April 27, 1010

Hey Dad.

So there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. Always. We tracted for four hours a day last week. Talk about working hard. We were exhausted every day when we got home that for me it was planning, shower, bed. I prayed all the time that something would open up and out of the hundreds of people that we were either talking to or were seeing us pass by, one of them would just open up and want to know.

So last week we're walking away from a house that we had an appointment at but the guy wasnt there. This happens all the time by the way. And this lady asks us where we're going. We tell her that we're heading to a different barangay (neighborhood). Then she starts to ask us who we are. So we kinda share a little about who we are, what we do and talk about the message with her. Then she asks for a card. So we give her an articles of faith card. She says she'll check it out and then we can come back and teach her next week. Then we seriously walk 10 feet and a guy in his yard stops us and asks us where we're coming from. We tell him that we're coming from an appointment but that it fell through. He also starts to ask us about whats going on with us, who we are, what we do. So we share more with him. Come to find out he thinks its crazy that there are so many religions nowadays. He's like, you know, if Christ had HIS church, you think that there would be one like it. ...........................................................................yes. There would be one like it. So I gave him a pamphlet and gave him the section on the apostasy to read. We passed by about 10 minutes later and he was reading it from the beginning! Its awesome! 

So we went back Monday. He read the WHOLE pamphlet. All the way to the back. All the key terms. Everything. Twice. He was really into Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. It was the first time that we shared the whole first lesson with someone in my mission! It was great! He was calling out to his family to come and listen but they were all gone. It was great! So we're going back tonight to watch the Restoration video and to leave a Book of Mormon. So stoked.

Cool about the park. I dont know if you knew this but The Hallam's grandson is one of the missionaries that got followed in the Preach My Gospel DVDs. He's a pretty important guy in the MTC. And now I guess the church kinda watches him to make sure that things are all good with his life. They watch his facebook, myspace, he has to have a weekly meeting with Elder Ballard. I dont know everything but thats what his district mate said (who also is at the MTC). Pretty crazy. I talked to him a little bit. He's from Rocklin. Talked with him about.....very little actually.

Kinda sad about Brother Helu. Man, I love that guy. I used to stop and talk with him all the time. Great guy.

So my leg is still infected. Its sooooo annoying. You have no idea. Its starting to heal up a little bit but its still crazy itchy.

I added some pics from the last week. Some of them are from our zone tour of Bohol. Others...I cant remember which ones I added. hahaha.

Hope you have a good week and a nice time in Middle Earth....I mean New Zealand.

Love Brandon

April 13, 2010

My grandmother.


first of all, you will have to forgive me. the shift button on this keyboard is broken and so i have to nearly punch it in order to get any kind of response. there may be very few capitalizations. just prepare.

sorry that i didnt respond last week. the internet cafe that we use...to be more exact, all of calape had a power outage that lasted about 4 hours last wednesday so i didnt get to email everyone that i would have liked. even ben got jipped. that didnt make me very happy.

so easter was excellent and last sunday even better since that was the sunday and saturday that we got to watch conference on the delayed broadcast. um...yeah.... i think elder holland made things pretty clear. and i'm deeply sorry that you didnt get to hear president uchtdorf in priesthood. he spoke with so much authority it felt as if the walls were going to shake and kill all those who were guilty of impatience. i felt very comforted as he spoke tho. i've made it the goal for my mission to be patient. each companion has had something..some bigger than others...that i needed to be patient with. and so i feel as if it was a reassurance of what i've been working on. i still have room to grow of course.

oh grandma. yeah, the language is coming along but i found out just recently that everything that i was taught in the mtc about the language was pretty much wrong. so now i've kind of had to start again from the ground up. terrible. it was pretty disheartening and found me on my knees of course asking for help.

i've gotten all the updates about grandma betty from mom and dad. sounds like things are pretty rough. i know her and thats not the situation that she wants but i know she understands. come on...its grandma betty we're talking about. haha. man i love her. she's great.

its weird thinking that things are going on while i'm gone. you dont really think about whats going on rather who is going on. its more about the people that you miss as opposed to the things that you miss. i think part of that comes from not knowing what movies music and games that are coming out while im on the other side of the world. i miss your house sitting visits. those were always good times.

unsa pa?.....

mom. hasnt sent me an email yet this week. so i think im going to write her in cebuano.
you can go ahead and post emails to you on the blog by the way. they'd make a good addition.

love you grandma. hope you and grandpa are doing great. send my love to him as well.

love brandon

April 13, 2010

Maayong buntag mom.

so wala ka nagemail sa akoha. so... bisaya nalang. hahaha. ang hope nako nga maayo sa tanan. okay ra ang kinabuhi nako diri sa calape.... lisod gyud ang work. lisod ang tracting. dako kaajo ang area so...lisod gyud. naa mi duha ka mga investigators. nagprogess sila gamay. nakabasa sila niadtong last pasbasa nga gibilin namo. apan wa kahibao kon andam sila sa bunyag. si brother jupith naa syay sigirilyo gihapon. so dili sya andam. kinhanglan mi og bagong mga investigators. apan lisod gyud na. kusog kaayo ang simbahan sa catholika diri sa calape. naa syay grasp sa mga kasingkasing sa mga katawhan.

basta.

magsuay mi gihapon sa pagbuhat sa calling namo. misyonario gihapon.

wa ko kahibao kon maayo ang bisaya nako kay sayop kaayo ang mga gitudloan sa MTC. pastilan. wala sila nagexplicar sa laing mga pokus. sayang. so start over karon.

hope nako nga magemail ka kanako soon....

gugma,

elder treadway

NICE HUH!!! CEBUANO!!!!

everything is going pretty good here. i emailed dad most of whats going on since i hadnt gotten an email from you. if you send one i'll probably still be on so go ahead and try.

love you mom.

April 13, 2010

hey dad.

so the shift button on this keyboard is toast. so there will be few capitalizations in this email. and probably question marks as well.  in other news, bohol is pretty nice. i feel as if this could be the struggle in my mission. from what i've heard this is the hardest island. or maybe camotes. but i think president is really testing me. he told me in our last interview together that he and the lord expect more from me than most missionaries and i need to start preparing now. so this might be a proving ground. its fine. im just doing what i always do. wake up, study, go out, work, eat, work, eat, work, plan, sleep. no showers. no water. just survivor style. hahahaha. just kidding. although the other day i was piecing together my survivor resume as i was walking. what do you think: i'm a 21 year old mormon (they love mormons). i just got back from a 2 year mission in the philippines (they like jungle background--just look at coach). im a student preparing to be a lawyer. im young, attractive and athletic (but mostly young). i turn any friendship into an alliance. and im gonna win. boom. see you next season huh? really excited. get ready to compete cuz you know they sometimes have the family visitors compete to be with the castaway. so...keep running marathons. hahaha. but patience and seeing the good in everyone and everything is kind of my goal for my mission. if i can do that then success will follow. i'm sure of that. the lord gave me an interesting mix with this companion. he switched up the patience i would need. he's really fun, hilarious and a nice guy but doesnt like to keep the rules. so now i have to lead by example. i just keep with the schedule and hope that everything will click with him soon. in our mission most people shut off with 6 months left and coast. and thats what he's doing.

nice! seattle washington for joseph. i told daniel that he was going to mexico . but i told him no guess is safe because nobody expected tyelar to get called to jupiter on his mission...or manchester mandarin speaking (same thing). i tell everyone about his call. im so proud of that guy. and now jonathon is close! thats exciting. and simi will come along. just get bishop to work with him. he'll come around.

conference. holy cow. it was great. it was pretty much like watching priesthood session. for all 5 sessions. we watched them in the chapel. priesthood and the saturday sessions on saturday and the two sunday sessions on sunday. it was kind of disappointing. the sunday morning session was almost full but every other session had a maximum of 8 people. people just kind of saw it as they'd done their duty by coming to church for the time they had to and went home. you're exactly right about what eyering and packer said. too many people just coast. it happened AT conference. but wow. this is the second conference in my life that i actually paid attention too. i regret that. the october session was amazing because i was so into it. i paid careful attention. this one was even better because i just paid attention. i was the only one in all sessions that took any notes. i especially loved uchtdorfs talk at preisthood session and (of course) elder holland. i think he left little doubt in anyones mind as to what was up. elder andersen also was really good. schwitzer of the seventy who talked about judging was awesome! loved it. and christofferson was really good too about the scriptures. nice talks all around. great conference. and president monson's talk about death was really nice.

btw, that picture you sent has PRO written all over it. if i were you i would make that my profile picture on facebook. you'd get some serious comments about that legendary vest. and your rewards trip sounds really awesome. italy up and down. i'm not sure if you know the story about the rome temple. but its kinda funny. apprarently the land we have for the temple was very coveted by the vatican . they've been trying to buy it forever. but italy wouldnt sell it to them. its RIGHT across from the vatican . still wouldnt sell it. so the church comes along and asks for it and italy sells it to the church. FOR DIRT CHEAP. so now we're right across from the vatican . with a temple of the lord. whew....

i dont know if i told you but i've been studying the new testament and jesus the christ again. i put it on hold as i finished the book of mormon. i'm almost out of the 4 gospels. finishing up john this week. im really excited to get into acts. i never really paid much attention to anything after the gospels. all i know is that paul wrote some seriously long letters. hahaha. no. i know more that that. but its really cool. i love it. lots of cool doctrine. the pharisees are almost laughable at how lame they are. christ is doing miracles in front of them and they just rationalize it all because they're afraid of him. too bad.

sounds like work is taking another step for you. hahaha. just pray. ask the lord in the temple what to do. he will direct thy paths. haha.

i dont know yet about mothers day. if you dont get a call saturday night expect one on sunday. i'll ask president.

so yesterday i was in a bookstore to buy some scripture study stuff (you'll notice i made some emergency withdrawls. one was that all my scripture study stuff was stolen by missionaries going home and i was not reimnbursed for all the missionaries that had me pay for luggage on our boat ride over to bohol. integrity is lacking in our mission at times.) and i noticed two things. one was that russia invaded afghanistan ??? i need some clarification and/or news on that and the other thing i saw was that steve jobs did it! he got the ipad out! exciting. any news you want to share? nice about phil but i also heard that tiger said some pretty intense things in an interview. what did he say? and i saw on the news real fast that obama and russia have kissed and now we have equal nukes..................................wow. here. i have a shotgun. im sorry you only have a knife. how about this. ill get rid of my shotgun and use a knife. alright. now lets fight. can you give me some info on the plan that obama has? is this linked in any way to russias invasion of afghanistan ?

anyways, love you dad. mom hasnt written me yet so i think i'll write her in cebuano about my week. hahaha.
take care

brandon

April 6, 2010

Hey Mom & Dad.

So I'm serving my mission in the jungle. hahaha. Calape has one road that runs through a straight up JUNGLE!!! Its all bushwhacking to get to investigators, pools of water, animals moving in the brush, coconuts falling from trees...the whole nine yards.

So I'm glad I'm out of Cebu and here in Calape. For a number of reasons. But its still sad to leave Cebu behind. But they need me here. This place hasn't had a retained convert baptism in a couple years and all the missionary work has slowly turned to retention. The average amount of people tracted into WEEKLY is about 20. The missionaries just gave up because there are so many inactives. So now I get here and we have 2 investigators. They havent been to church in weeks because thats not the priority for the missionaries. The priority is the inactive members! So now the INVESTIGATORS are falling by the wayside. I'm like...are you serious??? So I told Elder Estavillo (more on him later) that there is no way that we can continue. So we sat in a Julie's bakeshop over ice cream, bread and coke and received revelation for our area. We are going to tract EVERY HOUSE in our ENTIRE AREA. Thats our focus this transfer. We are telling the members that inactives are not our job. Getting new members is our job and then we are going out to find them. The only problem is that this little jungle province is ruled with an iron fist by the Catholic church. The church will PAY people to stop taking discussions. Nice huh? Its gonna be fun.

I'm trying to attach some pics of our bathroom. I dont know if I can do it. This computer is being pretty gay. Maybe next week. But last night Elder Estavillo and I spent two hours cleaning it so we could be free for today. Carbon dating put the soap scum around 2500 BC while the urine residue around the toilet was carbon dated at around 1973 AD. It was gross. But we went in there with a bottle of muriatic acid and just went to town. It was crazy. Fumes everywhere, bubbles from the acid, water getting everywhere...but it looks AMAZING now. Its actually looking like a bathroom! The toilet is white!!! Not yellow and brown! Nice! The bathtub is blue! Not black! Honestly...I thought it was a black tub. Yeah...I still do chores. Even when you're not around to write a list. hahahahahaha.

Cool thing that I saw the other day. We were walking home on Saturday from a members house (inactive of course) and I hear this really loud squealing on my right. I look through the banana leaves and chain link fence and see these three pigs in pig pens that are too big for the pens. So they are standing up. And they are literally. This is not a joke. They are the size of a full grown GRIZZLY BEAR!!! They were all standing and squealing and freaking out. I thought they were going to bust out and just start eating people! That was crazy.

Elder Estavillo...is just like Matt Woo. Its awesome. Great companion. His last companion was really lazy and didnt want to work and so he just kinda went along for the ride. But I got here and was like, "Alright lets look at the Area Book. Lets go tracting. Lets go see these former investigators. Lets study." And he's totally down for it! He wants to work. Thats good. Its what I like. His follow up trainer is Elder Goodsell. (Speaking of which, whats going on with that? Dad said him and Tress are dating???) Great guy.

But even with a great new companion its really tough to leave Elder Nambio. The two of us had our little speed bump but after that, I set aside everything that I wanted just to make sure he felt loved and appreciated. And through that, I grew to love him more. We're really great friends now and it was pretty tough for us to leave. We loved being companions and we loved that area. And they loved us! We had a BUNCH of members come to the transfer meeting on their own accord and wait for us. They cried and took pictures with us and wished us luck. It was really cool. Its good to know that I left that kind of impact with a group of people that I couldnt fully communicate with.

Anyways....Hope everything is good. Love you bunches.

Brandon

March 30, 2010

Subject: Re: Aloha!

Hey Mom.

Wow. So what a week.
Sounds like things went great for you guys out in Hawaii. Gosh I love that place. Thanks for looking into the Hawaiian shaved ice. They have this thing here that is like a Super hawaiian shaved ice. But not really. Its called Halo Halo. Its crushed ice with sweet cream topped with fruits, jellos, cheese, corn, ice cream, ube (which is pretty much the greatest stuff ever--its a purple yam that tastes like heaven), and somtimes cookies and oats. Bomb.

Yeah. My email from Kendall was about some fireside thing. He was sending it out to all of the missionaries from our stake and in the process he wanted to update us on each other and on the progress of the missionaries prepping back home. He didnt know. Poor guy. Although...I did get Tyelars DearElder on Monday. It was pretty epic nonetheless. It was full of drumrolls. Seriously. He wrote drumrolls in it.

Also, I got my shoes in THE GREATEST PACKAGE OF ALL TIME!!! Holy crap. Reeses, Cadbury eggs, Lucky Charms, PEANUT M&Ms, and SOUR PATCH KIDS!!!! After I opened it, I ran down to the grocery store with my companion to buy a bunch of bottles of Mountain Dew to drink with my Sour Patch Kids. Its like milk and cookies. I stopped wearing flip flops around the house. Now I just wear my Vans. Thank you for following the Spirit and sending the blue ones. Those are my favorite. Soooooo comfortable. I've been dancing a lot at home. They still have beat in them.

Conference...yeah....we get that the week AFTER. Because conference for you is like...3 AM for us. haha. But its cool. Everyone goes to the church and we just pound it out all day long. Sounds like a blast. And everyone brings food to snack on in between sessions. Gonna be fun...

...because I'm not going to be in Cebu anymore because I'm transferring to BOHOL!!!! Calape Zone!!! Its out in the middle of nowhere in the farthest East side of the mission!!! Oh man... I'm not happy about it. At all. We have investigators committed for baptism! The members have been crying a lot. They dont want me to go. Sister Daisy (our convert of three weeks or so--the one that I helped find, teach and baptize) is having a really hard time with it. She loves me and Arbado to death and now she's losing both of us. She has a framed picture of each of us in her house sitting on her table. Its really neat. But I hope that she is going to be okay without me. I know she will. Her testimony is attached to the Rock of Our Redeemer with concrete. haha.

Its interesting the charity and love that I've developed here. The only thing that I care about is my investigators, converts and members. I'm not worried about myself. I could care less what happens to me in my next area right now. All that matters to me is that these new missionaries take the time to reach out to these people that I love so much. Are they going to get Mia to her baptismal goal? Are they going to retain the Miranda, Parnoncillon, Hentica and Ceniza families? Are they going to do all they can to support bishop in his decisions for the ward? Will the ward missionaries do they're part? So many questions. And I have to have faith that they will do what they need to do. I wish I could know. But thats why I need faith.

Anyways, Elder Nambio and I are great buds now. Really get along well...at least I think so. I see him as a great friend. We hit a speed bump but other than that we're really good.

Hope that this week proves to be a great week. CONFERENCE!!!! NICE HUH???
Please dont write about conference before me. Dont spoil the surprise. Salamat!!!!

Love,
Brandon