Tuesday, March 5, 2013

A Missionary on a Carabao?! Received 03-04-2013

Hiya Guys! :)

Beautiful!
Yup, Sister G E's awesome.  Teaching her co-worker is going great!  Her name is Sister M J G and we're also teaching H F(20) and P(17) her kids.  We taught them the whole lesson of the Restoration through Joseph Smith this week and they were super receptive and really fun to teach.  Then we watched the Restoration video with them last night.  Afterwards Sister J was telling us that she believes that all of it's true and that she's very excited to go to church and come closer to Heavenly Father.  She said that when she used to live on Ilo Ilo island (about 6 hours away) she always wanted to go to our(LDS) church but the closest one was 2 hours away.  So now after 20 years she's getting the chance again to listen and join.  We asked her if she would be willing to be baptized and she said she is!  Woot! :)  We've only known her for a week but thanks to Heavenly Father's guidance and Sister G E's sharing the gospel to her she's already prepared to come unto Christ.  Pretty awesome.  Her kids both said that they would continue to pray about it but are excited to come to church next week.  Again I say Woot :)

Sad to hear Gma Miller's not doing well.  Please make sure and send her my love for me.  I'll continue to keep her in my prayers.  Glad to hear Cousin Bruce was able to come visit :)  I'll definitely keep my eye out for a souvenir for him.  And yes I will DEFINITELY pray that the strawberries in Cali don't freeze so that there'll be plenty of jam for me when I get home :)

Oh my, what is that I see away-far-off?











Pretty awesome that Chels gets to go to Chicago.  If I wasn't in the Philippines I might say I'm jealous :)  Before the mission I was totally against travelling and figured that I'd be happy staying in PG my whole life and not touring other places but turns out the rest of the world is a pretty interesting place haha.  Hopefully I'll get to do a bit of travelling after the mish at some point. Pretty freaking amazing that she might have a job as a Dental Assistant set up already!  I'm kinda jealous, that's a pretty legit job.  We're all getting old eh?

Macho-Macho-Missionary!
Hahahahahaha!  I can't believe that you just made a day in the 50s sound like a a nice amazing warm day where people should be outside playing in the park! :)  I am going to freeze to death when I get home!!!  At least I'm comin back in the summer haha, I'm getting used to having nothing but 80s every day.

Answers to Mom's ?'s:
We've been doing surprisingly awesome health-wise lately.  I haven't been sick for almost 2 transfers!(knock on wood).
Transfers are next Wednesday.  Which means I'll e-mail y'all Tuesday.  I'm gonna be transferring(got the inside word from my district leader:o)  Pretty sad to leave this area but it's time.  The people and work here are AWESOME and I'll miss them.  Hopefully I'll be able to keep in touch with them even after the mission, they're the bomb :)
Right now since we just had the baptisms we don't have as many investigators.  We've got plenty of people to teach but none of them are really progressing or doing much we tell them too haha.  No worries, the people that are progressing make it all TOTALLY worth it.
We teach about 27 lessons every week.  Best I've had so far in my mission.
We used to be pretty good about FHE's but haven't had one for a while.  Bummer.
Can't decide whose posing the best, BJ or the Carabao?













We had a pretty EPIC P-day.Rode another Carabao....  It was awesome.  We went to a field where one of the Elders had seen a carabao last week.  We tracked down it's owner and asked if we could ride it and they were SUPER nice, were happy to let us ride it and ended up cooking dessert for all 10 of us. Filipinos are awesome :)We're about to go play Bball to top it all off :)
I send my laundry to the laundromat.
Just got Gma Slater's package this past Tuesday and the candy's almost gone already! Haha.  THANKS GRAMMA! Really liked the calendar too :)
I've got a Bible like that(with both English and Tagalog), but I'm pretty sure they don't have the Book of Mormon like that. Maybe I should try and get that custom made. That'd be pretty cool but probably can't be done here haha.

Thanks for the awesome advice on school. I'm thinking I'll get an apartment, take minimal credits at BYU and get a killer job. Please let Aaron Cragun know that rooming together would be awesome :) Could you find out for me what the minimal credits I CAN take at BYU is?  Thanks :) P.S. When's the deadline for registration and stuff like that. Thanks your the best :)

Oh yeah, one last thing..... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MA!!!! :D
Love ya tons and hope you have a great one.  Just in case you were wondering, you ARE the best Mom on the face of the planet :)  Sorry if your birthday card is a couple weeks late but know that I love your face off and wish I could be there to celebrate with ya :)

MALIGAYANG KAARAWAN AT MAHAL KITA 'MA!
Da Beejinator
Yee-haw!!

More Baptisms in the 'Pines!! Received 02-25-2013

Oh, Happy-Day!! :-)
Woot! Woot! :D

Yup, I was pretty happy to see them too. (The S A family) We went through the temple an hour before they had their session before their sealing so I didn't get to go through with them but I was super happy to see them there.  Haha, I'm glad you still remember them, they're still one of my favorites too.  What Bud said is still pretty true about people going inactive pretty fast.  A big part of the reason is that there are so many kids or teenagers that are baptized, or people will get baptized because they like the missionaries and not the Gospel.  But I'm pretty happy about the people we've been teaching lately because I can tell that they like us because we brought them the Gospel, instead of them liking the Gospel because it brought them us haha :)

Joyful Baptism for all!!
Baptisms went great! :D (Saturday, Feb. 23rd)The day was super busy and I was a little worried at first but things worked out very well.  The baptism was scheduled for 1pm but the Branch was having a wedding at 10am and a reception after it and then a branch home evening at 3pm.  So it was 12:45 and we were still the only ones there when we noticed the water was super dirty so we had to drain it (15 minutes) and refill it (15 more minutes) so we started late.  Then the Branch finally showed up.  I was pretty happy though because it was the most people I've seen at a baptism here.  We filled up 2 classrooms with the people that showed up. The Spirit was strong of course and it went great.  Afterwards Sister E, Sister G, and S C bore their testimonies and that was great too :)

Sister G's husband wasn't able to attend because of work but we've been able to teach him a couple times the last couple weeks and we're hoping he'll be able to come to church sometime soon.  Sister is pushing him really hard to come so I'm sure he will soon, I hope she's not overwhelming him though haha.
Lots of friends and family. 
She's already turning into a missionary for us.  She referred a co-worker's family to us and they're really excited to come to church already and seem super receptive.  She's awesome and is gonna make a BIG difference here.

Yup, Sister L was the one that helped Sister G get to this point.  We were all pretty sad about her leaving but it seems like Sister G is still excited to be a member of the church and she bore a great testimony at her baptism.  Sister L only has 2 kids that are members and the one in Texas is not.  She really wants to remain active and I'm sure she's either been contacted by her new ward or is trying to find it already.  Hopefully her daughter there can be taught by the missionaries as well.  Sister L really was awesome, I'll miss her :)


Yikes!  Sounds like you guys were a busy bunch last weekend eh?  I'm glad you were able to continue enjoying the Jazz festival and help Ashlyn enjoy her first date on the same day.  Sounds pretty hectic though haha, we sure do have awesome parents.  Glad your still torturing people and their dates with pics though haha.  TRADITION!!!!!!!!!! :D (That gave me a laugh:)

Sorry to cut this short and not hit all your questions but I'm holding us both back from Basketball time :)  Better run.  Just know I love ya TONS and answered your questions in my head :o)

Mahal Kita!!!
Da Beej