Nanay Blanes

Well... This week really capped off some nice work in the past month. Nanay Blanes was baptized by her son which was definitely the highlight of the week. She has been taught by missionaries for like almost 2 years now, but it was finally her time. She was sooo ready. It was awesome. And then she bore an awesome testimony after her baptism. There were also 3 youth from the group under our branch that were baptized. It was an awesome service. 

The next day, we were at church and we ended up with 10 of the people that we are teaching attend church. It was the craziest surprise. We started a district fast on Saturday night with all the other missionaries for all of the people that we are teaching and for the branches that we are serving in. It was awesome!!

I honestly don't remember a whole lot more about this week. We didn't teach as many lessons as we usually do, but the lessons that we taught were awesome!! The spirit does sooo much to change lives when you give them opportunities to feel of its power. 

This week was also Halloween. Halloween isn't really celebrated here, but they celebrate "All Saints Day" or "Day of the Dead." It was an awesome chance for us to teach a lot this week about the Plan of Salvation. We taught some super cool lessons about the knowledge of eternal families and the perfect plan that God has for each of us. Thanks for all of the thoughts and prayers!!

-Elder Thomas

...and thats how we ended up in jail

This week was seriously wayyy too fast. It got off to a super crazy start. Transfers were last Monday. My comp (Elder Maurer) showed up. Within the hour of his showing up, we got a call that some of the missionaries in our zone got into a tricycle crash. One of them was in the hospital. So, we raced over to give him a blessing. That night, we didn't have time to get back to our house, so we slept at the Elders that are closest to the hospital. The next morning, we went on exchanges because the Elder in the hospital has baptisms on Saturday that they still had to interview. So I spent the day at the hospital. (He is ok now. He is healthy and back to work)

Then we got home to our house and introduced Elder Maurer to all the members and people that we are teaching. It was awesome. I am really excited for this transfer. 

Thursday, we hopped on a 4 hour bus ride down to the mission office for Leadership Council. It was awesome. I seriously love President Oldroyd and come away from all of those meetings super inspired. That took the whole day Friday and my some miracle, we actually got a trike that would take us to our area late that night. 

Then Saturday, one of the members told us that she was going to visit her husband in jail the next morning. We were both super excited for the invite. So, the next morning we woke up extra early and went with her to visit her husband. Turns out, they were having a giant festival at the jail. There were tons of native Filipino tribal dancers and stuff. We just sat right down in this giant line of inmates and watched the whole thing. We were there for like 3 hours and it was super fun to talk to all the people there. 

On Sunday, we did Come Follow Me study with a bunch of the members from our ward. This week's topic was awesome. It was about all of the recent converts which is awesome for our area because most of the 40 or so members in our ward were baptized in the last 2 years. I loved when it said something about how "faithfulness in the past will not be enough to face the storms that will come." We need to all be doing the little things that will give us protection in the days to come. Keep it up!! I love you all. 

Love Elder Thomas

Pics of MLC

Exchanges and then exchanges again

This week was seriously awesome!! Me and Elder Christensen saw some awesome miracles as we got out to work. We now have 4 people with baptismal dates in November. And we extended to a family of 6 that we are excited to follow up with. Elder Christensen got transferred this morning, but yesterday, we had 8 of the people we are teaching attend sacrament meeting. He was excited to see some of the success that has come because of our work.

This week, I also got to go on exchanges twice which was super cool. On Tuesday, I brought Elder Bernal to my area. He is awesome. It was super fun to be with him because he is Filipino and I haven't had a Filipino comp yet. I learned a ton. Then on Wednesday afternoon, we ended splits and I immediately took off to another area for splits again. We got to work in Elder Murray's area. We taught 11 lessons and biked over at least 3 mountains. It was super fun. 

This week went by wayyy too fast. I am now just waiting for my next comp to show up here. I am excited to get to work with him. He was my Zone Leader 5 transfers ago. This is his last transfer in the mission and I am super excited to learn from him. 

Sorry, I don't have much more time. We are going to the bus station to wait for the Elders to show up here. But I love you all and know that the church is true. 

Love Elder Thomas

So...what is going to happen in 6 months??

This week was awesome. Conference was seriously awesome!! Elder Holland like basically dropped the mic when he "welcomed us to conference." Chills hit the room and I was totally ready for 2 days of spiritual bombs. I was not disappointed. I seriously loved the whole conference. I felt like the topic was JOY. This life is meant to be enjoyed even if it is hard. They also talked a lot about just recommitting and living as true disciples of Christ. And the end of conference was incredible. All I can think about now is what is going to happen in 6 months. I think that we have decided that they are going to bring all of the past prophets and apostles "out of retirement" for a special "Called to Serve Musical Medley." Just speculation.

But, this week was awesome. I honestly don't remember a whole lot more than that. We taught some awesome lessons about living prophets. It was super cool to really testify to people that we are still led by a prophet who receives revelation from God to lead this church today. It was also easy to relate that to the Book of Mormon. We taught lots of lesson about how people will be able to know if we are led by a prophet because of the Book of Mormon. Because if the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith was a prophet. And if he was a prophet, then the authority and church of Christ were restored. And today, we are led by a prophet. It is so simple. And the Book of Mormon is the evidence we have been given to know of the truth. 

I love you all and hope that all if well back home!!

Love Elder Thomas

-a girl with her pet monkey

-all the little tykes in our area

Baptism and Conference

Well... the highlight this week was when Mark was baptized. The changes that have happened in his life are seriously awesome. He is only 16 years old and he dropped out of school 2 years ago so that he could just work. He was hooked on cigarettes and had lots of other problems. He met the missionaries almost 2 years ago when his cousin was baptized. He has been taught on and off, but he finally decided that he was going to take things seriously to try to turn his life around. He is super shy, but when he got up to bear his testimony after his baptism, the spirit was seriously awesome!! He just talked about the atonement and the power that the Atonement has to change the life of anyone. It was awesome!!

This week just kind of ripped by. All of the missionaries were looking forward to the "conference updates" since we don't get to watch conference until this upcoming weekend. It is amazing!! 8 new temples. And some awesome changes to the youth programs that will allow the church to continue to move forward. 

This week, we also saw a miracle with one of the families that we are teaching. The parents and 4 of the kids are baptized. One of their sons has kind of distanced himself from the family because he had no desire to be baptized. But, he attended a branch party that we had last week. He felt the spirit and the love of the members and immediately came up to us to ask if he could be baptized. We told him that he just has to come to church 4 times and we needed to finish teaching him the lessons. So, we put him on date exactly 4 weeks away. His family is looking forward to the day when they will get to go to the temple to be sealed as a family. 

This week in our teaching, we taught a lot about prophets and apostles. That is how Christ established His church and that is how His church is led today. It is awesome!! The church is moving forward at an amazing rate and it is sooo fun to be a part of. I love you all and am thankful for the thoughts and prayers. 

Love Elder Thomas

Merry Conference!!

Well... It is that time of year again!! We get to hear from the living prophet and apostles. I am seriously sooo excited. This is like the coolest time of the year. I hope that you are all getting ready. Think of questions that you have and you will with out a doubt get some answers. The church is moving forward at a crazy awesome rate and it is amazing to be a part of. 

So, definitely one of the big highlights this week was being able to talk to my sisters on Moms birthday. It has been a solid 7 months since I have been able to talk to them. Connection wasn't great, but it is amazing what technology lets us do. 

Not a whole lot happened this week. We spent a day down in San Fernando at the hospital so that we could get my comps stomach checked out. Sometimes, life just catches up with you out here. We got back to our zone, but it was too late and there was no way to get back to our area, so we just crashed at the other Elders little house. The six of us slept on 4 mattresses. I slept like trash and then we woke up and had to get ready to go to a stake activity. The activity was awesome. There were a ton of people there. The members here are sooo awesome. They all have so little, but they give anything that they can. We had the activity all day until that afternoon when the sisters in the branch had a baptism. I got absolutely fried. I got super sunburned and putting on a white shirt is now a battle. But, life is good.

This week, we did teach some awesome lessons. Our focus has been on the Plan of Salvation. Lots of the people we teach are doing a good job at reading the Book of Mormon. It brought some awesome changes in their progression. Now we are going back with them to try to put the whole thing into perspective. It is awesome to teach people about the Plan of Salvation because people's beliefs vary so much. Lots of people really haven't thought very much about it, and lots of people have some very different beliefs. But, the moment that we teach them about God's plan, the spirit hits the room and people can feel the truthfulness of the message. 

I know that God has a plan for us that is perfect. It is not easy, but it is perfect. It is the way that He knows that we can learn to become like Him. As our loving Father, He wants nothing more than for us to be happy and one day enjoy life with Him in eternal glory. I know that we are led by a  living prophet who continue to receive revelation to guide this church. He holds the keys to lead and guide us and He is doing it at an accelerated rate. We all need to keep up!! Get ready for conference!! I love you all. Thank you for the thoughts, prayers, and emails. 

Love Elder Thomas

-Sorry... not a lot of pics this week. 

And the camera doesn't do these sunsets any justice

How to eat fried worms

Well... this week was a good one. It was just a little bit harder to find time to teach people this week because we are in the middle of the great rice harvest. But, it did open up a lot of opportunities for service which is awesome. We helped some members on Saturday for like 7 hours harvest peanuts. I woke up the next day and could hardly walk because my hamstrings were so tight. I also had a super gnarly sunburn that made wearing a collar kind of a battle. But, life is good, and I gained even more appreciation for the people here and the way that they work just to make it by. 

This week we also had the opportunity to give a blessing to a member. He is about to take his finals in college and has been super nervous. He called us and asked if we could give him a blessing. He said that he was too scared to ask for a blessing, so he had never had one. We gave him a blessing of comfort and after the blessing, seeing him was the coolest thing. His emotions were somewhere between 'jumping up and down' and 'crying.' He said he felt super prepared and new that power from the other side of the veil is more powerful than anything we could possibly do for ourselves.

This week we also had zone conference. It was awesome!! It was super simple, but was all focused on what we can do to really use the Book of Mormon to hasten the work. Our zone saw changes in just the last couple of days. Every single companionship in our zone had people come to church this week. On Sunday, while doing followup calls with the district leaders, all of them told me about how they had simply used the Book of Mormon and they had begun to see miracles in their area and the areas of those in their districts. It was seriously awesome!!

This week, one of the people we are teaching gave us some exotic foods. We had fried worms, fish, and a coconut (that I pulled out of a tree). It was wild. The worms were actually way better than the fish that they had cooked (and I like fish). It is all just part of the experience here in the Philippines. 

I seriously love every bit of the experience, not because it is easy. The mission is by far the hardest thing that I have ever done and every single day is a grind. But, the blessing come like crazy. I know that the blessings come to me, my family, and friends. I love you all and send lots of prayers back your way from this side of the world. 

Love Elder Thomas