E-mail dated 11/26/18

Kamusta kamo???! 

This week has been kind of crazy, but it was so awesome! So On tuesday and wednesday I was still in Lapaz, just working and preparing for transfers. It was hard to leave Lapaz, there were so many special people that I was blessed to meet and share the gospel with. It was especially hard to say goodbye to the Gabawa and Junsay Families. But I know that the missionaries there will continue teaching them and they will be fine. Transfers is probably the hardest part of being a missionary. 

Then on thursday was the trainers and trainees meeting! I was so nervous and excited and the same time! For the first while, the trainers and trainees were seperate and pres cruz talked to us trainers about how important our role is. It is a big responsibility, but it should be fun! Then we all came together and it was announced who will be training who. My new companion/trainee is Elder Alegado! He is from the northern part of the philippines, a place called tarlac. He is so awesome! He is so humble and ready to work. He is not comfortable speaking english and he doesn't know Ilonggo yet, so he speaks tagalog (which I can Kind of understand) and I just try my best. haha! But filipinos usually pick up ilonggo fast. He is good at teaching! I think we will be good! After the trainers and trainees meeting we were picked up by our ZLs and we got on the boat going to Guimaras! As we were riding on the boat to Guimaras I had a flashback of the first time I road on a boat going to Guimaras with my trainer. I am so excited to be back in Guimaras I love the place and the people here. 

So the situation with our house is still a little bit of a struggle, for the first couple of days we had to stay in the jordan elders apartment like 30 minutes away. Then when we got our stuff for our apartment, which the APs brought to us, we realized that we don't have an Iron, which is kind of important. And we still don't have a cellphone yet, but despite all of that we had a great couple of days of work. The people in buenavista are so grateful to have missionaries again. The members especially the branch pres and family have been a huge help, the have shown us members and former investigators. And the best part is there are investigators that have been going to church but there were no missionaries to teach them, so we already have some great investigators! I already love the area, it should be fun, and I know that there are even more people waiting for the gospel especially after not having missionaries for so long! 

I was so excited to hear about the Utes haha take that BYU! 8 in a row! Wahooooo! 

Palangga ko kamo!

Elder Degen

E-mail dated 11/19/18

Kamusta Kamo!!!?? 

Wow! Well i have got some news for you guys!!! I found out that I am going back to the island of Guimaras and I will be re opening an area that has been closed called Buenavista! I will also be Training a new missionary and a district leader. That was a lot for me to take in earlier haha! I was pretty surprised! So on thursday I will be getting my trainee and then going to my new area! Buenavista. It is for sure going to be challenging, but I am still excited! It is going to be really sad and hard to leave LaPaz! The 3 transfers/ 4 months that I have been here in Lapaz have been an awesome experience! I have grown to love the people so much, especially all of the people we are teaching! It is going to be hard to leave, it is always hard to transfer. But this next part of my mission should be challenging and fun, I am looking forward to it! 

So this week overall has just been a pretty crazy week! It was not what we planned or expected to happen this week! So this week on tuesday we went to the mission office to get supplies for some members of our zone, and this little innocent trip turned out to change our whole week! haha! So while we were there we found out about a small issue with the sisters apartment here in lapaz, some issue about us being charged for things we are not using and a little problem turned into a big one. To keep the story short we had to talk to the owner and do a bunch of other stuff and it  ended up that the sisters had to get a new apartment. And since we are their zone leaders (kind of glad it is some one elses turn to be zone leader) it was OUR job to deal with the landlord, find a new apartment and help them move apartments, all within just this last week haha! So that took up a good chunk of our time this week haha! 

But other than that little incident, we had a pretty good week! A lesson that we had this week that was really powerful was with the Junsay family! We are really trying to help them prepare themselves for baptism! We read in the Book of Mormon and talked about the conversion story of King Lamoni! We especially focused on the verse where it talks about how king lamoni was willing to forsake his kingdom, just to feel the joy of repentance and living the gospel. SO we realated that to them and it was a very powerful lesson. It was also a good reminder for all of us, living the gospel takes sacrifice, but sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven! The Book of Mormon is such a powerful tool!

Earlier today we had a Zone activity!! We just had it at the lapaz chapel! We played a bunch of different sports. basketball, dodgeball and kickball! It was a blast! Lapaz zone is a lot of fun! I will send pictures probably next week! 

1. Have you had to alter your way of introducing yourself as a missionary with President Nelson’s counsel to use the full name of the Church?  I would guess that a lot of people know you as the Mormon missionaries. I love the new emphasis! We were already kind of doing this before, but just emphasizing it even more, just makes it easier to share the gospel. Of course everyone knows us as mormons, but none of them know why and that is the perfect time to introduce the Book of Mormon and give it to them! 
2. Is anyone going to feed you Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday?  I wish I could send you some turkey!  I am not sure! I will celebrate some how some way! Probably with rice! haha!

Well that should do it for this week! This coming week and weeks and months should be an adventure! I am going to miss Lapaz and I am so grateful for the chance I had to serve here and to be a zone leader. It wasn't easy, but I learned a lot about leadership. The most important thing just comes down to loving the people you are leading and the people you are teaching! I will never forget the time I served here. But I guess it is time for a new part of my mission! Thanks for everything guys! I love you all! ALSO I WAS SO EXCITED TO HEAR ABOUT THE UTES!!!! Wahooo! GO UTES!!!!! 

Elder Degen

Palangga ko kamo!

E-mail dated 11/12/18

Kamusta Kamo??!!

Wow this week has been a fast one!! It was a busy one, not a usually busy, busy with a lot of meetings, but it was a great week!!! I appreciated all of your emails this week, always great to hear from you all!

So this week on Thursday Friday and Saturday we had meetings so with that and traveling to and from meetings and everything took up a majority of the week! But at least these meeting were different than the usual meetings that we have! On thursday and we have a zone conference as a part of a mission tour. Elder Teh of the seventy was present and even just him being there changed the entire feeling of the meeting, it was such an amazing experience to be taught by him a couple of times this  last week! The spirit was so strong in all of the meeting as Elder Teh shared with us what the living prophet and apostles want for missionary work! He talked a lot about basics of missionary work and how the Philippines Iloilo mission can improve in finding teaching and baptisms! One thing that he really emphasized was it depends on our attitude of what we get out of a meeting. Something he mentioned was that if all we know is what we see and hear, we will not know very much. He emphasized that we can receive personal revelation. Then on Friday we had an MLC also with Elder Teh. The council was the best one, Elder Teh seemed to trust the mission leaders so much and had confidence in us as we counseled with him and president cruz of how we can help the mission improve! Overall it was an awesome experience to have a mission tour with elder Teh! 

So that took up most of our time this week, but something great that happened because of all the meeting is that we got to have other missionaries who were too far to go home,  work in our area for a couple of hours and within those hours they found some great new investigators and potential investigators for us! So for how busy we always are that was a great blessing! We have already taught a few that they talked to and there is some great potential! One of them we taught was a sister that is staying here and is watching a bunch of like 10 year old kids and as we taught the plan of salvation especially the part about our purpose in life, these super loud kids were asking if they could have faith today, repent tomorrow and then be baptized the next day haha! BUt of course we explained to them, that is not how it works! haha!

That was pretty much our week. We are still preparing The Junsay family and bro gabawa for their baptisms on Christmas! We are still having some great lessons with them!

Well sorry the email is kind of short, next week it will probably be longer! I love and am so grateful for all of you! We have been so blessed as a family because of this Gospel so that is why I am here right now! Love you all and have a great week!

Palangga Ko kamo! 

Elder Degen

E-mail dated 11/5/18

Kamusta Kamo??!!

How is everybody doing!!? Man am I excited to email you guys right now. I experienced something today that I have never experienced before....earlier today there was an earthquake!....now before anyone freaks out, everyone is fine, it wasn't one of the bad earthquakes it was just a cool one. So it shook 2 times like an hour apart, the first one was weak and just felt like the ground was vibrating while we were playing basketball, but the 2nd one felt like the ground was swaying, like we were on a boat, it was so cool! Now thats not something I email about every week! 

Well other than the earthquake earlier, this week has been a pretty normal one! Busy as usual, but this week we had some awesome lessons and extended baptismal dates to 5 investigators. We are really looking forward to December. On sunday we had a meeting with the Stake Presidency and all of the zone leaders and Iloilo North stake. We set a Stake Baptism for December 25! White Christmas! The goal for the whole North Stake is to baptize 90 souls, which means a goal of 30 per zone! I am so excited, it is going to be awesome. North stake does this every year and it will be so awesome if we can reach our goal. After this meeting we extended a date for December 25 to 5 of our investigators ( Bro Gabawa and the Junsay Family). Elder Tolentino and I have faith that they all can overcome their challenges and be baptize on Christmas! We had an awesome lesson last night with the Junsay family. We read together and discussed Lehi's dream in 1 nephi ch 8. As we explained, read and testified, their interest in the Book of Mormon grew, the spirit was so strong when we told them that we are here serving a mission so others can partake of the tree of life, we expressed our desire for them to partake of it and then invited them (4) to be baptized and they all accepted. It was an awesome lesson!

Other than those great experiences, we were kept busy with our responsibilities as zone leaders. Sometimes we have to sacrafice for the benefit of the other members of our zone, but its good, It has honestly taught me a lot. I am still enjoying it. Also this week, there has been a lot of preparation for the coming of a general authority to our mission this week. Elder Teh of the seventy is here in our mission this week. We will have 3 meetings with him this week (Zone conference, MLC, and one special meeting)  I am excited it should be an awesome experience to have him here. I will tell you all about it next week!

Well as always I am so grateful all of you! You guys really are the best! I am so grateful for this opportunity that I have to serve a mission, it is so awesome! And it honestly is fun! I hope you all have a wonderful week! Hopefully The Utes and Jazz play better this week! GO UTES GO JAZZ! 

Palangga ko kamo!

Elder Degen