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
No comments:
Post a Comment