Monday, March 19, 2018

E-mail dated 3/19/18


Kamusta Kamo!!!!?

Man, it has been kind of a crazy week and I don't even know where to start! It has been very busy, but I have loved it, we got a lot done this week, despite it being a little crazy! I would like to start by saying that I am so grateful for all the emails that I received and especially for all the updates about sports going on right now! It makes me smile reading about the jazz and march madness, sounds like its a great time to be a basketball fan right now! It really is my favorite time of the year, better than Christmas, but right now this is the only time I have thought about it, when you emailed me, so just enjoy it for me this year and I think my bracket is going to win it this year.

Well On tuesday I waited forever at a terminal for my new companion. He came from Nueva Valencia Guimaras (my first area) and his name is Elder Dass from tarlack (in the northern part of the Philippines near Manila). He is awesome he speaks perfect english and he has been out for 19 months. After we got settled in and everything, we got some great work in this week, we were blessed to get a ton of new investigators that have so much potential and are really willing to listen. Its a great time to be serving in this area (Iloilo city ward), we have so many people at church I think that in the near future this ward will split into 2. 

On Saturday we had the very awesome and unique baptism of Ian Clark Macasarte or yanyan. So when we went to the chapel on saturday, we found out that there was no running water at the church, the tank ran out! Water is a very important aspect of a baptism in case you didn't know that, so that was a big problem. We discussed for a while and then got permission from the bishop to just baptize him in the ocean! It was a kind of crazy situation, a little unorganized, but once I saw the smile on yan yan's face after he was baptized I was filled was such great joy, because I know he made the right decision, it was really cool! 

Also this past saturday was stake conference here! We had Elder Bowen of the 70 and he is the area president of the Philippines come and speak to us. It was really cool, almost everything he talked about had to do with missionary work. He did a really cool question and answer, the spirit was really strong. He talked about how in reality sharing the gospel is not that hard, just through simple conversations or inviting a family over can have a huge effect, and the members really like it too, so I know that the work will progress even more here! He also talked about how the Lord has prepared the Philippines to be a huge strength in latter day zion, it is one of 5 countries to have 100 stakes and now has 101 and its only going to grow more, I am so incredibly blessed to be able to be a part of it and serve in the Philippines!

  1. How often to you shop for groceries and about how much to you spend each week for them? Every monday and it only costs about 400-500 pesos depends on the week. That is equivalent to like 9 or 10 us dollars haha.
  2.  Are the members good about giving you referrals? YES and the 7 referrals we received a few weeks ago are turning out to be some great investigators and we are teaching their friends as well, it is awesome!
Well that is probably all I have for you guys this week! I look forward to hearing from you guys every week and I love you all so much! I am so blessed to have you all always supporting me! 

Elder Joshua Degen





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