Merry Christmas-Almost!

Merry Christmas!  What a week!  This week by far was the best week of my mission! We went out and we worked hard!  Despite our lack of tracting hours (because of studies), we still went and got the most work I have ever done in a week!  As you can see by my use of exclamation points, I am still pretty excited about it.  We also got to see the fruits of our labors as we had six investigators at Sacrament Meeting yesterday. We also had 16 less active members.  I know that it may be because everyone seems to be a little more religious during this time of year, but I can hope that it continues!  However, we only had 2/17 recent converts at church.  That continues to frustrate me pretty bad, but o-well.  Our only job is to invite and do all we can to help them grow in faith.  The choice still resides with them. To be completely honest, and I am not sure if this is good to say, but the most frustrating thing to me now is agency.  I know it is a great gift, but right now it sure is frustrating how some people use it.  Which helps me see how my Heavenly Father feels about me when I don't do what I know is right.

We found a new family to teach.  They have nine people in their family and are all pretty strong Catholics.  The only reason we were able to teach them is because they have a special needs child.  Her name is Mary France, and every time I would pass she would get so excited and yell, "Elder, Elder."  We would then wave to each other.  One day I decided to stop and talk to her mother and some of the others who were hanging out.  We scheduled an appointment for last Saturday night at 8. and didn't get out of there until 9:30. They have tons of questions about all sorts of stuff.  I have a great feeling about this family.  I pray every single prayer for them.  I really want to baptize a family.  I am kinda getting tired of baptizing little kids who won't come to church.  I don't think it will be very easy, because they are very firm Catholics, but I am determined and I know it is the Lord's will for them to get baptized.  I will do anything I can to help them get there.

I just received an email from dad that told me grandma passed away this morning.  I figured it would happen at some time in my mission, but even though I expected it, I wasn't ready for it.  I don't quite know how to describe my feelings right now except how thankful I am for the Plan of Salvation.  I know I am very lucky because it wasn't one of my immediate family members, but I was extremely close to my grandma and I am scared this will make me very homesick.  I am even more scared of how Satan will use this to discourage me.  It seems that as a missionary, Satan uses the littlest things to try and discourage me.

I am very excited to talk to the family tomorrow.  I love you guys and I love Grandma.  She was an unbelievable woman and I know that right now she is with our Heavenly Father.  She is experiencing EXACTLY what is described in Alma 40:11-12.

Zone Conference

We had Zone Conference this week and it was very fun. We got to sleep at the mission home and it was good to be with a bunch of other missionaries. I learned a lot that I will do my best to apply as a trainer, and as a missionary in general.  We had a good week despite only being able to get a little amount of work done because of the studies and conference.

We were able to get our investigator baptized and confirmed this week. It was a great experience and he has a lot of faith. Earlier this week, his brother-in-law (who he is really close to, and who had asked that we start teaching him and his family, was murdered in a hit and run. From what we know, he was hit by a truck while riding his motorcycle home from work. The people in the truck got out and stabbed him until he was dead.  The men in the truck were drunk and they aren't sure if it was purposeful or not. However, I feel so bad.  He had a wife (the sister of our recent convert) and a 2-year old daughter. My heart was broken for the family when I found out. The night before he was killed, he gave us food to take home and eat so we didn't have to cook. They were so interested in eternal families and I know he would have been a great leader in the church. I can only hope and pray that the same desire went with him in the spirit world. This shook up our investigator and his whole family pretty bad. However, he said he never doubted or second-guessed his decision to be baptized.  He said he knows that is what Heavenly Father wants for him and now he has a lot of questions about baptism for the dead, so he can be baptized for his brother-in-law. As for the rest of his family, we are going to try and teach them. We are waiting until the end of this week so things calm down with the funeral and everything.  But it is my hope and prayer that they will still want to listen to our message.

Death seems a little more real to me now.  Just the night before we were talking to this investigator and the next day we found out that he had been murdered.  It was a shock and it made me seriously ponder about the Plan of Salvation.  It made me think about my testimony and if I truly believe what I tell these people I know about the next life.  So, I have studied a lot about the Plan of Salvation in Preach My Gospel and D&C, and prayed a lot to know that it is true.  I don't want to be put in the situation where it has an extra special meaning to an investigator and have any doubts.  The "line upon line and precept upon precept" way of gaining knowledge and a testimony is coming to me right now, so I feel like I am heading in the right direction to get that rock solid testimony of it.  I believe it, but its not good enough for me right now.  I need to know it, so I will be able to testify with power to the people I am teaching.

We had a baptism on  Saturday and a confirmation on Sunday, so that was the highlight of the week.  However, there were only eight people at the baptism--including us and the convert.  Nobody from the bishopric or the ward council was there.  I wasn't too happy and yesterday during our ward council meeting I let them know.  I pretty much told them that we will need more support from the ward if they want us to continue to work as hard as we can to bring new and less active members to church.  I just told them, they will be held responsible for the less active members and recent converts that fall away after the missionaries leave, because we will leave and they will still be here.  I am pretty sure they got the idea.  Elder Paano was pretty shocked at how "forceful" I was.  I wasn't too happy, but the bishop apologized afterwards and told me thank you.  He said he has been trying to explain it to them, but they needed someone else to tell it to them to get the point across.  I am hoping they got  it!

One more week and then we get to talk!  I am so excited.  I need to make sure to work hard, so this week will go by fast.  I am trying my best to become the best missionary I can.  However, there are a lot of areas where I can still improve.  But as promised in Ether 12:27, the Lord will make them strong!  I love you guys!  Take care and be safe!


Here are some pictures that President Lopez posted on Facebook of the Zone Conference:

More Photos

The week started off with Typhoon Pablo.  Yep, I went tracting in a typhoon--beat that!  We went out and worked, but we didn't get a whole lot done.  The people were all preparing for the typhoon, so not too many of them had time to listen to us.  We taught four lessons in eight hours!

We had a good week and were able to get a lot of work done.  Elder Paano and I are doing our best to work as hard as possible and to adopt and adapt to the new rules.  We were a little discouraged when we found out we couldn't attend the Christmas Devotional or the ward Christmas party, but we will obey.  We know that, just as it says in Preach My Gospel, sometimes we won't understand the reasons for the rules until we test them and see the reward.  That is what we will do.

We weren't able to have our baptism this week.  He got sick with a fever all week, so we had to postpone it until this Saturday.  He is very excited to be baptized and even more excited when we told him he would receive the priesthood after he turned 12 at the end of the month.  We taught a great lesson on the priesthood and then we gave him a blessing.  He said he was extremely excited to receive that power from God.

We taught a new family yesterday and they agreed to be baptized.  The mom and dad are both my age, married, and have a baby girl.  It is crazy seeing so many people my age with families already, but that is not uncommon here.

We continue to try finding new people to teach.  OYM-ing (not sure what this is--I will have to ask Cole) is not one of my strongest abilities.  I get really nervous and it is even harder for me to speak Illongo.  However, we will keep practicing and try to become better at it.

This week we have our zone conference on Wednesday.  We get to sleep at the mission home, so that may be fun.  I am kinda expecting a solid helping of new rules, but it is to the point now that I just laugh.  I figure there aren't many more things President Lopez can make "bawal" or forbidden for us.  He is starting to get creative, so I guess we will see!  We have received about 13 pages of new rules in the last couple of weeks.

I love you all as much as ever!

I was worried Cole wouldn't get his Birthday package in time,
but he sent this picture showing he had received it.

The Bandoy family bought him cupcakes.

The Borogo family baked him a cake.

Cole and his new companion, Elder Paano

They celebrated Thanksgiving in the mission home.

Another photo on Thanksgiving that President Lopez posted
on his Facebook page.  It is great to have a "techy" President.

New Trainer/Trainee

Wow--what a week!  We didn't think we would transfer, but President Lopez hadn't made transfers yet when I wrote last week.  We found out Wednesday night that Elder Esteves was transferring and I didn't know I was training until about three hours before I met Elder Panno on Thursday. I like Elder Paano.  He is nice, and to be honest, my goal for my mission is to like all my companions.  I don't want to ever complain about any of them, so if I don't like them, I'm not sure you guys will ever find out until after my mission :)  He is 25 and the first missionary in his family.  He is very very short!  I think we will have fun as long as I am always trying to keep his needs in mind like Elder Estevez did with me!  He has been a missionary for 24 days and I have been here for 3 months.  I am not completely comfortable with Illongo and he doesn't speak it at all.  He speaks Tagalog and a little English.  It is sometimes hard to communicate, but o-well!  He has a strong spirit with him and even though for right now our lessons are half Tagalog and half Illongo, the people we are teaching understand it perfectly and say that we teach very well together.  That is definitely a blessing for our companionship right now.  I have confidence that he will learn the language quickly and if we are able to continue to have this spirit with us, we will do great things here in Handumanan.

So I am not sure Heavenly Father ever wants me to feel comfortable on my mission!  I wasn't comfortable at the MTC, then as I started to get a little bit, I left for the Philippines.  I didn't feel very comfy here at first, then I start to feel comfortable and Elder Estevez transfers and I am put in a leadership position and right back to feeling uncomfortable!  I could really use your prayers for the next three months!  I know your prayers for me with the language are helping.  My language ability has increased in unreal amounts the last three days.  Funny how the Lord qualifies who He calls!

Right before we met our new companions, President Lopez had a short interview with me.  He asked me why I was called to be a trainer.  My reply was, "To be honest President, I was hoping you could tell me.  I can't speak this language very well and I don't feel completely comfortable as a missionary yet."  He responded by saying the reason I was called to be a trainer is one, he felt the inspiration; and two, because I am obedient.  He said the only thing he cares about is obedience because he knows the rest will follow.   He said he knows he can trust me and knows I will teach Elder Panno the importance of obedience.  He said he doesn't care that I can't speak the language or anything else.  So, that is why I'm a trainer!  I thought mom would like to hear that I'm being 100% obedient!  At least to my knowledge I am!!!  I love you guys and cannot wait to talk to you on Christmas! Hope everyone is well!

Still Together

Elder Estevez and I had a good week and we got a lot of work done.  We thought that this could be our last week together, so we wanted to go out with a bang, so to speak.  However, we are both really excited to see the Lord still has more work for us to do here in Handumanan together!

We had a small miracle happen this week.  We had a ward activity a couple of weeks ago and a couple non-members came and also some less-actives.  One less-active teacher brought his friend who is deacon age and a non-member.  Anyways, that non-member is taking the lessons and progressing like crazy.  His less-active friend is becoming quite devoted now that he realizes he is being an example to his friend!  Hopefully we will be able to continue to reactivate him and bring his friend and his family (who have been listening to the last two lessons) into the church.

It was a very busy week.  We taught 45 lessons in total, and we usually only teach around 30-35.  Everything just happened to mesh for us this week.

Sorry I don't have a lot more to write about.  We just worked for the most part and taught and went about our daily lives!  I hope you guys know how much I love you and continue to miss you. I hope you all have a great week!

Mission Tour

The Mission Tour with Elder Evans was a great experience.  It was good to see President and Sister Lopez again.  It was great to feel the spirit and feel the "flood" of personal revelation.  The two things I want to share were my impressions on the Law of Consecration and the "you get what you go for" speech by Elder Evans.

The Law of Consecration really hit me hard, so this week I studied it a lot.  My studies took me to the story of Amulek who literally gave up everything he had and all he had worked for to be Alma's companion.  The amount of faith that would take is unbelievable to me.  When I think about it, yes, I did give up some things to come on a mission, but all the things I put on hold for two years were given to me by God.  I came on my mission thinking I was paying Him back for all the blessings He has given me, but I am still WAYYYYY in debt--He keeps blessing me!  So, it really should have never been a question on whether I was coming on a mission or not!  I have made a resolve that however and wherever I am needed, my future family and I will do whatever Heavenly Father asks of us.  There are just too many blessings to be gained by obeying his commandments.

On the last part of the training by Elder Evans, he very emphatically beated into our minds the "you get what you go for" way of finding investigators.  I feel like that was pretty important!  When a special witness of the Lord says that five different times, I think it is best that I listen.  So, that is what we are going to do.  I have already found four of the biggest houses in our area and I told Elder Estevez that we will talk to those people this week--whether he wants to or not!  I never thought of things the way Elder Evans did.  It really was a great eye opening experience for me.

Another thing that I realized this week is how scared I was of changing.  I told Melissa that I wasn't going to change on my mission, and for the longest time I tried to fight it. The truth is, my mission is changing me, but not in bad ways.  I am the best I have ever been right now.  Without the decision to come on a mission, I don't know what would have happened to me.  I know now that everything I do will be for the good of my family and for our Heavenly Father.  I didn't realize how selfish I was, but when you are put into a situation where you think about other people 24/7, that changes.  I can already say that when I step off that plane at the end of two years, I won't be the same Colton James.  I will be about 100x better.  I cannot explain how thankful I am for this decision I made.  It isn't easy--not a single thing about it is, but it is so worth it.

In case you couldn't tell, this was a great week!  I miss you all like crazy, but right now I'm just living the Law of Consecration and blessings will come!

Always one who wants to be the "center" of attention!

All 100 missionaries in the Bacolod, Philippines Mission

Mission Tour Luncheon photo that President Lopez posted.
Cole is the one standing up (in case you couldn't tell)

Another Week Goes By

Things are going good here.  I am very excited for the upcoming mission tour with Elder Evans from the Seventies.  Elder Esteves and I are doing great.  We are having so much fun together and to be honest, neither of us want transfer day to come!  However, that is part of the job description.  I am so thankful that President Lopez was inspired to put us together.  He is the exact person I needed to help me with my transition phase.

This week we had very good lessons.  A few of our lessons seemed like marathon ones, but they were great opportunities to feel the spirit and some very big concerns were taken care of.  Also, this Sunday we had 10/16 recent converts at church--including all 5 of ours!  That is something our ward has been struggling with (retention of converts), but we are working closely with the leaders to try and solve that issue.

We moved into our new apartment on Saturday.  It is amazing!  After the renovations that Brother Menoza made, the house is definitely a "Celestial" apartment. 

This week I studied about Captain Moroni.  He has always been my favorite scripture hero and now is no different.  He has all the charaacterstics that I hope to possess as a leader and as a man of the priesthood.

Like I said in my last email, that week was rough because we lost two of our investigators.  I was especially close to them because I thought I would finally start fulfilling the blessing President Bangerter gave me when he said I would especially help fathers and older men.  Well, these were both fathers and potential leaders.  When they decided to drop us, Satan took that opportunity to destroy my confidence in just about everything.  I felt incredibly lost and felt like it was pointless to have me be here.  He was winning at that point.  Then at Family Home Evening on Monday night, Elder Esteves answered my prayers with a story he told.  I would like to share it now, and then I will explain what I got from it.

The King and The Rock

Once upon a time there was a mighty king.  This king had the biggeset kingdom in the entire land and his subjects did everything he asked them to do and they did it without delay.  This type of obedience was due to the fact that anyone who disobeyed the king's orders was killed immediately.  Because of that, the kingdom ran smoothly and the king had absolute dominion.  One time the king had to go to a neighboring kingdom.  He called a particular servant into the chamber and gave him an assignment that was to be completed before the king returned in one week's time.  There was a rock in front of the castle.  This rock was much too big for any man to move and everone in the land knew it.  The king commanded this particular servant, who was one of the smaller servants, to push this rock for him and the king would have him account for this task when he returned from his trip.

The king left and the servant got up every morning at dawn and pushed this rock.  The rock would not move, and at night the servant would return to his house very troubled because of his inability to move the rock.  This took place every day for the whole week.  The night before the king was to return, the servant was still pushing this rock and it had not moved.  The servant knew in the morning he would be put to death because he hadn't succeeded in the king's task.

The next morning he went to the castle and reported to the king that he had not moved the rock.  The king replied, "I never told you to move the rock.  All I asked you to do was push it.  Because you pushed it all week, I know I can trust you.  When I leave this kingdom, it will be yours to rule." 
So, because of this servant's obedience, he received the kingdom.

Now what I got out of this story, and what I am slowly realizing, is that Heavenly Father never told me to baptize everyone I see or talk to.  He only asked me to try.  I am here and I am trying.  Being a missioanry is tough and nothing I could have done would have prepared me for this.  However, I know I am a better person right now, and I know the lessons I am learning will help my future family.  If I am every pouty on here, I am sorry.  Satan doesn't give missionaries a break--ever!  Sometimes it is the most discouraging thing ever, but I am trying hard!  I love you guys so much.  Hope you all have a great week!