Monday, May 6, 2013

Another Baptism! WOOT-WOOT!!!

This is what it's all about! ;-) 


Yup, It was great to see everyone at the Temple Tour last week.  Hopefully I will be able to keep in touch with a lot of people from my mission,  investigators, members, and companions.

The baptism went great on Saturday.  We baptized R F and R G.  R is a 9 yr-old daughter of a Less-Active family that we found and her Mom is active now after about 2 months of teaching them.  R is the 8yr-old daghter of an active member that feeds us all the time :)  We had them both baptized on the same day and the Primary sang "I Love to Look For Rainbows" as part of the program, it was great.  And yes I FINALLY took a couple pictures for you :)
Happy Day! May 4, 2013

So Bud's officially getting murried?!  WooHoo!  Pretty sad he won't be around as much anymore but that's great that he's found the one.  Kim sounds like she's awesome, I can't wait to get home and swap mission stories haha.  ( Kim just returned from serving in the Baguio, Philippines mission, and Bud served in the Naga, Philippines mission.) That's pretty cool that she did a FHE for y'all.  Doing a slideshow with mission pics sounds like a good idea.  Maybe I'll do that too when I get home.  That's pretty awesome that she has a lot of carved stuff.  I think there's a lot more carving in Baguio than there is here but hopefully I'll have a couple cool things like that to bring home :)  Never did get my scriptures redone, I'm having too much fun marking them and reading to give them away to get leatherized.  Haha, I'll do my best to get some good souvenirs before I leave this place.

We had a pretty rough week as far as teaching goes.  A lot of those we've been teaching fell apart this week.  They all had different problems or excuses or just lost interest.  So whereas last week we had a completely full schedule, right now we don't have enough people to go to.  Which means...... We're going to start finding and tracting and OYMing (Opening Your Mouth) again!  Zipidee-do-da-day :)  We'll see how it goes.  Heavenly Father definitely has people prepared here for us and will guide us to them if we keep trying our best to do His will.

Even though we didn't get a lot of lessons in this past week, those we did teach are progressing a BUNCH.  We gave baptismal dates to a group of 5 girls that we're teaching.  3 of them are sisters and at the beginning we were teaching their family but their Dad's always busy and never had time to church.  Their Dad really wants us to teach them though and said that if they want to be baptized he's happy about it.  They've already got pretty strong testimonies and are walking to church now without us even reminding them.  We didn't think they were reading the Book of Mormon so we asked them last week and a couple of them are almost finished with 1st Nephi.  WooT! :D  Their baptism will either be May 25 or June 1.

Also have another baptism set up for May 18.  She's the neice of a member that moved into their house last month.  Her name is H R.  She's pretty cool :)  So right now we have a lot of Baptisms coming up, but they're all young, but that's still great as long as they have firm testimonies and remain active :)

My comp is Elder B from San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, Philippines.  It's close to the top point of the Philippines.  His family was baptized 7 years ago, sealed in the temple a year later, and have remained active ever since.  He's the oldest of 4 siblings.  3 boys and 1 girl.  He's pretty cool and SUPER hard working.  He goes home this November so he's pretty experienced on the mission as well.  We're both trying to continue to work hard and not get trunky haha.

Chelsey graduated from Snow!
WooHoo!  Chelsey's all Graduated! :D  Thanks for the pics, everybody's looking good and looking happy :)  Glad you're keeping busy cuz if we all keep busy the opposite side would be getting bored out of our minds haha.  

Hahaha, that little bro of mine is an All-Star!  Single handedly winning games for his baseball team now eh?  Has he lost a game in Little League yet?  I remember they didn't lose a single one last year.  He struck-out 7 batters in 3 innings???  Is he Randy Johnson or something?!  He hit a triple?!  Man my brother's the MAN! :)  Just remind him he won't pass me up until he's hit 5 home runs in 1 season ;)
How's the Basketball league going?  Has he gone to his tournaments yet?

Haha, sounds like we're the same on the BoM heroes.  Alma the Younger's my favorite and Ammon's up there with him.  One of my favorite parts of the BoM is when Captain Moroni writes the Chief Judge that if he doesn't start fixing up the government and sending soldiers to them, that he (Capt. Moroni) will come and do it for him!  Haha, they're all cool.

Funny BJ!!
Haha, no worries on the mail thing.  Did you end up sending the Easter package?  One of our housemates (Elder J from St. George) got a package with....... A1 sauce in it!!!!  A1 sauce makes ANYTHING taste good.  Even if you just pour it on rice and eat it without ulam!  Pretty great :)

With the Phone Call:
I'll probably just call you.  We can take as much time as you want cuz it'll be our Pday.  I'll call you around 8AM here so it'll be around 6PM where you're at.  Is that OK?  Get it? Got it? Good :)  Can't wait to talk at ya all and wish you a Happy Momma's Day :)  

Oh yeah.... I forgot to wish y'all a Happy International Tuba Day last Friday.  Speaking of which I haven't emailed Dr. Call at all..... Have you? haha, WHOOPS!  Lemme know, we should probably let him know my plans.

MAHAL KITA! :D
Da Beej

Another Amazing Temple Tour! Received 4-28-2013

Beautiful sunset at the Manila Temple.

Had a pretty good week.  Had a couple of exciting things happen and got to see a lot of people I've been missing.

Things are still going well with all of our investigators.  We have a baptism this Saturday for R F.  We found her family our second week here.  They've been Less-Active for a good 7 years but their testimony has always been strong.  Her Dad works every day including Sunday but we've helped her Mom and her brother come back to church and her Mom is SUPER happy that they've been able to become active again.  She's only 9 years old but she understands everything very well and is having a lot of fun in Primary.  We hope to have another baptism on May 18 for H R.  She's 13 years old and her parents and entire family separated and she ended up here with her cousins who happen to be members.  She's been very happy learning about the gospel and is excited to be baptized.  This past Wednesday we finally got to see Sister L L again and we gave her a baptismal date for June 01.  Hopefully that goes well too :)

I think the family you're thinking about is the A Family from Meycauyan.  They were da bomb :)  The S family is from Minuyan branch.  We baptized 2 kids in their family, M and R, the super small ones :)

Bud's all twitterpated?! :D  That's great!  You leave that man alone, curfews don't apply to grown men! ;)  That's great, hope things keep goin well for them and I come home to a new aunt or a wedding, exciting stuff!

BJ at the Manila Temple towards the beginning of his mission.
This past Saturday we had another Temple Tour with bringing investigators to the temple.  Guess who I saw there?..... Lots of people!  First one was Elder J!  Hahaha, I miss that guy a ton, I didn't even realize it.  He's doing really well still in Minuyan.  He's training right now and said it's kinda hard but from what other people tell me they're doing great and have a wedding and baptism coming up for one of the investigators we taught.
Also saw..... Sister J G!  She's Sister G's sister that referred G to us.  I smiled so wide for so long my face hurt :)  She said that Sister G and S C are visiting family in Ilo-Ilo and will probably come to the next temple tour.  Then when I was about to walk away she gave me her phone and..... Sister G was on the other end! haha :)  It was great to hear and talk to her.  I really miss that area, it's probably my favorite on my mission :)
Just when you thought I couldn't see any more people at Temple Tour there was one more....... Sister Becca Oliphant!!! :D  Again, smiled so wide so long my face hurt :)  It was soooooooooo fun seeing and talking to someone from home. (BJ graduated with Becca)  She seems like she's really enjoying the Philippines and being an awesome missionary even if it is hot :)  Hopefully I get to see her at Zone conferences a lot before I come home, it was super fun talking with a friend.  Hopefully we'll even be in the same zone together at some point haha.

Keeping plenty busy back home and STILL going to homecomings and farewells like crazy eh? :)  Haha, I don't know any Cebuano, I was just taught that phrase by a past companion.  That's pretty crazy they had 3 missoinary talks in 1 day! (We went to one of BJ's friends homecoming, and they had two homecomings and a farewell all in the same meeting!)

Well..... I wanna comment on everyone's doing back home but I'm outta time.  Just know I love y'all and hope you have lots of fun with your busy week :)

SUPER excited for the Mother's Day call! :D  I'll hopefully call you on Mother's Day itself cuz it'll be Pday here.  Just let me know what details you're thinking next week as far as Skype or call and that stuff.
I'll get ya a jeepney for sure Ma :)
Love ya! :D
Beej

Sunday, May 5, 2013

No Transfers For Us Received-4-22-2013

Haha, glad you're enjoying my emails Ma.  Hahaha, I'm not sure where the laundry rock idea came from but I've never seen that done here........ Oh wait, I saw someone doing laundry in a river out in the province once.  It's probably something they only do in the province, but not here in the big city.  I just wash my garments by hand in a small tub.  Soak it in the soap, rub the dirty out, rinse, and hang em to dry.  Pretty simple but time consuming sometimes.
 
Pretty crazy to think that Matt's already getting home. (His friend from High School, who served in the Tacloban, Philippines.) You'll have to tell him "Maot man kag nawong oi!  Joke lang :)"

Hahaha, excited to hear that Bud's on the wifey hunt again and that he seems to be closing in on the right one :)  Glad to hear her Homecoming went well, sister missionaries seem to be SUPER spiritual, dunno if it's cuz we elders aren't enough, but they're definitely good examples.

Haha, pretty crazy to think that Jacob Eddington's already going on a mission.  Where was he going again?  Peru or Chile or something? (Peru) Glad you got to see Jon Boyer at the same time.  Sounds like you've seen a lot of people lately, crazy that everyone's already getting home and I'm comin in soon.

Pretty funny that your ward conference was this week cuz ours was too.  It lasted 4 hours!!!!  Woot! haha.  We had 11 investigators there and for 9 of them it was the first time so I felt pretty bad for them.  I was soooooo hungry :o)  It was a great conference though, the Stake President here is great and gave some great lessons about why the true church of Christ is needed in our day.

Hmmmmmm....  In answer to your question (I asked him if we were to come to the 'Pines, who would he want us to meet, and what areas might he want us to see.) I'd for sure wanna take you to meet the E family, S family, and Sister G in Minuyan.  I'd probably take you to my first area to show you how nice it smelled ;)  and I'd probably wanna take you to a couple families in Batasan 2nd ward, Mama B and Sister M.  As far as places we could go to Jesus Mountain but other than that I'm pretty sure all the cool sight seeing stuff would be outside of our mission.  We'd hafta go to cool islands and beaches and stuff.  Here it's just smelly city haha :o)

Sorry to keep it short but I gotta run!
Hope ya have a great week and know I love ya TONS!!!
Elder Powell

P.S.-In case you were wondering neither of us is transferring :o)
They're splitting our zone in half and Elder H (DL and housemate) is transferring.  Elder J (other housemate) is going to be training a new Filipino.  Woot! :D  Should be another fun one.... With more pictures: Promise ;)

Mahal Kita!!!