Kamusta
Kamo!!!???
It
is great to hear from all of you again! Sounds like everything is going well
and I am glad! All is well here in the Philippines, it has been another great
week and I love it here! I really enjoy hearing about your guys week, your
support and messages always help me during the week, so I appreciate it a lot!
It is cool to hear about the Temple, stake conference and everything that is
going on! Especially about the Jazz and March Madness, right now is the best
time of the year!! I hope you guys are enjoying it for me!
Well
as for my week here in Iloilo city it has been great! Our investigators are
doing great and we have seen the fruits of our efforts as we will have a
baptism this coming saturday and we also have a few others with a date in the
coming weeks, I am so excited for all of our investigators! So the investigator
we will be baptizing on saturday will be Brother Ian Macasarte or his nickname
yan yan. I think I have told you about him, he is so awesome! Even though he is
just 10 he loves reading the Book of Mormon and even marks his favorite verses
and he is so excited when we teach him! This past week I gave him one of my
ties and taught him how to tie it, he was so excited and he is already a master
at tying ties, I can see him as a future missionary! I wish I was as cool as
him when I was 10 haha! Also this past weeks our awesome investigator(April)
who we have been teaching for the past 6 weeks has a set baptismal date! She
has always said that she wants to be baptized but now she has a set date for
the second week of April ( how fitting). I am so excited as I have seen the joy
of these people I am teaching, this is a great work.
I
would like to share an awesome experience I had this week. There are people
everywhere we go and some are super nice and others, lets just say they aren't
the nicest people in the world and this week someone asked us basically why are
we doing this everyday if we don't get paid. We testified to them that we know
that what we are teaching is true and we know that we are serving God, even
though they still didn't really care, the next day in my personal study I read
a scripture that fit perfectly to the situation. In Alma 30 it reads, 34 And now, if we do not receive anything for our labors in the
church, what doth it profit us to labor in the church save it were to declare
the truth, that we may have rejoicings in the ajoy of our brethren? This scripture really helped me truly remember why I am here. I
am declaring the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to these people and the
joy that I feel when I see someone accept the Gospel and see it change their
lives, is so much more valuable than any salary or anything else! I have such a
strong testimony of this work and of the small things like reading our
scriptures and praying everyday. I wish I could explain everything to you guys,
but that would be impossible.
- Are the members there
good about feeding the missionaries? Do you eat many meals in your
apartment? The members are pretty good at feeding us, we usually get a
few dinner appointments a week, not like my last area where we had one
almost everyday, but its still good. We eat at the apartment kind of
often, I learned to love filipino food especially rice!
- Are there any places
there that you can buy ice cream? I know you said that diary is
limited. 7 eleven sells ice cream and it is so good, We get it pretty
often haha!
- How often do you
see the Mission President? I know you are close to the mission home.Even
though we are close to the mission home we don't see president cruz any
more than usual.
- Are transfers coming up soon? It seems like it has been close to 6 weeks since you were transferred to Ioilo City. You are correct, transfers are tomorrow. My companion Elder Silvano is transferring tomorrow. I am so grateful for him, he has helped me so much in everything, especially the language. My new companion will be Elder Dass from Manila, I will tell more next week!
Well
I am so grateful for this opportunity that I have to serve the Lord here in the
Philippines, I miss you guys, but this is where I need to be at this time in my
life! Heavenly Fathers plan is so perfect and I am so grateful for that!
I
love you all so much, send some pictures, THanks! YOu guys are the best! HAve a
great Week!!
Halong
pirmi
Palangga
ko kamo!
Elder
Joshua Degen
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