MERRY (late) CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR

Well... last week we didn't have a lot of time to email, so I never sent an email home. I got to talk to my family which was definitely the highlight of my whole week. But, other than that, it finally rained again. It really started to get hot. And then a storm came in and we spent a couple of evenings biking home in the rain.

The biggest update at this point is that I got transferred. I am now actually up in Baguio city. It is awesome, but definitely has it's ups and downs. One big plus is that we have heated water, and a shower head. I get to trade the cold bucket shower for a warm shower with a shower head. I don't have a bike anymore which is kind of sad. I actually liked biking. Now we just walk up and down stairs pretty much all day. Baguio is way up in the mountains and there are hills everywhere. Basically everyone just lives on the side of the mountain. 

Leaving my last area was super sad. I loved the ward and all of my investigators. I was hoping that I would be able to spend at least one more transfer there. But, there must be work for me to do up here in Baguio. I am super excited to get started. I love the mission, and the chance that I have to share the gospel. Especially at this time of year when we can really focus on the life of Christ and all that he did for us. I love you all and wish you a happy holiday season.

-Elder Thomas

 

Anong carne ba yan?

Well, this week, I officially became a Filipino. I have gotten pretty used to sitting down to a dinner and just eating everything that is in front of me. I really haven't had a lot of food that I really didn't like. The meals are almost all the same. There is rice, and then some kind of meat or vegetable that goes on top. Sometimes the texture is pretty bad, but you just add more rice and put it down. That is kind of how it goes.

But, this last week, I sat down and I looked at the meal. It looked like any other meal that I had eaten. So, I ate. It was really good. Then, as I was finishing, I asked, "Anong carne ba yan?" which means 'what kind of meat is that?." They asked me if I really wanted to know... and then I knew that it was something different. They told me that it was DOG. It is actually kind of illegal to cook dog. But they said, it is only illegal if you get caught. I guess that lots of people cook dogs because it is not really enforced. So, that was wild. 

One of the coolest experiences this week, was while we were talking to an investigator at her little tindihan. Another dude came up to us and I started talking to him. I asked him if he knew any missionaries and he told me that he used to be a member. Before I could say anything else, he asked me if we could go to his house and teach his family. We went over the next day and taught his wife and 6 kids. It was super cool. It will be hard to get them to go to church, because they live super far away and they are super poor. But, they are super interested, so hopefully they will start progressing.

I learned a lot this week about where true happiness comes from. We went to a house that was no bigger than 10 ft by 10 ft. I could take 2 steps and completely cross the house. In the house, there are 4 kids and a mom and a dad. They have a little tiny broken down table that they eat at, and usually, the kids sleep under it. Their bathroom is nothing more than a little lean-to made of bamboo just outside of their house. All that being said, they are some of the happiest people that I have ever met. Our material wealth really doesn't determine how happy we are, even though that is how a lot of people think. 

The Christmas season is an awesome time to "turn outward" and look for those that we can serve. We can focus on the life of Christ and learn to live as he lived. Learn to serve like he served. 

I love the Christmas season. I love you all and wish you all the best.  

Love Elder Thomas

-I can't send pictures because the internet is really slow. More to come next week :)

Christmas Conference + Baptism

This week was awesome. There were two real highlights. One was Christmas conference. And one was our baptism.

Christmas conference was awesome. It was with half the mission. Our president came and we had all sorts of games and food and then a little devotional. It was super fun to be able to catch up with Elder Maddox, and some other friends from the mission. The devotional was awesome. All of the missionaries that are going home in the next transfer bore their testimonies. All of them said that the mission went by wayyy to fast. I know that will be true. I am nearing 6 months and it is crazy. I can't believe it. 

This week there were lots of changes in our district. One of the kids who was at my house got transferred to baguio. He had a hard time adjusting to the weather and stuff here. And another kid from my batch went home. That was super sad. The mission is hard, but it is worth every second of it. 

Our baptism last Saturday was awesome. It was a part member named Miko. He is 9 years old. Me and Elder Maddox found his family and got them to start coming back to church. His mom is active now and brings him and his older brother who was baptized just a few years ago. I was kind of sad when they split our area when they added 2 more missionaries because Miko was in the other area. So, the other companionship got to finish teaching him. But, I got to attend his baptism which was super cool. The youth in our ward are awesome and he has a lot of friends at church. I think that he is kind of the reason that his mom is active again which is awesome. His dad is not a member, but that will hopefully change here soon ;)

This week was awesome for me. The language is definitely improving and I am learning more everyday. I love the mission and the time that I have to teach the gospel here to the people of the Philippines. 

Love Elder Thomas

 

We made it

Well... I am not sure exactly how we did it, but we made it through another week!! I learned a lot this week. I learned that we definitely receive a lot of help from the other side of the veil. There is no way that we could have gotten through the week by ourselves. I also realized that I know a lot more Tagalog than I thought. When I had to be the one to really take the lead in everything with very minimal help, I realized that I could do it. I am still definitely below conversational, but, I almost always understand what people are trying to say and I can generally manage to get my point across.

The highlight this week was the baptism of Chrissel. She was the very first investigator that I taught in the mission field. My very first day here, we went and taught her and in my very, very broken Tagalog, I extended a baptismal date to her. Her original date was Oct 6. She wasn't ready though. So, we changed it to Nov. 10. But she was not quite solid with her testimony and still wasn't quite ready to "not be Catholic." We taught her 2 or 3 times a week. We gave her a list of our favorite scriptures and told her that if she would read every day for 2 weeks that she would know that the church is true. She read everyday and after 2 weeks said that she wanted to be interviewed for baptism. She is technically not in my area, but they called the morning of the baptism and asked if I would baptize her. I was super excited. It was soo cool to see her whole conversion process from start to finish. The gospel really changes lives.

We also spent a lot of time this week out finding new investigators. It is definitely scary sometimes to just start talking to a group of people. I am far from perfect in the language, so it was a little bit hard this week. But, I learned so much this week. We now have a lot of progressing investigators and I am really excited to start working again next week. 

I love the mission. The ups and downs, the good and bad, and all that comes because of the time that I have out here. I am grateful for all of the examples that I have back home and I send lots of prayers your way. 

Love Elder Thomas

Dalawang Americanos

Man, what a crazy week. I took a 2 hour bus ride down to San Fernando last Tuesday to pick up my trainee. Not gonna lie... I was kind of hoping that I would get a Filipino companion because then at least one of us would know the language haha. But, It didn't work out that way. I have an American companion from California. He is awesome. I am only 12 weeks in the field and am still very new with the language. But, the Lord will prepare a way. We have only had a few days to work, but I actually surprised myself with the language. I know more than I think I did. This is an awesome opportunity that I have to really figure things out here.

I also now have kabahay (roommates). It is super different. We split the area and it was honestly a little bit sad. The half of the area that the other companionship will be working in has 5 baptisms in the next few weeks. The area that I am in only has 1. Me and my last companion put a lot of work in on the other half the area. But, it is all good. The work is the same and the work is certainly progressing here in the Philippines. 

I don't have a lot more to say this week. We really only worked in our area for like 2 1/2 days this week. It will be interesting to see how this next week goes as we really get into the swing of things. 

The mission is awesome. I love the chance that I have everyday to share the message of the restored gospel here with the people of the Philippines. I love you all and send lots of prayers your way. 

Love Elder Thomas

Me and my comp Elder Hamilton

-kind of a crazy week and I didn't have my camera for most of it. But, I will send more pictures next week :)

 

Trainee to Trainer

Well... another 6 weeks came and went. We got transfer calls and I found out that I am going to be a trainer. It is a little bit scary because I don't exactly speak Tagalog all that well yet. But, I am more than excited. I don't know if my comp will be Filipino or American yet, but I will find out on Thursday after trainers training. It would definitely be a blessing if I could train a filipino because then, at least one of us would know the language haha. But either way. The Lord knows how we can best get the work done. He manages to get the work done with a bunch of 18-21 year old kids and it is seriously amazing.

I now have 4 people that will be at my house. They added another set of Elders to our area. I am a little bit sad because the area that the other Elders will take has 3 of our next 4 baptisms. But, the area that I am in has a lot of progressing investigators, so I am super excited. The work is all the same regardless of who does it. 

One of the funnest things that we did this week was ride a water buffalo. We found out that one of the members in our ward had a water buffalo and so we asked if we could ride it. It was super fun. 

We also went to another members house this week for dinner. We got there and they told us that if we want to eat, we had to catch one of their ducks. In our white shirts and ties, we ran around for like 20 minutes trying to catch a duck. We finally did. And then they told us that we were not really Filipinos unless we killed it. So, we held it while they killed it. It was wild. But, it was one of the best meals that I have had here. 

This week, I really thought about the temple a lot. Addie and Caitlin are going through the temple for the first time which is super exciting. The youth in our ward are planning a temple trip in a few months. It is awesome to see how excited they are. They are all working to raise money so that they can make the 7 hour bus ride down to Manila to the temple. I always took for granted the fact that I could get to like 5 or 6 temples within an hour drive. It is awesome. 

I love the gospel and the chance that I have to share it here in the Philippines. I am grateful for all of you and I send lots of prayers your way. 

Love Elder Thomas

 

How many people fit on a jeep?? One more

The best part of this week was that we got to go up to Querino. My comp is the district leader and we had to go out there for some baptismal interviews. My area in Santiago is like 2 hours away from a big city. We are kind of out in the ghetto. But, Querino is like 3 hours away from us and is like way out in the ghetto. The only way to get there is to get onto a van at 4:30 in the morning that leaves to go up there.

We got to the pickup place and there was a 14 passenger van. Then, we fit 19 of us on it and started our 3 hour ride up to Querino. Transportation here is wild. You can always fit one more person that you think into a vehicle haha. It was kind of rough, but it was absolutely beautiful. There are little bamboo huts everywhere. I was completely lost because the people up there really only speak Ilicano. I hardly even know Tagalog yet, so I was lost. But it was super fun. 

Another highlight this week was that we had 6 investigators that attended church. They are progressing really well. And we are now teaching a couple of families which is super fun. We have 16 people that are on date for baptism. We have almost more work than we know what to do with which is definitely not a bad problem to have as a missionary. 

We are almost positive that this next week, with transfers, we will get 2 more Elders in our area. I am pretty sure that I am going to train which might be a little bit rough. But, there are actually quite a few Filipinos coming in this batch, so there is a chance that we won't be completely lost. 

I love it here. The mission is by far the hardest thing that I have ever done, but I love every second of it. Sharing the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is really one of the most important things that we can do here in this life. I love you all back home, I think about you, and I send lots of prayers your way from this side of the world. 

Love Elder Thomas

Pictures:

The view in Querino

A trike with a Utah license plate

The kids we take to church

The spider we found at our house

Me and Elder Maddox dressed up for Halloween as eachother. We switched name tags, wore matching pants, and wore the rain coats President gave us.

 

Excitement back home

This week was awesome. But, most of the excitement didn't come from anything that happened out here in the Philippines. Addie and Caitlin both have their mission calls which is super exciting. It was the thing that I looked forward to the most for the last two weeks.

But, out here, the work is awesome. We have more progressing investigators than we know what to do with. We hear lots of rumors that next transfer (in 2 weeks), we will have another set of Elders in our area. That would be awesome. 

Some people are wondering about the storm that came through here. It was kind of lame. It rained for a while and got kind of windy but, nothing too crazy. We didn't have power for the day and kind of just at around and waited for it to pass. But, then we were back to work on Wednesday.

The highlight this week was that we were able to put a family of 5 on date. It was the second time that we taught them and we were teaching them about the Plan of Salvation. This is obviously a lesson that stands out to families and it really gives us purpose here in this life. So, they were super interested. In the context of the Plan of Salvation, we invited the family to be baptized. They all accepted and it will be exciting to see how they progress. 

I only have 2 more weeks until I finish my 12 weeks of training. Then, there is a good chance that I will be a trainer. That is kind of scary because I am still learning and the language is pretty rough still. But, we will get through it. I know that the Lord can prepare a way. It is his gospel and it will be taught regardless of our shortcomings. I have thought about that a lot. The Lord is able to teach his gospel throughout the whole world with a bunch of 18 and 19 year old kids. It is incredible. And the gospel is soo true. I love every bit of the experience out here. The good and the bad. I love you all and send lots of prayers your way. 

Love Elder Thomas

Pictures:

For Halloween, I dressed up as Elder Maddox. And he dressed up as me

we found a trike with a Utah License plate

kids playing soccer in the field

colored chicks

the kids

***Tried the whole hour I was here to upload pictures but it was too slow. I'll try again next week!

A biking area with no bikes...

This week was awesome! I had my 8 week followup. I am now 2/3 the way through my training which is crazy. I love every bit of it.

This week, my companions bike broke a few times. We fixed it twice, but finally on the third time, we just decided that we would walk. On Sunday, we walked 6 miles out to the far end of our area. It was actually awesome. We talked to so many people. 

And we found a couple of drunk guys along the way. They are super funny to talk to because when they are drunk and they see white guys, they start talking in English, even though they are horrible at it. One guy kept apologizing to us saying that he was sorry that his friend was drunk. They were both drunk out of their minds, but they really wanted us to come back and teach them because they said they wanted to change their lives. Maybe we will go back some time when they are sober and tell them about how they said they wanted to change their lives haha. 

After that, we taught two of the best lessons ever. One was to a family (with 3 kids). They are super receptive and can't wait to start reading the Book of Mormon as a family. The other was to the man that we found a few weeks ago. He is soo prepared and loves the Book of Mormon. We got to his house super late because we didn't have bikes and we had to walk. But, because of that, we were able to teach his wife who was finally home from work. The Lord really does work in mysterious ways. Then we made the six miles back to our house. 

It is super windy here right now. Another storm is expected to make landfall here tomorrow. I am not getting evacuated, but we are not allowed to proselyte tomorrow. Kind of sad because we have a lot of work to do here. We have 11 investigators with baptismal dates and lots of them are progressing well. 

I love the mission and all the comes with it. The good and the bad. I love the gospel and the chance that I have to share it here in the Philipipines for a short 2 years. I love you all and send lots of prayers your way from the Philippines. 

Love Elder Thomas

Pictures:

-We found "Joe" painted on the side of a house. This is what everyone yells at us when they see two white kids walking down the road

 -We got locked out of the fence that leads to our house. So, we had to jump the fence. But, It was a lot higher than my comp thought. So, he "died" for a second when he landed

-We found a bucket of tar on the side of the road and decided to leave a message for when the workers came back

 -We saved a star fish

Stoned, Spit Upon and Cast Out...

Well... we have officially experienced it all. We were spit on. We had rocks thrown at us. And we we were chased out. ......... by a 6 year old. It was wild. haha

This week we got to go to a resort way up in the mountains. We got permission to go with the YSA in our ward to their activity. It was beautiful. We drove for like an hour way up this canyon. I had a giant river running through it. It reminded me of kind of a slot canyon in southern Utah, except that it was super green. The resort was just full of all sorts of little bamboo huts and pools. Our ward had the place rented out, but we could only watch :(

The highlight this week was yesterday. We taught a family which was awesome. The mom had been given a Book of Mormon from a friend that she met abroad. We taught them and they were all super interested. It will be fun to go back there for follow up visits. 

We also taught the man that we found last week while tracting. He is sooo prepared to hear the gospel. He loves the book of Mormon and asked us if we would be able to come back more times each week so that we can teach him more often. 

This week, the AP's were in our area on splits. One of them told me that there is a "really good chance that I will train as soon as I finish my training." I finish training in 4 weeks. I will likely be training before I even finish 3 months in the field. It is crazy. Me and my trainee will probably be lost for a few weeks haha. But, I know that the Lord will prepare a way. I love the mission and all that comes because of it. The days are extra long, but, there is nothing so rewarding. I love you all. 

Love Elder Thomas

Pictures:

The house we built last month survived the storms

Changing our TC cards to the proper name of the church

Bishop's family

The Resort

Merry Conference

The highlight this week was definitely conference. I know that I am a week behind all of you guys, but Conference was incredible. I felt like all the talks were about missionary work. The leaders are soo inspired and the work is progressing like never before. I love it here.

We had an awesome experience this week. We were biking out to find a referral that we had been given. My companion was feeling a little bit sick and wanted to stop at a tindihan (little shop) to get a drink so that he could take a pill. For whatever reason, we passed like 15 tindihans. Neither of us really knew why, but we just kept biking. We finally stopped at one. We got drinks and sat there for like 5 minutes.

 Finally, I asked the guy there if he knew the girl that we were looking for. He kind of pointed us in the right direction, but we just stayed and talked to him. We talked for like 40 minutes. He told us that he had completely turned his life around. He used to drink and smoke and do all sorts of drugs. But, one day he felt that his life was soo wrong. He stopped drinking and smoking and even stopped drinking coffee. He basically keeps the word of wisdom, he just doesn't know it. Then he told all his friends that they can't drink or smoke near his tindihan because he doesn't want that kind of influence by his kids. 

He also has lots of problems with the catholic church. He doesn't know why they worship marry, and why only the priests get the water when they take the sacrament. Questions like this are awesome because it means that he is thinking about things and he is willing to change. We went back to him yesterday and had an awesome L1. 

It was incredible to really see someone that was prepared to hear the message that we have to share. The Lord really does prepare people. We just have to find them. 

The mission is awesome. It is by far the hardest thing that I have ever done. But I love every second of it. I love you all and send lots of prayers your way from the Philippines. 

Love Elder Thomas

Pictures: Water Buffalo

We fit 6 of us on a trike. 2 Elders are on the back of the dudes motorcycle

Our attempt at making Filipino food haha

 

Transfers? Nah

Transfers came and went yesterday. Me and my companion are both staying here in Santiago to finish out my training. We are both super exciting about that. It is hard to believe that I already finished a transfer in the mission field. It is still the very beginning, but I know that it will fly by.

The funniest part of this week was not even Joel. We didn't see much of him this week. It was a guy up the road from our house that we call "the babbler." He just walks up the road all day and says random things. We always stop and try to get him to say something funny. He looks at us for a second and then puts his finger up and says something like "NASA owns the Mormons" or "Jesus Christ heals all the people through the blue flowers" or "ten thousand Russians plus one billion astronomers equals the end of the the CSI medication." I am not sure what most of this means, but I always get a kick out of this guy. And he lives in this massive house by us. So, he is pretty rich and he just spends his days walking up and down the road saying things. It is something that I look forward to every day as we leave the house.

The work here is awesome. We had over 100 people in our sacrament meeting yesterday which is more than we have ever had. We had 4 of our progressing investigators there which is super exciting. The ward here is super welcoming and so we hardly had the chance to talk to our investigators while they were at church. It is awesome. 

Our WML is obsessed with playing basketball. He is always trying to set up times for us to get less active members and young single adults together to play basketball. So, of course, we had to get a jersey made. One of the pictures here is of me in my "full pross." Ready to play basketball and teach the gospel haha. 

It seems like the weeks are just going faster and faster. I love it here.  I recognize more and more how much the gospel really does for our lives.

Joel *almost* strikes again

Funny story this week. I don't know many of you remember me talking about Joel a few weeks ago. Anyway, he is this crazy homeless guy who lives just outside of our house in this little hut. He is probably in his 40's but he doesn't really do anything. He just kind of lives there. A few weeks ago, we left out back door open and he got in a stole a half loaf of bread, 2 spoons, a bowl, half a jar of peanut butter, half a jar of jam, 2 packs of noodles, and some sugar. Since then, we double and triple check the back door to make sure that it is locked. So, this week, we went to teach an investigator who lives close to our house. Joel saw us leave. Then like an hour later, we came back, but he didn't see us come back. Like 5 minutes later, we were sitting in the kitchen making dinner when we saw his shadow coming towards the door. We quickly hid behind the door. Then, we saw the door knob turn. The door kind of shook as he tried to open it, but it was dead-bolted. It was kind of creepy because we were on the other side of the door of this dude who was trying to get into our house. So, we went out to his house and yelled "Joel, huwag na pumasok sa bahay namin" which means don't go into our house. He kind of agreed, but we are pretty sure that he tries to get into our house every time that we leave. It is just part of life here in Santiago.

Santiago is awesome and the work here is really progressing. I want to tell you about just a few of our investigators:

Chrizelle: She is the wife of our WML which is awesome. He was super inactive for a while. But, she is really catholic. She has tons of questions and is progressing slowly. But, she really gets it, and should be baptized the first week of November

John Clark: the brother of Jerry (our last baptism). His dad is a drunk, but his mom is pretty actuve. He has never attended church with his mom, but is now starting. 

Sister Paquing: She is totally ready, and loves church. She has had all the lessons, but she is not married to her husband. But, they have lived together for like 15 years. So, she just needs a "cenomar" (certificate of no marriage) and then she can get baptized. Hopefully, then we will teach her husband more.

Those are 3 of my favorites to teach. We have upwards of 10 people that we teach each week that are progressing. It is awesome. The gospel changes lives and it is so fun to be a part of. 

I love you all and send tons of prayers your way from the Philippines. 

Love Elder Thomas

pictures: a stalker pic of Joel

Frog dinner

filipino style pinata 

the kids are obsesses with taking pictures with out cameras and I become a human jungle gym when we are around them