E-mail dated 4/30/18

Kamusta kamo???!

Another week here in Iloilo city! Its really crazy to think that a year ago I opened my mission call to Iloilo at that time I had no idea where that was and now I think of it as my second home! Weird, time flies!

Anyways, if I am being honest this wasnt the easiest week, a lot of ups and downs, but hey today is a new week and I am just praying it will  be a better one! A mission is not easy, but it is suppose to be that, its suppose to require our best effort and all we have! So thats all I try to do everyday! But do not get me wrong, I love it, and there were a lot of good things that happened this week as well, so I will just focus on the positive! A talk that I have listened to a lot on my mission is by jeffrey r holland and its all about how, missions are suppose to be hard, because it was never easy for Jesus Christ so it shouldn't be easy for us! Its a great talk, give it a listen. 

SO this past week all 3 of our baptismal candidates passed their interviews and will be baptized this May 5 Saturday! I am excited for them! It has been fun to teach them and to help them receive the gospel. It is great to see how happy it makes them. Another little cool thing that happened this week was I got to go on splits with our AP(elder Glenn) and it was a lot of fun. He is also from Utah and we had a good time and got a lot of work done. One really cool blessing was when we taught one of our Recent Converts Sister April, she told us that because she doesn't have acell phone anymore she has just been reading the Book of Mormon and now she has finished , wow, she really loves reading it and her testimony is so strong. That was something that I really need this past week to see her and how much her life has changed to remind me, like wow this work that I am doing really can change peoples lives if they live it and accept it!

1. Anything crazy happen this week that you want to share?     I found a huge spider, thats about it haha! Ill send a picture if you want
2. I don’t hear you talking about tracking door to door.  Do you do any of that? Actually that is not allowed in our mission, that why you never hear about it. We are suppose to focus on working with members,visiting, asking for referral ect. but we are of course allowed to talk to people just on the street, which we do a lot of.
3. What happened this week that strengthened your testimony? A lot. A simple one, is I was feeling a little down, and I just got down and said the most sincere prayer and I immediately was overcome with peace, it was really cool, I know that Heavenly Father cares about each one of us individually!

Well Thanks so much for all the emails, and support every week! 

Love you guys a lot! 

Palangga ko kamo!

Elder Degen

E-mail dated 4/23/18

Kamusta Kamo!!!??? 

Grabe kadasig ang tion! Time is flying! Another week has gone by and yesterday marked the end of my 2nd transfer here in Iloilo city ward and 5th overall in the mission field! Neither me or Elder Dass are transferring, I am happy that I am staying, we are going to have a great May! I am Excited! I love these people and this ward a lot, it has been a great area so far, even though a lot of our area smells very bad haha! 

Anyways GO JAZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I knew it haha, 2-1 thats exactly the news I wanted to hear! Thanks for all the updates, it makes me happy to hear that they are doing well, keep enjoying it for me, and cheer as loud as you can for me! I liked the pictures, so thanks for all the jazz updates! 

So this week has been a pretty interesting one! We had a lot of meetings and stuff, which has its good and bad, but I actually love it! I like meetings because I get to see, my friends from past zones, districts, and past companions, it is so great to talk and catch up! Also my trainer (Elder Salamatin) slept at our house because he had a meeting the next day and his area is too far away to travel in the mornings, so it was great to see him again! That might be the last time, as he goes home next transfer! 

Well other than meetings and seeing good friends it has been a great week, and a pretty successful one! We have been working hard to prepare our 3 baptismal candidates for may 5, the pariginog kids and sis jocelyn jayson! I don' think I have told you much about sis jocelyn, but we have been teaching her ever since I arrived here and she has not been very consistent in keeping commitments until these past few weeks and is now very progressing and so excited for her baptism on may 5! She also has a daughter that we are teaching and has been coming to church with her, so her mom is going to set the example and be baptized and she hopes and prays that her daughter will follow in her footsteps! Also one other really cool thing that happened to us on sunday was we found a golden investigator! He came to church with his sister who is a member in the ward, and it turns out he has been taught a lot of the lessons before by missionaries is Negros island and now he came here and said he has a desire to be baptized, wow what a blessing. so we taught him and set a goal for may 19! What a blessing!

 ·  What was the best thing you ate this week? I COOKED TACOS this week! Hopefully I will be able to send pictures. We have been cooking at the apartment a lot lately and I found out that it is very hard to cook american food with filipino ingredients, but hey the tacos weren't too bad!

·  Are the kids still in school over there?  Do they follow a typical school year where they have the summer off? Actually they just recently got out of school here becuase March april may is summer here, they go back in June which is kind of weird, but okay!

·  Does your Ward have a lot of youth?  Do you get to interact with them?  Yes we have a ton of youth, a ton of young men, its really cool! We have played basketball a few times and now they don't quite understand that its only allowed on mondays haha they always ask me to play! 

I love hearing from you guys every week it makes me really happy, and helps me work for the rest of the week! Love you guys a lot! Next week I think I will get an email about the jazz winning the series! I am looking forward to it! GO JAZZ!

Love you all! Palangga Ko kamo!

Halong 

Elder Joshua Degen

E-mail dated 4/16/18

Kamusta Kamo!???

It has been another good week here! Very Hot, but its still a good time! I think I have been sweating since the day I arrived in the Philippines. I am sure you are all grateful for that comment, but it is very true! But much better to be hot than cold that is for sure! Anyways I appreciate all the emails, it really means a lot, I am so grateful to hear from all of you and get all the updates about everything! 

As for my week here, it has been a pretty good week! Some ups and some downs, but I always like to focus on the ups! ONe thing that was cool that happened this week was we started teaching this really old tatay, he is I think 75+ but I am not sure. But as we taught him, he really opened up to us about his life and  he said that he feels that he is still on the earth because he still has something to do, so that was a great opportunity for us to teach and testify to him that this gospel is what he is looking for. It was a really cool experience, I am grateful for little expereices like that! 

Something else I am very grateful for is in theses past few weeks we have been teaching these 2 sons of a recently re activated family and they are awesome, they will be baptized on May 5! It is sometimes hard to teach the gospel to a 13 and 10 year old kids, but it is great that their dad is a member to lead and guide them. We have also been teaching their cousins that live with them.

Something really awesome happened earlier today was when Elder Dass and I were going to Robinsons (a mall in our area) to get some things we needed and we ran into 5 members from my last area, Nueva Valencia! I saw a lot of members that I am really close to, including the first counselor Bro Rhen Poll. It was so cool, then they invited us to eat lunch with them. It was so great to see them. when i saw them it was like seeing family. I miss them, but it was so cool to hear that a lot of the investigators that I taught when I was there are now baptized, that makes me so happy! 

So even if there were some downs like people being too busy for us and investigators saying they would come to church and then not, thats okay, I will just tell you the good stuff!

I love you all so much and am so grateful for your constant support, love and prayers!

Palangga ko kamo

Halong 

Elder Joshua Degen 

E-mail dated 4/9/18

Kamusta Kamo????! (I hope that greeting never gets old for you guys, sorry if it does.) 

Wow what a great week, it is a great time to be a member and a missionary for this church, it is great! We are so so blessed to have a living prophet on the Earth today. And I have no doubt that Russel M nelson is a prophet of God and he was foreordained to be the prophet at this time on the earth. I loved conference, it was awesome, and especially all of the new revelation. Something funny was when he announced that there was no more home teaching and visiting teaching and it seemed like he almost paused (like waiting for applause) but then he went on to explain what the new home teaching was.  Anyways it was a great conference, the solemn assembly was really cool and so was the priesthood session, we are blessed! 

This week has been another awesome week! Conference and a baptism of our amazing investigator sister April. What more could I ask for! So before conference and the baptism we had some good work, although it is kind of difficult being summer, it is incredibly hot and not a lot of people are home, but we are still trying our best and were blessed to have some good things happen to us this week. Then on saturday, we had an awesome time watching an listening to conference, I really enjoyed the preisthood session, especially when president Nelson invited all of us to stand up and sing rise up o men of God, the spirit was so strong and I had a stronger desire, as did everyone, to be a better Priesthood holder. Then on Sunday we watched general conference as a stake and it was insane how many people came, our stake center couldn't hold the near 1000 that came to listen to our prophet. So that was cool! 

Then earlier today, we had an awesome baptism of sister April. It is crazy, I remember my first day here in Iloilo city we taught sister April and I invited here to be baptized, I had such strong faith and I always felt that she would be baptized and now it has happened. It is crazy how we just waved and said "hi nay" to her mom and then we were able to come in and share the gospel with april. Just from one time saying hi until now she is baptized and has the opportunity to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. ONe of my favorite scriptures is by small and simple things, great things come to pass and that is so so true! I am so grateful that Heavenly Father places prepared people in our paths. I cannot describe the joy of seeing here so happy after her baptism, especially when she started crying during her testimony. It is such a blessing to be a part of this great work!

1. Twelve investigators at Church last week?  That is incredible.  How are they doing? Well this week the big family that came to church last week went on vacation, and it was hard for others to go to the stake center because its kind of far., but we still had 4 at general conference and they others wanted to come, but were unable, they all are still great, I have a really strong hope that these people will progress towards a baptismal date in May. 
2. What has the weather been like the last few weeks?  Do you ever get cold? Well here in the Philippines it is summer from about mid march until june and it is waaayyy hot everyday, all the time, but it could be worse I could be cold all the time. So no  I don't get cold, well actually the AC in the church for 3 hours can get kind of chilly, that is until I step outside and am instantly sweating again haha. 

Well that should do it for this week, sorry its kind of short, but I told you the best things that happened to me this week so thats all that matters. Don't worry about me, it is great here, the Philippines is such and awesome place and I love these people here. Its easy to love them because as soon as you meet them, you feel as if you are already friends, its great! 

Palangga ko kamo!

Elder Joshua Degen

E-mail dated 4/2/18

Kamusta Kamo!!!?

Wow I am excited to email you today! This week has been so awesome and productive!! I don't know if I can email you everything that is happening here, but I will try my best! First of all thank you all for the emails and updates about conference, life , and sports! It was announced in my ward on sunday about the preisthood quorom changes, now we have a massive preisthood combined quorum, but I have no doubt that President Russel M Nelson is a prophet of God and is being led for whats best in these days! 

But the reason I am so excited to email you guys is because there are so many exciting things happening in my area right now, it is amazing! This week was full of finding new and amazing people, we received 15 new investigators and they are all awesome! We have been blessed and guided to these people who want to hear the Gospel! One experience was I think like 2 mondays ago we were getting a haircut and this barber shop that we always get our haircut at and I was waiting for my companion, when the owner over the barber shop started a conversation with me and eventually it led to him wanting me to meet his family, then we gave them a lesson one pamphlet and set a return appointment. Then just this last Saturday night we visited them and taught them lesson 1 all about family(Zarandin Family), and the loved it, and the next day 5 of them came to church! Even though we had only taught them once and didn't even finish lesson one! I was amazed and happy and how strong their faith is! We were also blessed with many new and former investigators that are very interested. Another example we had a less active family come back to church and their kids are not members yet so we are teaching them and their cousins (pariginog and Lazo family). This sunday we fasted as a mission that we and our investigators might be spiritual prepared for what President Cruz calls the harvest season. Which is we have a goal as a mission to have 100 baptisms in the month of May! And from the miracles that I have seen, I know it is possible and May is looking very bright here in the Iloilo city ward! 

So as we were fasting on Saturday and Sunday, I had such a great feeling and comfort that it was going to be a great sunday. At first when it was 5 minutes before chruch started we had 2 investigators at chruch, but as the meeting started all of our investigators started flooding in and wow what a miracle it was, we had 12 total investigators at Church! It brought me such great joy to see these people make the effort to come to chruch. And the ward was so great to welcome them all and make them feel like friends. I hope and pray as we continue to work hard and help them, they will continue to come to church! Also I would like to give you an update about one of our investigators that I know I have told you about before, Sister April! She is still solid as ever and is already in Alma of the Book of Mormon and her baptism will be on April 9 next week according to the answer she received. I am so excited and so is she, she has completely changed her life and she already has such a strong testimony!

Well thats all I have for my great week, I hope you guys have a great week! Thanks for everything I love you guys so much! Oh by the way I tried to send you a letter today, but the said it was going to cost 20 dollars so i said indi na lang (or basically no thanks) So sorry no letter until I find a cheaper way to send it! 

Palangga Ko kamo

Elder Degen