21 June 2010

Hey everyone,

Well its just another day in paradise!!! We taught a few lessons, I attended my first funeral service and burial, and lost one of my shoes in the mud! ha ha

Well yesterday, the report from church, I talked, that was fun. I talked about Visiting and Home teaching and how it related to missionary work and how much easier our job would be if the members would fulfill their calling. We'll see if any of it sunk in.

Batas, Billy Pentalver, and Roel Conte all came to church yesterday. That was great. Batas and Billy both said that they were going to stop drinking and Friday was their last bottle. Billy has been true to his word. Batas on the other hand can't quite stop as easy. When we went to see him yesterday afternoon, he had been drinking a lil bit. I HATE liquor. You have no idea! That is the root of all evil! It is rooted so deeply in the culture over here. Satan loves using it, thus I severely dislike him as well.

On a good note, we got our fridge fixed after 1 week of not having one. It turns out that there is a sensor in the back of the freezer that had frozen and because of that it wasn't reading right and the air was not able to circulate or something like that, thus, it was not working. ha ha To add to our frustration, we went 2 days with no water. ha ha Yeah, we were rationing our water, but luckly it came on before we used all of the water. They say that it won't be a big problem when the rain starts coming all the time.

On Wednesday we had a Funeral service, it went over real well. The counselor that was in charge of it wasn't going to plan anything. He just figured we would invite a bunch of members and call it good. So Elder Pennock and I spent Tuesday night planning and contacting. It acually turned out really good. I saw some tears so at least I know they were listening. Then Friday they had the burial. We were not able to go into the Catholic church for whatever they were doing in there but we joined them after and walked out to the cemetary behind the hearse. Then they opened it, did a prayer type deal, then pushed the casket into the cement shelter. Oh, I probably should mention that all the cemetaries are above ground here in the Philippines. I don't know why, but thats how it is.

Oh, the loosing my shoes. We went to see one of the members, some people had said to take a different route, so we went into his house that way. But on the way out, we went the "shorter way" ha ha ha yeah, mistake. We ended up crossing a few hectars of mud and weeds. We were almost there and all of a sudden I stepped wrong and when I pulled out my foot, the shoe didn't come with it. ha ha Luckly Elder Pennock was following me and grabbed my shoe for me. ha ha People were laughing at me when they passed me, but such is life. I better get used to it because the rainy season is only going to get wetter.

Well i gotta run,

I love you all

Elder Chase

14 June 2010

 

Hey everyone,

 

Another tired week. I've been battling a sinus infection, but it has not yet deterred the work! I am just taking Cephalexin 3 times a day. Who ever said that you can't apply what you learn at a veterinary clinic into real life? ha ha ha.

 

Wow what a great end to last week, being able to watch the Cebu temple dedication.  We were assigned to watch the 12:00 session and 3:00 session.  I really didn't want to because I wanted to go back to my area and work. I was obedient and went to the 12 and 3 session, When the 2nd speaker started speaking at the 3:00 it was all too apparent why we were told to go to the 3:00 The area presidency talked and I, as well as the other missionaries I talked to took something from their talks, they talked about missionary work both as missionaries, and members, and how it all eventually leads to the temple, I learned a lot.

 

On Saturday, we had a Cultural Event, it was in Cebu as well, and the Prophet was there. It was a lot of dancing and stuff, a couple were cool. President Monson is getting Big!

 

I've got a bit of bad news, Batas, our alcoholic, was doing so great! Then, the bank foreclosed on his land and he started up drinking again. Every day we went to his place he was drunk, or any other place we saw him he was drinking.  On the bright side, he wasn't able to read before because his eyes are so bad, but when Elder Pennock had to go get glasses, they gave him a free pair of reading glasses, we gave them to Batas and he can read now! He was so excited and he looks so Pogi with his new glasses! Not really, he looks kinda funny but the first thing he said was he was going to do was read the Book of Mormon, and we hadn't even mentioned anything about it, so that gave us a little hope.  Then the other day, he told us that he had another problem, his son had run away and they had not heard anything from him. So we are praying for him and hopefully he will show up.  His mother-in-law is a bitty. It is actually her land that they foreclosed on and she is blaming Batas, every time he goes home it ends up in a fight. He is kinda scared of going home, she doesn't like us either, so it doesn't exactly help that we are friends. 

 

We also have been offering our condolences to a family here, on Wednesday they said good bye to their mother.  2 sons are members;1 is inactive and the other is abroad in Abu-Dabi. 1 other son is a friend of ours; we used his jeepnee when we moved, and now the rest of the family are our friends.  But it was sad, all of a sudden she had a heart attack and died.  Last night we went over there again and they were having a small service there for her.  Almost all of them are Born Again Christians. So there was a lot of singing and halleluja, and oh yes Jesus-ing going on.  ha ha The look on Elder Pennock's face when he first heard the lady saying "oh yes Jesus" during the prayer, was priceless! ha ha ha It was a first for him.  It really is sad, I was listening to everything they said and for the most part he is right, but they have no knowlege about the spirit world, or the ressurection, and the 3 kingdoms.  We are hoping for a chance to teach them a little bit. We just learned that the mormon brothers want to do a Mormon service so we are going to be doing that next Wednesday! Then Thursday they will bury their dear mother, Sonia. 

 

I swear I'm a dag gum drunk magnet.  I leave one and another one finds me, we were sitting next to the casket, visiting with people and what do you think comes and plops down in the seat right next to me! I dunno! ha ha.

The rain has slowed down it only rained like 2 or 3 days this week.  Kind of depressing because it is very hot again. 

 

In un-missionary work news, our fridge died, we had to stay up late one night cooking our meat so it wouldn't go rotten, so we had 6 containers of Adobo, now its sitting in the freezer of the couple missionary's home.  ha ha.  Gotta love it,  the guy is coming Wednesday to fix it. The fish is starting to stink, we should probably throw it out now. We'll see,

 

Ha ha love you all,

Until next week

Elder Chase

7 June 2010

Oh my gosh I've never been so tired in my entire life! Since we moved up (Bani) we have been working double time and I love it. I'm exhausted but happy as well.

After a bunch of confusion and coordinating with the jeepnee driver we finally were able to transfer apartments on Tuesday morning, The morning of Transfers! But we were not able to sleep there until Thursday night. ha ha. I told the jeepnee driver 8 am on Tuesday, I figured he would show up at 8:30 or 9, ya know, Filipino time. ha ha yeah I was a little wrong on that, he showed up at 6:45 am. ha ha SURPRISE! So I ran the transferring missionary to the bus station then we came back and loaded our stuff up in the jeepnee. We had to use my old roping rope to tie the fridge on to the back, he wanted to cut the rope I told him to heck with that. But I'm happy to report that the fridge did not fall off the bumper! When we were heading back up we stopped at one of the members who equipped us with 3 of his hired hands to help us unload, as well as himself and one of his sons. We got the jeepnee unloaded 10x faster than we loaded it. Then we had to figure out what we were missing and go back with Ashcrafts for it.

Well last week I almost lost my finger to an electric fan. I was talking to another Elder and swinging my arms. The electric fan behind me has 1 hole and it is on the bottom, most awkward part of the fan to stick your finger in, but of course its not hard if you have my luck! All of a sudden I hear this tang tang tang, then came the pain, oh boy did it hurt. I was bleeding all over the place and everyone was laughing at me once they knew I was okay. But I'll have sweet scars on my hand when the swelling goes down and it quits hurting. Metal blades are not nice, especially when the fan is on number high. Then just the other day I ironed my hand, that was fun too. Hopefully another sweet scar.

We had a new Missionary come on Tuesday, Elder Berueta. He has a history of being lazy and disobedient. So I may have my hands full but he will be in good hands. The missionary who he is assigned to work with is hardworking, I just hope it doesn't ruin him because he is a really nice kid. I'll just keep praying and everything will be alright.

On Sunday, we get to go to the Cebu Temple dedication! I'm so excited. For so many people this will be their only chance to see this in their life. I've been really lucky to see as many as I have. They said we are to attend 2 sessions. I'm not sure if we will though, I think we'll come back and go back to work. There will be no church next Sunday either, the dedication will take its place cool huh?

Yesterday was a great day. We had our alcoholic come to church, Batas Ramos, and one other investigator named Nanay Onia, we have been teaching her since I got to Bani and we've been trying to get her to come to church since then. Finally she came yesterday and she LOVED it! She was like Wow it is so beautiful here, and I feel so good! Her son, has been coming to church every week for the last couple months after he goes to church at the Catholic church. I asked him what the difference was between our church and the other one, he said the catholic is maganda, and ours is pinaka-maganda. translation catholic=great, LDS=The bestest! ha ha yeah! Thats what we've been trying to get people to understand. Sister said that even if she has to walk to church every week she's comin! or even if we don't come to their house they are coming to church! Then we taught an inactive member last night that has been inactive for a long time. When we explained about Joseph Smith and the Restoration of the Priesthood, and only through this church can we return to the presence of God. It was like a light clicked and everything he knew before came back. He'll be coming to church next week.

The Lord is in this work on every hand! We've gotten so much help from Him this week and the last couple weeks. Hopefully it doesn't stop.

I think thats all for this week, It was a good one.

Love you all

Elder Westwood