Week 76 - Sta Margarita 11/25/2012

so its only been a few days but i am with the office elders and assistants today doing some stuff trying to get us back to our area but i found out i have to come back here to TAcloban tomorrow night for a leadership training meeting so lots of travel but thats ok but so cool kamrie is 11 now crazy that means in 6 months ill be 21 lol crazy happy birhthday kamrie it is your birthday here right now so cool i love you sis well nothing much has happened but i have been staying in the same apartment as elder leishman and we talked about a lot last night  and i hope this transfer will be good we are going to be really busy as we are going to start teaching a preach my gospel class here pretty soon and i have trainings to attend and we have christmas conference then in like 3 weeks its christmas and we will be talking again so crazy hope you all are ready i know i am well i love you all and cant wait to talk

Week 75 - Sta Margarita 11/24/2012

so this has been an interesting few weeks last week not much happened we had our amazing zone activity and had a great zone training meeting and then tuesday night we went out and taught a young man who is a recent convert of about 7 months we are trying to teach his parents but they are always drunk or out with their friends so really difficult but we taught him a great lesson about scripture study and he committed to read everyday so that he can become an example for his parents and we can hopefully start teaching them but then i started feeling sick and so we went home and long story short i started getting better come saturday but elder dariagan got sick friday with the same thing but it was way harder on his immmune system so we went to the hospital saturday night for a check up and they wanted to admit him to the hospital and so i called sister Andaya and she asked if we could travel to tacloban as soon as possible turns out there has been a dengue outbreak in the mission and me elder dariagan elder misalucha elder theobald and elder bard were all in the hospital at the same time here in Tacloban me and elder theobald werent to bad so we were just under observation and then our blood platelet count came back up and i am fine but my companions dropped down to 63 which for those of you that dont know the average person his age and size should be 250 so not good and for those of you that dont know what blood platelets are they are the part of your blood that makes it clot so not good is if he started bleeding and he almost had to have a blood transfusion crazy week but we are out but have to stay in tacloban until monday when he goes for a check up because his blood platelet count is still low it was only 100 when we left and if it is low again monday we go back into the hospital but one thing has come from this week i have learned a ton with all the free time in the hospital i had 5 hour personal studies everyday for 5 days and have read a ton mostly about the things in my patriarchal blessing i read Doctrine and Covenants 107 twice section 121 section 46 and 84 and i read 3 nephi chapters 8-12 and in my other book of mormon reading i read from the title page to 1 nephi chapter 19 and i read like 10 chapters from Preach MY Gospel such a good study time to bad i dont have the chance to use all the new stuff i have learned and i got to see elder Ostler one last time before he went home i cant believe its been a year since we became companions but i only have 2 companions who are still here in the mission Elder Andrada and Elder Dariagan and they are from the same home stake so weird all of my companions are home and i just realized i only have 5 transfers left that is a really short time not sure but i feel like i have one more big thing i need to do before i go but as well i got the package while i was in the hospital so nice to have things to snack on its almost all gone but the BBQ sauce and potatoes will be used whenever i go back to Calbayog so we can celebrate Thanksgiving even if we are celebrating late but thats ok well im really excited to see what happens since me and elder dariagan are together for another transfer no transfers in our entire zone except they took one of our sisters and put her in the office so its still good she is an amazing missionary well i love you all and sorry i dont really have a ton of amazing stories to let you in on this week but i do want you all to know that no matter what we are right now that isnt who we have to be when we die its all a matter of goal setting and accomplishing and as long as we look to the lord to fill in those parts we cant do everything becomes possible well i love you family and hope i have brought at least a little enlightenment to your lives through this email but until next week be careful with the gun mom and chad keep on practicing it will really pay off dad i love you and i met another person who lives here in tacloban who knows you she brought us food while in the hospital she was quite amazed that i was here because her oldest is only 16 but ya kamrie its ok if elementary is over because it only gets better and you will just keep getting smarter and scott your bed is awesome a lot of people here in the Philippines would love a hamok that big a hamok in warray is called a duyan they are awesome and tyler just keep going and dont forget what you need to do to serve the Lord you will need his help and you can get that by doing what He wants you to do i love you all and know this is the only church that is 100% true here on earth and it is Gods kingdom here on the earth so lets keep doing our part to help build that kingdom so we will all be happy well thats all for now

and its crazy 75 weeks i just want to ask if the blog is still updated because i have a missionary friend that was reading it before he got here and it was behind and he wasnt sure what happened well love you all and i will be sending letters to you soon that i want you to send to our family members one day i decided i needed to do what i do best and that is help people come back to Gods kingdom and i wrote all of our inactive family members and i hope i can get them to you before christmas thats kind of what i wanted to do for christmas

Week 74 - Sta Margarita 11/11/2012

ok so this week has been amazing not a ton of lessons again but we made a new goal this week as we were studying about finding in companionship study we decided we werent very good at it so we added to our key indicators or the daily goals we set every day and we made a goal every day this week to get potential investigators and we did a lot better than we planned the plan was to get 8 this week and we got 17 so i guess we need to raise that goal a little but it was amazing the way we got them we have continued every time we get to our appointments and no one is home to stop and pray no matter where we are i got this from reading about Nephi in Helaman 5 when he goes onto a tower and prays and the people all gather around to see what he is doing and he got a ton of new "investigators" so that is what we did and one day it was really weird we went to go teach the parents of a member and hopefully get some new investigators but they were eating so we set up some appointments for next week and we were going to go to another members house to try and get a refferal but as i was about to walk up to the door it just didnt feel right so i told elder dariagan and he said ya me too so we walked back out to the highway and prayed and got the weirdest answer ever the spirit just said stay put and dont move and i asked elder dariagan and he said he didnt know but he felt there was something we needed to do right in that spot so thats what we did we stayed and talked to a few passing people but no success and it was almost time for us to need to go home after we had waited for like 20 minutes i felt we needed to ride the next tricycle that came past a tricycle is a motorcycle with a big metal cab bolted onto the side and we ride them everywhere but then we saw a tricycle going away from calbayog so elder dariagan joked and said did the spirit say which direction and i said no but the right before the tricycle got to us it stopped on the side of the road no one got off nothing happened so weird and we were kind of like what do we do and then i looked to the left and a tricycle was about to pass us going to calbayog and he stopped and asked where we were headed so we hopped on and ended up with 3 potential investigators who all know members it just felt so comfortable we talked to every single person that got on and i sat next to the driver and got his name and address it was a really cool experience and im so glad i am having these experiences with elder dariagan its going to help his mission so much knowing these things now instead like me finally figuring it out with less than a year left but im so happy all the time its amazing we are seeing so much success even as we teach members our attendance keeps growing and growing we also set a goal for how many recent converts and less active members would would have at church on sunday and the goal was 20 we were really hoping to get it but i rained and we were a little nervous but we prayed and went to church and we had 17 recent converts and less active members at church on sunday amazing and we had a few investigators at church work is so much fun i love seeing the change in peoples countenance as we teach we taught one lessson and the family was like we cont pay tithing we dont have enough money so we read from 3 Nephi 24 verses 8 through 11 and explained about it and talked about what was easier paying tithing or being cursed be God and they seemed really excited to see the blessings that can come from tithing and living worthy of the spirit sorry i cont put everything into one email but if i used one word to explain how i feel after this week is thankful and maybe its because im excited for thanksgiving but i really am grateful for all the things i have been able to learn and do recently life is amazing and i just wish it could have been like this from the begging of my mission but thats my own fault i just need to make sure all my companions from here on out can have this as soon into their missions as possible too and this mission can be awesome we are making so much progress right now its amazing well i love you all and hope that i con be of some help to you all through this email but i know i kind of just rambled on about my week but its so amazing and i love all the revelation we have been receiving recently we are going to see great things here pretty soon this branch is just about to take of and really start progressing on its own i can feel it and i cant wait and hope i can stay to see it but if not ill just do it again wherever my next area is but i love you all and pray for you always and i hope you all can feel the presence of the Holy Ghost in your lives because it is so real and so amazing and it truely is a foretaste of what eternal life will be like and i can wait to get to that day where i can feel that amazing joy that comes from keeping all the commandments and being able to stand in front of our Father in Heaven and say im ready to enter your kingdom it Will be amazing and i hope you all can do the same at that day well thats my letter for you all keep smiling and the Lord will make it permanent

so i know what i want for christmas i want those little pocket sized Books of Mormon if possible i would like 5 or 6 of them i want to give them to people the more the better but i dont know how much they cost so just as many as you feel like possible if grandma and grandpas could get that that would be awesome because you cant buy them in the philippines and people love them so they can bring it with them everywhere but if not thats ok too and ya love you mom i hope i can get the package before thanksgiving but if not ill celebrate another day 

Week 73 - Sta Margarita 11/4/2012

so this week was different we were only able to teach 4 lessons there were a couple reasons but its ok because the lessons we taught were awesome we had some of the youth come work with us and i asked them why they wanted to spend their semester break working with the missionaries and they said they wanted to learn the things we teach to the people i was really impressed with the way they were able to follow the spirit in helping us teach and getting appointments to teach more people so cool the the young women met us at our appointment and the person was asleep so the one young women said lets visit the arniaz family so they went to their house and we went a different way and they got there and started talking to the mom who was on her way back to work and the young women had already invited and commited her to come to church sunday and she was there so cool the the same young women asked where one of our old investigators lived so we could go visit him and it was just around the corner so we got in to talk with him and the reason why we stopped teaching him before was because he would always say the church is true but he wouldnt be baptized so we taught and he showed us his desire to follow the comandments of God so then me and elder Dariagan were prompted to read from 2 Nephi 31 verses 10 and 11 and in the end he commited to being baptized but not yet so cool and he came to church on sunday so cool then we taught the young mens president who has gone inactive his family all moved to Cebu and left him behind to finish college so he is kind of lonely but i have been wanting to teach him about the Oath and Covenent of the preisthood in D&C 84 and in verse 51 it says he who breaks this covenant will not receive forgiveness in this life or in the life to come and when he read that he sat back in his chair and just said ouch and we invited him to start fullfulling his priesthood calling and offered help when needed and he slept in on sunday but still made it on time for him to teach sunday school and attend sacrament meeting he is going to be awesome i just hope he can keep going and continue giving time to the Lord everyday of his life no matter how small but then thursday was interviews with president Andaya so cool it was a little bit different usually he checks our planners and area books and everything but he started to and then we just kind of started talking it was really nice just to sit down and have a one on one conversation with president about my trainee and about the things i am doing to help organize the branch and it made things really nice he took notes and it was just amazing to see how much he wants to help even though i know he is super busy all the time then we havent done much because i have been sick and not sure what was wrong but all i know is i had absolutely no energy to do anything it was difficult for me to walk from the apartment to the road to catch a ride to our area so we didnt do much but my district is doing amazing and its just going to keep getting better sometimes ill be sitting and just be prompted to start writing and im not sure why and it always seems to be questions this last time i was in fast and testimony meeting not sure what these questions are for but here they are

1. What is the importance of love if you yourself dont want to love?

2. What does Jesus see in our future?

#. How do we see that future and make it a reality?

4.Why do we not always understand the nesecities of life?

5.How do we truely give everything to the Lord?

6.Why are we forgiven?

7.Why doesnt everyone have a desire to be forgiven?

8.How do we help people gain that desire if the don't feel remorse?

9.How do we feel remorse?

10.What feelings are needed in order to gain a stronger faith?

11.How do we truely love the Lord?

some of these i know the answer to but others not really but i figure they are always something we should ask ourselves as servants of the Lord so i just hope to be able apply them to my work some how not sure yet but if you feel like you dont know the answers to all of these maybe do a little studying and see what the lord has waiting for you its always fun to start studies with a question in mind 

Well i have a question for all of you if you have an answer for me we constantly see in the Book of Mormom the people being righteous and then becoming wicked and prideful after the blessings come so i was reading in Helaman chapter 3 and it starts happening within like a few years but then in Alma 62 the people are blessed and dont become prideful why do some people become prideful so fast and forget the lord while others dont and how do we prevent this from happening to the people we teach as missionaries?just send me an email if you think you can help me out a little bit. well i love you all and i can promise you that i pray for you everyday its amazing what happens to the work when your prayers are specific and have names its so cool i love missionary life so much.

Week 72 - Sta Margarita 10/29/2012

so just to start off this week started amazing and i have learned a ton and applying some new things to my work to make it more enjoyable and being able to see more miracles already so cool but to start off the training i gave this last week was so cool i have been trying to find a new way to help keep focused all the time because i have heard stories of like missionary's sitting in their apartment and the spirit prompts them to leave and go visit some one and i wanted to know how that was possible so i have been studying about the spirit and how i works lately and one of the things i read said that sometimes our minds are preoccupied by things of the world as missionaries that sometimes we wont even notice that the spirit is prompting us to do anything and that hit kind of hard as we have been trying hard to constantly avoid those kinds they still seemed to slip in sometimes and then we end up talking for like 20 min. about nothing important and we lose our focus and drive and so i realized the one thing every missionary and even the everyday person needs to be able to recognize the spirits promptings is by building our virtue and if our thoughts and actions are always virtuous the we can constantly feel the spirit and we as missionar's have been asked to give all attention to the work so that includes what we talk about in the apartment and everywhere no matter who we are talking to but it was amazing and i met with the new missionary's in the district and talked to them a little about some goals they have set for this transfer so that i can help follow up with those goals and pray for them as well and it has been amazing after that we had companionship exchanges and i worked with elder Johnson he is our new zone leader and he is awesome but we had a really good day taught a few lessons but the coolest thing was our experience in finding we went and decided to ask what color house we needed to visit when we left the house so we just thought about it on our way to Sta. Margarita and when we got out my thoughts had rd or blue but when we got out i was sure it was red so then elder Johnson asked whats the color and i said its definately red and he said that was my exact thought so we walked across the street and past a house and then elder Johnson says wasnt that house? red and i turned around and there was an old man staring at us from his front porch and he received us and our message and we got an apointment to come back so cool then the same kind of thing happened with me and Elder Dariagan he is making some good progress and getting closer to the spirit everyday and im really enjoying teaching with him even though we still have a few things to work out but we tried the same kind of thing after no one was home and so we prayed and asked what part of our area we need to go to and after the prayer i turned around and thought and the first thing that came to me was go to barangay sulsogon so i turned and asked Elder Dariagan and he said Sulsogon so cool how that works then we went and then found a guy we met a few days before and we cant get to his house but he just happened to be at the road on his way home as we got there and we were able to give him a book of mormon and get an appointment to go and visit him this coming thursday so amazing then we taught some amazing lessons with a few families and were able to attended the baptism of my investigator in gandara even though its not my area anymore i was super happy that i got to see the baptism then sunday i wasnt feeling good after church so we went home to study and rest and i prepared my training for tomorrow and was reminded of something really important by a man we named brother Niki and it has to do with prayer and prating for specific people and specific things so i made a list of people who i need to pray for so i dont forget any one i my plan is to just keep adding to the list for the rest of my time in Sta. Margarita and then start over wherever my new area may be in the future but its amazing the list ended up being way longer that i thought and i was like wow maybe this is how pray should always be i should truely be asking for the Lord to help these people with their needs and its so cool i felt so good as i did it and feel like this is going to be the start of a lot of miracles i the lives of these people and hope that it can continue for the rest of my life prayer is so important and my testimony of it has been reinforced so greatly this past week and hope i can keep going and i also read some things in Alma 60 when captain Moroni writes pahoran and in verses 23 and 23 he talks about fixing the inner vessel then the outer vessel can be cleansed and thats so true and that is what this branch needs and i shared this in our Missionary coordination meeting and the members made some new goals to visit on their own and with us so cool im super excited to see the miracles God can put into work for this branch its going to be amazing as long as we can keep it going well i love you all and sorry for not letting you all know before about me withdrawing ill be better about it now but another thing is my card is going to expire before i go home and it has started to tear a little bit so that could be one thing that could help out a little but if not thats ok too well i love you all and can say that i have prayed for you all and prayed for specfic things for almost everyone reading this not sure who still keeps up with these letters but i love you all and hope that i have helped you all in some way today.

Week 71 - Sta Margarita 10/22/2012

so ya i feel like money for christmas would probably be the best thing i have a few things i would like to buy here like a tagalog hymn book and and some other study materials but ya for that package if posible could you throw my cleats in there if they havent been destroyed yet we have started to play soccer and rugby and it would be really nice to have for times like that and the piano would be great if it isnt to expensive i want to play in sacrament meeting before i go home but the only time i have to practice is p-day and at night in the apartment so if i could just always have it i could practice whenever the few times come up where we have some down time and i dont know about the bank i always check to see how much is in there first then i always make sure not to pull to much out and try to leave some behind so that doesnt happen but i did have an emergency last month and my travel money wasnt reimbursed until late in the month and i was 100% out of money so i pulled some out but i still checked first im sorry ill try to not pull much out but i will probably ordering some garments here pretty soon because mine are starting to turn yellow and get holes in them and they are super cheap here so itll be nice well sorry i havent taken any pictures this week my camera is dead and i keep forgetting to charge it but the coolest thing this week was probably during our companionship exchange with the Gandara elders i worked with elder Acosta who is the same group arriving to the mission as my companion but you wouldn't know unless someone told you we got tons of referrals taught a random minister on the side of the road and we went to visit some members that they didn't know where they lived yet so i showed him and at one with brother Arseno Cabral it was crazy we weren't going to teach but he invited us to sit he had never done that before and we started talking and the spirit just took over i don't remember everything i said but after the lesson elder Acosta said you just chastised that man to tears it was amazing one thing that was said i asked him if he would go to church and he said he wasn't sure and it came to me to read about agency so we did in 2n 2:27 and i told him we have 2 choices God or Satan who are you going to follow and he said God and started praying it was crazy i have never felt so good after a lesson in my entire life its crazy how much more can happen if the spirit is talking and not you. i had never seen that man smile before in the entire 3 months i have been here i just hope he remembers what happens but ya then Sunday we organized a reactivation activity because there is no school right now and had like 7 inactive members attend it was a sports activity on the beach the members walked and I'm so happy they did it was amazing even though i have been sun burnt 2 weeks in a row now and its not very fun but totally worth it well i love your letters and I'm so happy for Tyler and Patrick you guys don't need to worry about anything all you need to do is give all you can and if it isn't enough God will do the rest that's how this life works and that's defiantly how the mission works well i love you all and sorry mom for the bank mess ill try to be more careful and only pull out half

Week 70 - Sta Margarita 10/15/2012

o not a ton has happened this week since elder misranda went home i work with the zone leaders and we were able to teach a few lessons but didnt really have much time tuesday we had an amazing district meeting i was inspired one not to write some questions so i did and used them in district meeting since we have time for reporting and i have free reign over how it is done i just wanted to learn about my missionaries so i started with the questions and had them all close their eyes so only i knew what their answers were but i would like to ask all of you as well as these questions can help anyone see what they need to do next the first was who feels like the arent progressing as fast as they should? second who has a plan to make that progression faster? third who gets frustrated trying to accomplish their goals?  fourth who understands what the light of Christ is and what it can do for you? and fifth who has faith enough in God to let him turn us into Gods ourselves? and i was able to give a training with the help of the other missionaries and our Father in Heaven about a way to better accomplish the goals we make more quickly and effectively and that is through accountability to our leaders and to the Lord through prayer we need to let someone know what our goal is and we need to tell the Lord and ask him for help and it was really amazing because it really makes the difference when we really ask for help and show our desire to change something i read in that talk said something like "if we say we cannot change and that we are who we are then we deny the plan of salvation and cannot repent so not a good thing but we can all change all it takes is faith hope and a little action on our part as long as we do everything we are able to do God will do the rest and we will all become more like our Savior but the coolest thing that happened this week was Wednesday when the assistants called the zone leaders to let them know that i was going to be training so cool so i went to Tacloban the next day and there were 18 new missionaries and out of all of them i just happened to be training the new missionary who knows elder Andrada who i follow-up trained so cool they are both from Roxas city Capis and my trainees name is Elder Dariagan he is definitely new but i feel bad because all we have done so far is go to conference and have a zone activity and wont get to work until tomorrow after noon because we have a zone meeting tomorrow so ya it will be fun i guess but i learned so much at conference even though i didnt get to watch the whole thing  the power went out during elder Bednars talk so i was a little upset but the ensign will come soon enough but ya so today we played touch rugby its super fun and we played volley ball and basketball so much fun since we have 2 tongans and 2 samoans and an Australian super cool and ourt new zone leader is an American named elder Johnson he is so cool and then we are having a zone family home evening tonight but there are 4 sets of missionaries training in our zone right now this is going to be crazy and i cant wait to see the things that are going to happen im expecting big miracles with the branch my companion and in myself especialy im so glad i have this wonderful opportunity to be learning so much as a trainer i can see its going to be harder than last time but it will be amazing but i love you all and pray for you everyday and hope that you are learning as much as i am if not just pray and ask for help and set some goals to become better it works really well. well until next week i love missionary work.

i forgot i only have one area now i am only in Santa margarita no more gandara they have their own elders so cool

Week 69 - Sta Margarita 10/7/2012

well with the voting i have to register first and i cant do it the computers here are no good so ill just pray that mit romney wins and vote next time but for now i want to share somthing that changed my life forever this week i have been realizing that i have started to move backward a little and started doing some repenting lately so that i can be a better missionary and got to a poit where i thought i was good and then i want on exchanges with the zone leaders and we had our evaluation at the end of the day i started talking to Elder Tauteoli about what i had been doing trying to improve and he had just been on companion ship exchanges with the assistants the day before and wasnt sure why until now because one of the assistants gave him a talk by a mission president that literally was exatl what i needed and the basis of it is that it takes moe than our time and energy to serve God because that is something he can take away from us but what he cant take is our heart and mind so what we as missionaries need to do is give our heart and mind to Him and make a covenant that you will give in to what the mission president called a complete surrender  of ones self and it has changed everything even in the 2 days after that i had 2 of the most spiritual lessons i have ever taught in my entire mission and was able to actually help people because i was able to dicern thier thoughts and feel the spirit and becasue God allowed me to i was able to speak to thier hearts and every one we visited from then on has been excited for us to come back and they asked us when would be our next visit it was amazing then saturday we had exchanges with the branch elder miranda went with the branch president and i went with the second councilor and every one i visited with president ruedas came to church on sunday and we went from having 3 Melchizidek priesthood in Sta. Margarita to have 6 and haveing inactive members bear thier testimony in fast and testimony meeting and it was amazing even a few of the primary got up and bore thier tesimony about the priesthood and the one boy started crying as he thank his dad for being worthy of the priesthood because he knew he couldnt ennter into Gods kingdom if his dad didnt have the priesthood and it was just amazing and i also recieved revelation through a reminder of what the missionaries in our ward did in giveing a BofM and having the members write thier tesimony in the back and give it to a freind but i figured i would start with the aux presidents so i brout about 5 Aklat Ni Mormon with me and instead i was prompted to ask who would be willing to give one and one of the youth was the first to raise his hand and i was surprised that way more than five wanted to share its amazing this change isnt just affecting me but everyone around me and life is amazing and i know this is what a mission is supposed to be like even though i have been able to help people before i know it will even more effective now than before and i love it i know that the Atonement is the most powerfull tool we have at our fingertips all we need to do is use it for good well i love you all and pray for you always and hope your lives are going as good as mine and if not just try to use the atonement more fully and i promise it will become better

Week 68 - Sta Margarita 9/30/2012

so to start off this week was ridiculous i didn't teach a single lesson and most of the week i wasn't with my companion ahhh! but i think this week will be good because all we are doing is working and teaching but last week was way different so Monday was ok after our service project we had a good FHE for family week and then went home and went to sleep then Tuesday i washed some cloths in them morning studied and then we had district meeting at 1 instead of at 10 in the morning because the other missionaries were busy so then we had district meeting and then went home packed and headed to Catbalogan for the night and while there the lady that live across the street from the elders apartment is a member and she was companions with elder misaluchas mom but she also knew dad and she got her pictures out and i took pictures of a few of them and then i took a picture with her too but ya we went back in the apartment cooked, ate, went to bed, and when i woke up i had these weird bumps on my arm that itched but i wasn't sure what it was and we were short on time so we quickly headed out the door and went to Tacloban for our meeting with the new area health advisor and about half way though the meeting i could feel the bumps spreading over my whole body so they were having check-ups during the trainings so i went in and they said im allergic to something and i was covered in hives so not fun then we went back to the training and were supposed to be waiting for the office elders to take us to the pharmacy to get the medicine i needed but they changed their mind and said we were suppose to buy it ourselves but no one told me so then we were waiting and it just kept spreading so we went to go eat and when i came back i asked if they were able to get the RX and they said i was supposed to buy it but by this point i was starting to feel really weak and just not good so they called sister andaya and she said they needed to go buy my medicine right that second before it strated to spread internally and block my breathing which would not have been good so they ruched out and i fell asleep on the couch in the office and they came back and gave me my medicine and a ton of water and so then they had me change since i was wearing long sleeves and elder Ostler was kind enough to take pictures so i will send those but i ended up sleeping in tacloban until friday and we got on a van to go home and then sister andaya called saying i had a doctors appointment at 2 but i was already on the island of samar so she said just keep taking the medicine and i would be fine right now i still feel a bit weak but the hives and itching is all gone so then saturday we were on an assignment from president andaya to get an apartment in Gandara as quickly as possible so we found one took picture sent them and and hopefully they will be able to get that apartment so that elders can be assigned there next transfer and i dont have to travel as far all the time anymore and run out of money all the time because im spending almost 3000 out of my 8000 pesos every month on just travel so not cool thats way to much but so worth it but other than that everything is the same sacrament attendance is slowly rising and life is good again i love you guys so much and one thing i want to share is that priesthood blessings are amazing i know that that is the reason why i am ok right now after i got a blessing the hives just started going away and it was so cool i love our Heavenly Father and things like that just re-assure me that He loves me and i know He loves each and everyone of you and all we need to do to feel His love is by showing faith and following His commandments that is the way and there is no other (Mosiah 2:22-24) we literally owe Him our lives and we can never pay Him back but we should always be trying because that is how we can make Him happy.


oh and i may need your help president andaya wants us to vote so I'm going to try to cast an absentee ballot and vote for the first time from the Philippines.

Week 67 - Sta Margarita 9/24/2012

so that's cool they are doing good and i don't really know the difference between the class or division but that's still cool and those coaches will never go away we just need to understand that not everyone has the ability to think about others before themselves all he is thinking is that the kids really want to win when in reality the coach is the only one that wants it in that way the kids that don't get to play as much don't like it very much and those kids parents want to see their kids play just as bad as the the good kids parents do and how are those kids who aren't as good going to get good if they never have the opportunity but any way the world will never change so this week has been really tiring we didn't get to teach very much but our attendance went up both in Gandara and Santa Margarita we had a great lesson about enduring to the end with our investigator and the best part is her mom who has been a member since before i was even born started testifying to her daughter about the Book of Mormon and how that she has seen so many new people get baptized and they just disappeared and she was always wondering why they left and they were able to stay strong and active and she come to the conclusion that its because even though the church was gone from where they lived they were always reading the Book of Mormon and that is so the way she just testified until she started crying the spirit was so strong and i have gained a stronger testimony of that book because of it and also that having members be present in lessons is so important and i have decided when i get home that whenever i have the chance i need to help out the missionaries back home so that the kingdom of God can grow where we live i have seen what the church being strong in one area can do to the entire city since my friend elder Cypres had a meeting with the mayor of Tacloban that's huge Tacloban is the regional headquarters and they had a meeting about what they could do to help the people out in the city so cool and i know that can happen any where as long as we can bring the spirit in any one can change we have a member here in Calbayog and everyone missionary in the entire mission has heard about him before the missionaries taught him he lost his job because he was an alcoholic and he was a chain smoker and at the same time he is what they call a bayut which in English is a guy who wants to be a girl so he cross dresses and its really weird but now he is amazing and is the reason why this city is the way it is he is rich and he knows everyone so he is constantly taking the missionaries to meet with the mayor and the city council and every other rich person he knows and they are teaching doctors and lawyers and just tons of wealthy people and that's really hard to do here in the Philippines because those people have big gates around their houses and you cant ever talk to them with out a friend bringing you there first and that is what brother Niki does he is amazing i just hope to be able to learn something from this man he has only been a member for a year and i feel like he knows more about the gospel than any one else in this mission he is amazing he just gets it and i have learned a lot the reason why people are the way they are is because of their understanding of the gospel not because they can cite scripture but they understand and apply it to their lives and that is how we progress here on earth it has nothing to do with how much money we have but how much we understand the gospel and i love it so much i just hope i had a greater understanding of things but i feel like it will come with time as i continue to study and ask the Lord for help i will learn all that i need to learn well sorry about that that definitely wasn't my plan for my email today but the family is dong better we helped them a little this morning to put the walls up on their new house and the members here are amazing one of the members hired a carpenter to go work and build their house and 2 others bought the stuff they needed to put the roof on and they are just amazing and this week is going to be really tiring again tomorrow we dont get to work because we have district meeting and then we are traveling to catbalogan and then wednesday morning we are going to tacloban and then coming back and wont be back until like 12 at night wedneday and thursday we are going to take picture of an apartment in gandara so that hopefully they will have their own missionaries next trasfer and then friday we have our weekly planning and then saturday is a full day of work then sunday no work again and then next week is elder mirandas last week in the mission and then the week after that is transfer week so its going really fast but its been really hard but its so worth it im learning alot well love you all and thanks for you prayers i can see whats coming from it well next week

 one is a key chain thing a member gave me super cool and the other is while riding on a boat on the way home super beautiful in Gandara

Week 66 - Sta Margarita 9/18/2012

so this week not a lot of lessons but we had some crazy stuff happen and it has made me start thinking of how mysterious God is in everything that he does we have had some crazy encounters lately with people being close to dieing or losing fingers and its just crazy that it is all happened in two weeks so with sister ariola she is fine and so is her trainee sister bogenschutz but the crazier stuff happened later in the week but ill start with one thing that i have been struggling with lately with our investigator her name is mavie tan and she is 10 her parents are members but she never got baptized because there was no church in Gandara for almost 10 years so she never got baptized but she is awesome and always pays super close attention when we are teaching but she wont talk when we are teaching im having to learn how to read lips in another language and its way hard we dont know why she wont talk while we are teaching because as soon as we are done she talks to us and when we ate lunch at their house she was talking about school and everything but she reads the BofM every day and her parents said she prays every night before bed which is awesome she is an awesome example to everyone but she just wont talk oh well and with that thing dad said about the trees they used that here when we started the rescue and retention program as missionaries the said the roots are the doctrines of the gospel and what happened here in the Philippines is the roots werent deep and the trunk which is priesthood wasnt wide but there were tons of branches being thrown on the branches are the other members so with out deep roots in the doctrine and without priesthood the church cant stand it needs roots and priesthood first then we can start adding more members or branches to the tree and its so true thats why our group in gandara is great there are 5 Melchizedek priesthood and only like 40 members but sta margarita has like 300 members and only 3 Melchizedek priesthood so not good but they are starting to get it we are having a missionary fireside on saturday and the members have all been asked to bring a non-member friend or less-active member its going to be awesome the members are wanting to work with us now but we have just been so busy working in other areas that we havent had the chance to work with them but we have plans for this week so now for the crazy stuff on thursday we went to a member but the dad wasnt home so we couldnt teach but the reason he wasnt home was because he almost cut 3 of his fingers off and was getting a check up to make sure it wasnt infected and then we taught an awesome lesson to a less-active young women and her siblings while her parents where outside talking to their friends and she is going to teach her parents the plan of salvation and then invite them to listen to the lessons and get baptized too its going to be awesome but then we got a ride home and the dad that was at the hospital earlier was on his way back but not for him this time it was for his grandson who got run over by a motorcycle and got a bunch of stitches in his head he is good now thought just lots of road rash and then the mom and most of her kids were at church on sunday so cool we almost had 50 attendance in santa margarita then what happened in Gandara is so crazy i dont know how any of them survived ill be sending pictures of this we had an appointment with some investigators at 1 and so we were running a little late and as we turned the corner to where there house is the house couldnt be seen anymore it was underneath a giant bus so we got out and found the dad and asked what happened he said that his wife and 3 of thier kids were taking a nap and aparently the driver of the bus needed to take a nap too and he dozed off and when he came back to he paniced and went of the road and the bus was going to fast he ripped a coconut tree in half he didnt even take out the roots it was a clean cut all the way through like some one used a saw or something and then he went through their little tiny house then hit another coconut tree and and that stopped the bus on top of their house with them underneath this is after mom quite her job so she could go to church on sunday so they have no money and turns out she was reading the plan of salvation pamphlet while her kids where sleeping and then thier house got run over by a bus they have a few cuts and bruises but for the most part they are ok and now they have 15,000 pesos to rebuild their house which is way more than their house was worth so total blessing in disguise and it shows them that if they do all they can to serve God he will protect them and we decided we are really going to start focusing on that family and get them baptized as soon as possible they are amazing and then we had to go to Tacloban sunday night so that my companion could get his check-up since he is going home in like 2 weeks its crazy that we actually go home so weird. but on thing that i learned this week froma study i had from Alma he said in chapter 35 that the people became offended because of the strictness of the words of God and the first thing he does in the next chapter is remind his family about living the gospel before he goes and teaches others about it so i was thinking i ask people every week to have family prayer and scripture study and FHE but i dont know that that is happening at home so i just want to to promise you all that if you have those things and we follow the things we have been asked to do we will be blessed even if we dont understand why but it wont matter at the last day whether we understood why but that we did what we were asked thats important so i love you all and know that this is something thats hard but it is possible and if we do the things we need to before the things we want to do God will bless us even more than ever well thank you for the email and mom i dont know if ill even speak english when i go home so that it wont matter lol just kidding but dont worry about it thats a long ways away

Week 65 - Sta Margarita 9/11/2012

so this week has had some really cool things and some really scary things happen since one of the sisters in my district almost died sunday night crazy but ill get to that in a second tuesdaywe had district meeting and then went out to work and for the first two hours are always the hardest here because the have siesta every day and they sleep in the afternoon after lunch but its ok because once it got to around 3 we just taught every hour until we finished at about 8 and had to go catch a ride back to calbayog so we wouldnt have to walk the 5 kilometers home at night down the highway but the lessons were amazing we were able to teach exactly what was needed to here and we had a family commit to come to church on sunday for the first time ever as a whole family even thought they didnt come at least we are making progress but when we finish our last lesson with a part member family we were waiting for about 20 minutes for a ride and were about to just start walking when we see a van go by and my companion throws up his hitch hikers thumb as a joke and the van turned around and come back we were a little worried and turns out it was the assistants on their way to catarman to go on companionship exchanges with elder ostler so we got a free ride super nice then wednesday we went to Gandara and found some members we didnt know yet and got a referal from the members and we were also able to teach one of our other investigators. the members there are so cool and always willing to come with us to work and always giving referals and hopefully next transfer they will have missionaries of their own and be able to really progress then i went and had a meeting with the owner of the apartment we are supposed to be living in to find out a way for us to move back in to the apartment since the church paid a years rent on the house and we dont live in it so not good but we got some stuff figured out so that we can get tubig and be able to just shower and stuff with out having to worry about smelling bad after since the water there is nasty but thats ok we have been really working hard and having fun thursday was our day to catch up on all of our paper work since we were super behind but now its all up to date and ready to go we just have to make sure that doesnt happen any more and friday we were able to teach two really awesome lessons one to a family that hasnt been to church for like 15 years and we were able to find out their concern as to why they dont come anymore because before they just said they had no money but we knew they did because they would go to calbayog all the time just for fun and its farther than the church but turns out some members laughed at them before when they would try to read the english manuals and told them all kinds of lies about how the church worked and its all just a big mess of misunderstandings but hopefully we will be able to get it resolved soon then saturday Gandara liwat and we were able to teach 2 lessons one to our investigator who will hopefully be getting baptized oct 16 and another investigator who is a referal from the members and he was an investigator about 10 years ago whenever they last had missionaries in Gandara and he is really good and really listens just hope we are doing our part and teaching everything he needs to learn but then sunday was fun church twice fasting and then to a birthday party then to another members house for a second dinner so cool then home and when we got home i took off my dress shirt so that i could eat and so i sat down cut open my mango finished and then the phone rang the sisters were calling us because the zone leaders were in tacloban and asking us to go give a blessing to sister ariola who is training and american sister named sister borgenschutz who only speaks english for now and sister ariola had eaten some squid and she is really allergic so we got ready really fast and headed down the street to the sisters apartment where we found the branch missionaries sisters helping sister borgenschutz carry sister ariola to the road so they gave her to me and i carried her until we found something that could take her to the hospital and they left and we started running trying to call sister andaya to let her know what was going on and i finally talked to one of the assistants and the got us connected and we got to the hospital and they were just trying to keep her breathing and sent us to go buy medicine to make the swelling go down since they dont carry the medicine needed and so we went and no one sells it in all of calbayog so they gave her a different more expensive medice and it really calmed her down and got the swelling down and we finally got out of the hospital at about 10 or so and then they went home and we went and gave sister a blessing and went home and in the morning we got a thank you text saying that she was all better so that was nice but then i didnt get to email yesterday because we were in catbalogan for a zone activity and then slept there and had a meeting in the morning and then we are now back in calbayog and i am going to do a baptismal interview in a little and i only slept for about 2 hours last night so ill probably just go home do my laundry and go to bed and try to catch up on some sleep im dead tired right now and it feels good just hope i did all i could this week but there is always next week to improve well i love you all still and know that God is watching over you all and we can see that in our every day lives all we have to do is try to see it and ask him for help every morning on our knees that everything will work out the way it needs to well always praying. (I had a member send me this scripture right before i left San Roque but just now remembered to share it super cool Moroni 8:3).

Week 64 - Sta Margarita 9/2/2012

so not much since i was just in tacloban like all week but one thing is i don't think i have traveled so much in like my whole mission life in one week its crazy we are given 1700 pesos for travel for 30 days and i have already hit 1800 and I'm only half way through my 30 day tracking this is going to be exciting since Tuesday we got to listen to elder Cook of the seventy speak to us so cool and i learned something really important from elder Nielsen of the area seventy of the Philippines they were asking us for concerns we had and most of them were with the organization of the church and people not doing everything they were supposed to and he just said yes we know this the only reason is really that in America the church has been there for like 160 years but in the Philippines it has only been 50 so it just needs time and hard work to help it progress faster so i just need to do everything i can to continually follow up with the leaders about their meetings and their ht and vt because it is not happening at all most people don't even have an assignment so not cool and its hard to get an assignment when they don't call an elders quorum  president but anyway its going to be good i finally had my meeting with the branch president and we are going to have a missionary fireside and i told the members its going to be a video showing and testimony meeting and their ticket to get in to the video is an in-active member or a non-member friend its going to be awesome but i also talked to him about us wanting to join in on their meetings like pec and branch council and mcm so its going to be cool once we start getting those meetings going so that we can get more organized and make things go more smoothly but then sunday we had district conference and elder misalucha was the guest speaker so cool he told me to say hi to dad and then i met another sister who lives in catbalogan she was talking to my companion and then she asked him who is your companion and then she saw my name tag and said i know an elder coontz turns out her twin sister and her both served in bagio mission with dad and her sister is the siter i met before in a place called dagami they were both sister calda and she said she is going to try to find dad on face book the one has a son thats an RM and the other has a son about to leave so cool and here in the phillipines its a normal thing to call people fat so when they saw the pictures of dad of course thats exactly what they said since he was only like 150 pounds on his mission but elder misalucha said tell him dont worry because he is about the same i have a picture with him and some other missionaries so its cool to meet people who know dad and elder misaluchs wife also served in bagio mission but after elder misaluch went home but i didnt get to meet here and elder misaluchas sister also served there and said dad was her zone leader back then so cool but then we went home and got home at about 8:30 or so and got things ready then went to bed and now we are here emailing and thats about it for this week besides the fact that i am super tired from all the travel but its all good being tired is usually  good thing as ling as im doing what im supposed to God will give me the strength i need to keep going but about the preach my Gospel class you should totally attend and institute isnt for single people only its for all people ages 18 to 30 and i so wish i would have gone even if they said it was boring but it would have been nice knowing what the lessons were before i got to the MTC and the Christ like attribute section is definately my favorite and it can totally help any member its not just for missionaries its amazing and i know it can help you all mine is starting to fall apart and i might order a new one soon but its amazing and im so glad its been given to us. i have learned so much from it and without using it you wont know how to be an amazing missionary it helps you understand yourself and others so you can teach according to needs and it is an amazing tool for the rest of our lives well i love you all and hope i have shared something that can help you all this week but if not just know that God loves you and that will never change.

Week 63 - Sta Margarita 8/27/2012

well we are here in tacloban again but i will get to that in like 3 sentences or so because nothing happened this week. well we taught 0 lessons because elder barney is sick. but sunday i realized i only had like 400 pesos left and had to go to tacloban which costs 160 pesos by bus so thats 320 pesos round trip and that money is supposed to last me until saturday luckily here in tacloban we were able to get our reimbursments for travel and now i have 1000 pesos but this morning we got up at 2 again after going to bed at about 12 and got on a bus at 4 and got to tacloban at about 9 and went straight to the doctor and the doctor said that he doesnt know whats wrong with elder barney because the meds didnt do anything for him so then he said that elder barney needs to be admitted to the hospital so i called president andaya and then we met at the mission office and talked with him and they were going to admit him right away and i asked if we could email first so here i am but then he came back in and said we can just go to the hospital tomorrow since elder Cook the apostle is coming to speak tomorrow so we will see him first so cool im super excited to listen to him speak and itll be cool since all branch presidents are invited so that means my friends from dulag and tolosa will be there since it is for presidencies and single adults so cool i hope apostles keep coming and speaking so that i can learn more from them they are so amazing i dont know how they do it maybe some day i will be able to be as in tune with the spirit as they are so that i can help tons of people too that would be awesome well thats realy it i just did a lot of studying this week and dont think i have ever been this tired before in my entire life its crazy i can barely keep my eyes open even when i was talking to president earlier i was like falling asleep but luckily he didnt seem to notice i havent shaved yet to day but ill fix that later the bigest problem is we dont really have clothes to wear at least not that will last a week but i think president is going to help us out he is amazing well i love you all and i totally was thinking august just started but i guess its already the 27 here but happy birthday chad so crazy but get working on those merit badges and ill try to be better about remembering next year lol since i will be at home i hope i remember i just realized everything that is happening now is now my last of things in the mission my last thanksgiving christmas and all kinds of other stuff so crazy how fast things are happening it needs to slow down a little bit but i guess ill survive well love you all and dont forget to read your scriptures today because im sure God has something he wants to teach you from them he always does well good bye until next just pray for my companion with me and ill pray for all of you

8/31/2012
they told us to email you and let you know we are ok and there are no problems even thought there was a huge earthquake last night the wierd thing is we didnt know it happened everyone else in the entire mission knew except us the said a bunch of peoples houses fell down and we didnt even feel it but elder barney is in the hospital and i am back in calbayog with my new companion his name is elder miranda he is filipino and this is his last transfer in the mission hope i can make it a good one well i love you all and wish you all the best ill email you again in a few days we are perfectly fine and there are no problems

Week 62 - Sta Margarita 8/21/2012

so sorry no email yesterday we ended up in Tacloban yesterday to go to the hospital not fun but ill get to that later so this week has been really fun Monday we had a FHE with the family of the second councilor in the branch presidency and almost didn't have a ride home that would not have been fun at all but luckily we were able to catch a ride on the late night bus which comes through at about 9 or so and we were a little late coming home but it was worth it to help their family then Tuesday we had a zone meeting and it was super good they gave a training about Christ like attributes which are really what you need to be a good missionary i really love chapter 6 of preach my gospel it has helped me to change a lot here in the mission field and i never really thought about it until zone meeting but our zone leader always called it the heart of missionary work and then he explained how it is right in the middle of the book which is so cool and it is the main thing we need lots of really good missionaries have come through this mission and were horrible at the language but because they were Christ like missionaries they became some of the greatest missionaries i know so cool that just having that charity is all we really need to help these people but we cant just say ok I'm going to increase my charity today it doesn't work like that that's why its not just one Christlike attribute there are many because by us becoming patient diligent faithful hopeful virtuous and by being obedient we are able to gain love and charity for all people and learn how to be like Christ and that is who we should always be trying to become more like then Wednesday we went and taught an amazing lesson with the Doinog family we had talked to them the week before about sharing the gospel and helping bring their family to Christ but the we sat down as we were planning and it just hit us that they cant really share the gospel very well if they aren't living it themselves so we went in and explained to them about sharing the gospel and how like us as missionaries we cant commit people to read the BofM everyday if we aren't doing so ourselves because that's hypocrisy so then we read in 3 Nephi 17 where Jesus says unless ye shall repent he will destroy you or something like that and because we did this in the right way they responded in a good way and the mom was at church on Sunday but i was disappointed when i didn't see the father but its ok he has his agency but i have mine too and we are definitely going back and letting him know what he is doing to his soul but promising the lords servants that he would do something knowing that he wouldn't do it because now that's 2 sins and not one not good i wish people would just be more honest sometimes it would make things more easy but i guess that's agency oh well so then Thursday was fiesta here in Calbayog so we went and ate and some peoples homes and then went to the doctor for a check up because sister Andaya said to then the doctor said and x-ray is needed so not fun sister Andaya then said we would need to be in Tacloban Monday morning which is really hard to do since it takes 4 hours to get to Tacloban but ya then we went home and had our weekly planning and then had choir practice and headed home then Friday was companionship exchanges and i got to work with Elder Tauteoli he is awesome but one problem the two of us together way over 200 kilos and that is really hard for the pedicab drivers to peddle around with so as we rode we were surprised how well the guy was pulling us and then we made it to the place we needed to be and as he pulled off the road the road was higher up than the side walk so as he went down the hill with the one wheel the pedi cab started to flip over so i hopped out turns out it wasn't just flipping the tire bent in half it was ridiculous i haven't seen that much damage to a tire before without getting hit by a car or something it was crazy the wheel was underneath the part where we were sitting so crazy so we ended paying 150 pesos each instead of 10 pesos each to ride so that he would still have a job since he needed to now buy a new tire for his pedicab so we wont ever be riding in a pedi cab together ever again but then we had to ride on the roof of what we call a multi- cab for 40 minutes to get to Gandara and got super burnt then we had a member come work with us and we were talking to him about the missionaries that were assigned here before and he said sobell and i was like zobel and he said ya so I'm not sure but i think president zobel's son was assigned here maybe not but still that would be cool then we met some members that we didn't know yet and then it started pouring rain so we had to go home because if it raining the rides stop going back to calbayog so not fun but when we got to calbayog since Friday made one year for me in the Philippines we went out to eat at a place called Marcial's grill and it is super good but i had to use personal money since it cost 1000 pesos for both of us to eat there even thought that is only 25 dollars for two people to eat at a super nice barbecue restaurant its super expensive here and tastes delicious and then we had to go to the church for piano lessons and then home and Saturday we went back to Gandara me and elder barney taught our investigator from manila and i spoke the best Tagalog that i have spoken in my entire mission so cool i really like Tagalog and we got a new investigator then went home for cleaning our apartment since we werent here yesterday and then sunday was good 39 attendance in santa margarita and 50 in gandara and i spoke in both sacrament meetings and since elder barney and the other speaker were only prepared for 5 minutes i spoke for 10 minutes in Sta margarita and 15 in gandara so cool i love speking in sacrament especially when i haven't prepared its so much more fun to just talk for 15 minuets about one topic that goes along with the other talks then we went home but the best part was that instead of us paying 35 pesos to go to gandara it was free a member gave us a ride in his CAR so cool a CAR then another member paid for our ride home souch nice people here i love it then we went to bed at about 11 when we were don with choir and a dinner appointment we got home at 9 thirty and started getting things ready for tacloban so we went to bed at 11 and got up at 2 and we left at 3 for tacloban an got there at 7 and went to president andayas house to get the papers we needed for the doctor and then went in for the x-ray then we ate and waited until about 12 for the doctor to finally look at it then we got to go to our doctor and walked in and he put the x- ray up and said elder you have bronchitis i just laughed because I'm fine this was all elder barney and i told hm he was sick and he didn't believe me so i told sister andaya and turns out he has had bronchitis for almost 3 months and hasn't done anything about it so now he has medicine for the week and we got on a van to come home last night at about 8 and got home at 11:30 so we were super tired and we have to do it again next week i don't really want to but whatever ill survive and next week is transfer week so if one of us transfers we are going to tacloban monday coming home and going back again thursday afternoon no fun at all but ya life goes on well i love you all and hope you all are having as much fun as i am even if we cant enjoy our live together right now i know its so worth it this is changing my whole life

 well the youth got a hold of my camera so i had some pictures of them then we took a picture as a zone and me on the top of a multi cab so much fun then me and the people who cut down the trees last week

Week 61 - Sta Margarita 8/13/2012

so this week has been pretty fun and even faster than last week but part of it is because of what i did to try and help my companion i wanted him to see what would happen if he transfered and got put with just a disobedient missionary so i did some things like waking up at 8 but not really i still woke up at 6 i just didn't let hi8m know i was awake so then there was no exercise and no studies and we didn't pray as a companionship when we left the house and he didn't say a word to me and as we worked we only made it to one person i wanted to show him how hard this work can be if God isn't helping us so then wednesday i switched back i got up at 6 i exercised i had my personal study and we had companion study and then we had district meeting and we went out to teach and were able to fill our time until about 6 when the people weren't home and then the person that was supposed to work with us wasn't there so i said well nothing else to do lets go home and he just looked at me funny but still followed me home but i had started a fast that's why we went home he didn't know but i went home studied again had language study and i had another personal study then i went to bed and he ate dinner at about 10 then the next day back to being the most obedient missionary i know how to be and it came time for our weekly planning which was the reason why i was fasting because one part of weekly planning is called companionship inventory which is time you take to tell your companion his strengths and also the weaknesses so that way we can make goals to improve and i asked him if there was anything he say that i did last week that he wanted me to change and he told me no i was a little upset that he didn't even notice the difference so then i told him the things i did and he just was like ya i thought that was weird so i said ya and you didn't even say anything to me why??? he had no idea how to answer so i told him how i felt. i feel like i have been sent here to help elder Barney to prepare for something big i don't know what it is yet i don't know if it will be an assignment or if it will be helping another missionary become obedient but all i know is that if i don't do what the lord wants me to do right now with elder barney his mission wont be what i needs to be and i just told him that i love him the members love him and we just want to see you improve so that you don't waste these two years just following your companion around and he actually took it a lot better than i thought he would and then we went out to work and went finding or tracting which i am not very good at but we didn't find a member and were able to set an appointment with them so we could come back and share with them and hopefully get them coming back to church too but then friday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders and i got to work in calbayog with elder misalucha whose dad is coming to district conference in sept so its going to be super cool i might get to meet another person that served a mission with dad but the exchanges were awesome the people here in calbayog are super nice and friendly even the rich people we were able to talk with 3 or 4 super rich people whose houses were giant and were able to get return appointments with them then we went to the church because elder misalucha gives piano lessons every friday and saturday night but then saturday we went to gandara which is just so far away its not even fun to go there until i get there and start working its such a good area we get referrals there every week and the members want to work because there haven't been missionaries there for like 10 years and it just opened back up and last week we had 52 attendance and a lot of the members don't even know that there is a church in Gandara right now so we are going to start focusing a little bit more of our time there its so cool we ride on little boats down the river to get to our investigators house and then sunday was cool because president maxfield came to church in Gandara the ol\nly problem with gandara is most people don't have the priesthood so they need the missionaries to do things but the mission is talking about hopefully putting missionaries into Gandara again since back in 99 they had two sets of missionaries they are super excited and i hope i get to be the one to open it back up next transfer but i doubt it will happen oh well but ya attendance went up again in gandara and they didn't even know president maxfield was coming and we had 79 attendance the only bad part is we have church on the first floor of a members house and its super hot and crowded but so cool well that's about it besides the fact that i have been fed by members more in these last 3 weeks than i have in my whole mission so far its awesome i love free food and it makes it so much easier to get back to work well this morning we had a district activity we played football and foursquare but then the branch president showed up and said they were going to but cutting down trees so that's what we did we tied a rope to the tree then chopped it down with a machete they are still about 5 feet tall and apparently will keep growing so cool but we chopped down like 15 trees today so cool i have a picture with all the trees but i forgot my card reader so ill send them next week well i love you all and i plan on writing some letters tonight since we have a post office right down the street so hopefully i can send a few here in the next week or so well until next week.

that's so cool Bailey is married but totally weird at the same time that my friends are getting married i feel old now...

Week 60 - Sta Margarita 8/5/2012

so this week has been really cool we taught some really good lessons after receiving an awesome training from the assistants and President Andaya our work is really going to change and i feel like it is helping my companion to be able to more involved in all the lessons rather than just me saying ok now elder barney is going to teach you about baptism he just knows that is what he is supposed to teach as soon as i stop talking and it works really well so Wednesday was our first day of work because of the training we had but it was good we taught 4 lessons and contacted a referral we got he is awesome and he has a good job to he is a teacher but he is also part of the program they have here called DEPED and they basically like give trainings to other teachers and go to seminars and stuff its really cool and we have an appointment with him tomorrow but then Thursday we had weekly planning and i decided our planning wasn't thorough enough so we had a really long planning session this week we planned from 1 until about 5:30 it was ridiculous but so worth it this week should be amazing so then Friday we had some really spiritual lessons one with our investigator who is a lay minister for the catholic church and has been going to school for a really long time for it just kept asking us all these questions that were completely irrelevant to what we were teaching but the spirit helped us be able to answer his questions and still bring it back to the doctrine we were teaching it was so cool i don't think i ever could have answered those questions before and i even remembered scriptures from the bible to share with him so cool i like never read the bible but it can come in handy. but in the end he just thanked us for the time to talk after i invited him to read and pray but he didn't take me serious so then i was prompted to tell him we would not be coming back until he read and prayed and received and answer that the BofM was true so cool to bad he just kept hardening his heart with everything we shared and wouldn't let anything in but hopefully he got something out of the lesson i have really just been trying to focus on even if they don't learn anything from the lesson i want them to know i love them because that seems to be the only way people start to listen to what we have to say is once they feel that love they really change and its so cool but then Saturday Elder Barney was sick so i started reading our search for happiness really weird i never liked reading before my mission but i read that entire book in just a few hours so cool i actually enjoy reading now just one more good thing that is coming from my mission but ya Sunday was fun i taught the youth Sunday school class again in Sta. Margarita and then i blessed the sacrament in both sacrament meetings and i helped the branch presidents councilors give a calling i never thought i would be teaching more people how to give callings and i almost got to give another child a name and a blessing but i taught the first councilor how to do it instead i figure i can only do so much for them while I'm here so i need to make the most of it but I'm super excited and really loving this area but i looked through my camera on Sunday with some of the youth at my pictures from san roque and dulag and started crying a little bit i guess i just wont look at my pictures anymore so that wont happen but ya anyway today me and elder barney are going to this super nice hotel called ciriaco because it has like a super nice restaurant and hopefully its not to expensive but it has lots of different kinds of food so I'm excited to have a little more variety in my diet well i love you all and sounds like you all had a good time wish i could have been there but there is always the next one hope you all took tons of pictures and i cant wait to see them well this week is hopefully going to be amazing and it ll probably be even faster than this week was since i feel like I've emailed you all like 3 days in a row not 3 weeks but its still really cool well have a nice day and use your sabbath day wisely you never know you might just learn something today that could change your life forever

Week 59 - Sta Magarita 7/29/2012

well this week has probably been the fastest i have ever had on my mission i feel like i just emailed you yesterday but its all good so this week was different had my first district meeting with sister missionaries its way better than a bunch of elders they participate a lot more and it makes things go a lot more smoothly so then Tuesday after noon we taught 4 lessons to both members and investigators and had a really good time the only thing is my companion doesn't really say a whole lot during the lessons but they were some of the most spiritual lessons i have taught and every one of the inactive members we taught that day came to church on Sunday but then Wednesday was fiesta so cool 3 areas and every one has had fiesta while i have been there but it makes work impossible so we went around and since elder barney is awesome and he designed our area map on the computer he printed out little versions of the different parts of our area and we walked around and he drew roads on the map that weren't there yet so that we can make a really accurate large map to put on the wall and then submit it to the municipality hall since they done have a map then we ate at some members houses and played spent some time with the branch president since i just met him for the first time that day after like 4 days in the area but it was good he is awesome then Thursday of course is weekly planning so we studied in the morning and then headed out to work and we were only able to teach one lesson to an investigator who said the elders hadn't been back in 3 months i wasn't really very happy with that they kind of neglected their investigators because elder barneys last companion started teaching piano lessons to the members which is good but not necessarily one of the best ways to use missionary time but that's ok since i wont be teaching piano lessons since i don't know how to play the piano well enough but then Friday we taught a few investigators and members again and one of the investigators is a part member family the dad and one brother aren't members so i invited dad to listen and he was great during the lesson and when i asked him to be baptized he said i cant i was kind of like every one can get baptized but then he explained he only comes here every so often because he has a job in manila and travels back and forth so then i just kind of asked him to come to churchon sunday and see why his family is so happy and loves this church and he said alright anything to help my family it was awesome and he did come to church and his son was actually the speaker in sacrament meeting so it made it even better sothen saturday i gave a training on missionary work in our activity for our special sacrament meeting so we can start getting things going out there and then there was other trainings and then lunch and then we headed to the house of a refferal and set an appointment to go back to them then she took us to her firends house so we could teach them too and it was awesome we kind of let her do the talking at first and they thought we only spoke english and were really nervouse to talk to us until i started talking to them then they were surprised and we ended up with about 20 people standing around just to see the americans that speak warry and then one of them asked us what our job was so i pulled out a restoration pamphlet and taught an overview of what our message is and asked who would want to listen to the whole message when we go back later this week and we got like 7 new investigators and its awesome I'm really enjoying this new place its so much easier to find people to teach but then Sunday we had church and stuff and our first sacrament meeting had like 40 attendance and then we had Missionary Coordination Meeting and i asked the branch president for a copy of the membership records so we can help find the members that we don't know yet and then he said they aren't correct and i asked why and turns out I'm going to have to help these people learn how to use the MLS program here too so the branch president is going to make a schedule with me so that i can help him clean out the records of the people that moved out and the people who have died so that our attendance percentage con go up so turns out what i learned in my last area is going to be used even more than i thought but then in our special sacrament the Sunday school teacher was late and because Sunday school is first here i just got up and taught the lesson and and then we had sacrament meeting and i was the chorister and it was awesome sinve we have been having storms like crazy the power went out like 4 times just during sacrament meeting its crazy how often the power goes out here but the best part was we had 6 investigators come to shurch in our special sacrament and our attendance was 57 so not right that the special sacrament has a higher attendance then the actual branch but its cool since we had more than 100 attendance in total and thats what we report i just want to see our attendance higher than the zone leaders since their attendance is like 130 it wont be to hard but im excited to see whats going to happen in this area when we really get things going and do some real work here its going to be amazing well thats all for now i would be super jealouse of you all at the beach if i hadnt been living on the beach for the past year and since the nicest beach side hotel in the whole mission is like right down the street id say its pretty nice here the only bad thing is i cant swim like you all but thats ok i think ill survive well i love you all and wish you all the best and hope everything continues to be smooth easy going while you guys are all together just dont forget to take lots of pictures for me


so i have only taken a few picture since i have been here and only took 2 myself one is my district here and the other is just like my favorite person in this area she is a cute little girl her name is courtney and apparently she doesnt ever talk to white people but she talks to me all the time its awesome here i will try to take more pictures its beautiful everywhere