10/31/12

Happy Halloween ya'll!!

Haha mom, I like your question. "Can we send some money so you can get stuff for a family in need?" ha mom, I live in probably the most ghetto part of the Philippines. Everyone here is starving and in need. But can you just do this for Christmas, send some little toys and stuff for kids here? Don't worry about sending me anything, just some pictures of you guys. Thanks for the ones you did send, but I meant pictures of the family. It's a good way to bond with members and investigators here. They love seeing pics of us and our fams. Just send whatever pictures of you guys, Aria, Cyrus, etc. maybe some from when heather and i went to Cali Just whatever. oh and the picture of my flipping over the rocks on that glacier. just get it off Facebook so i can show people I was actually pretty cool before i became a missionary. oh but that's way sick about Landon. I'm so stoked for him.

K this week was way sick. oh and dearelder works fine. I don't know what snail mail is. Just finished my first transfer here so our p day is today (Wednesday). I'm still getting trained so i won't get transferred just yet. So a little advice just in case anyone gets their call to somewhere in Asia. Make sure you watch DragonballZ and Ghost Fighter and stuff a lot before you come. Haha everyone loves it here. We had a way good lesson with a less active family, and talked about Dragonballz. Definitely a good way to bond with kids and teenagers.

K here you'll like this story. So there's this Sister who's just returning from being less active for a long time. She's about 40 and has two girls, 19 and 7. we go over there a lot and she loves cooking for us. we're way tight. she's an amazing cook. but yeah so her husband left her a while back, cheated on her and all this stuff and moved to Hawaii. So she's been going through a really rough time. Anyways her husband just came to visit last week and both days he came to her house, he beat her and stuff. anyways on Sunday we had dinner at her house with a couple other of close friends from the ward. after dinner we shared a message about the atonement and we turned the lights off and my companion told the story from 3rd Nephi 9. about coming unto Christ and letting him heal us. after that we all shared testimonies and the spirit was super strong. all of us were in tears. and when I bore testimony and talked about the atonement, my companion later said I shared it in perfect Tagalog. He said if that wasn't the gift of tongues, he didn't know what was. crazy cause I'm still struggling with the language. cool huh?

Aight well there's my spiritual thought of the week. love you all and hope everyone's doing well!

Take care of yourselves!

First Snail Mail from the MTC

9/25/12 - received 10/23/12 (Edited version)

Whassup my family?!

Happy Birthday Dad! Not sure when you'll get this letter, but eh, it's worth a shot. Yeah, so I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and tell you guys about some of my investigators. I thought it would be cool if you guys kept my investigators in my prayers so you can feel even more a part of the work here in the Pinas. (Skipping the details here - Mom)

There is not any divorce here, so marriage is pretty difficult. So, couples often don't get married. So, lots of chastity issues. And everyone including the little kids, drink and smoke. There are about 600,000 members in the Pinas, but only about 100,000 actives. We spend a lot of time with less actives.

But yea, hope you are all doing well. I'm hanging in there. It's definitely been hard. Hardest thing I've ever done. It's not exactly the nice tropical beach I pictured, instead super poor, hot and one of the most polluted cities in the world. It's been rough lately just not being able to communicate and just thinking I'll be here for 22 more months. But I've found some stuff that helps me remember why I'm here. (Skipping the details again - Mom)

Also, I just keep thinking of this quote, "You will do more good for your family on your mission than if you were home trying to help them."

It'll be easier once I get the hang of things here. For sure. Just gotta remember why I'm here. It's not about me. And if I can sacrifice a few years of hanging out and having fun to help even one family feel the gospel in their life and live together forever, I'd say it's pretty well worth it.

But yea, I can't thank you all enough for your prayers and support. I'll send some pictures home soon.

Oh, and fun fact. Yia Yia, or "yaya" in Tagalog means, "housemaid or servant". Ha, so pretty much the same thing as Yia Yia in Greek.

Love you Mom, Dad, John, Heather, Cyrus, Aria, Kelb and Skylo!!

Dang yeah keep me posted on Landon's call. Oh and Ben's too. I'm stoked to see where they get called to.

So almost done with my first transfer! so nuts. alls still going great. we went to this place called echo park today. way sick. Hopefully we'll go to WaWa for our Pday soon. I'll send some more pictures after that. those places are way sick. not the ghetto I live in haha. how's heather and the kids doing? I havent heard from them yet. yeah mail here kinda sucks. we only get it every two weeks. but tell john and cyrus happy birthday for me. I wrote john a letter a while ago but I have no idea when he'll get it. hope the primary program goes well. ours is coming up in a few weeks so me and my companion are gonna let the little kids borrow our ties for it. should be good.

nothin' new really. Just been workin' hard, teaching new people. I'm super stoked for our investigator sister Danica's wedding and baptism next monday. hmm what else? do you have any questions about the Pinas? I don't really know what else to talk about. I had an investigator start breast feeding in front of us while we were teaching. that was awkward. I've been hearing that would happen soon enough.

Welp the holidays are coming up! got our mini charlie brown status christmas tree and some lights for our apartment. Don't worry, a christmas card will be out shortly. oh and I found what I'm buying myself for christmas. they have some sick filipino style acoustic guitars at the mall here for only like 1500 pisos. which is like less than 40 bucks. and they're actually pretty nice. oh and we'll have to figure out what the plan is for skyping on christmas. guess we've still got a while. hope you guys are excited to see my pale sweaty face! ha it's hard to get tan in my area with all the crazy pollution.

well I dunno know what else. but yeah hope you guys are all doing well. I'm still praying about yal err' night. make sure you send me some of the bois blogs since I can't email them.

love you all!

Elder Molnar and Elder Staples - companions

First Photos from the Mission Field

My mission companion, Elder Staples. Dinner with Sister Garcia

Investigators

First Session in the Manila MTC

Sister Garcia

Sunset in the Philippines!

My bed - Elder Mauzy was one of my teachers in the MTC

After surgery.  I'm on the mend.

Welcome to the Philippines! (First day at the mission home)

10/15

Yeah that's so nuts about the whole mission thing. Ha Demi's gettin ready to go? Wait that's way sick, ha of course Brandon would go to the south. Let me know where Landon C goes and Ben should be getting his call soon too. Dang that's so crazy.

Yeah conference was pretty dope as. I heard about the age change last week and was so stoked to watch it. Too bad we have to wait a week after you guys to see it though, but it was way sick. Hollands talk was amazing. Yeah ha I felt like he was speaking to me the whole time. I loved the part about what it really means when you raise your hand to the square at baptisms. Also Uchtdorf had a sick talk too about how we need to not focus on the finish line and enjoy the journey. That one really hit home for me with being out here and all. crazy, I'm already and 1/8th of the way done with my mish. but yeah it was funny,seems like only six months ago i was using conference as a time to catch up on sleep and now i was actually way stoked to watch it.

So my favorite things from the week. An investigator told me I look like David Archuleta and I guess he came to the Pinas one time so they all love him here. So when all the kids on the street ask my name, I tell them I'm David Archuleta and they freak out. hahah. Our investigator Sister Danica is getting married and baptized on the 29th so i'm way stoked for that. it'll be my first baptism. she's 21 and has a little 2 year old girl, Yen Yen, and hopefully her fiance Jerry will be able to baptize her. He's less active so hopefully it'll all work out and be good for their family.

Hmm least favorite thing this week. So last week we started talking to some people on the streets and my companion started talking to these two older ladies and this guy singled me out and started talking to me. I tried sharing with him why I'm here and about Jesus Christ, but he was a little too preoccupied with "falling in love" and with my nose. Gotta love all the gays here. yeah, I thought nose jokes back home were bad. EVERYONE comments on my nose here. haha ah the life of being a greek in asia where they dont have noses.

Ha well that's all for now. I'll send some pictures too. keep me updated on everyones mission calls and wish landon good luck in the mtc for me and tell brandon congrats for me too. Oh and happy birthday dad. I sent a letter a while ago but I'm not sure if you've gotten it yet.

-Elder Molnar

Whasss Goooood?!!

Well it's only been a couple days so not too much this week. Plus the weeks are starting to blend together so it's hard to think of what's been going on. Hope conference was good. We're watching it at our stake center this weekend. 

Yeah I bought a flash drive so i can copy pictures before I try to send some home so I won't loose any. I'll send pictures home next week for sure. aight?

Hmm.. what're some of the highlights this week?... My companion and I are working hard so we can get some baptisms goin. We've got 8 investigators with bap dates coming up so should be good! The whole marriage ish in the Pinas is killin us though. You have to wait forever for paperwork and everything so a lot of our investigators are just waiting on that. We've been teaching the Calugas family a lot lately. 3 times a week. They're seriously the golden family everyone wants. I'm excited to have my first family baptism soon.

Today was way sick. We went bowling just barely. Everything here is super ghetto, but the malls and stuff are way nice. nicer than utah. But I felt right at home today. At the bowling ally they were playing DragonBall Z on the TV's and playing american music, LMFAO and stuff. Ha and people say you can't do stuff on missions. Plus karaoke is huge here. Our neighbors have allnighter parties a lot so I hear Call Me Maybe and everything soooo much. ha love it.

It's sick here. You feel like a celebrity walking down the streets. Everyone, without fail, everyone says "Hey Joe",  "Whass your name" or "Ano height mo"(what's your height) or they just sing the song Call Me Maybe to you. Yeah whoever said the Philippines would be a humbling experienced... yeah that's a lie. Ha I'll probably get even more cocky from all the attention I get here. I finally got proposed to the other day. Some girls were following us around the other day and one for me asked me to write her and marry her. Whelp, bought time. I mean I've been here for almost 3 weeks now. haha

Oh something weird. My companion and I were giving a couple blessings to this less active family and I gave one to this guy. When I was giving the blessing, he passed out and then woke up all sweaty and stuff when I said amen. Either it was really powerful or I'm just super boring when I talk.

Well everythings going good. Still don't really understand anyone. Even if they speak English. It all sounds the same here. But it's gettin better.. Fast Sunday was yesterday and I was dying while we were walking around at like 6 pm on an empty stomach. Then we had 3 different dinners with different families after that and I was so full. Guess that's what I get for complaining. Some of the food is way good here. Just rice with different toppings called ulams. Uh although spaghetti here kills me. It's just tomato sauce with hot dogs for the meat.

Eh well that's all for now.

Love ya guys!!

2nd Week in the Pinas!

Sheesh, so many emails mom. Thanks for the love but I don't have time to read all them and everything very thoroughly. You'll have to start writing letters and when you do dear elders, they're supposed to print them out and give them to me.

Yeah, don't worry about sending me packages, it's like 50 bucks. I already take like 10 pills a day so don't worry about probiotics. They give us stuff here, and actually it's kinda nice not using scratchy toilet paper. I'll have to get a water sprayer to use when I get home. But, to send letters you just throw an international stamp on it and it's good. Just takes a week or two. I sent you guys a letter and a little happy birthday note for Dad, so that'll be there somewhat soon. Oh, and yeah, so we're not supposed to email anyone but family, so if anyone asks, just have them write me a normal letter or dear elder. Thanks! also you should send me updates from the bois from their blogs and stuff. I started writing Taylor and them, but I guess I can't anymore. Oh, and I'll send some pictures next Monday!

K, sooo let's see. The Pinas are so crazy. So last week kinda sucked. Got my toe "fixed", there were three of us who had to go. They just took us to the ER, stabbed our toes with some needles, ripped off our toenails and were good to go! haha Quite the party. Yeah, so I was stuck at our apartment for like 4 days 'cause you can't really wear shoes and walk around right away. Lots of just chillin' and studying. umm Elder Neilson, our Area President, came and held a mission conference. Pretty much just spoke with us and interviewed like half the mission.

I talked about some of our investigators in the letter I sent home. But yeah, it's been way sick.  We spend most the day teaching different investigators and less actives. We have a couple baptism dates coming up this month. Our Zone is going to try to have a Zone Baptism on the 27th. Kinda like a pot luck where each companionship brings someone to get baptized, haha. We need to get our wards stoked about missionary work. They're strugglin'. But yeah, we have a new referral family, the Calugas, that we've taught twice now. They're amazing. Seriously the dream investigators everyone wants. They keep all their commitments, already went to church once before we even taught them, committed them to baptism the first lesson, etc. So fun. It's crazy how happy they are. The four of them live under a little patio about 8 sq feet and the other half is just a dirt ground, and their roof is just some tarps and scraps of metal. Crazy how poor it is here. and I'm actually in one of the nicer areas. I'll send some pictures soon.

Oh, today was sick though. We had our first temple sesh at the Manila Temple today. So yeah, that's why our p-day is today (Wednesday). Not the nicest temple, but hey it's the Philippines, can't complain. I bought a basketball today so i can start ballin' it up with all the Pinas. We have a ghetto little basketball quart by our house so i'm pretty stoked. Hmm what else? There's soooo much i could talk about. I've been good about writing in my journal so you'll hear all the details in a few months. Oh, I tried another Philippino classic though. it's called Dinuguan. All it is, is blood they mix with vinegar and stuff and put meat in it. kinda like a soup of blood. that was... interesting. it's not too bad. Salty, but then you realize you're eating blood. Yeah..

Hmm.. yeah i dunno what else. I'll send some pictures on Monday and so just send me some. The language is good. Still don't understand anyone, but I've gotten good at nodding my head and laughing at the jokes I don't understand. Haha. Uhh yeah. Hope you're all doing well. Pray for my investigators. I'm doing great. I'm loving it here more everyday.

Love ya guys!!

Elder Molnar