September 14, 2010

Hey mom and dad.

So this week has been crazy. Like really awesome. We've given a lot of service to the people and its starting to soften their hearts to the gospel. The harvest season is here for corn and so everyone is doing lubo (rubbing the kernels off the corn so they can grind it down into meal). So we've been going around finding people doing lubo so we can help and then talk about the gospel. We even got dinner last night and a return appointment after helping lubo.

We met with a new investigator. She's the cousin of the Young Womens president. It was a really great lesson. We focused on baptism. Then we talked about receiving an answer that these things are true and acting on it. Then we all went around and talked about how the gospel has blessed our life. The Spirit was incredible. Then I looked her right in the eyes and said, "Genevieve. If you study these things out and find for yourself that these things are true will you be baptized by proper authority on October 16?" She looked me right in the eyes about to answer and then someone yells from outside, "Gen! Come here!" So she said sorry and ran out. hahaha. I didn't break my gaze from where her face should have been and then I said, "Thats great. I know that the Lord will bless you as your prepare to enter his church through the waters of baptism." HAHAHAHA!!! We were all busting up laughing. It was such a great delivery and it fell flat! Kinda like the Cougars this week.....BOO!!!!! BTW dad, LOVE the play by plays and the recap you have at the end.
The best experience was that we had tracted into a young man and shared with him about prophets which he said that he knew nothing about. We set up a day to return and teach him. Well, we came back to teach and when we showed up he wasn't there. There were people moving in and out of the house like crazy. I felt like leaving and just saying that we'd check back another time. But it felt like the Spirit was keeping my feet stationary. Almost like I couldn't move. I felt like I needed to stand there. We didn't say anything. We just stood there for about 3 minutes looking like fools I'm sure. Then one of the girls inside the house invited us in.
So we sat down and we talked a little bit. They asked us what was our purpose here at the house and they told us that Lucky (the guy we were waiting for) would be home soon. So we introduced ourselves and the message to the people in the house. We told them that we knew that it could bless lives. We basically used every single one of those bullet points in How To Begin Teaching in PMG. I just treated it like we were there to teach them. Just then, Lucky walked in with his uncle! So everyone in the house told them to sit down and then they all asked us to share.

We started the lesson with prayer. We all stood up and I plead with Heavenly Father in my prayer to help the people we were about to teach to feel the Spirit and know of its truthfulness. So we started the lesson. It was incredible. The Spirit was so strong! Elder Seupule bore such strong testimony of the reality of Heavenly Father and the influence of the Gospel on families. Then I started the rest of the lesson. To make a long story short, they were full of questions. They had a desire to know! They were feeling that thirst and hunger that Amos talks about. Even one of the sisters told me that they had been searching just like Joseph had for the true church. They told us that they had heard just about every religion's missionaries and we were the only ones who were not confusing. Question led to question and before we knew it, we had taught them for a about 2 hours and 45 minutes. They didn't want us to leave. It was incredible. We got 8 new investigators at that lesson. And more are to join next week.

I extended the commitment to baptism but it was put down. They said that they really want to study it out and pray. When they know they will get baptized. They are really intent on finding out for themselves first.
We're going over to the senior missionaries place to cook the upside down pudding cake. They're stoked. I'm stoked. My comp has no idea what it is. The senior missionaries are awesome. They treated us on Monday to burgers at this great place in San Remeigo. The USA-Turkey game was on. Me, Elder Peck (the senior missionary) and Elder Bruneel (my buddy who just went home to play for BYU this season) were stoked that we caught the game. Elder Peck was into it! It was like watching a game with you dad. All three of us were cheering. Kevin Durant was just making those guys look like fools. haha

All in all, good week. Today should be fun. This afternoon this group of kids in our area asked me to play baseball with them so I'm going over there to play. I've gotten to be really good friends with those kids. There's this 11 year old girl that is the tough kid in the neighborhood. She's my little homey. haha. She's really competitive. Like me.

Love you all.
Brandon

September 7, 2010

We got ourselves two investigators with baptismal dates now! hahahaha. We're so stoked! you have no idea! I told Elder Seupule that this area was going to be like a train. He was getting really depressed that we had no baptisms happening this month. Sometimes his zeal gets him depressed. I told him that a mission is hard. Its not cupcakes and butterflies like the MTC makes it sound like. Especially when you're reopening an area. I said its like a train because when a train starts off it moves slow. But it knows its potential. It knows how powerful and how fast it can go. So it keeps pushing and it takes a while, but slowly it picks up speed and then that thing is moving at full speed and it can't be stopped. Thats how things are going for us now. We're not getting started anymore but we're not quite at full speed. We're at medium speed.

Love you

Brandon

August 31, 2010

Hey you guys!

So its your son here emailing from his FIRST AREA!!! We're on a little P-Day vacation today in the City. We went to the temple because today was our temple P-Day. It was so awesome!!! Its been almost 9 months since I've been in the temple. It was really great. Got to see some buddies also. Today we're hanging out with some of my old ward missionaries. One of them, Romel went with me to the temple. I really love that guy. I called him last week to see if he wanted to come and he was soooo excited.

So here's some answers for mom. The package isn't here yet. But packages come to us more frequently for two reasons. One, we have the senior couple in our zone and they go down to the city all the time. So they always check if we have anything and then bring it to us. And then we go to the city to go to the temple once a month so between all that, packages get to us quickly. Letters come every week through the LBC which is like FedEx here in the Phils.

About the whole thing with Elder Seupule, he has some kinks he needs to work out in the attitude/patience area. He went OFF on me the other day because he thinks that "Greenie" is a derogatory term and shouldn't be used on him. I tried to explain that that's just life and then he said that if it isn't in the scriptures, that I shouldn't say it and neither should anyone else. Yeah...I just figured I'd hold my tongue. He could snap me in half in his thumb knuckle. He's gets aggravated very easily and by anything so I'm VERY careful. But its interesting. I can see how much I've grown because in my first area I was very similar to him. Angry at people, loud laughter, not too serious, fired up to work. Good times. I'm pleased with my progress and just hope I can help him progress like Elder Arbado helped me to progress.

 So I can't remember if I told you this but Sister Reed, the one in charge of packages, told me that Christmas packages take FOREVER. Just letting you know. I'm not being greedy or anything. I just wanna help you guys out so you can plan ahead of time.

The work is going well in the area. Last last week we had a baptism. He was the only investigator that the Elders before us left behind. So now we're at zero investigators but things are filling up quick. We have been tracting hard! I started using a backpack rather than a shoulderbag. It's much more tracting effective.

Something you might find interesting: One of the main focuses of our leadership training was committing to baptism and being bold about it. They told us that we should commit on lesson 1. And we practiced it alot. So on the way home on the bus (its a 3 hour bus ride to Bogo from the city) this guy came and sat next to me with AAAAALLLL these other seats open. I was just getting ready to read a lil Cebuano Book of Mormon action when this guy cramps up my seat! So I figure that I'll just start talking about the church to him and maybe he'll move over a seat (I know, I know--a moment of natural manism). So I start talking about the Restored Gospel and about the Book of Mormon and then I talk about the first principles and ordinances of the gospel. He tells me that he's Catholic and not interested. So then he doesn't move. Plan failed. But after a minute or two he asks what is in my Book of Mormon. It just so happened to be a pamphlet about the Cebu temple that I was going to give to a street contact of mine on a follow up appointment. I pulled it out and shared with him about the temple. I told him about how families can be together forever and that I knew it was possible but only through the temple. Then I shared about baptism and confirmation. We talked for about an hour about the church when he told me that he had never been baptized before. So I asked him if he remembered about the principles and ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that I shared with him: faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end. He did. Then I asked if he had faith. He said yes. I asked if he planned to repent of the mistakes he's made. He said yes. Then I said " Brother, if you do these things, will you be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints through the proper priesthood authority?" He said yes.

Yeah. I committed a guy to baptism. On the bus. hahahahahahaha. I could hardly believe it. It was all because of the training. I never would have done it otherwise.

Alright. We're gonna go bowling. Love you guys!

Brandon

August 25, 2010

Hey mom and dad.

So wow. This week has been pretty crazy. My companion is pretty great. He has a real love of the work. He's a passion-filled guy. He just needs to learn how to bridle his passions. Here's a little story from this week:

Remember. He's Samoan...from Western Samoa.

So we're walking down the street after just getting told by our appointment that she couldn't meet with us. Even though I committed her very carefully to that time. So we're both pretty heated right now. We had walked 40 minutes to that appointment. So we're walking down the street past this little tindahan and I hear someone call out "hey joe". I just mutter "shut up" and keep walking. So I turn to talk to Elder Seupule but he's not there. So I look around and there he is stomping over to this tindahan across the street with his arms spread out like he's gonna kill someone. So he just starts screaming to this group of like 10 people, "WHO SAID JOE! WHO SAID JOE!" So I'm like...great. So I walk over there. And he's still yelling and screaming at everyone. So all I can say is "stop. stop. stop." I've been around polys for long enough in my life to know when to not intervene. You don't touch an angry Samoan. So I'm telling him stop as he pinpoints the guy who said it. He gets a toothpicks distance from this kid's face and yells "WHO IS JOE! IS MY NAME JOE? WHO'S JOE!" and all this stuff. So now everyone is running from all directions to see whats up. And I'm like "oh great". So some little guy tells Elder Seupule that he is a martial arts master and I told myself that if this guy thinks he has what it takes to take on this angry rabid grizzly bear, he can have his day. Eventually Seupule storms off and I had to explain the whole thing to everyone--the group of 30+ people. To end the story, the guy who was the martial arts master said that he understands the problem and invited us to come teach him. We're going next week. The Lord works in......mysterious(?) ways.

So right now I'm staying in the city. We've been doing some really intensive training for the leaders--ZLs, DLs, and trainers. They have finetuned Preach My Gospel and its all about focusing on committments now. Its all about getting people committed to baptism so you know where they are at with it all and then getting them to where they need to be. The training is until 4 in the afternoon and then we help the missionaries in their areas here in the city. Last night we committed a guy to baptism and the Elders didn't think it would ever happen. It was pretty sweet. We just laid it all out there and I said, "look. From what you've told me in the last 20 minutes, you have a strong desire to follow Jesus Christ. So will you follow his example and be baptized by proper authority into his church?" He was like, "Yes, I will". Boom.

Alright. We gotta get back. The ZLs challenged me and a couple other missionaries to some hoops tonight. Its over. Plus email time got sliced in half from now on.

Love you both!

Brandon

August 10, 2010

Hey mom.

So yeah. I'm in Bogo Zone. And I'm the district leader. And I'm training. Did I not tell you that? Yeah. The problem is that my padawan hasn't come yet from the MTC. He's some big Samoan dude. Apparently before his mission he hurt his shoulder playing rugby, it healed, and then in the MTC he hurt it pretty bad playing volleyball (lame! FOUR SQUARE FOREVER!!!) and then had to get surgery on it. So thats his status. We're reopening an area because the guys here got pulled out for having girlfriends. Stupid. I'm staying with the Zone Leaders and helping them while I wait for my comp. He should be here by the end of the week.

So my new apartment is super nice. We have air conditioning in our bedroom! Like a REALLY nice aircon unit. The only problem is that we have this cat around the house that won't leave and the last Elders didn't care. So I'm checking out the stuff in the house and I start going through the drawers to see what goods these guys left behind and a cat is sleeping in the top drawer of my desk! He wakes up, jumps out and runs away! I know right! Apparently these Elders left the sliding glass door open a crack for this cat who comes through and climbs up through a hole under the desk and sleeps in the top drawer. I'm gonna kill the cat. It's my weekly goal. That's what President told us to do with animals. Kill them.

So things about the zone. Its pretty small. Its ten missionaries--two sisters, a senior couple and six elders. I'm still the DL and I gave my first workshop on Monday. They really liked it a lot. They all seem pretty focused. President told me that what he's done is weeded out the bad missionaries and put all his best ones on the outskirts of the mission because he knows that they can do the most good. And I can tell. They are all hard workers. Elder Akina is having trouble with his new companion. They get along but his comp complains alot and doesn't like to walk and all sorts of stuff. I don't know.

So yeah. Not much to talk about this week. It was pretty quick and boring. Not much excitement. Especially since my comp isn't here yet.

Love you mom.

Brandon