Skyping Home Christmas 2013

With his companion Elder Jackson

December 16, 2013

Aight.  So just a short lil' update for this week. Sorry, I always say that.  I'm just get so sick of emailing. Only 7 more months till I can talk to ya'll in person! (Note from mom: I think he's off on his countdown, but I don't have the heart to tell him.)

We had 3 more baptisms this last week! Elder Linnell was finally able to go home (problem with the exit visas) and we're just still killin' it here. We have a few more baptisms coming up this January. We are just hoping Elder Jackson doesn't get transferred on transfer day the end of this year. 

 

Ahh, I hate typing long emails. I started writing in my journal again.  Anyway, I gotta get going so we can get our Christmas cards printed and finish my Christmas shopping. I'll get ya that nativity set if ya want, but it's a little expensive and kinda big so that might have to be the main gift I bring home for ya mom. 

Love ya! Skype ya next week! Can't wait!

 

(Note from Mom: I was concerned that Elder Molnar is loosing his interest in emailing and posted a comment on FB.  Sister Sperry (the Mission President's wife) wrote:

 

"Hahaha. I just finished my own family email for the week and thought, "these are all sooo the same." It feels like nothing changes. You know a little like Ground Hog Day. I mean, there are new and different stressful things happening every day, but now that's starting to feel normal to me. Whatever normal is. : )"

I hope she doesn't mind me sharing her comment.  It sure made me feel better.  Honestly, I want to hear everything Elder Molnar shares with us, but I am bored writing to him the same ol', same ol' news (or non-news) from home.  Now I get it!)

Fairview Photos

Baptism

Mission Home

Reaching all the way to the top of the tree to hang the star!

Well, not so tall after all! 

Thanksgiving 2013 - Mashed potatoes - "God bless America!"

Just flippin' out!

Check out the peaks!

Roasting marshmallows

Ah!  S'mores....

Life as a Zone Leader

Note from Mom:  There was a very brief email from Elder Molnar last week, stating that he had a very busy week and didn't have time to write. He said that he would send pics this week to make up for it and he did.  But I will have to post them later.  Here's his short but sweet email from this week: 

Aight, sorry haven't really written in a bit so just a short update on things. Life's way good out here. We got a nice lil' 3rd wheel to join us from the Cuayan Mission while he waits for his passport to go home. Poor kid. Ha! 25 months in the mish, but he's dope and it's a blast out here. We are still working hard though. We had a sister baptism last Saturday. Her dad baptized and confirmed her.  We have 3 more baptisms this Friday.

Being a Zone Leader is fun!  There are just a lot of meetings though and our zone is huge! I'm just gettin' stoked for Christmas out here. We have a place to Skype and have been doin' some Christmas shopping.

I finally got to go to the temple last week though. Aahhhh, sooo good. I haven't been in forever.

I need to keep a better journal because I cant remember things. Time just flies way too fast now. But, that's it for today! I hope the pics make up for the lack of writing!

Love ya!

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 25, 2013

Aight, aight, so update for the mission. How could I forget?...Just kickin' it in my new area. I'm so stoked though, my comp Elder Jackson, and the elders we live with are way fun so we're gonna have a blast this holiday season.

As far as the area goes, it's way small and we live in our area so we just walk everything. It's nice being in a zone leader area though cause the works always better. We have 5 for sure baptisms coming up in December. Also, my ward mission leader actually works with us and stuff too! He's way dope. It's just kind of weird because he's still waiting for his mission call. But he's fun and is a big help here. Our ward's way dope too. All four of us elders got to speak in church yesterday.

We live in the straight up city but it's nice because they have a lot to do here. Don't worry.  I'm going to get you guys lots of stuff here.

I'm way stoked for Thursday! It's my Elder Jackson's birthday AND Thanksgiving, so our ward mission leader and his family is going to make us ham and mashed potatoes. Ahh, can't wait! It's been sooooo long!! This is going to be a way dope transfer and because my comps way sick, time's going to go by fast!

I can't wait for Skype calls next month.

'Sup Dad?!

Life out here is great so far. Yea, we only have one elder in our zone from Tacloban. All zones have two districts, but I think our zone is the biggest right now. There are twenty-six of us I think? Actually, our area is pretty small and straight up city, so we just walk usually. There's lots to do here so it'll be fun. We're close to SM Fairview too which is a pretty big mall here.

I'm way stoked for the holidays. We have a great house with us four missionaries here. But yea, life's good.

Love you guys,

Transfers Are Here!

November 19, 2013

First things first!! I am proud to announce that the river in my area (Meycauayan River) is currently the dirtiest/polluted river in the world. It used to be number three, but has now moved up. To celebrate, we all went to take pictures there again. I already sent some a while back, but maybe I'll send more next week. There was this spot in the river with black sludge on the surface and a huge rock sitting on top of the river. only here can rocks not sink into the river. Haha so fun!

I'm getting transferred tomorrow, so I'm way stoked. I'm going to the Fairview Zone. I'll be with Elder Jackson so I'm way stoked. I get to be a zone leader too, so that'll be fun. It'll be a great place to do Skype calls too, so I'm way stoked!

Elder Liu and I had a baptism! It was his first so duh, he got to baptize her. When he baptized her, she didn't go all the way down at first, so he like shoved her way down and then couldn't bring her back up. He struggled way hard. The next morning, Elder Liu woke up saying "oh my goodness!" His arm was way sore from baptizing her. Haha so funny. I'll miss this kid. Oh but good news! Spencer Greer from my high school is serving in Taiwan right now and that's were Elder Liu's brothers going to school, so we got him referred to the missionaries and we just heard he has a baptismal goal for 3 weeks. Cool huh? 

(check out the little girl staring at Elder Molnar!)

Christmas in the Philippines 2013

Feast After a Service Project

Mom: "Paul, you know how when you were a kid, you used to put olives on your fingers?"

Investigator Peter

Singing a Korean Song

Last Family Home Evening before transfers

But that's about it for now! I'll tell ya about my new area soon!

Love ya Mom!

Sup dad!

Ya we just got a bunch of missionaries here from Tacloban. I'm finally gonna transfer to this place called Fairview, so I'm way stoked. I'll be a Zone Leader next transfer and my comp is way dope. His name's Elder Jackson and he's from St George, UT. I hear this area's a bit nicer, so we should have a great place to Skype. We'll have some dope missionaries in our house for the holidays, so it's gonna be a blast. I just sent mom a bunch of pics and told about our baptism on Saturday, so check out the blog. 

Love ya Dad!

Typhoon Haiyan

Note from Mom:

I learned while chatting with a gal from Cebu at Expedia on 11/6/13 that they were under a "super typhoon" watch, category 4.  I had no prior knowledge of this. The gal did not seem to be concerned. "This is the way we live," she explained. My heart went out to her having just suffered a major earthquake and learned from her that they had also experienced a couple of tornadoes two days earlier.  

As we watched the news, my heart sank.  The breadth of area that this typhoon covered according to the satellite images, was incredible.  

I followed the Mission President's wife's Facebook status updates closely. Friday night we received an email from the mission secretary letting us know that all missionaries in the Quezon City North mission were safe.  Sadly we later learned that contact had been made with all missionaries with the exception of those in Tecloban. Grateful with the news we received in the following emails, I remained hesitant to post them to his blog.  

We are so relieved to hear that ALL missionaries in the Philippines have been accounted for, however, we know that this has been rough on them and their families and we therefore continue to send our love and prayers to all the missionaries in the Philippines as well as the citizens.  God bless them! I'm sure we will learn more as the stories unfold. These comments from Elder Molnar were before he understood the impact of the storm.

Mom:

Ya.... I'm alright now. Pretty nuts though here. It drizzled a little the other night so my umbrella got a little wet. Haha mom really, we don't get hit by anything here. It didn't even rain that hard, but ya I saw a few pics down south. Pretty nuts.

Ya, they sent a text out warning us. It just drizzled a little one night. That's it. But did ya see pictures of the Bisaya islands? The earthquake and now this? It really just covered that small part of the Bisayas and drilled them. They're getting destroyed.

Nothing too much lately. I know, I've been saying this for the last 4 months, but we have transfers next Wednesday and I really think I might transfer this time. I'll be honest, I have no idea what to write about. Haha!  I get kinda of sick of writing emails.

Don't hate me, but I'll just leave this letter at this. I hope the pics make up for it. We had a good week though. I'll tell you the details in 38 weeks.

Me and my comp just looking fresh to death, like we do.

Saturday session of General Conference in the Philippines!! Not the best turn out.

Dad:

All is chill here in my area. Just a little rain that got my umbrella a little wet, but I recovered OK, but ya it was pretty bad down south.  I saw a few pics and heard it was the 5th worst storm ever recorded. Is that right? But we're good here. This will probably for sure be my last week in this area. I know, I keep saying this but I'm pretty positive I'll get transferred next week. We've been working hard and have found some really cool people that we're teaching. 

Anyway, I'll let ya know about transfers next week. Pray it's good 'cause that's where I'll be for Christmas!!

Love ya!

November 4, 2013

Hey, actually we had a way good week this week. I'll just mention a few lil highlights. We finally got to teach this guy we tracted once. We've really been trying to find educated people to teach to actually benefit the church here and teach potential leaders. This guy is way dope. He's maybe 60, if that, a retired lawyer/bank owner (keep in mind this is huge for the Philippines). He met some missionaries on the airplane two weeks back while flying home from New York. He liked how they were nice and helped the flight lady with her bags, so he let us in. He has 3 kids who work in New York. He's way dope but makes me nervous.Ha! We just speak English to him. He's the first Filipino I've taught in English. Wish us luck! Strivin high!

Friday, we got stuck discussing the Bible with some Jehovah's Witnesses for over 2 hours. So instead of bible bashing, we just talked with this guy. He asked some good questions and just listened. Elder Holland said that if we listen with spiritual ears, our investigators will tell us what they need to hear. Yup, it worked!

We had one of the sickest lessons ever last Saturday. I'll just briefly tell it because I hate writing about spiritual experiences. It always sounds lame via email. We got punted a bit last Saturday, so we decided to go visit a branch president who hasn't been to church in 10 years. He was baptized in 1967 and doesn't believe in the restoration.

 I realized that I don't think he doesn't believe in the Book of Mormon, but has had a hard time standing alone in his religion. It's just him at the house and he kept asking why we need this book when it makes us so different from everyone else, etc.

He also mentioned how hard it is to be obedient when you don't go to church. He said now he drinks coffee and wine sometimes. The spirit was very strong though and we just bore testimony. We told him what President Uchtdorf said that if being a hypocrite means you aren't perfect at living what you believe, then we're all hypocrites. As the Apostle Paul described, the church is for the perfecting and edifying of the saints. It's not a rest home for perfect members.

I told him the church is like a family. The head can't say he has no need of the feet cause with out the feet it couldn't stand. Every member is important. We told him our family in this ward isn't complete without him and we want him to come back to church.

It was quiet for about 5 minutes and we just let him think.. He then asked, "Then what?" We waited a minute and told him,"Then you're back home with your family in God's church." It was quiet for another 5 minutes and then he said, "Maybe when the time is right, he'll come back." So we just said O.K. and told him when he's ready, we'll be waiting.  Pretty cool though.

He prayed for us and then asked if he could buy us some sodas. So of course we said yes and talked for a bit. He asked about a few members in the ward, some old friends, and gave us a book to give one of them. We talked to his friends yesterday and they're gonna come with us to teach him this week Pretty cool. We started off that lesson with an apostatized man and because of the Spirit, left as a humbled man who I know will be back at church. Gotta love the spirit.

That's it for now!

Love ya!