OH NO CORONA VIRUS.

So I'm supposed to actually call you guys right now but the internet
is down at the only decent computer shop near by and the computer shop
we're at right now has a weird 2010 version of Google Chrome so it
isn't capable of video calling. Anyways, I'm just supposed to tell you
that we're okay and that nothing bad has happened. Church has been
cancelled and they also said that the branch will try and give
sacrament at the houses of members at least once a month (which
implies that it might be a while before it's administered at church
again). We're supposed to just keep working normally though. I'm not
sure how that's supposed to work though since people aren't allowed to
be baptized unless they attend church four times.. and that can't
really happen unless church is being held. We also were told to buy
lots of groceries yesterday. It was more than 5000 pesos worth of
food. We used all our emergency funds. We were also told to by lots of
hand-sanitizer/rubbing alcohol but none is available in basically our
entire mission. Everyone already bought all of it. Also it's
interesting that the government here has banned flight in and out of
the country for at least a month. It's all pretty funny though because
everything was just perfectly fine and normal (except that earlier
this week they banned handshakes/physical contact with anyone,
including other missionaries) until yesterday when they cancelled our
district conference and then everyone started freaking out, and then
the government banned flights. We feel pretty safe and fine though.
Nothing else really seemed to happen. I'll probably be stuck in the
Philippines for the rest of my life though. Haha. Just kidding.
Anyways, I'll call you on Monday and give you a real update on a video
call.

Things and Stuff

This week three people attended church which is awesome. Tatay Agullana, our friend that attended church last week, attended again and this week he also brought his wife, and her friend. He seems very interested and is progressing very well. We also extended a baptismal goal date for March 28 for him and he accepted it immediately. He's also been reading the Book of Mormon even though his reading glasses are broken and he said it makes his eyes tired. He also seems to be understanding what he reads and wants to read and learn more. He also has lots of sincere questions and wants to change. This week was also pretty cool because he told us all about his past experiences in his life and his desire to receive forgiveness.

Also during this week we've been doing more finding and teaching others as well. While doing so we met the 10 year old brother of a member. His name is N.G. and he surprisingly, despite his age, had lots of sincere questions about life and where we go when we die. He also told us about how he read in his sister's Book of Mormon and told us what he learned from his reading and wanted to check with us to see if he understood what he read correctly. Another thing he expressed was his concern of all the people doing bad things at school and their disobedience and how he wants to be mabait (nice/well mannered) like Jesus. The best thing about all of this though is that he went out of his way to tell us all these things. We didn't even ask him questions or anything. He also was sad to say that he hasn't been baptized but he wants too. Though we don't normally focus on children he is someone we'll definitely consider returning too especially since he has support in his family from his older sister. We will also try and teach his parents as well for sure.

1 Samuel 12:

22 For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake: because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people.

24 Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you.

The verses in this chapter were given by Samuel to Israel because of their ingratitude towards God and their desire to have a king over them 'when the Lord... God was [already their] king (verse 12).  We simply learn that we are the Lord's people and he will not forsake us because he's pleased to call us His if we but only serve him in truth and with all our heart and remember all the ways he's blessed us.

Other verses throughout the week: 2 Ne. 32:9 and D&C 88:15, 1 John 4 7,8,18-21 and Romans 13:10, Jacob 1:8 and Matt. 16:25-26, Jacob 2:19 and Mark 10:24, 1 Sam. 15:22-23, 1 Sam. 16:7. Jacob 3:9, 1 Sam. 17: 26,37,45, Jacob 4:10.

Namatay ang tinuturuan namin

Feb. 25 - March 1, 2019

  This week of work has been pretty decent. We've been doing less finding and trying to teach more to some of those people we've found recently that showed moderate interest. We were hoping this would help get some more people to church. That was kind of true seeing has we had one new person attend church this week but the person who came last week didn't come again. So in the end we still only had one person at church but this time he seems a little more sincere. He's a 72 year old man named Tatay Agullana. He's traditionally Catholic but has been recently attending the Born Again church close to his house. Because of the difference of his experience at the two churches he seems to have started developing questions about what's really true from each of them or if it even matters at all. Because of his concerns he has been willing to let us teach him and even attended church which is awesome. He has lots of questions and we're excited to continue teaching him. All the other people that committed to going to church though didn't show up.

Also during this week the Sister missionaries had three baptisms (which is the first baptisms in pagudpud in a VERY long time). They also needed some priesthood holder to baptize them so my companion volunteered immediately. Another thing that also happened during this week was the funeral of one of our previous investigators. We taught her a few times but she recently died of cardiac arrest. We actually went to part of the funeral service ( 15 minutes or so) because she was also the mother of a less active member. 

On Saturday we also worked with Branch President Baloaloa the whole day after the baptism. It was unplanned but it ended up being fun and effective since he's local. He was also able to bear a strong testimony to our investigators about his conversion story in the Ilokano language. It was good and powerful fellow shipping.

2 Ne. 26:8-9, 13

8 But behold, the righteous that hearken unto the words of the prophets, and destroy them not, but look forward unto Christ with steadfastness for the signs which are given, notwithstanding all persecution—behold, they are they which shall not perish.
9 But the Son of Righteousness shall appear unto them; and he shall heal them, and they shall have peace with him.

13 And.. he manifesteth himself unto all those who believe in him, by the power of the Holy Ghost; yea, unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, working mighty miracles, signs, and wonders, among the children of men according to their faith.

This is just something I liked from my Book of Mormon studies. There's not much to add to it since it's very simply put. If we look forward unto Christ he will heal us. If we believe in him he will manifest himself unto us by the Holy Ghost and will work mighty miracles among us. The other thing I've been studying recently is from the Book of Samuel. That's also been pretty interesting to study but I don't know if there's anything worth sharing other than the story of Eli and his seed being cursed which probably won't be super beneficial to you.

Isang PSA

Feb. 17 - Feb 24, 2020

This week has also just been another week of lots of work and finding new people. Fortunately though, we were able to find one person that was willing to go to church. He's a 50 year old man and we only talked to him twice before he decided to go to church. We never actually were able to teach him a lesson because of the circumstances each time we met with him but he did end up going to church. The branch president was excited but also said that he thinks he might just have a "diperensya sa isip" or that he's kind of just a crazy person. He might be right but we'll try and teach him a couple times to discern whether he has true desire or not. Either way one person at church (PSA) is more than the last couple weeks.

Also during this week I had exchanges with Elder Tripp in Bangui. The exchanges were fine as well. It was an enjoyable momentary change. Another thing that happened during this week was just yesterday. While we were proselyting a car rolled up and a minister for Iglesia ni Cristo (some church that is popular here) came out and gave us a copy of their church magazine. He also had his wife take a picture of us with him. I think he just wanted a picture of "Mormon" missionaries holding their magazine for social media or something but I pulled out the Aklat ni Mormon last second when they took the picture just to disappoint him and spread the true gospel of course. During this week we also had our interviews with President Peterson. He told us if we want more success in our area we just need to have more charity. During our companion study later that night we read from 1 Corinthians 13 to try and more fully understand charity. Of course that's one of the best scriptures about charity and it was awesome explaining the meaning to my companion Elder Gajete since english isn't his first language. Though that's a good scripture about charity something I also really like is in John 11.

John 11:35 - 

 Jesus wept.

Of course crying isn't what makes someone charitable but understanding the context of this verse and why Christ wept helps us more fully understand what charity really is. In this chapter of John Jesus's good friend Lazarus dies. Without apostolic insight one might think he cried just because he was sad that his friend died. When I read this verse again though I remembered something that I learned from  James E. Talmage when I read Jesus the Christ. The point he made was that Christ had no reason to cry or feel sorrow for his friend's death alone. Christ had a perfect understanding of the Plan of Salvation and knew exactly what would happen to Lazarus. The death didn't make him sad. He knew God's plan in full. Christ was in reality crying because he felt the sorrow of Lazarus's siblings Mary and Martha. He also loved the two of them and knew that their situation was very difficult. He noticed them crying in their hardship. He also knew that their understanding of the Plan of Salvation wasn't perfect and because of their sadness he also felt sad. Not because of the death of their brother but because he loved them and didn't want them to be sad. I invite everyone to read this chapter in order to develop their own understanding of this scripture but for me charity means to feel the feelings of others. It means to put yourself in their shoes and figure out how to help them. It's simply putting them before yourself. That's Christ's way and that's also why he performed his infinite atonement for us. He loves us. (Moroni 7:47).

Pictures -

We also went to this lighthouse and killed a snake this week.

Pagudpud pa rin

Work here in Pagudpud has been pretty much the same my entire time here. We've done lots of work and lots of finding new people. We talk to lots of people every day but finding those that are open-hearted has been the difficult part. Recently we did find someone named Janet Carbonel who seems very open-hearted. She recently had a very hard experience with her son that got in a motorcycle wreck and she wants to find hope somewhere. Lucky for her we have the answer for her, Jesus Christ. She didn't attend church this week but she seems to have great desire and potential to progress.

Aside from the normal experiences here in Pagudpud it is pretty crazy that Caylor just returned home last week from his mission in Iowa. I can't wait to see him again when I finally return home as well. I greatly look up to him as my older brother.

This week during my personal study I found a couple scriptures that I like in the Book of Mormon that are connected doctrinally. 

2 Nephi 10:24 - 

 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved.

Mosiah 3:19 -

 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the fHoly Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

I like both of these scriptures because they focus on one of the most important parts of the doctrine of the gospel. They refer to repentance and the atonement.  We as mortals are naturally an enemy to God. We are a fallen people and need to be reconciled to God. The word reconcile means "to restore to friendship or harmony" or "to make consistent or congruous." That reconciliation is our goal here on earth. We are imperfect and often fail to make the right decisions. We are far from Him but this, our life, is the time of our probation and preparation (Alma 34:32). One of my favorite titles of God's great plan for us is the "Plan of Redemption." Part of this redemption is submitting to the will of the father in all aspects of our lives in order to have harmonious consistency with what God desires for us. We know we've accomplished this once we desire to do nothing other than that of God's will specifically. Once our purpose is the same as His in everything we do we know that the Lord will have 100% trust in us and will give us great power to do good(Helaman10:4-5).

New companion: Elder Gajete

This week was a good week of work with my new companion Elder Gajete. He's a 19 year old boxer from Negros Occidental. He's fresh out of his training in the mission so he's also pretty new. You wouldn't know that though because he's not shy at all and is very hard working and willing to talk to everyone. It's been a while since I've had a companion as talkative as he is. Much of the time I was the main person initiating and dictating the conversation but now that's not the case at all. Sometimes his talking is a little overwhelming but that's alright. I have to constantly fight my way into every conversation we have with people because he's so excited to speak to them himself.

Our work this week over all was very similar to that of the last few weeks here in Pagudpud with my last companion Elder Powell except for it was VERY fast paced and I've been doing way less speaking since Elder Gajete has taken that completely upon himself.  The result of our fast paced hard work though is very similar to what's it's been the last couple weeks. Unfortunately none of our investigators attended church once again. We had five people attend last week but none of them returned this week. We're unsure but it seems like they might be avoiding us now. We're not sure what happened but we're still going to try and return to them a couple more times. Not having PSA (people sacrament attendance) was pretty rough for my companion because he felt like it was somehow is fault. But after having a discussion and reading Preach My Gospel I think he's come to a better understanding that people have their free agency. The important thing is that we give all we can and work to the best of our ability and if there's not people at church that's likely because of their free agency.

Also during this week we ran into a white guy from Paducha, Kentucky. He was very nice and willing to talk to us. He only knew english though so I was the only one talking once again. Though it was nice to talk to him and even converse about Kentucky since I used to live there as well, he was very Baptist and didn't seem super interested in learning about our church. He did seem to appreciate what we were doing though and as we left yelled a solid "Glory be to God!" I liked that. He's right. Our work here is to glorify God. What we do here on earth, especially as missionaries is for Him and His Kingdom and it's not for ourselves even though sometimes we tend to forget that.

During this week, my personal study has been very enjoyable. I found three verses that present a similar idea in a couple different ways. 

Ezra 8:22 -

The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him.

Romans 8:28 -

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

2 Nephi 4:35 -

Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God. Amen.

All three of these verses do a good job acknowledging the will and purpose of God. Our Heavenly Father is the one who knows exactly what's going on and knows exactly what's best for us. Our job is to aline our thoughts, will, and purpose with his. We need to have our "eye single" to his purposes. If we ask for things from him that aren't according to his desire we are asking "amiss" and will not receive them. It's that simple. If we can more fully understand what he wants for us and ask for those same things we will receive them and his plan will become much more clear to us.

May bunga na!

This week has been good. We've done lots of recontacting people and some teaching to those that seem genuinely interested. During this week we've also ran into lots of white people around our apartment. It seems like there's a group of tourists staying in the homes of some of our neighbors. We also ran into a random Greek couple that seemed very excited to see white people that speak english. They asked us for directions. We also had exchanges on Wednesday where I went with our zone leader Elder Orozco. While I was with him we did lots of finding and near the end of the day we found two people that seemed interested. He was surprised at how difficult it was to find anyone that seemed to have "any light in them." Luckily we did find two middle aged women that even agreed to go to church and that they did. We had a miracle of five investigators at our sacrament meeting! That's after a 10 week drought of PSA (people sacrament attendance). Of the two people we found they each brought one of their kids with them who are both old enough to be taught. The fifth person was the sibling of a current member. Oh also we just learned that my companion Elder Powell is being transferred and I'm getting a new companion named Elder Gajete. He's my first Filipino companion in a long time and he's kind of a new missionary. I'll meet him tomorrow. 

Also during my personal study I liked these two connected scriptures below. I also suggest that everyone read Judges chapter 3 in order to learn about a "very fat man" named Eglon.

1 Nephi 21:16 -

16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.

Zechariah 13:6 -

6 And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.