E-mail dated 10/30/17

Kamusta Kamo!!!  

This week is a week that I will remember for the rest of my life! I don't think that I can put into words the feelings and experiences that I have had this week, but I will sure try. The gospel is so true, wherever in the world, it doesn't matter, its true everywhere. A mission is not an easy task, but its weeks like this one that make it sooo worth it!! 

So I will jump right to saturday (baptism day!!). On saturday it was raining, no absolutley pouring, like dumping buckets. It was the worst storm I have seen while I have been here. So becuase of the rain the baptism did not start exactly on time. The plan was to meet at a members house at 8, then walk (more like Hike) to the designated beach for the baptism. But it wasn't until about 10 until we were able to start the baptism, but it all worked out great. When the baptism started, it was only sprikling. To start the baptism we sang some hymns and had a few remarks by a member of the branch (sam, a 23 year old that works with us a lot and is preparing for a mission) and also elder sasa shared some remarks. Then the baptisms of 7 (Miko Geadalanga, Jay Mel Gedaca, Jeah Mae Silvestre and the Toldeo Family (4)) people took place and I had the amazing opportunity to baptize them all!! I have never felt such joy as I did when I saw all of our investigators smiling dressed in white. It is truly an indescribable feeling to be able to baptize someone and to see how happy they are afterwards. It is a day that I will never forget, I was smiling for the rest of the day. Just like in the scriptures, "this is my joy", that is so true! After the baptism, all of the newly baptized members, bore their testimonies, and I felt the spirit so strong!! While sister Jeny Toledo bore her testimony she teared up testifying that she knows that this is the true church. It was such an amazing experience to witness how much the gospel has changed their lives. I am so blessed to be a part of this great work!! (I will send Pictures of the baptism)

Now questions: 

1. Do they celebrate Halloween there at all?  Are you doing anything special on Tuesday to celebrate? They do celebrate halloween, but I do not know for sure what it is like, I know that we have a branch halloween party on nov 1. That's about all I know, I will tell you about it next week. 
2. I know you have told me that you usually eat at someone’s house for dinner.  What do you typically have for breakfast and lunch?  Have you adjusted to the food? Wow good question, it really depends on the day. a lot of times for breakfast, theses sisters from our branch come by and sell us breakfast, and other times i go across the street to a little tsanggi (like a convience store, sort of, more like a little shop with food in someones house) for lunch we either go to a little cafe down the street or cook rice or ramen noodles. 
3. Are all of your Church meetings in Ilongo?  Do many of the members of your Branch speak English? The church meetings are like 70 percent ilonggo and 30 percent english, I understand what is going on so thats good. There are about 3 or 4 that speak really good english, and the rest try to speak english but, they can't, but I feel for them because I can't speak Ilonggo haha. 
4. Have you been asked to speak in Church yet?  I bore my testimony the first week and two weeks ago i gave a talk. The talk went suprisingly well, I tried to do it all in ilonggo. 
5. Did any more of the envelopes that I have sent arrive yet?  I have sent several – at least once a week. They probably have, but they are at the mission home, which is on a different island, so hopefully i can get them soon, when we go to the mission home. 
6. Does it still rain everyday?  Shouldn’t you be coming in the dry season soon? It usually rains at least a little bit everyday, it depends though.

 It was great to hear from all of you once again! I love you all! Have a great week!!!  

Halong!

Palangga ko kamo

Elder Degen

E-mail dated 10/23/17

Kamusta Kamo!! 

Wow another great week here in Nueva Valencia! This week was full of little miracles and blessings, as is every week, if you look for the blessings! Always focus on the good!

 I would like to share an experience with FHE: so this saturday we had a huge FHE at our investigators house (The Toledo Family). A lot of members from the branch came and we had a great time! We had a little lesson about familes, spiritual thought, and played some awesome filipino games! It was such a cool experience. OUr investigators and the members of the branch grew closer. As we talked about families, we talked about how we as a branch are a family, even though we are all very different and may not speak the same language (well at least i don't), we are united as a family because the spirit has no language. That is one of my favorite things, the language of the spirit if universal, even though i don't understand everything that people say and they probably don't understand what i say, the spirit is there! (2 nephi 33:1 is so powerful) We sang families can be together forever for the closing Hymn and the spirit was so strong. Although I am not with you guys right now, I know that we are an eternal family and I came on my mission to give that amazing feeling that Families can be together forever to others. That song maybe a primary song and a very simple song, but it is so powerful. I am grateful for the amazing family that I have! And I am grateful to be a part of this work to share the happiness we have with others. 

1.       What type of store do you purchase your groceries at?  Do they have like a grocery store? There are small grocery stores on Guimaras and we get our stuff there. We don't have to buy to many, because we get fed almost every night so that is awesome! But, in Iloilo city, which we go to once a month, they have grocery stores basically the same as the states. 

2.        Do you have much down time?  If so, what do you do in your down time? haha down time. We don't really have any. Well I guess if you consider the time everynight from 9 until 10, which is the time we just get ready for bed and I write in my journal. 

3.        Describe a typical P-day.  So far no 2 p-days have been alike. But a few things that we always do is; laundry (my least favorite thing to do), go to jordan to email and play basketball. 

4.        Do you see lot of schools around?  Do they have elementary, Jr. High and high schools? Actually yeah, I see so many schools around. They have all 3 types of schools elementary,jr, and High school. 

 Well, that should do it for this week. Should be an exciting email next week. We have zone conference tomorrow and the baptism on saturday and right after the baptism we have a branch activity. 

I love you all, thanks for the emails and everything! Have a good week!

Halong Kamo! 

Palangga ko kamo!

Elder Degen 

E-mail dated 10/16/17

Kamusta Kamo!!

Wow this week sort of flew by! It is so great to email it always brightens my spirit and makes me happy! Whenever I read your emails I am more motivated to work, so thank you so much! It is very hard work out here, but I have seen so many blessings. 

I'll Jump right to your questions:

1.       Where do you go to send/read you e-mails?  How much time to get on your P-days to e-mail?  So we usually go to an internet cafe in a little barangay (town/village) called jordan (pronounced hordan). We usually get about an hour or so. It depends how much we want to pay haha.

2.        How often do you hear from your mission president?  Do you know if you have any senior couples in your mission? Hmm good question. I email President Cruz every other week and My companion said that he will sometimes respond, but I dont really know at this point. But on Thursday all the Guimaras Elders(8) went to the mission home to meet with president Cruz, so that was nice and encouraging. He talked to me personally for a little bit and I recieved some great council and encouragement, he said that a mission is like working in a field with a plow, you will get blisters at first and it will be hard, but he promised me if I keep working it will become easier. And Yes I know there are at least 2 senior missionary couples, but I dont know much about them.

3.       Tell us about the money/currency that you use.  About how much do things cost?  Are they more or less than home? So here everyone uses Phillipines piso. So to give you a perspective about 50 pisos is one US dollar. Everything is a lot less expensive here. We get 8,000 pisos per month, so I am living off of about 160 dollars per month. A 355 ml mtn dew costs 12 pisos (thats great) and a boat ride from Guimaras Island back to Iloilo city is only 14 pisos. 

4.       Are there a lot of youth in the ward you are serving in? There are quite a few youth in our branch, it is a small branch, but there are still probably about 15-20 youth. 

5.       How do you get everywhere?  I assume you don't have a car.  Do you walk, use a bike or public transportation? So there is about one main road in our area (paved road) and everyday we take a tricycle(a motorcycle with a cart attached to it)  to our area which is about 10 minutes away from our house. Then we walk on dirt roads for most of the day. Its like a hike, but I'm always in church clothes. And when we go to jordan or places far away we take a jeepney. 

6.       Are your 8 investigators still on target to be baptized on the 28th?  That is so exciting.  Please keep us updated.  So 7 of them are still on track, one did not attend church yesterday. Our investigators are so awesome. We have been working with the Toledo family a lot recently. They were my very first lesson and I have taught them many times since we invited them to be baptized. Sis Jenny Toledo (mom of Toledo Family) is so amazing. Her house is so humbling, it is so small at the roof is made out of like palm tree leafs and it leaks a lot when it rains, as a branch we are having a lot of help to get her a new roof, which is amazing. And even if though she has so little, we taught her about tithing, fast offerings, and service this week, and when we asked her if she would follow these laws she would answer "oo"(yes) before we even finished asking the question. 

So you wanted to know the biggest challenge and Best success. I will start with the biggest challenge, haha. To be honest it was not the easiest week, I lost my super nice water bottle and my nice umbrella broke. So those were tough things to deal with, but I am trying so hard to not think about my self and my own problems, because they are so minor, but it is really hard at times to not think about my self but I am trying my best. The sweetest success came when we went to teach a new investigator and she introduced us to her all of her friends and neighbors that were sitting near a basketball court. We ended up teaching a short lesson about families and we got 11 new investigators out of it. What a blessing. 

Well that is all I have for you this week! I love you all so much! Thanks so much for all the emails and I apologize if i was unable to respond to your email, I will try my best!

Halong

Elder Degen

E-mail dated 10/9/17

Kamusta kamo!!

Wow it has been another great week, not easy, but great nevertheless. I am starting to get a little more adjusted to living in the Philippines, but sometimes I am still in awe that I am living on a relatively small island in the middle of the ocean, it is so beautiful here as I am sure you have seen from my pictures! I am praying more than I ever have in my life and I have seen the affects of it. I would encourage you all to pray whenever you feel you need help or whenever you feel a little down, just pray, wherever and whenever always have a prayer in your heart, it helps me. 

1.       How long has your companion been out on his mission?  How are you getting along?  (My companion and I are getting along great, he has been out for 16 months. He loves basketball so we talk about that and play it on P-days. He speaks great english, I think that I need him to speak it less so I can learn ilonggo faster, too often i think we just talk in english, but the language is hard, but he is helping me. 

2.       Do you have to cook your own food or do the members feed you a lot?  How is the shopping there?  Are a lot of items readily available?(We rarely ever cook or own food. The members are so awesome here and we eat with the Branch President at least once a week. There are a lot of items readily available, just about everything in america, haha kind of. The stuff is a little different here, but I was really suprised how much they have. They have mtn dew here!!! I repeat the have mtn dew here, it is a little different, but still fantastic. I drank a few this past week, so its been a good week. 

3.       Describe a typical day (if there is such a thing as a typical day) So everyday is different, but I will try to give you a brief rundown of what we usually do. In the morning we wake up at 6 prep and eat and do all that stuff until 7:30, then we have personal study, companion study, do something called the 12 week program (which is for new missionaries to do for their first 12 weeks), then we have lunch, language study, and finally after all that studying we go out and teach. we typically have 3-4 lessons a day, sometimes more and usually dinner appointment or FHE at night. 

4.       What is your apartment like.  Where do you you wash your clothes? My apartment is actually really nice, by Philippines standard and according to the other missionaries. We have a littles AC unit in our room, which feels so good at night after a long day of dripping sweat. And oh I wash my clothes in a bucket outside!! I never thought I'd say this, but I miss washing machines so much. I remember in provo when I was complaining about washing my clothes, haha silly me. It took me like an hour to do laundry in provo and here it takes days to complete the whole process.

5.       Would you say you have some, most or none of the comforts of home? Comforts of home, hmm I don't know. I mean I have AC which I am very grateful for, the food there is still some things that are kind of taste like home, like for breakfast I usually have some rolls with peanut butter or I buy Monde(which is sweetbread). There is this little tsanggi (which is like a small home store where you can buy food, drinks, like a little convience store.) it is right across from our apartment, so I just walk over there and buy food all the time, it is really nice. 

6.       How many lessons do you teach in a day?3-4 right now, but it depends on the day. because of our large study time we only have about 8 or so hours to work and it takes a while to travel to our area and walk to our appointments. I think we can do more though. 

7.       Are there a lot of inactives in your Ward that you are working with? as of right now we are not working with a lot of less actives in our branch. Right now we are working with a lot of recent converts and progressing investigators.

Well I would just like to share a great experience that I had this last week. So there is this older man that has a tailor shop right down the street from our apartment, his name is Brother Ding. And ever since I met bro ding, I felt like we needed to teach, I felt like a connection with him, I dont know I cant really describe it. Well anyways after talking him to a few times I said to my companion that we should give him a book of mormon and we ended up setting an appointment with him. We taught him about the restoration of the Gospel and he had so many questions that the gospel can answer, he asked us questions like if we believe in an after life and many more. The spirit was so strong during the lesson and I could understand it all because, HE SPEAKS ENGLISH. I was so happy, we taught lesson in english, it was such a blessing. We gave him a pamplet and he was excited to read it along with the Book of mormon. He has had a tailor shop rirght down the street from the missionaries apartment for a while, but wasn't taught, it was an amazing blessing to teach him, I will keep you updated, he is an amazing man. We also have 8 investigators scheduled to be baptized on the 28th of October. Our investigators are awesome, they are willing to follow their comittments and the spirit is strong in their lessons. Elder Salamatin said I am going to baptize them, I am so excited and today I found out that we baptize in the Ocean, so I will be sending some awesome pictures after the 28th. 

On sat and sunday, we were able to watch all the sessions of general conference, and wow what a blessing that was. Every single talk had something that i needed to hear and something that i can apply to my mission, every talk. I am trying to rely more on the lord and lose myself in service to him, I am trying to worry less about my own problems and focus on others. It is difficult though, to not focus on MY language, I just need to realize that it isn't about me. General conference made me realize that. Conference was amazing. A ton of members and investigators came and even though they couldnt understand most of it because it was in english they still stayed and still felt the spirit. 

Today we had an awesome pday, we had a zone activity, with members and investigators, we played games, had some spiritual thoughts and had a huge lunch, all on the beach. For lunch we did this thing called boolie fight, which is where they lay rice, fish, and what ever else we are eating on to this huge leaf and everyone eats it with their hands. It was crazy and not at all sanitary, but the food was so good. It was a great pday, too bad i forgot my camera. We only have 8 Elders in our zone and district (it is the same) so there are only 8 elders on the island of Guimaras, only one other american, so probably only 2 white people on the island haha. 

Well that should be enough, thank you all for the emails and words of encouragement, they all meant so much.

Love you all!

Elder Degen

E-mail dated 10/2/17

Kamusta Kamo, 

Wow I am finally here in my first area in the mission field. As you have already been informed my area is the Nueva Valencia A area on the beautiful island of Guimaras. I am convinced I am serving in one of the most beautiful places in the world. I'm sure I am seeing a little less glamorous pictures than you guys are on the internet, but it is so amazing here, I love it. It has been a crazy and humbling (very humbling) first week or few days, but it has been good. 

So on Wed. we got up at like 3am, to go to the airport to fly to our missions. I don't know why we had to leave so early since our flight didnt leave until like 8, but it was nice to have a few more hours with the missionaries that were going to Bacolod mission. It was sad to say goodbye to all of them, we were all so close, but we have a goup email now. After we arrived in iloilo we ate had interviews and went shopping to get things that we needed. 

So on thursday I think, we had a nice meeting with all the new missionaries and found out who our trainers are. My trainer, as you know, is Elder Salamatin, he is filipino, and he's from Kulto, Philippines (near manila). He is very good at ilonggo and he speaks tagalog. He has only been learning English for 6 Months, but he knows enough to communicate with me. He is a great missionary and has already taught me so much. After the meeting I took a boatride to Guimaras island, which only took about 15 minutes. When I arrived we took a jeepney(google it) its like a bus kind of, but it was full so we strapped my luggage on top and rode on top of it for about 30 minutes until we arrived at our apartment. I was praying the entire time while on top of the jeepney, it was probably going like 50mph. 

1.  How long did it take to get from the Manila MTC to Iloilo?  How about to Nueva Valencia?  I assume you went by boat to the island.  I bet you are so tired of traveling and grateful to be staying in one place for awhile. (answer above)
2. We are all so confused about the Christmas tree that you were standing in front of at Mission home.  Please explain :).  ( so in the Philippines they start listening and celebrating Christmas in september. They call it the ber months, any month that ends with ber, you can listen to christmas music and start celebrating, its weird.)
3. How is the food?  Do you like it? (The food has been great so far, they eat Rice every meal, so rice is life now (right eric?) 
4. How many missionaries are there in your mission? (There are about 167 missionaries in my mission) 
5. Are you assigned to a ward or a branch?  How was your first Sunday?  Could you understand any of it? (I am assigned to a small branch. There were about 30 people at church on sunday, so room for improvement. I could understand some of it because they speak like half english half ilonggo at church. It was fast sunday so i bore my testimony, it was short and sweet.))
6. How many missionaries are in your apartment?  Do they speak English? (we share an apartment with 2 other elders. One is from California (but is filipino) and he speaks perfect english, he has helped me a lot so far, his name is Elder Andres, the other elder is Elder Tereke, who doesn't really speak english. 
7. What has the weather been like?  Have you fully adjusted to the humidity? ( It is HOT, all of the time!! haha but I have started to adjust to the humidity and heat. I'm just going to have to accept the fact that I am going to sweat all of the time.)) 

So my very first lesson we went to an investigators home, her name is Jenny and her daughter is Jenibe. We taught about the plan of salvation and she started to cry, then we taught about the importance of baptism. I explained in my broken Ilonggo why we need to be baptized and she said that she would be baptized on Oct. 28, We are so excited for her. We have taught a lot of lessons so far and I contribute as much as i can, but it is so hard. Like I said it has been very humbling, I can barely understand one word per sentence of what people are saying. I pray all the time for help, I am working as hard I can to improve. 

Today we played basketball, it was so awesome. The basketball hoops were trees with 2 by 4s nailed to it and the rim was suprisingly round. I will have to take a picture later. 

It has been challenging, but some great experiences so far! Your prayers and emails are much appreciated! I love hearing about everything going on. It sounds like everything is great. 

Elder Degen