Week 84 - Bonbon 1/20/2013

well this week was really good we were able to go on some more exchanges we worked in a place called Allen and they speak Tagalog there so it was really fun to practice and its cool because i got to work with elder Smith again who was in my district last year when he was a brand new missionary but we were able to get a few lessons in and do some good finding and we talked about some concerns they are having in their ward and we think we may have found a way to more fully help them out and then because there are two words in Allen we then worked with the Allen 2 elders where i got to work with elder Lenoy who is from Davao on the island of Mindanao and he is awesome we were able to teach 5 lessons during the day and give out some Books of Mormon but the best part of the exchange is always when we sit down at the end of the day and talk about ways we can improve its was a weird day i felt something was bothering him i and i found out at the end of the day that he was really nervous to work with me which to me was really weird Ive never had anyone tell me that before and at the beginning of the day i asked him to lead in all parts of the work for the day whether it was finding or teaching and he seemed a little hesitant to accept but he did and he did awesome but because he was nervous of messing up it actually made him think to much and he was getting jumbled up and tripping over his words but when he started to feel the spirit the lessons all ended up really good and 3 of the 4 people we invited to church were there on Sunday and it was an awesome day the attendance went up we had investigators at church and we were able to have a meeting with the stake president and talk about some of the things the missionaries had seen in their wards and branches that they feel could change and make the meetings more spiritual and it went well and ya just a great week and to answer your question yes me and elder Myers are the zone leaders for Catarman zone its a really fun calling that keeps me busy all the time and helps me to focus on the work more fully and as the zone leaders we had the opportunity to give a training to the zone about working with the leaders as we were asked to by president Andaya but we also added a part on the end of the training about working with your companion because how can we work things out with the leaders if we cant even work things out with our own companion and it was really good we have see some big changes in our zone this week and everyone is teaching more lessons and our reports say that they are meeting with their leaders every week now as well and its really cool because it is helping them to have members work with them more often and we really hope to see them continue to progress throughout the rest of this transfer. well i love you all and hope to keep learning as much as possible and i hope you all can try to look for opportunities to work with the missionaries and help them out a little because it is really hard work and it just works best if the members come along and help out. and just something funny i met a little girl who is the daughter of an inactive member whose name is ABCDEF pronounced ab-see-deaf and a missionary that was assigned here actually gave them the name so weird but i laugh every time i see that little girl

Week 83 - Bonbon 1/13/2013

this week was really crazy we have had a lot of stuff happen last time i emailed you i was actually in tacloban for a meeting we had with president andaya we learned a ton then we went home on wednesday because elder myers was sick and had to have a check up then when we goy home after no sleep in tacloban and a 6 hour van ride we went straight into companionship exchanges with the catarman elders i worked in catarman and elder myers worked in bobon we had a great spirit led day and found an inactive member who is crazy rich he lives in spain and is only here for business for a few weeks and his mom lives in our area so we got a few refferals and set up an appointment to go back and visit him then we had a few lessons and headed home for our evaluation then elder myers came to catarman and we headed to mondragon for another companion exchange and we both had great days tons of lessons and me and elder johnson were able to go finding for a while and prayed about what color house we needed to visit then i got the answer of blue and he got green so we turned around and started walking and saw a blue-green house and it started raining so the people invited us inside it was so cool everyone is that house is wealthy so we got to share a little about the resstoration and set return appointments with all 7 of them so cool their work is awesome in mondragon then saturday we were invited by the stake president to give a training for the young single adults about missionary work and then we had an interview in the afternoon then we attended a broadcast from the area presidency and went home so no work in my area all week i dont know anything but i did get to do a little work last night but only 1 lesson then we had some crazy promptings to go to another area in our zone  that night and we dont know why and still dont know why but we went and slept on the tile floor in their apartment because the only have 2 mattresses in their apartmentso fun night then this morning we played a little soccer and studied and now we are in catarman to buy food and things but all in all a great week and i am so excited to keep going we are so busy all the time it makes it so much easier to focus on the work and its so nice that my companion is totally on the same page with everything its so cool we like think the same things and just kind of do things the with out telling each other what the other is thinking im so excited to keep working well love you all

P.S. mom i love reading about the things you are doing in your sunday school class its so amazing to hear about how this program is working but one thing that i noticed is something that i have seen in myself as well something my last companion asked me to do and that was to be more open minded to the things others are doing and we should never criticize anyone for what they do its always better to try and understand why people do things the way they do before we say anything its something that i still struggle with myself but if we try to understand people and where they are coming from we can more fully help them ive noticed in my self i speak first then see what happens then have to feel bad first in order to try and go talk to them about what the problem was its better to do the aproach first that way we arent fixing 2 problems only one and we are better able to adjust to what others need and one thing we have been focusing on a lot in our zone right now is not complaining about hard circumstances in preach my gospel in chapter 8 about accountability and one part talks about never blaming anyone (or anything) else for our circumstances if you feel its hard having lots of people its probably because our Heavenly Father wants to teach you something i love you mom and sorry this is my email but it is something that has really helped me and i feel at this time it can help you as well so that your class can become an amazing spiritual experience every week no matter what has happened in your life or theirs during the week i know it can be spiritual if you are all seeking for the learning

Week 82 - Bonbon 1/7/2013

well im am all better i am out of the hospital and working hard i got to go back to sta margarita for a few days and had some members feed us we actually cooked with the corkys sauce it was amazing then i found out i was transferring so i packed my bags and headed to tacloban for my check up which i did not go to i talked sister andaya out of it since i feel normal again and she agreed so i stayed in the office all day and helped sister andaya get things organized from the hospital papers from all the sick elders and sisters and ate some pizza and met up with some other elders and had a good night talking about gospel stuff then friday morning was transfer meeting i got my call and everyone was joking saying i was going to go to the middle of no where and be in another super unorganized place but im not i opened my call and i am now companions with elder myers he is from texas and we are assigned in bobon wich is in catarman zone and it is also the farthest zone away from tacloban it takes about 7 to 9  hours on a bus or 5 to 7 hours on a van and it is amazing i am assigned in a stake and a ward that has about 160 attendance every week and the members work with the missionaries all the time and i am so stoked to be here elder myers is actually a freind of mine from the mtc he goes home one transfer after me so its so cool we were actually in the mtc together for 3 weeks this is the first time i have been companions with some one with like the same amount of time as me left and we are having so much fun we had a great first day i stayed in catarman friday night because we got home at like 2 in the morning from tacloban and then i went back to bobon at about 7 and we went straight to work it was amazing we taught 4 lessons then my companion started feeling sick and we headed home this area is awesome and its even better because it is my trainer elder andrus first area and elder ostlers last area before he went home and on sunday it was amazing even though the power went out testimonies kept going the youth and single adults just got home from a temple trip so it was awesome and then we got invited to a meeting with the stake council and i got some time to talk to them and gain their trust and i was able to give a few suggestions about how they can have a more spiritual sacrament meeting and the stake received it humble and thanked me and it just feels great to be here i cant wait to meet with them some more and see what else we can do to help out around the stake and better coordinate the work of the missionaries and members it will be awesome i am so stoked about this transfer amazing area and an amazing companion we are already freinds and we both love all the same things so its going to be great we are making some awesome new goals and we are hopefully going to set a good example for all the missionaries around us well im still not completely sure what the day is but i will find out soon i just got a letter from the office and i will forward it to you so you can get me the information i need but i don't think it has a date on it but i think it will be june 3 but i will ask because the transfer day is now june 5 and not june 22 so we will hopefully know next week well thank you for fasting you guys are the best family ever i love you all so much and i do pray for you all individually every night before bed and i hope that helps your lives become easier well sorry not much happened this week but im excited and hoping for big things this transfer

Week 81 - Sta Margarita 12/31/2012

alright so this has been an interesting week i am doing better still sick with dengue but after i talked to you all last the next day we left for tacloban and then had a check up that night and the next morning the mission didnt want to put me in the hospital so they just took me in for checkups but the doctors were really worried because i was really dehydrated and actually almost pass out in the hospital luckily i caught myself before i went down and then then proceeded to get me ready and as they put my IV they took blood and it wasn't the right color because i was completely dehydrated so then i spent a few days in the hospital and got out sunday and we are still here in Tacloban hopefully going to be going home tomorrow there were lots of people in the hospital including the Andayas their daughter who is 14 had a seizure sunday night and ended up in ICU for a while she and i both got out of the hospital sunday. i got my package it came in handy and then i kind of gave a lot of the candy away to some random guy who came into the mission office trying to get money but all i had was candy so thats what i gave him for his kids i put it all in that stocking sorry if that was something special but his kids needed it more than me. the piano is awesome I'm really hoping to get better before i go home well sounds like life is still going for you all nothing ever changes super stoked for Patrick that's going to be awesome well tyler is next and i hope jenna gets assigned somewhere in Bakersfield that would be funny well its transfer week so i might not be in Sta margarita next week but ill let you know next monday

Week 80 - Sta Margarita 12/23/2012

well not a lot happened this week but we recieved some revelation during our weekly planning and we are going to e focusing on the active members first because the only difference between them and the inactive members is they attened church on sunday but they still dont read scriptures the dont fullfil their callings and ya they need to step it up first before we can really get this branch to progress so we have another family home evening tonight and we are going to be teaching all the members hopefully this week because its christmas break so most people dont have work and this week elder dariagan gets to take over everything as part of the training program i just kind of guide him and give suggestions and thats all its going to be different but itll be ok he is really excited well saturday we came home and my knees started hurting and i thought it was nithing but when i woke up it had spread throughout my whole body and i was just in pain from head to toe and i had a fever not fun after church we went to calbayog to by some medicine and earlier this morning when i woke up at 5 i still had a fever of 101 but the pain was gone and the fever has slowly been going down since i ate breakfast thismoning im hopeing it will be completly gone later this evening because i could barely walk yesterday not fun but im feeling much better now well thats about all not a whole lot happened but we had a great family home evening last week and we are hopeing to have another later but i totally used dads lesson about the bicyle for the whole family and it really seemed to have a big effect on this family i just hope they can remember what was taught well i love you all and hope you all have a great christmas and im expecting to see some pictures next week well thankk you

Week 79 - Sta Martarita 12/17/2012

so great week not perfect but it never will be just happy that we were able to follow the spirit but just to comment on yur lesson i am actually in Ether in my personal Book of Mormon reading well at lest one of them receently i decided to start reading a new Book of Mormon after i reach 2 Nephi everytime so that eventually i will be in almost all time priods of the book of mormon all at the same time but every time i start reading a new one i pick a new topic to study about so the first one is an assignment given to us by president andaya and that is to mark the saviors name everytime it is mentioned mark christ-like attributes, anything from the doctrine of Jesus Christ or faith repentance baptism and enduring to the end and marking every where that Jesus speaks and its really cool and the new one i start is members of the God Head and any mention of the atonement whether it is some one using the atonement or it directly mentions the atonement and its helped a lot but any way i found it interesting in Ether the other day when it says that the Brother of Jared no longer had faith because he had seen Jesus and could no longer have faith because he had a perfect knowledge super weird to think about but then Jesus commands him never to sin again and i just thought its pretty crazy that he actually did that and how hard that is to accomplish but ya recently my and elder dariagan started to have a little bit of contention and i wasn't sure what was wrong i just know something was bothering him and it worried me that he didn't want to talk to me about it so one day it got really bad and i just got on my knees and asked for the strength to be able to talk to him and not just try to keep going as if nothing is wrong because work is not effective if that happens and so we talk for a few hours and finally after a while he opened up and told me how he feels like i dont include him enough and that i really dont understand the people we are around and of course it hurt but it was true majority of the Filipino missionaries in the mission don't really like me and at Christmas conference elder dariagan had the chance to be with them and not me and they talked about me a lot im not happy to know that the mission is talking bad about me behind my back but it helped a lot has changed in our work and it has been an answer to my prayers i recently decided i needed to ask our Father in heaven to humble me because i have been feeling really bad and i wasn't sure why so this all happened last week but this week we have been able to do some great work over a few days we worked Friday Saturday Sunday and had some really good lessons and we are able to teach with unity a lot more and i really just made it a goal that even though i am training that that doesn't mean that all i do is teach but i decided i want to just learn from him about him and really just every one around me and a lot has changed people are more willing to talk to us now that we are working together as one we have some really good new investigators and i know this has nothing to do with us but it is all the Lord but we are teaching the part member families that we have been trying to teach ever since i got here and they actually just decided to join in on the lesson instead of just leaving like they used to do and on Sunday our attendance came back up to almost 50 and we had some referrals from the branch and we are going to go teach these people later this week so that we can help the members out with their missionary responsibility  and things are going good we have a FHE later this evening with a family who i have been trying to get a FHE with eer since we got here and things are really just starting to fall into place me and elder dariagan still have our differences but that doesnt have to effect our work as long as we keep talking and keep setting goals to more fully adjust to one another and embrace one anothers background and keep working toward becoming more Christlike missionaries with one another i have seen recently there is no difference in missionaries new or old in the mission we are all even working towards the sme pupose and that is to become like Christ and help the Fathers children in the process and its going to be an exciting time when we finally get to the point to where we understand all the Father wants of us here and get to apply it to the rest of our lives i love you all and know that you all have so much potential and i pray for you to be able to reach that potential all the time and i know you will all some day be ready to stand tall in front of our Father in heaven and just talk to him face to face as a friend as he should be our friend well thank you for the letter and thank you for sending that package out but i dont really know to much about the skype thing yet but i will be emailing again on dec so i guess ill tell you then if not we may be able to text you or something i really dont know but ill be sure we get to talk dont worry oh and i gave my face book password to a member here so they could add me as a friend but they said you posted a bunch of stuff on facebook thats cool i figured my face book still had the picture from when i left but i guess not thanks you mom your the best

Week 78 - Sta Margarita 12/13/2012

well i did get the letter from the robertsons super nice thanks for the scriptures brandon i always love getting mail even though i have been horrible at sending it i have a ton of letters i still need to send that were supposed to be before christmas but we got crazy busy with dengue and the typhoon and we had a few other things happen and thats why i am emailing today instead of yesterday. but ya so here in calbayog we didnt really see the point in being inside aparently in TAcloban it rained pretty strong but here it only sprikled for a few minutes and was super cloudy but its ok and we did not clean because we are moving apartments and it hasnt happened yet but all of our stuff is in our bags and things so its kind of a mess with all of our things in the front room but still ok we havent been able to move yet but hopefully later today we will get things going and move into our area well this week was quite crazy after the typhoon we got up on wednesday got everything ready that we needed and headed to catbalogan as soon ans we got the all clear so that we would be closer to tacloban and then thursday we traveled to tacloban and and practiced singing for the christmas conference and then we had a sweet fireside where everyone was given a part of the book of mormon and was asked to perform a skit wich was really hard for us since we didnt have time to practice until like 1 hour before the actual program started but our skit was Alma the younger it was super funny im going to try to get a copy of it but ill try to explain the sisters were the narorators for our skit and they just would read a scripture and then we would act it out so the read about the sons of mosiah and alma going around destroying the church the people cast as those people went and beat up the priest it was super funny and then they read the scripture about the angel coming to visit and then our zone leader elder johnson ran across the stage and tackled elder kennison who was playing alma the younger and he started yelling at elder kennison like he was mister T super  funny then because the sons of mosiah and alma the younger were 2 tongans 2 samoans and 1 little tiny filipino they all pretended to faint like little girls and then they carried elder kennison unto alma the older who was elder wooley and elder wooley covered him with a sheet and him and the priests knelt down and t\curtains closed and then i ran on stage and elder kennison ran off so then they opened the curtain after saying 2 days later and then thaey read the scripture about how alma gets his strength back and how he is a new person and what not and the i came out from under the sheet everyone was laughing so hard then i had the job of taking our huge joke and turning it into a spiritual skit to and they had me bare my testimony in front of all the missionaries in the whole mission and im pretty sure that is the biggest group of people i have ever bore my testimony in front of in my whole life i was praying so much before we started that i wouldnt say something sarcastic and what made it worse my freind yelled out its elder Coontz and i started laughing but it was good i had one assignment during my testimony and that was to talk about grace and then after that we sang amazing grace so cool for some reason my zone when they planned this thought i would be the best to turn a joke into something serious because the planned this while we were in the hospital but it was amazing and then i stayed the night in CAnmogsay which was part of my district in san Roque so i stayed in tolosa for probably my last night ever but thats ok the next day was even better we played games that the office elders and sisters made and the purpose of the games was to build christlike attributes but there were still points for winning the game so my team lost every game we had the least points out of everyone but we won most humble i was really happy to here that because a lot of the elders that won for points were the elders that the whole time we were playing were just talking trash and talking about how they were number one i realized something in my self that day is im not that person anymore who wants to win usually i dont even want to play if i know im going to lose but now its just fun and most of the time i forget what the score is everytime we play anything and it makes things a lot more fun for everyone well sorry this is all that really happened but the reason why i didnt email yesterday was becuase we spent the day with elder neilsen of the are presidency super cool i leaned a ton the training he gave us was about a talk given by david a bednar and i think its called the atonment and mortality but it talks about the enabling power of the atonement most people only really know about the cleasing power but the cleasing with the enabling power makes it so much better i have already been able to aply it to my life and it helps a lot if you have the chance you should look it up and read it it makes prayers a lot more meaningful and seems to help you learn a lot more as well it is amazing and the neilsens are so amazing i wish i could have spent more time with them they invited me to eat lunch with them and we talked about a lot they taught me a lot about what i have done on my mission that i didnt even realize had happened super cool such insightful people well thats all for this week i love you all and know that even though we werent able to do much teaching we were most definately doing missionary work and i know i have been enlightened and i hope to more fully aply the things i have learned to everthing i do well this week i have a question in my personal stud i was reading in mormon 3:12 and mormon says his prayer was without faith i followed the refferences and learned something interesting and just want to see what you all get from it and see if what i got was really the reason why please send my anything you get because if a prophet says he had no faith then it makes my wonder how strong is my faith but i think i understand it now. well thank you for everything mom hopefully ill be able to get the package before i transfer but if not i will still be able to get the members the gifts through other missionaries thank you mom you are the best


 oh and i also got invited by the polonesian missionaries to sing with them during Christmas confference we sang a tongan hymn called folofola mai a sisu or thus saith the lord it is an amazing song and super fun to sing and i have been trying to learn as much about other langueges as possible it helps to better understand and i have started to learn ilongo from my companion its super fun well i love you again bye bye