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