July 28th--Transfer week

Sa Pamiliya ug mga amigo nako,

Kamusta kamo diha karon? Tani okay pa kamo. Naa pa ako dinhi sa Mabini. Sa kini nga semana mao ang transfer week. Siguro magtransfer ko. Mayjo sure jud ko nga, magtransfer ko, pero, ayos lang. Kay, basi ang mga iban nga Area's kinahanglan nila ako didto sa ila. Ang mga tawo nga andum sila para sa ebanhelyo ni JesusKristo. Cga, sa kini nga semana, budlay kaayo. Waay mga tawo sa simbahan sa domino. 54 lang. Sang ligad, 96. Meyjo suko ko sa mga tawo dinhi, pero, representative pa ako ni JesusKristo, so bawal na. 

So... Sam scratched my car? On the passenger side. Thanks. 

Elder Edem & Elder Ellis

If you can't understand what I said above I'm sorry. I just wanted you so see the language that I'm speaking for a little bit. I'm still not that great, but it's coming along pretty well. This week is transfer week and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to transfer. I received a text from President Lopez asking if Elder Edem was leading the are 100 percent. I then asked, is he supposed to because I"m the senior, so I'm supposed to lead. Then he said, train him to lead the area. Then I asked, so does that mean he's transferring as joke and President's reply was, Elder, wrong question. Meaning, Elder Edem's not transferring. I'm transferring. So that's what I"m thinking so far. So next week I'll probably be in a different place. Maybe still here in Escalante zone, that's what seems to kind of happen. Let's hope not though... A new place would be nice. I'm praying San Carlos zone. It's still Cebuano, but it's more of a city. I'm liking the Cebuano now that it's better than my Illongo. I'm afraid to go back to an Illongo area. This week was not good really. We've been experience rain storms all week, the whole area is flooded in the mountains. It's hard to get to certain places, like up to Paitain because the motorcycles can't make it up the mountain when it rains a ton. So we've had a rough week with contacting people. Also this week we had a President Training here just for our zone. It was good.

Monday nobody wanted to play basketball. I was a bit upset. Nobody replied to our text we sent out to tell people to come and play. So all we did was shopping and then we went home and then a rain storm came. Nobody wanted to play ping pong either. So yeah, it wasn't that fun of P-day at all. I only bought a little bit of groceries, because I still had some left over from last week. So nothing to write home about for Monday.

Seminary

Tuesday we had our Zone Training with President. Did you see any picture by chance? Are there any on his Facebook? He taught us that we need to set up a 15 min appointment with a certain family at the same time every week so that we're constantly teaching. We'd teach them a simple message, strengthen their faith and then they'd start to trust us and we'd build a relationship with them. However, here in Mabini, we do enough walking that we go from one appointment to another. We never have nothing to do, so that's going to be super hard to apply here in our area. However, we'll try to do our best and apply the guidance of President Lopez. We have a new investigator, not really that new, but she's been in some of the lessons with the Diana Family, but we've been teaching her now with Mary Ann. They are friends. Her name is Leah. We taught her about how the Gospel blesses families. And who God and Jesus Christ actually are. For everyone being Catholic, they all suck at knowing who these people actually are. They believe in Jesus, but they can't tell you one thing about him. And they all call him "Papa Jesus". So... yeah. It's interesting. So now we've really got to focus on, "no Jesus isn't your dad, he's actually your brother. If Jesus was your dad... then who is God to you? Nothing." So all their rationalization doesn't make sense one bit. We also taught Shena. We taught her the first part of the Plan of Salvation. It's one of the hardest things to teach honestly. But we think she got it for the most part. It's not the in baptismal interview questions, so it's not something we need to target largely before baptism. However, we should still teach it so after baptism they're not totally like, what the heck is this thing? Shena is doing great actually. She let's us teach her every other night and she's really nice and accepting. We still teach with her friend Guia. However, this week Sunday was registration to vote, so she had to go register for that... and wasn't able to go to church, which is okay. 

 

Guia, Elder Ellis, & Shena

Wednesday we taught all less actives. We didn't do this on purpose, it was only accident. All the part members that there are, the non member wasn't at the home, so we ended up just teaching less actives all day. The Lumantad Family we taught the Plan of Salvation and they had no clue what it was... hm... And they've been members for 5 years. So that was good that we reviewed it! We taught Ernesto Ondoy, the leader of illegal gambling here in Mabini, also a member, about 2 Ne 9:51, which is about spending your money wisely. The Despojo's weren't home, nor at church, I"m sad to say, but I really hope they don't go less active... :( The Desuyo's were home, however, Brother, the non member wasn't. So we actually taught them the same money lesson. The Mom and the Son and the Dad all drink coffee every night. We told them to pull out a piece of paper, and a pen. They did. The mom did at least, Dad wasn't there. We asked the mom, "How many coffee sachet's do you buy a day." She said 3. Then add the cream that 3 too. Okay, so then how much is that each. 3 pesos. Okay. So now we're at 18 pesos a day, just on coffee and creamer. We asked how many days a week... EVERYDAY! Okay, no do the math. Then, how many years Sister, she said for 16 years. AYOS! So we pretty much did all the math, I don't remember the exact numbers. Anyway, the number we ended up with was 144,000 pesos, just on coffee. So... yeah. Maybe they'll start changing their ways if they're smart, but we'll see. They're super poor, so I don't understand their logic sometimes when they say, but Elder, it's good. Yeah but you're complaining you have no money to buy Rice, but you're buying Coffee every single day. You could buy 3 kilo's a week if you didn't buy coffee... so I"m not feeling any mercy towards your family. We also taught the Bawaan's about the Restoration. The father returned last week, but the Mom missed last week so she didn't return. Neither of them were at church this week, maybe because of the rain. We also taught Sister Dumdum and her family about the Plan of Salvation, the last part about where we go after we die. It was a good lesson because we can talk about it in more depth because they know these things. It was cool. 

Lumantad family

Desuyo family

Trujillo Family

Thursday we were super punted all day however still we taught Sister Jorolan about the Word of Wisdom. She doesn't have any problems with it and committed to live it. We just wish she'd get married. IF that happened, we'd baptize her the next day. Honestly. We then taught Leah again, this time about the Prophets. She didn't really understand. I think she's more interested in dude good looking young men talking, one being American speaking Cebuano, than actually about the material. So we're gonna try and fix that. Maybe it's a good thing that I might transfer. We also had an appointment with Shena where we taught her the kingdoms of glory. That's the hardest thing to explain because the Catholic's believe in Purgatory... which we as members of the true church know it doesn't exist. So that's always a concern that comes up with teaching new people. It was still good though and she's still progressing well. 

Friday did our weekly planning session and I helped Elder Edem plan to take over the area. So he's nervous, but he'll do fine. That's if i transfer. But we were only about to teach one less active, the Bawaan Family. We also watched their Filipino eagle which is way cool. We taught them about the Book of Mormon. The mom can't read that well, she can't see that well. But the dad can, so we told him to read to his wife. The we attended Seminary, which we're going to start doing every Friday to try and get the young going in their missionary work. It's working so far and we've planned a church tour for this coming Friday so that they can bring their friends. Then we had our dinner appointment at President Dalaguit's. We show up and there's like 30 people in his house. Anyway, turns out it's his birthday so all his family is there. It was way cool and we talked with some people and we got a potential investigator out of it. She was also a former investigator, it's the niece of President. 

Bawaan family.  Their son is preparing for a mission.

Saturday I let Elder Edem lead all day. I acted as if I was a new missionary. Talking about a good experience because we were punted the whole entire day. We were supposed to have a branch council, but nobody showed up!!!! WOW! So it was then moved to Sunday. There were tons of people playing basketball at the church so we walked around and we tried to get some potential people that we could teach... nobody. We ended the day by teaching Shena again about the Gospel of Jesus Christ: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. The lesson went well. We really focused on the repentance part because that's the whole point of why we're at her house. We then went home and prepared for our talks that we're supposed to give in church on Sunday. We weren't given a topic, but of course, we're missionaries and we're not getting any referrals from the branch, so what do you think we talked about? Missionary work gani. Then a rain storm came and it rained ALL night long and into Sunday morning and then all Sunday.

DumDum family

On Sunday we arrived at the church at 8:30 and there was 3 people there. Usually there will be about 20 by this time. At 9 there were only 40 people in the Sacrament Hall. I guess due to the rain, nobody decided to come to church... pataka. Anyway, our talks went well I think and we pretty much just begged the branch to help us... maybe something will change. We have our missionary cooridination meeting after church, like right after, and guess what happened??? Everyone rushed home!!!! So... no meeting. What the heck! Also, the branch council meeting that we're supposed to have as well, canceled because nobody is there! AHHHHHHHH!!!! So yeah, not a good Sunday. Sister Jorolan was at church though, so that was good. We also taught the Garcia family, which wasn't at church, only the son, about the Book of Mormon. We know they don't read. Then we taught Sister Dumdum and her family about 2Ne. 28:8-9 about not worry about sin and things in the end it doesn't matter. Which is what Satan wants us to think. So... yeah. It was an interesting Sunday.

So the week was okay I guess. I'm not really sure what to call it. It's rough here in this area and it's super hard to get people to listen. We've got the answer to salvation and people take it more as a joke. Sometimes, I don't know what to think. But, I'd like to thank you for all you support anyway. I can't do this without your prayers and thoughts. Thanks to my family. Y'all are the best. And my good friends, thank you as well! 

Kabalo ko bisan daghan ang mga pagsulay sa atong kinabunhi, pwede ta magpadayon gihapon. Nakito ko diri sa akong mission nga nindot kaayo ang Simbahan didto sa America. Grabe kaayo. Salamat para sa tanan nga mga tabang gikan sa inyo padulong sa akon. Salamta sa inyo pagampo ug paghunahuna sa akon. Kabalo ko nga and Simbahan tinuod siya ug Ang Basahon ni Mormon, tinuod pod. Hinigugma ko kamo da. Amping kanunay!

Y'all's Missionary,

Elder Ellis