Attack of the Demon Goose

It was great having a baptism this week.  Honestly, the whole week is better (especially the sacrament meeting) when you have someone being baptized and confirmed.  Unfortunately, we only had one this week.  We were planning on baptizing a couple, however the wife had to go to the emergency room with her grandson.  However, the husband was baptized and confirmed this week.  The smile that was on Brother Corson's face after he came out of the water makes it all worth it.  Also seeing his eyes full of tears after receiving the Holy Ghost, and knowing he is feeling things he has never felt before in his life is just really cool.  The wife has asked to reschedule when everything has settled down for a bit, which we are more than happy to do. 

The trial of the week was definitely spraining my ankle on Thursday.  I wasn't sure how I was going to explain to President Lopez that I sprained it while I was trying to escape an attack by a demon goose!  I just told Elder Cudac that this is where the testimony of two witnesses is really important!!! 
We were on our way to visit a less active family, and when we arrived we saw their two geese standing right in the walking path.  These geese (the big ones--that look like swans) are extremely territorial and they start honking at us, as they usually do.  I started thinking, one of these days one of them is going to attack us and I am going to have to explain to the family why I killed one of their animals.  Well, one day was actually Thursday!  The goose called my bluff and turned to face me, lowered his head, and charged.  I kicked it in the face, then stepped on its neck as it was snapping at my ankles.  It actually bit me and it hurt like *#&@, so I was getting out of there!  During my escape, I stepped on a rock and felt a pop in my ankle and realized I had sprained it . . . . . my manhood has been questioned ever since!  The ankle isn't swollen anymore and the bruising is finally starting to go away. 

Yesterday we taught Brother Ronald.  He is the one who was speaking Tagalog and I understood everything he was saying.  Well, this lesson was good but he came out and confessed that he is bisexual.  He hasn't broken the law of chastity yet, but says the desire is there.  We are going to be working a lot on that in the coming weeks!  I am hoping if he gets a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the church, he will have that mighty change of heart.  A funny comment he made was, "Elders, I think God gave me the heart of a woman for a reason."  I was just like um, that's not exactly how it works--God doesn't make mistakes!  He still isn't so sure, but we will see!

I can't believe I only have nine months left.  It is going by pretty fast.  Yesterday during sacrament meeting I started to think about how much I am going to miss a lot of these people.  It's just good to know that I will be with them in the next life if we all endure!

I love you guys!  Hope you have a great week!

Elder Ellis from Salt Lake City

Welcome to the land of never-ending rain & wet socks

My walking stick that Elder Cudac gave me after my goose attack

My best friends

Zone Conference

This week was a good week.  We had some really good lessons and we had a lot of investigators at church which is always nice.

We had a zone conference this week that was a lot of fun.  We stayed in a hotel and I actually had a warm shower for the first time in 14 months!  I warned the other elders that I was going to sit and enjoy it, and I think I was in there for about an hour!  My favorite part was definitely a video that was shown.  I never could have imagined at the start of my mission how difficult this would be, but Elder Holland hit it right on the head when he said, "Salvation isn't easy, so why would the work of salvation be easy."

We have a lot of baptisms coming up.  The Corson family is next week.  They have the most pure faith I have ever seen in any two people.  They are 75 and 65 and have been married for 50 years.  They recognize us as messengers of the Lord and they believe everything that we tell them.  We taught them about tithing last week and then on Sunday they came up to me and said, "Elder, show us how to pay tithing."  They both have worked in the sugarcane fields their entire lives to support their family.  They both still work every day except Sunday.  They don't have a lot, but they paid 100 pesos.  That is enough to buy rice for about two weeks.  It was amazing and very humbling to see that.  It is amazing the people you meet here and how prepared they are by the Lord.

I love you all so much!  Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Shaffer (one of my MTC roomies)

Just hanging with the kids

The "brethren"

Problem with public transportation

Zone conference dinner

Our Zone

Training Again

This week was a good week!  We were able to get quite a bit of work done and find a lot of new investigators to help build our teaching pool.  It was a little bit small because we had to split areas.  I have been praying like I have never prayed before for Heavenly Father's help with what He has asked me to do right now.  Training is hard enough even when you have done it a couple of times, but then add on the fact that neither my companion nor I speak the language and we are both new to the area.  Needless to say, I was humbled very quickly!  It is amazing to see Heavenly Father continue to put people in our paths who want to learn about this gospel.  Starting September 28, our weekly baptisms should start rolling!  I am very excited because it is going to be great to see the excitement in the ward when we start having baptisms.

My new companion, Elder Cudac is doing great.  We are as different as it comes, but he wants to work hard and we will get along fine. Yesterday at church everyone was all about the David and Goliath jokes because he is only 5'3".  He is kinda stressing out about the language and not being able to communicate with people in their own language, but I know he will do well.  He is studying the language very religiously and I think he will be able to speak it in no time.  He gave me a little scare on Sunday morning though.  He ate some food on Saturday night that apparently he is allergic to.  He wasn't sure what the food is, but when he woke up he had rashes all over his body. They have subsided now and everything should be okay.  I won't let him eat at that place again though!  Hopefully that is the extent of our sicknesses for the next two transfers--especially because the mosquitoes here seem to be everywhere and especially all over me!

Yesterday at church a sister told us she has a friend who really wants to listen to our message.  His name is Ronald and he is 18.  We went to visit him after church (it's 30 minutes away) and he wasn't at the house.  He showed up about 10 minutes after we got there.  Anyways, we were teaching the lesson and he was hanging on our every word.  We finished up the lesson and were talking about how he would be able to know that this is true through the Holy Ghost and how he feels.  After that , he goes into this story about how he had been praying to Heavenly Father to show him what he needs to do.  Then he talks about how he met the sister by chance and then he designed the dance for our relief society (they had some activity in San Carlos) and then when he was trying to get to our lesson today, just everything seemed to be stopping him.  But he said he made it and he could just feel like this is something special and this can help him change his life.  This was all in TAGALOG, but I promise you with everything that I have, that I understood him word for word.  I could recite it back perfectly!  It was the craziest experience with the gift of tongues that I have ever had, and I will never forget it.  You all know that I hate crying, and I can honestly say I have cried in public only two other times my whole mission, but I couldn't hold back the tears as he was explaining all this to me.  It was so awesome!

I am so thankful for all of your prayers.  I know that they have helped me a ton.  I know that Heavenly Father always helps you do things that seem impossible.  One of my favorite quotes is by Elder Boyd K. Packer.  He says, "Faith is taking that step into the dark, even when you can't see the path ahead of you."  I feel no truer words have ever been said!  At the beginning of this week, I had no idea what to do.  It is scary going out of your apartment with five names in your planner and not knowing how you are going to fill the rest of the day.  But, it all worked out well!

One of the photos I am including this week is of a little girl that lives next door to us.  She is so cute.  I have a window right by my desk and during our study time, she will stand by the window, wave to me, and say "fwends".  I love it!  Today as we were leaving the house, I was able to get a picture with her.  There is another little girl that does the same thing, but she wasn't there this morning.

I love you guys!

My new companion, Elder Cudac

My "fwend"

New missionaries and their trainers

Training meeting

Another Unbelievable Experience

This was an okay week.  It would have been great if we would have had a baptism, but we didn't!  This is the first time in 8 weeks that we haven't had one and I hated it.  It makes the week go by so much smoother when you know someone is entering the waters of baptism.  The worst part is we still have two more weeks until we have one.  However, starting on the 28th we have solid commitments with progressing investigators all the way through October.  The best part is that it isn't just one person a week--some are two and three!  It is very exciting.,

So, I had the flu at the beginning of the week, so we weren't able to go out until Thursday.  I hate not being able to work, and I feel like that is why Kody lost his game.  You might tell me I am crazy, but I seriously feel like whenever I make a mistake or can't work, you are all going to have a bad week.  I know that isn't the way Heavenly Father works, but it drives me insane!!!

I had an interesting experience this week.  Remember that place I told you about that is way up in the mountains?  Well, we went there again on Saturday and we taught the people up there.  In the middle of a lesson with the older (and I mean like mid 70's) parents of a member, the grandma pulls out a small piece of white paper.  I didn't think anything of it, then she pulls out a little baggy with green leaves in it.  I saw that and just went (in my mind) this is not happening.  Well, this grandma pulled out the stuff and starts pulling apart and breaking up the leaves and setting them on the paper.  Then she rolls the paper--nice and tight--and at this point I am about dying!  There is no way I am talking about the restoration of the gospel and this lady is rolling a joint!  I decided it was probably pure tobacco or something.  Then she lit it and that thick smoke and horrible body odor stench of marijuana literally filled the room.  I am not kidding you!  We stopped the lesson and just got out of there.  I couldn't believe that a 70+  year old woman was trying to smoke us out!  She had no clue that it was even bad.  You guys are not going to believe half the stories I come home with, but I promise they will be true.  I'm a missionary and cannot lie!!!!!

Anyways, I hope you are all doing great.  I love each and every one of you!

Ready to get to work

The kids are so cute here

Cleaning the house of the Lord

Still a kid at heart

Ten Months To Go

This was an interesting week.  I got transferred to Canlaon.  It is actually not even in the same province as Bacolod.  I am in Negros Oriental.  The city gets its name from Mt. Canlaon, which is the largest active volcano in Visayas (Central Philippines).  The volcano is sweet and huge when the clouds aren't covering it.  It actually gets pretty cold here at nights.  The showers really suck because sometimes there is ice in the water!  Let's just say cold showers don't phase me anymore.

The language here is cebuano.  It is similar to illongo as in some of the words are the same and they can understand me for the most part.  I don't understand them in the slightest though!  They speak a lot harder and faster than Illongo's do.  They make fun of my accent here because I speak like Illongo's do, which is kinda like singing.  It is a little hard to explain.

It is hard to describe what it looks like here because even Pine Valley isn't as mountainous as this is.  There are pretty much rice fields everywhere that they can put them.  The city is super small and it is only a branch here.  We only have three active melchezidek priesthood holders and I am pretty much the teacher for the classes.  I love it!  Our attendance was only 71 yesterday, but they say it is usually only in the 30s.  I can see miracles happening here, so I am just going to work hard and be obedient.

The public transportation here is crazy.  It is literally a motorcycle and the two of us sit on back.  We have one area that is 1 1/2 hours up the mountain.  There is a group of 13 members that meet up there and we are the first missionaries to go there in two years.  They said there are some people up there who want to be baptized.  The problem is we only go there once a week because it is so far.  There is a river up there where we will do the baptisms, so I am super excited about that.

Elder Alfeche is way cool.  I like him and we will get along fine.  He is pretty much an American disguised as a Filipino!  He is super rich and watches American television.  He loves UFC and American sports.

I love you all!

Same face--new place and language

10 months to go