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!

October 28, 2013

Yeaahhh! Halloween! I got your package. Too bad the candy's already gone, but i'm stoked for the holidays. For Halloween, we get to help clean a library at a school. Yea, we celebrate way hard out here! That's cool though. I didnt even know they had libraries out here.

This week was alright. We keep gettin sick out here. I'm not sure what it is. We've been workin hard to get some of the nicer parts of area to progress more. We've been finding lots of new investigators too. I taught this one family the other day.  There were soooo many of them. The grandma and 5 of her kids live there as well as some of their kids. But a few of the guys there, are way dope. We taught the restoration and they had some great questions. "How are we supposed to know that what Joseph Smith said is true?" I love when people actually really want to know. Also, they mentioned how they believe we should have a prophet in these latter days. I was way stoked. "There is!!"

So, I've gotten pretty good at discussing The Bible. This guy on the street stopped us the other day, and so I talked to him for a bit. I said that we were Mormons, and he freaked out because apparently we kill people??? I dunno. He told us we're going to hell. I was still nice and tried to give him a pamphlet. Then he saw the picture of Jesus and was like "That's not really him!" Then he said "Jesus cant be holding a lamb. The bible says all the animals went to paradise after the resurrection."I said,"No they didn't! I just say an animal over there." Hope you're proud mom! Yup, defending the Church.

Alright, well love ya guys! Happy Halloween!

October 21, 2013

Hey Mom!

Yea. I remember us talking about that a while back, the whole other side of the veil helping out and stuff. Good idea. I can start praying for that again.

We're doing great out here. My comp's dope. The ward was so excited to see a Chinese elder here and see how the Lord really is hastening the work. The other day was cool too. We went to an investigators house and she tried to drop us saying she can't get baptized,and then her sister came out and was like hey, my husband's Japanese. Come inside and I'll show you a picture. So we went in and got to bond a bit cause they all speak a little Japanese and so does my companion because we went to college in Tokyo. Kinda cool. Huge family. We taught them the restoration that night and got 7 new investigators, and that's only half the family. Pretty fun.

Also, Saturday was fun. we have this squater area we work in and it's awful.  It's hard workin with people there, so we decided to change plans and went tracting for 4 hours in this little nice neighborhood in another part of our area. We got lots of new potential. I'm so stoked. Lots of educated people so that means future leaders for the church. We met this lawyer who spoke English and said that they just flew home from New York last week, and met some missionaries on the plane. Also, we found a guy who worked in China for 5 years. Pretty cool. We're changin plans a bit here so it'll take a minute to get things going, but it should be great. We are way excited.

That's all. Love you bye!

Hey Dad! 

Nah, it just rained a bit. We're pretty much done with rainy season. But yea, I heard about the earthquake in Bohol. Pretty crazy and unexpected.

Me and my comp are great. I'm gettin good at explaining things in simple words. He's a way smart kid and is learning fast. We just do an extra hour of studies each day to study English and Tagalog so we'll be good. Last transfer with my other comp, we just had one baptism the first week. We had a good week and are gonna get things going again. we'll have one baptism, maybe 2 this transfer before I leave which is good cause my comp hasn't had one yet. Wish us luck!

Love ya Dad!

Learning Mandarin Chinese

October 14, 2013

Nihao ma? (I'm learning Mandarin now):

Thanks for fasting for me mom. The whole pastor thing didn't happen, but the one pastor that I sent a picture of us is getting baptized on Saturday.

My clothes are fine. I'll just wait till I go home and buy some new clothes. I'm still jealous you guys hit up the  Faggioli cabin! We never got to go.

We gotta start doing school stuff soon! Hopefully I still get some scholarships and stuff.

Conference was way dope! Some of my faves...?  Obviously Elder Oaks about if you don't prioritize the Plan of Salvation, your worshiping other gods. Uchtdorf and Holland of course. The one football quarterback all excited and about member missionaries gave a great talk. 

This transfer's gonna be dope though. My one companion Elder Lansang, goes home tomorrow, so it'll just be me and Elder Liu (my new comp). This kid is so freaking funny. He's from China like 3 hours south of Mongolia and has only been here for like 4 months, so I get to teach him English and Tagalog. It's kinda tough but it's way funny. Yesterday we worked on using the letter "L". He struggles so badly and it's super funny, but he's chill so we just have a blast. Everyone here loves him though. It's kind of hard because not many people can talk to him, so I kinda just translate. I have received a few comments of how cool it is we have a Chinese guy here. He's for sure gonna be a big help for the church when he goes home, so I'm excited to help him out.

Not too much going on this week because of conference and meetings, but pray for us that we can get a couple of baptism dates to happen. There a two that are close to being baptized.  My companion hasn't had a baptism yet, so I promised him we'll have one this transfer and he'll baptize them. 

But ya, that's all!

Wo ai ni ("I love you" in Mandarin)

Elder Peter Molnar

Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

Sorry, I don't have time to write about the week, so I hope the pictures make up for it. Enjoy the last one. Here are some final pictures in my area before I got transferred!! Or so I thought.

Really fat wild pigs.  They just eat trash all day long.  Pretty funny.

Beautiful Meycauayan. Nice houses, free pets, and river front property. ha if only you could see a close up of the black river. A guy came and talked to us there and said we should've come three weeks ago because this is AFTER they did a huge clean up. Cool huh? Yea, it smells pretty rancid.

Zone CSP (Community Service Project).  Just clearin' some land..

Just catchin' ducks with Elder Hicken from Utah (where every white kid is from!)

The Alvarez Family

Just fightin' spiders. Classic game for kids here.

I'm NOT getting transfered.  This means I'll be in this ward for almost 8 months.  Ahhhhh...ha!  But guess where my new comp is from? China! He's still new to the mission so he hardly speaks any English and no Tagalog yet! I am so stoked! Guess who has to learn chinese now! Haha! I'll email John and tell him (Elder Molnar's brother speaks Indonesian and Mandarin Chinese).  Anyway, next transfer day is on November 20th.

Gorilla Graffiti...

I thought the umbrella made me look pretty "thug"!

   Just the "good lookin'" One Direction Elders of the mission.   

A wedding /baptism for our ward

Look!  A rice field!

Aight,  last pic. This guy's way dope. Some other elders in our zone met him last month and have been teaching him.

 

10 Month Countdown!

Sister Echo Hawk, Elder Echo Hawk, President Sperry and Sister Sperry

I may or may have not noticed that I'll be home in 10 months from today, and only a few more days until I break the 300 days left mark.

I'll keep an eye out for the package. I don't really need much, but just whateves. It's all good. Packages are expensive so if you want, just a Christmas one and birthday one and I'll be happy. just save that money for 10 more months.

So just a quick update cause honestly this week was pretty rough and I don't wanna be too negative. We have our stake baptism this Saturday. We should've had three investies good to go for that, but we've been struggling getting the members of the ward to work with us so we can teach sisters without a guy there. We had two golden investigators that we had to postpone their baptism date. We literally texted everyone in our phone book and no one would work with us so couldn't even teach them.  Then our other one was out of town yesterday and didn't come to church. Ahh such a bummer. 

Also, we have this family we're trying to get to the temple, but that didn't work out.  I won't go into detail.  Yea, a few disappoints this week.

 

We're making some good progress with (name withheld) dad which is way dope.We can hopefully get him to not have to work on Sundays so he can come to church and get baptized. That family's way dope. The whole family are active members and now have two kids out on missions.  We just have to get the dad baptized. He's come a long way already.

That's about all for now! I find out on Friday what's gonna happen with transfers next week, so keep me in your prayers! Gotta go somewhere good for the holidays!

Love you guys!

Floods, Terrorists and Christmas Around the Corner

We got hit by another typhoon, but just a little bit here. I just woke up this morning and everywhere outside our apartment was flooded about knee high. I am used to it now. It's chill. Rainy season's about over and then Christmas time! (Christmas in Philippines goes from September through December) Although Christmas is definitely a lot different here. 

Transfers are on October 9th and I'm guessing I'll be out of here. The works going well here. We've all just been workin to get things ready for our stake baptism on October 5. I think everyone should at least have one. We're hoping to have 3, but we'll see what happens. Only a few weeks left.

And no worries. All that terrorist stuff is down south were they don't even have American missionaries. The middle east people are pretty nice here. I was sitting at my desk the other night and this Indian guy peeked through my window and said in a total Indian accent, "Hello! You American?" I was just like, "Yup, I am." Then he was just like "Oh... did you eat your dinner?" "Yea, just finished." Then he was just awkward and said, "Oh, OK.  Bye."  So yea, nothing to worry about!

Yes, Brother and Sister Sperry get home just a few weeks before I do. You guys should go to their homecoming.  I wish I could. 

Well nothing super new here. I've just been gettin' sick. My comp was sick last week and now passed it on to me. I was dying yesterday, but came home and just passed out last night, but I feel quite a bit better today. I just had a fever and stuff, but I'm alright now.

Some Jehovah's Witnesses came to our house the other day. They tried to OYM us. (OYM = Open Your Mouth - referring to sharing the Gospel) but the guy was nice.  So we just listen and oym'ed him back.  We got his info so missionaries can go teach them.:-)

We have this new investigator. She's waaaaay sick. She's the house help of a member in the ward, so we started teaching her. She's been going through churches for the past 42 years trying to find the right one. We had a really good lesson with her and she came to church and talked to us for a while about the Plan of Salvation pamphlet that we had given her. She was stoked and understood everything really well. She is definitely a "golden" investie. We are actually teaching her again tonight, so we'll give her a baptismal date too.

Eh, what else? I did exchanges with some elders in my district, so we brought a new elder to our area. we had a looong lesson with the old branch president of this ward who's apostated now and doesn't believe in prophets after Christ. His only reason is cause he said the Bible says Christ would be the last prophet. So, I asked him where it says that and he didn't know. Oh well...

We've been focusing a lot with teaching active members and giving them Books of Mormon to give out. So hey, you guys do the same, alright? Practice for your couples mish!

Thats all!  Love ya,

Elder Johansson and Elder Molnar

Elder Pablico, Elder Jackson and Elder Molnar