works yet but im trying to figure it out so letter should be coming pretty soon but it will take about 2 weeks to get there
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Week 14 - Dulag 9/19/2011
oh my gosh its so cool all the things that are happenig here, the lord really does bless those who serve and follow the rules. we got our sacrament attendance to 43 this week! yes, naguswag kami! we had 5 investigators at church and we had one other that had something come up and couldnt make it. we could have had 50 but some members were late and have gotten offended. they dont like our branch president because he doesnt help them but that because he lives in a different city, but oh well. we are doing our best to make sure the members know we are different than the last elders that ran this place into the ground. we have struggled since i got here to get 1 or 2 lessons with members but this week we had 4! and at one we had 3 members it was awesome, it makes our job so much easier. so this week some how we were able to bring our numbers up even though we really just walked to everyone we knew like every day hopeing some one would let us in. but in the end it paid off.
so this week we had zone meeting on tuesday in tolosa with the district president and wednesday was zone conference. so we were in tacloban all day and got to hear from one of the area presidency elder ardern from new zealand, it was pretty cool. then we went to dulag and had some extra elders at our apartment because there were no busses going to their area that late at night. but then we went out and taught and despite the set backs we got 5 new investigators this week and one of them is a polotician so its awesome. but we still need to work on some members as well. we went to see one lady who told us the church is true but the book of mormon is only true when it applies to her and all the church leaders and the prophet are liars. so yay for dulag! but we will get them back! apparently we have 150 members here in dulag we just have to find them, so yay, but we can do it. so im really starting to get the hang of the language i find my self talking to people for a while and then they realize im not using english they are like wow what happened, i just tell them im not speaking warry only english and that they are speaking english too! its fun to see their faces and our polotician investigator was like do you guys beleive in the holy spirit because i think thats why you can speak our language. i was like yup and he asked how long id been here i was like one month yesterday, it was awesome! i really love this language and want to teach it to my kids when i have them so they can speak 2 languages itll be awesome and it wont be spanish like everyone else in America. but ya aperently when you get a filipino comp you learn tagalog because a lot of them dont learn the language because everyone speaks tagalog so they can just speak it so maybe ill be able to learn it as well, that'll be cool.
so i really love this place and i hope you all are have as good a time as i am. the time is just flying by its crazy to think ive been in the philippines for more than a month now. well i love you all and want you all to know that i miss you and cant wait to see you after my mission and hopefully by then ill have forgotten a ton of english like some of the frends ive made here because i really want to speak this language so untill next week love
Elder Coontz
so this week we had zone meeting on tuesday in tolosa with the district president and wednesday was zone conference. so we were in tacloban all day and got to hear from one of the area presidency elder ardern from new zealand, it was pretty cool. then we went to dulag and had some extra elders at our apartment because there were no busses going to their area that late at night. but then we went out and taught and despite the set backs we got 5 new investigators this week and one of them is a polotician so its awesome. but we still need to work on some members as well. we went to see one lady who told us the church is true but the book of mormon is only true when it applies to her and all the church leaders and the prophet are liars. so yay for dulag! but we will get them back! apparently we have 150 members here in dulag we just have to find them, so yay, but we can do it. so im really starting to get the hang of the language i find my self talking to people for a while and then they realize im not using english they are like wow what happened, i just tell them im not speaking warry only english and that they are speaking english too! its fun to see their faces and our polotician investigator was like do you guys beleive in the holy spirit because i think thats why you can speak our language. i was like yup and he asked how long id been here i was like one month yesterday, it was awesome! i really love this language and want to teach it to my kids when i have them so they can speak 2 languages itll be awesome and it wont be spanish like everyone else in America. but ya aperently when you get a filipino comp you learn tagalog because a lot of them dont learn the language because everyone speaks tagalog so they can just speak it so maybe ill be able to learn it as well, that'll be cool.
so i really love this place and i hope you all are have as good a time as i am. the time is just flying by its crazy to think ive been in the philippines for more than a month now. well i love you all and want you all to know that i miss you and cant wait to see you after my mission and hopefully by then ill have forgotten a ton of english like some of the frends ive made here because i really want to speak this language so untill next week love
Elder Coontz
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Week 13 - Dulag 9/12/2011
Sorry it took me so long to post this one!
but ya so this week was fun kind of a party week here in dulag. it was fiesta, so at the beginning of the week everyone was preparing and then wed thurs friday they partied. so monday was fun in tacloban then tuesday was district meeting and we didn't do to much because no one was letting us talk to them. so then wed the party started in the morning there was a huge parade and we watched the show they had after with all the high school bands and dance teams they aren't very good compared to america but still cool. we had investigators and members who participated and asked us to come watch so that was cool and then no one again. we basically just walked around dulag all day I'm so tired from all the walking this week. so then thursday was the eating part of the celebration they just eat all day, we had 3 lunch appointments and 2 dinner i was so stuffed after the second one but we had a few potential investigators invite us to eat too, so hopefully we will soon teach them. one of them is the kind of person we are looking for, a potential branch president since our branch president doesn't live in dulag. but ya he owns 5 dyipnis the one from the pic is one of his, he also has a weld shop and a store, so we need him. so then on friday we had a few people say we could come over but of course they forgot and most were hung over. but saturday was great we had a plan to increase sacrament attendance so we went around to almost every one we know, investigator and inactive and invited them to church. and then that night we went to a funeral service for a a guy whose son is in the branch presidency its weird because they have the body in a casket in the middle of the room open so everyone can see him. but they fed us after so it was nice because all the stores were closed and we had no food at home for that night. so sunday we went to church in hopes of high attendance but only 30 darn, next week. the burial for the guy was during church so we were missing some people and we had another investigator come to church she has been an investigator for years on and off and she told us after fiesta she would come so we were like ok cool, and she did and had some friends there so it was even better. but then she went to go sit up front after president talked to her i was like uh oh but she was sitting by her friend so i was like maybe its ok. then they brought us the schedule for sacrament and they had forgotten to call speakers so me and elder andrus spoke and president. but i look at the schedule and our investigator was giving the closing prayer i was like uh oh. luckily she is really good at praying but she got up at the podium and like everyone else before her said good morning, then started and it was great and she had fun and answered questions in sunday school so hopefully she and her family will finally join. she has like 6 daughters and they don't listen to us when we come because we are american. yay, and they are naawud or shy but not when we have philipinos with us. but whatevs. we are gunna get them. so then we went to see a guy who told elder andrus before i got here to come back after fiesta, so we did. turns out he had the lessons 20 years ago and still reads the bom (Book of Mormon) from time to time. and he is a politician with a large house yessssss, profesionals. but any way after that we went to see the people we saw the day before who said they would come to church then didn't. and hopefully we helped them to feel missed and then we went to see the RS(Relief Society - our church's women's group) pres who also didn't come. something just said we need to go see her. so we did and she is upset because she gets no support for reactivation and it was awesome. i understood everything she was talking about and when my companion turned to me, and i started to say what i had thought of, and then i told her something completely different and i don't know what i said! i didn't even know the words i was using! but then she seemed like she was satisfied and got her answer. i was like asking elder andrus after what did i say to her he said i don't remember but it was perfect. i was like great! too bad i cant just have that happen every time, its amazing how the spirit and the power of the gift of tongues works. we missionaries really need to have faith and be worthy of it, it is amazing. and i hope it happens again as i learn this language. so today my email is late because we went with some other elders to some WW2 stuff around here in dulag. apparently where the first Americans landed and destroyed the japenese is right off the coast of dulag. and on a hill about a kilometer away from our apartment is where they raised the first american flag 40 min after landing and defeating the japanese. around the area its pretty awesome. so then we are thinking about playing a little basketball after lunch, we are thinking about getting a whole chicken from this place called chooks to go. if you find it on google maps our apartment is just west of it across the street at a place called cebuanan luhilier or something like that. its a pawn shop. so dad asked last week if the mosquitos are eating me? well I've only gotten about 10 mosquito bites since i got here its kinda nice. whenever i tell people dad served in baguio they are like oy tugnaw didto which means its cold there. so ya they all want to go to bagio because that's where all the rich people live, bagio and manila. so its kinda weird when I'm getting cold at nite and its 80 degrees! its gunna be a hard first winter after my mission. oh and i finally got the dear elder you sent a few days ago its not and instant thing anymore i beat it here but anyway i love you all and pray for you always thanks for everything until next week
Elder Coontz
but ya so this week was fun kind of a party week here in dulag. it was fiesta, so at the beginning of the week everyone was preparing and then wed thurs friday they partied. so monday was fun in tacloban then tuesday was district meeting and we didn't do to much because no one was letting us talk to them. so then wed the party started in the morning there was a huge parade and we watched the show they had after with all the high school bands and dance teams they aren't very good compared to america but still cool. we had investigators and members who participated and asked us to come watch so that was cool and then no one again. we basically just walked around dulag all day I'm so tired from all the walking this week. so then thursday was the eating part of the celebration they just eat all day, we had 3 lunch appointments and 2 dinner i was so stuffed after the second one but we had a few potential investigators invite us to eat too, so hopefully we will soon teach them. one of them is the kind of person we are looking for, a potential branch president since our branch president doesn't live in dulag. but ya he owns 5 dyipnis the one from the pic is one of his, he also has a weld shop and a store, so we need him. so then on friday we had a few people say we could come over but of course they forgot and most were hung over. but saturday was great we had a plan to increase sacrament attendance so we went around to almost every one we know, investigator and inactive and invited them to church. and then that night we went to a funeral service for a a guy whose son is in the branch presidency its weird because they have the body in a casket in the middle of the room open so everyone can see him. but they fed us after so it was nice because all the stores were closed and we had no food at home for that night. so sunday we went to church in hopes of high attendance but only 30 darn, next week. the burial for the guy was during church so we were missing some people and we had another investigator come to church she has been an investigator for years on and off and she told us after fiesta she would come so we were like ok cool, and she did and had some friends there so it was even better. but then she went to go sit up front after president talked to her i was like uh oh but she was sitting by her friend so i was like maybe its ok. then they brought us the schedule for sacrament and they had forgotten to call speakers so me and elder andrus spoke and president. but i look at the schedule and our investigator was giving the closing prayer i was like uh oh. luckily she is really good at praying but she got up at the podium and like everyone else before her said good morning, then started and it was great and she had fun and answered questions in sunday school so hopefully she and her family will finally join. she has like 6 daughters and they don't listen to us when we come because we are american. yay, and they are naawud or shy but not when we have philipinos with us. but whatevs. we are gunna get them. so then we went to see a guy who told elder andrus before i got here to come back after fiesta, so we did. turns out he had the lessons 20 years ago and still reads the bom (Book of Mormon) from time to time. and he is a politician with a large house yessssss, profesionals. but any way after that we went to see the people we saw the day before who said they would come to church then didn't. and hopefully we helped them to feel missed and then we went to see the RS(Relief Society - our church's women's group) pres who also didn't come. something just said we need to go see her. so we did and she is upset because she gets no support for reactivation and it was awesome. i understood everything she was talking about and when my companion turned to me, and i started to say what i had thought of, and then i told her something completely different and i don't know what i said! i didn't even know the words i was using! but then she seemed like she was satisfied and got her answer. i was like asking elder andrus after what did i say to her he said i don't remember but it was perfect. i was like great! too bad i cant just have that happen every time, its amazing how the spirit and the power of the gift of tongues works. we missionaries really need to have faith and be worthy of it, it is amazing. and i hope it happens again as i learn this language. so today my email is late because we went with some other elders to some WW2 stuff around here in dulag. apparently where the first Americans landed and destroyed the japenese is right off the coast of dulag. and on a hill about a kilometer away from our apartment is where they raised the first american flag 40 min after landing and defeating the japanese. around the area its pretty awesome. so then we are thinking about playing a little basketball after lunch, we are thinking about getting a whole chicken from this place called chooks to go. if you find it on google maps our apartment is just west of it across the street at a place called cebuanan luhilier or something like that. its a pawn shop. so dad asked last week if the mosquitos are eating me? well I've only gotten about 10 mosquito bites since i got here its kinda nice. whenever i tell people dad served in baguio they are like oy tugnaw didto which means its cold there. so ya they all want to go to bagio because that's where all the rich people live, bagio and manila. so its kinda weird when I'm getting cold at nite and its 80 degrees! its gunna be a hard first winter after my mission. oh and i finally got the dear elder you sent a few days ago its not and instant thing anymore i beat it here but anyway i love you all and pray for you always thanks for everything until next week
Elder Coontz
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Week 12 - Dulag 9/4/2011
Zac with his Mission President and his wife
so lets see today i got up at 6 did laundry then got ready and caught a bus for tacloban, they were showing the jackie chan movie where he has the suit, but that was probably the nicest tv ive seen since i got here! i am in the mall in an internet cafe its nice, its got ac. it hasnt been too hot at night anymore just 85 in the apartment i was actually cold the last coulpe of nights and had to wrap up in a sheet. its kinda weird to think that im cold when its still 80, but whatevs. so i am going to try and send some pics with this email but im not sure yet. (he forgot his cord, but his companion had a card reader so got few)
so this week we havent spent to much time outside of the apartment we only had one full day all week. of course monday was p-day and my companions b day we made cake and bought some roticary chicken then played some b ball. so we kinda just went and saw an inactive family then went back for dinner.
then tuesday was district meeting and we bought a chicken and one of the elders who lives in our apartment made chicken adobo it was delicouse. so then we went out met a few people, then i got to teach my first lesson in warry-warry it was awesome! we taught her and her husband and it was great my companion keeps saying he is amazed at how much im able to talk during the lesson. i almost know enough to teach the whole thing by myself, but good thing he is there for when i get lost or dont understand a question. its really hard to understand them, they speak way fast. so then we went to go see a guy we met who knew ezra taft benson to be our prophet but he never seems to be home. no one is ever at their store either, but oh well we will find him. so then that night i got pretty sick i had some pains in my stomach and was up all night with ibm. (this is not a fun thing for the mom to read!)
so then thursday was weekly planning so nothing till the after noon again. and all we were able to do (because our investigators were "busy", they were drinking, but oh well) was to visit some members and shared and got a refferal and set up a family home evening for tuesday with a part member family. itll be cool.
so then friday was our monthly cleaning day so again nothing till about 3, but we did have a lunch appointment in a cemetary! i have some pics it was awesome food they had a whole pig.
so president Andaya stopped by and he is going to order me a study desk because we are short one, awesome! so then we went to an inactive family who doesnt come because their oldest son has school sunday morning so we helped him with his english for his history exam. its really hard to explain english, i never thought i would need to do it. so then to another inactive family who live across the street and they asked us to help them move their house a few meters closer to their kitchen! thatll be fun we are just picking it up and moving it! then our investigator didnt show up agian, and i drank a 1.5 liter bottle of orange soda that costs less than a dollar, awesome! we get ripped off in america. saturday we went out with the branch president and a member and saw some inactives and taught a lesson to some new investigators. so second lesson awesome! and the bracnh president was impressed with my warry, he said i need to just talk, but i am kinda too scared unless its a lesson. oh well, maybe some day. so we met a few more in actives then back home because we were fasting, so no dinner.
then sunday at church we had one of our investigators at church, awesome! and we had 33 in attendance and 3 people that are normally there didnt come, darn maybe we will have even more next week. so then we didnt get to eat untill about 3, i was dieing we fasted for like 27 hours, and we arent supposed to do that. so hopefully never again but we only went over because they had a 2 hour meeting after church and asked us to come, when really we just sat there. oh well. then we saw a few more people and submitted our numbers and some how despite all the set backs our numbers increased from last week! awesome! so now im in tacloban and we are gunna do some shopping for stuff we cant buy in dulag.
but ya so i dont have an address, when we get addresses its a barangay and a name and you just ask around till you find them. but my barangay is marketsite its really close to the beach. (Jim had asked for his address so we could look it up on google earth) so if you want to send anything food with sugar like candy or no bake cake would be great. we dont have an oven we cook with a propane stove and our microwave oven caught on fire. so patay na but ya really just any good snack food that will last a while we dont really have very much like candy or anything like that. so i just realized i forgot the cord for my camera, so its gunna have to be in a few more weeks sorry but time is going by really fast here its crazy i love it and i love you all
Elder Coontz
Remember: Any comment you make goes to his email! So you don't have to write a long letter or anything, just tell him Hi!
Monday, August 29, 2011
Week 11 - Dulag 8/28/2011
(just a little info - Zac gets 1 hour on the computer on his p - day. He is not a great typist, so I would imagine just this letter takes awhile! And he has to email his mission president and report. And maybe he has time to email other folks, I don't know. So we forgive the no punctuation and randomness of the letter!)
ok so this week a lot happened! not to many lessons or anything, just met a lot of potential investigators because we had one of our investigators disappear. we went to her house and everything was gone and her neighbors told us she moved.
so everyone here seems impressed that i know whats going on while they are talking and that i am able to communicate back sometimes after only being here for a little more than a week. its really cool! we talk to the kids all the time and most people here speak enough english that they can help me out. i found out out this week that they graduate high school here at 16 and then usually finish college by 20-21 years old. its crazy! so most people are pretty smart its just hard for them to get jobs.
so monday we went to a resort in mayorga with some other missionaries it was really cool. we got rotisserie chicken or lechon manok and had rice of course, but it was delicious. i got to play basketball with some phillipinos while we were there as well, its pretty fun on a 9 foot goal. i got a couple dunks in! and then we headed back to dulag for an fhe. (fhe=family home evening, learn more here!) it was really cool to try and participate and the family we had it with are really nice and are extremely dedicated to church.
so tuesday we had district meeting in the morning and went out to meet with some inactives. (this refers to members that do not attend church meetings regularly) that seems to be a lot of what we are doing here and if they weren't home we went finding and talking to lots of people. like we were walking and i kinda had the urge to turn around and so did elder andrus, he has been here for almost a year now and is very good at the language, but anyway. we saw a family riding up on there motorcycle, well they are more like scooters here, but what ever. we went to talk and we were talking to the owner of the house and he didn't really seem to care. but my companion asked him his age, he does that a lot and if they say they are like 50 he just says no your still like 25 or something like that, and he laughed and asked us to come sit down out of the rain and brought out his daughter. we were both kinda like great he wants us to take her back to America, and he did. but she found out why we were in the philippines and was like cool I'm katolico, and said she didn't like here church because they don't follow what they teach and she is worried about where she will go after this life. and we were both like really? it was awesome but she is worried about what her friends will think about her if she is talking to us, so we will have to meet only when she isn't working because she works for the catholic church here in dulag. But thats ok, we will get her.
so then wednesday we had a pretty full day and met with a lot of inactive members again. then we went to an investigators house who invited us to drop in for his birthday. they had saved us some food, they are great people. so they gave us the pasta and then brought out the sura or the thing you eat with your rice or pasta. and we asked what it was and, sorry kamrie but its too late, i already ate dog. (while I was typing my email to him, I asked the kids if they wanted to include anything, Kamrie had me tell him not to eat any dog!) its actually pretty good, just chewy. not sure i will eat it again, but it was a once in a life time chance for an American so i ate some. then went to see another invetigator who just opened a new bbq stand for the festival and its pretty good. we get 3 skewers of pork for less than a dollar, its like 30 pesos and its delicious. we have eaten there a few times now and will probably eat there again for dinner.
so i have some pictures i want to send home but was told to do it on support monday because here there could be viruses that could wipe my card, so no thank you. but ill send them next monday from the mall in tacloban.
ok so thursday was chads birthday and no i didn't forget im actually getting something made for him later. they are pretty sweet and only 50 cents so 20 pesos so ill try and send that home. (he mentions that he didn't forget, because I reminded him in my letter!)
ok so thursday elder andrus had training in tacloban so we went to tacloban and i went on splits with an elder i knew in the mtc named elder wilks. it was cool to be in the city, the only difference is there are bigger buildings but still cool. we gave a baby a blessing, then went back to the downtown apartment for lunch, then went to the mission office i got my package thank you' i will use this bbq sauce as little as possible to savor it. oh and i have to pay 40 pesos to pick up packages so its not bad just a dollar for the shipping fee here. so then we went back and met with an investigator for a little bit shared and went back to the appartment for hotdogs and rice with corkys bbq, yum!
so then friday was a long day of finding because no one we planned to see would let us in. but it was good. we are cleaning a guys dypni or jeepny on wednesday at 5 am and hopefully he will listen to the discussions after. his whole family are members except him but they live in another city. so whatever.
saturday was kinda the same thing except we got a member to go with us and we had one family let us in so we shared and invited them to church but they are "busy" but oh well. so we saw a few inactives with him, then bought our food for sunday and went back for planning.
so sunday we only had 26 people because one of the branch presidency's families had a kid in the hospital so that put us back about 6 people. so maybe next week will be better. but then we went out with a member and met with a few members and a referral she had for us who was busy because a family member had died. so we talked for a little bit and will go back another time. but then we went and saw a member who left after sacrament. and then returned home and now its monday and last night i dint get much sleep because it was extra hot. it was still 89 degrees inside the apartment when we were going to sleep and its pretty hot today as well, but oh well. its my companions b day so we are gunna party it up! well i miss you all and wish you all the best
love elder coontz
salamat (thank you)
Last week when I was reading Zac's letter, and read that he was in Dulag, Tyler immediatlely started singing this song. And then wrote Zac about it! So it's been sung all week around this house and I thought I needed to include it!
ok so this week a lot happened! not to many lessons or anything, just met a lot of potential investigators because we had one of our investigators disappear. we went to her house and everything was gone and her neighbors told us she moved.
so everyone here seems impressed that i know whats going on while they are talking and that i am able to communicate back sometimes after only being here for a little more than a week. its really cool! we talk to the kids all the time and most people here speak enough english that they can help me out. i found out out this week that they graduate high school here at 16 and then usually finish college by 20-21 years old. its crazy! so most people are pretty smart its just hard for them to get jobs.
so monday we went to a resort in mayorga with some other missionaries it was really cool. we got rotisserie chicken or lechon manok and had rice of course, but it was delicious. i got to play basketball with some phillipinos while we were there as well, its pretty fun on a 9 foot goal. i got a couple dunks in! and then we headed back to dulag for an fhe. (fhe=family home evening, learn more here!) it was really cool to try and participate and the family we had it with are really nice and are extremely dedicated to church.
so tuesday we had district meeting in the morning and went out to meet with some inactives. (this refers to members that do not attend church meetings regularly) that seems to be a lot of what we are doing here and if they weren't home we went finding and talking to lots of people. like we were walking and i kinda had the urge to turn around and so did elder andrus, he has been here for almost a year now and is very good at the language, but anyway. we saw a family riding up on there motorcycle, well they are more like scooters here, but what ever. we went to talk and we were talking to the owner of the house and he didn't really seem to care. but my companion asked him his age, he does that a lot and if they say they are like 50 he just says no your still like 25 or something like that, and he laughed and asked us to come sit down out of the rain and brought out his daughter. we were both kinda like great he wants us to take her back to America, and he did. but she found out why we were in the philippines and was like cool I'm katolico, and said she didn't like here church because they don't follow what they teach and she is worried about where she will go after this life. and we were both like really? it was awesome but she is worried about what her friends will think about her if she is talking to us, so we will have to meet only when she isn't working because she works for the catholic church here in dulag. But thats ok, we will get her.
so then wednesday we had a pretty full day and met with a lot of inactive members again. then we went to an investigators house who invited us to drop in for his birthday. they had saved us some food, they are great people. so they gave us the pasta and then brought out the sura or the thing you eat with your rice or pasta. and we asked what it was and, sorry kamrie but its too late, i already ate dog. (while I was typing my email to him, I asked the kids if they wanted to include anything, Kamrie had me tell him not to eat any dog!) its actually pretty good, just chewy. not sure i will eat it again, but it was a once in a life time chance for an American so i ate some. then went to see another invetigator who just opened a new bbq stand for the festival and its pretty good. we get 3 skewers of pork for less than a dollar, its like 30 pesos and its delicious. we have eaten there a few times now and will probably eat there again for dinner.
so i have some pictures i want to send home but was told to do it on support monday because here there could be viruses that could wipe my card, so no thank you. but ill send them next monday from the mall in tacloban.
ok so thursday was chads birthday and no i didn't forget im actually getting something made for him later. they are pretty sweet and only 50 cents so 20 pesos so ill try and send that home. (he mentions that he didn't forget, because I reminded him in my letter!)
ok so thursday elder andrus had training in tacloban so we went to tacloban and i went on splits with an elder i knew in the mtc named elder wilks. it was cool to be in the city, the only difference is there are bigger buildings but still cool. we gave a baby a blessing, then went back to the downtown apartment for lunch, then went to the mission office i got my package thank you' i will use this bbq sauce as little as possible to savor it. oh and i have to pay 40 pesos to pick up packages so its not bad just a dollar for the shipping fee here. so then we went back and met with an investigator for a little bit shared and went back to the appartment for hotdogs and rice with corkys bbq, yum!
so then friday was a long day of finding because no one we planned to see would let us in. but it was good. we are cleaning a guys dypni or jeepny on wednesday at 5 am and hopefully he will listen to the discussions after. his whole family are members except him but they live in another city. so whatever.
saturday was kinda the same thing except we got a member to go with us and we had one family let us in so we shared and invited them to church but they are "busy" but oh well. so we saw a few inactives with him, then bought our food for sunday and went back for planning.
so sunday we only had 26 people because one of the branch presidency's families had a kid in the hospital so that put us back about 6 people. so maybe next week will be better. but then we went out with a member and met with a few members and a referral she had for us who was busy because a family member had died. so we talked for a little bit and will go back another time. but then we went and saw a member who left after sacrament. and then returned home and now its monday and last night i dint get much sleep because it was extra hot. it was still 89 degrees inside the apartment when we were going to sleep and its pretty hot today as well, but oh well. its my companions b day so we are gunna party it up! well i miss you all and wish you all the best
love elder coontz
salamat (thank you)
Last week when I was reading Zac's letter, and read that he was in Dulag, Tyler immediatlely started singing this song. And then wrote Zac about it! So it's been sung all week around this house and I thought I needed to include it!
Monday, August 22, 2011
Week 9 - MTC 8/15/2011 & 10 - Philippines 8/21/2011
8/15/2011
alright so today im just kinda chillin in the mtc until 4;30 and then i have to be in the travel office to get our tickets so that we can get on the bus for the airport at about 5 not entirely sure so i fly out of salt lake at 8:10 so im hopeing to call you at about 6:30 7 and then if your awake again in la but itll be like 11 there but i land in hong kong at 7 am wed so itll be fun not sure what time it will be in memphis then but ill leave my watch set to utah time and try to call if its an ok hour but after that i fly to manila and stay there for 5 hours then fly to tacloban well i really dont want to say much so we have stuff to talk about later but i love you and i hope your not to busy with soccer but talk to you later
8/21/2011
So i got to the Philippines and i love it! the food is great and i know that it will be weird eating rice with everything but what ever. so my typing may not be very good the computer place has no lights so i cant see anything really but that's ok. so i have been called to serve in the dulag mission speaking waray-waray, its crazy and I've heard its hard to learn but i think I'll get, it i just have to learn a new vocabulary. (love the positive attitude here! FYI there are over 120 languages in the philiippines!) my companion is elder andrus, he is from Washington and he is teaching me a lot. i am learning so much already. i am in an area that got a little messed up and we are supposed to fix it, so lots of work ahead for the next while. i cant wait to be able to just understand people, its crazy how much different it is. both of my companions went to cebuano areas so they are probably a little ahead of me but i think ill be ok, im starting understand a little and say things back as well.
so yesterday was my first sunday and it was very different. i went and we had 30 people show up, fun right? they are way down. its usually like 45-50, so we have some work to do. so after church we went to pec (this is a leadership meeting, that the missionaries attend) and as we were leaving one of the sisters was kind enough to tell me im fat! i was like gee thanks and my companion just laughed.
so whenever we go to meet people we go and start talking and i introduce myself and my comp says guapo hiya di ba? which means hes guapo no? (he's handsome?) and they all just say yes and kinda laugh. they like to say stuff like that here in the philipipnes. when you walk past some guys we say kamusta mga guapo and they smile. i swear the average philippino male uses more beauty product than women in america, its crazy but i love them all.
so my first night we went and met some people, and then we had an appointment that night and we ended up with three new investigators. (investigators are people interested in learning about the church, and Zac and his comp (companion) will teach them) my comp says he barely gets that in a week sometimes. it was awesome!
so a lot of our work if finding professionals because they are lacking leadership in the church in our mission. so we go to the big houses and you just stand outside and say maopay from outside the big gate and hope someone comes. it doesn't usually work but there are some pretty large houses, its crazy.
so my p day is monday (Pday = preparation day, they day they do laundry, shop, and email!) and its almost 10 in the morning here and im not sure what time it is there (9PM Sunday night!) but now you know send the email before sunday night. i already did my laundry for the first time here. its interesting we let it soak in soapy water for about a half hour then go out and scrub it, then rise it out and hang it up to dry. I'm gonna have calasis on my knuckles before this is over. i am going into another city in a little while to hang out with a missionary i know from the mtc and maybe play some basketball. turns out they try to replicate what they see on tv when they wach the NBA, but they don't have the skill height or hops, its kinda funny to watch. there is a big festival going on in the philippines right now so they had a b ball tourney last night i watched for a little bit and just kinda laughed. then we went to make our dinner.
so the sun goes down at 6 here and when people don't have electricity we cant really go to their house. (so crazy that people don't have electricity! We are SO SPOILED here!) its kinda weird, so we try to set stuff up with people that have electricity so we can go to their houses. its so cool its basically a constant 80 degrees at night and 90 during the day so not to bad but extremely humid, it rains everyday without fail and philipinos are afraid of rain. they think if you get wet you'll get sick so they all hide when it rains and wait for it to stop. its crazy all the superstitions they have here.
so i have to keep my tooth brush and paste in the refrigerator so ants don't get it, its weird to brush with cold toothpaste but im over it.
so there are markets everywhere and they sell everything even rolexes it kinda reminds me of new york just a lot less developed. everyone here has a cell phone because it costs 5 pesos a day to have one and $1 is 45 pesos so it super cheap! its crazy to see everyone with a phone and they all sleep in one room because there is only one room in the house! i feel really tall here, i have to duck to walk through a lot of the doors and everyone tells you your tall. its crazy! and they call all americans "joe" not sure why but they think it's hilarious. they yell it and hide if you look at them, its kinda funny.
i know every time we meet people and my companion starts talking that even though i really don't know whats going, on i know what he is saying is true, i just want to be able to help him. i was told they understand cebuano so i use it but they dont always know, so its what ever. well i need to email my mission pres now i hope you all have a great day
love elder coontz
AYO AYO
(they don't say this in my area but oh well)
Remember - if you post a comment it will go to his email! So it's an easy way to say "hi"!
alright so today im just kinda chillin in the mtc until 4;30 and then i have to be in the travel office to get our tickets so that we can get on the bus for the airport at about 5 not entirely sure so i fly out of salt lake at 8:10 so im hopeing to call you at about 6:30 7 and then if your awake again in la but itll be like 11 there but i land in hong kong at 7 am wed so itll be fun not sure what time it will be in memphis then but ill leave my watch set to utah time and try to call if its an ok hour but after that i fly to manila and stay there for 5 hours then fly to tacloban well i really dont want to say much so we have stuff to talk about later but i love you and i hope your not to busy with soccer but talk to you later
8/21/2011
So i got to the Philippines and i love it! the food is great and i know that it will be weird eating rice with everything but what ever. so my typing may not be very good the computer place has no lights so i cant see anything really but that's ok. so i have been called to serve in the dulag mission speaking waray-waray, its crazy and I've heard its hard to learn but i think I'll get, it i just have to learn a new vocabulary. (love the positive attitude here! FYI there are over 120 languages in the philiippines!) my companion is elder andrus, he is from Washington and he is teaching me a lot. i am learning so much already. i am in an area that got a little messed up and we are supposed to fix it, so lots of work ahead for the next while. i cant wait to be able to just understand people, its crazy how much different it is. both of my companions went to cebuano areas so they are probably a little ahead of me but i think ill be ok, im starting understand a little and say things back as well.
so yesterday was my first sunday and it was very different. i went and we had 30 people show up, fun right? they are way down. its usually like 45-50, so we have some work to do. so after church we went to pec (this is a leadership meeting, that the missionaries attend) and as we were leaving one of the sisters was kind enough to tell me im fat! i was like gee thanks and my companion just laughed.
so whenever we go to meet people we go and start talking and i introduce myself and my comp says guapo hiya di ba? which means hes guapo no? (he's handsome?) and they all just say yes and kinda laugh. they like to say stuff like that here in the philipipnes. when you walk past some guys we say kamusta mga guapo and they smile. i swear the average philippino male uses more beauty product than women in america, its crazy but i love them all.
so my first night we went and met some people, and then we had an appointment that night and we ended up with three new investigators. (investigators are people interested in learning about the church, and Zac and his comp (companion) will teach them) my comp says he barely gets that in a week sometimes. it was awesome!
so a lot of our work if finding professionals because they are lacking leadership in the church in our mission. so we go to the big houses and you just stand outside and say maopay from outside the big gate and hope someone comes. it doesn't usually work but there are some pretty large houses, its crazy.
so my p day is monday (Pday = preparation day, they day they do laundry, shop, and email!) and its almost 10 in the morning here and im not sure what time it is there (9PM Sunday night!) but now you know send the email before sunday night. i already did my laundry for the first time here. its interesting we let it soak in soapy water for about a half hour then go out and scrub it, then rise it out and hang it up to dry. I'm gonna have calasis on my knuckles before this is over. i am going into another city in a little while to hang out with a missionary i know from the mtc and maybe play some basketball. turns out they try to replicate what they see on tv when they wach the NBA, but they don't have the skill height or hops, its kinda funny to watch. there is a big festival going on in the philippines right now so they had a b ball tourney last night i watched for a little bit and just kinda laughed. then we went to make our dinner.
so the sun goes down at 6 here and when people don't have electricity we cant really go to their house. (so crazy that people don't have electricity! We are SO SPOILED here!) its kinda weird, so we try to set stuff up with people that have electricity so we can go to their houses. its so cool its basically a constant 80 degrees at night and 90 during the day so not to bad but extremely humid, it rains everyday without fail and philipinos are afraid of rain. they think if you get wet you'll get sick so they all hide when it rains and wait for it to stop. its crazy all the superstitions they have here.
so i have to keep my tooth brush and paste in the refrigerator so ants don't get it, its weird to brush with cold toothpaste but im over it.
so there are markets everywhere and they sell everything even rolexes it kinda reminds me of new york just a lot less developed. everyone here has a cell phone because it costs 5 pesos a day to have one and $1 is 45 pesos so it super cheap! its crazy to see everyone with a phone and they all sleep in one room because there is only one room in the house! i feel really tall here, i have to duck to walk through a lot of the doors and everyone tells you your tall. its crazy! and they call all americans "joe" not sure why but they think it's hilarious. they yell it and hide if you look at them, its kinda funny.
i know every time we meet people and my companion starts talking that even though i really don't know whats going, on i know what he is saying is true, i just want to be able to help him. i was told they understand cebuano so i use it but they dont always know, so its what ever. well i need to email my mission pres now i hope you all have a great day
love elder coontz
AYO AYO
(they don't say this in my area but oh well)
Remember - if you post a comment it will go to his email! So it's an easy way to say "hi"!
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Week 8 - MTC 8/9/2011
so i just got back from the temple and i got to do sealings today. it was really amazing to see how it all works, i actually thought it was a lot longer than it really is. so we went in and got started and after the first parents got sealed some one else came in and it was one of the osmands! they said donny had just left! i was like what? it was really cool he said he was just in the philippines for something i dont really remember what but ya super cool, and it made my miss you all so much, and i cant wait for my turn to be sealed in the temple (the marriage ceremony in our temple is called a sealing. it is not a "til death do us part", it is forever! and these sealings are performed for families that have died without being "sealed". that is what he was doing in the temple. you can find out more about temples HERE)
so we have been going about our week kinda talkative. we really need to focus more now that we have our flight plans i found out i'm in charge of mine and my companions tickets as flight leader. we leave from here at 4:30 and fly to LA we get to LA about 9 at night and leave for Hong Kong at about 1:30 in the morning. we land in Hong Kong at 7:30 the next day. i then sit in Hong kong for about 4 hours and fly to Manila where we have a 5 hour lay over and then fly to tacloban and get there about 5 at night. so itll be super fun!
so this week we have strated teaching a lot more we teach almost everyday we started the new program were we have a progressive investigator who we teach until we leave. so it's really cool to get to know the lessons a lot better by teaching them. so we have been really trying to only speak cebuano pero ... its not happening we talk to much and it always ends up in english, we really need to work on that.
so kamrie wrote me and said she is sitting on an excersice ball in class thats really cool i wish i could have done that.
so porter leaves later today, i got a few pictures with him sunday and a few before that but didn't get one at the map. bummer. but i had a lot going on this being my last p-day here i have to make sure i get everything done.
so the new cebuanos are learning so fast and I'm super jealous but I'm not at the same time because they are all stressed out and I'm about to leave so its all good. i cant wait till i get to only speak visayan/warry-warry hopefully I'm able to pick up on the differences fast and i really want this language thing to just stop i don't want to speak english anymore.
so we had two firesides and the people taught the exact same thing used the same chart and everything it was really weird it was all about the conversion process including members and how they move to the next level of faith. i know the lord loves us all and wants us to know everything we can in order better understand his gospel.
well i love you all and i really want you to know i enjoy all the support i can get it lifts me up every time i get a letter and reassures me this is where i am supposed to be. and i want you to know i pray for you all every night and thank heavenly father for the great blessings you all are in my life.
well this is my last email until i get to the philippines but i am aloud to call you all while I'm in the airport so I'll try and call as soon as I get to salt lake if not I'll try from Hong Kong (did you get that, we get to talk to him on the phone!!!!!!!)
so until then ayo ayo
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Week 7 - MTC 8/2/2011
(I think this is his most ADD letter YET!!!)
so we got 22 new cebuano speakers, it is crazy! they got to start the new program and are learning so fast its crazy. we have to find a way to jump in in the middle but i think we will survive. they already pray in cebuano, it took me a week or 2 before i could do that.
we have an english district that is going to little rock next week its so cool. and the other day we were out contacting and i let elder Mits pick and it was sister lee and her companion. i was like well what are the odds of that? but ya, so we taught the restoration in cebuano and went on our way.
i took a pic with porter sunday i'll try to print it off and send it home.
but any way the elder that went home is elder hatch who was elder lieshmans comp but now he is one of mine. (in his last letter he talked about one of them going home, but i was confused about which one it was) its kinda weird teaching with three but we are figuring it out.
so last week i was able to memorize 238 words and i don t think ill ever beat that. but im on my way to about 200 again. so yesterday we had an all cebauno day no english unless we were in gym and needed to, but other than that it was really fun. im able to think in cebuano a little its really quite cool.
so dad said something about my companion elder mits being the joker in the group he is but he isnt the worst. almost our whole district likes to joke around and have fun its really nice.
so im sure the pictures you have will be fine and if anything that soccr ball you sent is kinda trashed now and about to pop it has been through a lot and was wondering if you could send my little black and orange one so i can have it in the philippines even though they dont play soccer :( but they do play basketball so i think ill be ok. i play basketball almost every day during gym and there are a lot of really good ballers and i learn so much. but ive been told that sometimes in the philppines the goals are only like 8 foot so itll be crazy and ive been told they really arent any good so that will be one way to get people to teach. my teacher said he did that a few times.
so we have to start teaching like everyday with the new program and its supposed to be like a real investigator and i really hope this helps. but i know either way the lord called me to this mission at this time and he will help me throughout the whole thing. sometimes when i teach im able to go on and on in cebuano and don't even really know what I'm talking about. but i know its just a guiding and that i do have the lord on my side.
so i have 2 more weeks in the mtc and i get more and more excited everyday. in reality i just want to go now! but i know we are here still for a reason.
so I'm not sure if Ive mentioned this before but the majority of my mission is actually not cebuano speaking, but its a dialect called warry-warry and they speak tagolog so it'll be a party and a half once we finally get there. i know that we will be able to learn so fast and be able to teach the people in whatever language they speak.
so Sunday pres robinson my branch president said in everything we teach there lies the evidence of its own truth, and i know that in everything we teach there is truth and if we have the spirit with us we will be able to impress that truth upon others
yesterday we watched a talk given in a fireside here at the mtc and it basically talked about all we need to do to have that spirit is to follow the rules and we will be able to have it with us as we teach and all the rules are in place for a reason so we need to follow them
ok so my language isn't actually called cebuano that's the spanish name for it its actually called visayan and there is a web site my teacher showed us called bisayan.com or something like that. so if you google it you can maybe use the translator. so i have been here long enough to finish an entire planner and I'm sending it home they go for 6 weeks at a time they are a great tool and now that i really know how to use it it is a great help. i didn't start until about the last couple days in the one I'm sending but the one i have now everyday is just like full of stuff and its amazing when you have a plan how much more proficient your studies go. (BONUS) so i am so grateful for all the letters i get and hope to hear from everyone before i leave even if its not much its nice to see that everyone else is happy and doing well
so until next week ayo ayo
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Week 6 - MTC 7/26/2011
so i have only seen porter once and it was the day he got here. (porter is another cousin, he's headed to Guatemala) he has a completely different schedule than me, i have been really looking hard too. but i did talk to Lisa (a friend from Memphis) and i see her every once in a while. i would really like to see porter some more mason gave me some stuff to give him and its in my backpack.
but any way, i told you a few weeks ago my favorite scripture and it was the wrong verse its not verse 6 its verse 8. i really like it. so just wondering if you guys got my letter and pictures i sent on Thursday. i really hope to get some more out today but I'm not making any promises. the temple is reopened so we are going to the temple instead of chillin in the room. i m really glad we are able to attend the temple this week. we had a great speaker, he spoke to us a few weeks ago. he is in charge of making those cheesy commercials the church put out before but, it was really funny he played some of them for us.
so this week i have really been down about not memorizing words fast enough. i was only getting like 15 a day and i decided to put a goal in place for the district to pray before all of our studies and it has really helped i was able to get 43 words the first day and 63 the next. my goal was only 120 words this week and i already have 150 its crazy how the lord can help, but he may not help unless we ask him too and show we truly want his help. so this last week we had our first all cebuano TRC and so we prepared and i was feeling pretty good about it but then no investigators showed up so we didnt get to teach so hopefully this week we will be able to teach. (the MTC has members come and pretend to be non members for the missionaries to teach)
we as a district have also decided we need to only speak cebauno unless we don't know the word because we are supposed to be an example to the new district that comes in tomorrow. we got one new guy already from australia he already knows so much. but any way we are getting 22 new cebuano elders and sisters it will be awesome to have more people to talk to but they are only supposed to hear cebuano from us and their teachers for the first 2 weeks so it ll be fun seeing the new curriculum in place.
so this week i have become a three way companionship again. elder lieshmans kauban went home last wednesday, very sad but he knew it was what needed to be done and i feel he is a great man and think he would have made a great elder. and i know he will be able to teach people even though he isn't going to be serving a mission. so now me, elder mits and elder garver are all companions and although its wierd since me and elder mits have been together for a while and know how to teach with each other i know we will learn to adapt, its what we are called to do.
well i love you and want you all to know i pray for you all every night.
well until next week,
Ayo, Ayo!!(The only pictures I have, he has sent. I don't have a scanner, but I will try and add some)
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