E-mail dated 10/29/18

Kamusta kamo??!

Dasig gid ang oras. It is already monday again. It has been another fast and busy week! I love opening my email and reading about how everyone is doing! And of course it is great to hear about how the utes and Jazz are doing! In fact I am wearing my utes socks right now because my other socks are drying! haha

ayos, so this week was another good one, not sure if I have an amazing story or a ton of detail about what we did this week, but just enjoying missionary work as always! I guess I kind of have a funny experience that I could share with you. So early this week in my personal study I was reading Alma 14, one of the coolest chapters in the Book of Mormon, and as missionaries sometimes do I dozed off, but I wasn't asleep as like in between, but I had this awesome dream about Alma 14. haha After I told my companion that the should make Alma 14 into a movie, I would watch it for sure. I am not sure why I told you that story, but I thought it was funny. And by the way I don't just fall asleep during personal study. I love personal study. 

For most of this week, we have been having some great lessons. We had some good lessons with brother Gabawa who came to church for the second time in a row. We are just praying and trying to help him overcome some problems with the word of wisdom. I know it will not be easy for him, but I totally believe that he can overcome it. We are going to have a family home evening with them later tonight, should be fun! Their 3 year old little girl Inday, goes crazy everytime we go over haha! 

This morning we had a lot of fun playing basketball with a bunch of youth and their friends! We finally had enough people to play a game. It was a lot of fun and a great way to find some new potential investigators. The youth had no idea that they were giving us referrals at the same time haha! 

Well It is just crazy how time is flying, I can't believe that it is almost november. This last week marked one year ago when I had my first baptism back in nueva valencia guimaras. It is so weird, in a way that just seems like it just happened. Time flies. Thanks to everyone for the emails, prayers and support. I really appreciate it! You guys are the best and hope you all have a great week!

Palangga Ko kamo!

Elder Degen

E-mail dated 10/22/18

Kamusta Kamo???

How are you all doing?? Another week has gone by and it has been a great one! I was glad to hear from all of you and I especially love getting all of the pictures! I was glad to hear all about the Utes and Jazz! Wahoo that is exciting!! 

So this week has been a pretty busy one again! This week we had a zone Conference and zone interview! Zone conference on thursday was good, we had the opportunity to give a training in front of 4 zones (like 40 plus missionaries), which is not my favorite thing to do, but it went actually okay! We gave a training about decision making. That was only my second time giving training at zone conference, so hopefully I will get more and more comfortable if I have to do it again. For a good part of the week, we were focused on the baptism of the Gabawa family. Preparing everything and also teaching them to make sure they are prepared.

Then on Saturday was the highlight of our week! Sister Leah and Jillean Gabawa were baptized! I had the opportunity to baptize sister Jillean (9yrs old) and Elder Tolentino baptized her mom sister Leah Gabawa! It was so rewarding to see how happy and excited they were to be baptized and even better to see how happy they were after they were baptized! Actually my experience baptizing Jillean was kind of funny. So jillean is this super funny little 9yo, she always asks like a million questions during the lessons. So the funny part at her baptism was as soon as she steps in the font she bends her knees so that only her head is above water and basically starts to swim while saying "nami ni" (this is nice) haha. But once she finally cooperated she was baptized. It was cool to hear sister Leah's testimony and especially her goal to help her husband become a member, who we have now extended a date for Nov 24! It is awesome, it is our goal and sister Leah's goal for them to be a complete family and eventually go to the temple! I know that all things are possible ad I have a strong hope that brother gabawa will be baptized as well. He came to church for the first time this week! It makes me happy that I am sharing this gospel that makes our family so awesome to other families! 

Sorry the email is kind of short, but I hope you all enjoy reading my emails! I am blessed to be able to serve here, it is such a great opportunity to be a missionary!  I love you all and that should do it for this week! 

Palangga ko kamo!

Elder Degen

E-mail dated 10/15/18

Kamusta kamo!!!???

It has been another really quick week here in Lapaz! It has also been another busy one, with transfer day and arrivals of new missionaries. It has also been a very fun and great week for our investigators. We were also able to watch all 4 sessions of general conference. It was a great general conference, man we are so blessed to be led and guided by a living prophet and apostles! 

This last tuesday was transfer day. And on Thursday was the arrival of the new missionaries. In our zone, there are 5 trainers so we got 5 new missionaries in our zone and 4 of them are americans. Everyone in our zone is training except us, our zone now consists of 9 sisters and 4 elders haha. very unique! 

This week was awesome as far as teaching and investigators, we were able to invite a lot to come to General conference and we had 7 investigators attend general conference. That is awesome experience for them to hear the living prophet. We had a great experience with one of our part member families, the one I mentioned last week, the Junsay family. They all attend General conference, we have had some awesome lessons with them and I am excited that they are progressing! A funny thing that happened with them was one of the sons wanted to attend church so he rode his motorcycle to what he thought was the church, went in, got some weird looks and decided that, that wasn't the church we explained, then went home picked up his family and they all eventually made it to attend general conference. haha!

Questions…

1. How is the Gabawa family this week and are they ready for their baptism? So Sister Allieah and Jillean will be baptized this coming saturday!! We are still working with the father, he still has something that we are helping him with, but it is okay with him and his wife wants to set the example for him and then help him! So we are very excited for them!! I will for sure send pictures next week!
2. What temple do the people in Iloilo attend?  It kindof looks like the new temple announced is close to where you are. People here always go to the Cebu temple. The new one is in the very south part of the Philippines. 
3. Have you eaten anything crazy lately? Something that I really started to like recently is something they call isaw. Which is deep fried chicken intestine.. mmmm it is delicous! I also ate squid like a week ago!

 That should do it for this week! I love you all! GO UTES GO JAZZ!

Palangga ko kamo!

Elder Degen

E-mail dated 10/8/18

Kamusta Kamo!!?? 

Well I guess to start off, I did hear about the big announcement by Pres. Nelson, they announced it in our sacrament meeting yesterday,news travels fast. I was surprised, but I am sure I will more fully understand it as I listen to the talk next week in general conference. From what I have heard from you guys it sounds great, especially for the leaders of the church who have a lot of meetings, thats what our bishop mentioned to us. It is a great time, we are being led and guided by a living prophet. That truly is an amazing blessing. 

Its been another busy week. So this week, unfortunately we weren't able to get a lot of lessons in, but the it was still a great week. On Wednesday and Thursday we had MLC again. I really like the new and stronger emphasize we are be trained to give to the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is such an amazing and powerful book. We should never take it for granted. That is why as a mission we are trying to use always and in every way possible. Also this week there were some emergency transfers, so one missionary in our zone came with us, so its been the 3 of us and 2 areas for these last couple of days, it has been kind of crazy, but its been fun too! But tomorrow is the actual transfer day and neither I or Elder Tolentino are transferring. I am happy to stay here in Lapaz, especially because the Gabawa family baptism is on the 20th. But it looks like our zone will be changing a lot, there are 4 missionaries in our zone that will be training. Hopefully Isaac taeolii from murray will come to our zone, that would be fun!! He is coming here next week. There are a lot of foreigners/ americans that are coming in so it looks like I won't be the only one in our zone anymore haha. 

So even though its been kind of a crazy week. We had some great experiences. This family where only 1 daughter is a member (LA) and everyone else is a non member, we have been teaching them for a while and so far that hadn't really progressed. But this week we had a great lesson with them about the plan of salvation. We shared the verse in alma 34:32 about how this life is the time we have to prepare to meet God. It was really cool to see their mindset change and this sunday, the LA duaghter came to church for the first time in years and her parents came with her to church for the first time. That is one great experience of using the Book of Mormon, the themselves felt the spirit as they read that verse and we saw it change their countenance. That was a little miracle this week, I am excited to continue to teach them. 

Well that should do it for another week, sorry for the short email. Hopefully here in the coming weeks, I might be able to have a normal week! haha well I guess this type of week is sort of normal now. Well, I greatly appreciate the love and support that you all always give me. Hope everyone has a great week! GO UTES GO JAZZ!

Palangga Ko Kamo!

Elder Degen

E-mail dated 10/1/18

Kamusta kamo??!

I hope you all have had a great week! It was a pretty good week here in Lapaz! I was sad to hear that the utes lost! Oh I don't know if I ever told you this but, one time I saw a guy here wearing a Utes shirt and of course I asked him where did you get it and he just told me he bought it at an ukay ukay ( a place where they just sell used clothes and stuff) haha, he told me it was his favorite shirt. haha sorry that was kind of random, but I just barely remembered it! Sometimes I feel like all of my emails are the same so at least this time I threw in that random story! 

Well as for me this week, it has been a pretty fast and busy week! We have taught some great lessons this week and have seen some great experiences. So just a few of the cool things that happened this week was one of our investigators is a part member, his wife is a member. He is the nicest guy in the world and he is fun to teach, he had never been able to come to church because of his very difficult work schedule. So we told brother Plando that if he has a true desire to come to church, Heavenly Father will provide a way for him. And this week that promised was fulfilled, he came to church. This brother is a taxi driver and his schedule is crazy, he works 24hrs at a time, and this sunday even though he had just worked 24 hrs straight, he came to church! It is such a testimony builder for me that if we pray with real intent for something Heavenly Father will help us. That was such a cool miracle, even brother was surprised that he wasn't even sleepy during church! 

Another cool experience we had this week happened with the Gabawa family. So sister Gabawa was not feeling well one day, and we explained what a blessing was and offered to give her one. She was pretty sick, but wanted to play in her volleyball game the next day. We gave her and her daughter blessings and the next day they were all good and she played in her game. It was cool to see how strong her faith is. They are getting very excited for their baptism on October 20. 

Also this Saturday we had a very unique opportunity to attend this special event. We were invited to attend this catholic semenario thing. So basically we were invited by these catholic missionaries to come and share each others beliefs as a part of christian unity is what they were saying. So we were a part of like 30 missionaries that got to attend this event. It was cool. We had a little program, some missionaries shared, 13 articles of faith, plan of salvation and the Book of Mormon. We gave a Book of Mormon to every single one of them. At the end we sang I feel my saviors love, and the spirit was really strong. They were really nice and it was a cool experience.

Also this week we had zone conference on friday and we just had a zone activity earlier today! So it has been a pretty good week!

Well That should do it for this week! Thanks for everything! Love you Guys! Have a good Week! Go Utes Go Jazz!

Elder Degen