December 29, 2010

            

 Hey family.

so thanks for the awesome phone call on christmas (eve for you guys). so here is my christmas gift to you all. i am sending a MILLION pics that i was not able to send because of the fact that i had no card reader. so i hope you enjoy. i dont know how you want to put that all online. maybe facebook or idk....photobucket? grandma is the lady with the plan.

our christmas was really nice. i spent it reading. i read Luke 2 twice, the prophecies of Samuel the Lamanite about Christ's birth, the day of Christ's birth in America, and then I read a lot of Jesus the Christ about His birth. I love my Savior.

so the pictures that i have here are...a lot. and i forgot what they all are. but there are pics from lilo-an and some pics from polambato (my last area). no. that long hair is a wig. haha. the filipino companion is Elder Atanacio and he is my current companion. The Samoan one is Elder Seupule. The other pics are sweet. HOW ABOUT THE RUN-DMC ZONE T SHIRTS!!!! The LAZ means Lilo An Zone. Hope you enjoy the rest. Thanks for getting the shoes in motion. Love you all.

I'll be home for Christmas!!!

Brandon

  

                                                                                                               

  

                                                

                                                                    

                                                                                                                                           

                                                      

   

    

                                                     

                                  

December 22, 2010

Hey champs!

Alright. So I got my Christmas Package today and you'll never believe this but I got my Fall package on Friday. hahahaha. Yeah. I know. It was postmarked September 17. It got lost in the mail somewhere and its all gone now except for the Candy Corn. I kissed the bag of Candy Corn. It was all so good. Elder Atanacio loved the Twix and M&Ms. I was eating some M&Ms (which turned into a brick of peanut butter chocolately goodness by the way tungod sa heat, pressure from other boxes I assume and my sticking them in the freezer) and he just kinda looks at the bag and says quietly, "I like those". I turned the bag and said, "Dig in Big Fella!!!" Then he says, "Wow. I thought you'd never ask!" I said, "I thought you never would either." hahahahahaha. He's a goon. Love my companion. I was thinking about it the other day. I really have been blessed companion wise. I haven't had a single comp yet that I didnt like!

As for the Christmas package, I had a good laugh that you really wrote on the customs slip "MENS UNDERWEAR" in huge letters. Aint nobody bustin into that box!

Dad, you were asking about the kids dressing up and getting presents.....not really. haha. I think Brother Mercado is from Luzon and I've heard that things are way different up there. The Visayas is a little more ghetto. (By the way, there is a wall here that has the word 'ghetto' painted on it. I hope to get a picture with it before I transfer)  The kids here actually don't dress up. What they do is they get a board or a stick and they nail flattened out bottle caps on it so they can shake the stick and the caps will sound like very annoying bells. Then they go door to door or store to store and shake the bottle caps while singing Christmas songs in the hopes that someone will give them some money or food. Some kids came to our door and I gave them each a Double Stuf Oreo. Heck, I'd take that over money any day! Then you have grown men who get a whole band together and they go around with these instruments that they made themselves and have little Filipino mariachi band sessions for some change. Its pretty cool. Some members asked me if people sing songs and ask for money in America. I said "No. They just ask for some figgie pudding". I don't think they understood why I thought that was so freaking hilarious.

We had a great success this week. We found out that the carpenter working at our Bishop's house is a member. Loooong time member but inactive and gets drunk almost nightly. So we set up a time to meet with him and we took him, his wife and his daughter to the temple for the weekly temple tour. It was a great experience. They weren't so stoked at first. Brother Mendez was. It kind of rekindled his testimony of his conversion. But his wife was not down. Neither was Jade---their daughter. But by the time we were done, they were asking us to teach them. We set and appointment and went to their house the next day. Then we taught the whole family. They are getting baptized on the 29th of January. Really excited because they are a great sealing opportunity. We have about 13 committed investigators. The work is going great.

Alright. Love you all and excited to talk on Friday.

Brandon

December 7, 2010

Hey everyone.
So this last week was not as crazy as the last one. So on Thursday we took our investigator Elvyn to the temple tour. We got to tour the grounds outside, hear about what the temple is for, a little about what goes on inside, got to visit the family history center, and then took a quick tour of the chapel. It was great. His girlfriend Grace is a member and she was so excited for him to go. They both were really excited about the part about eternal marriage. haha. On the way home he was asking about a mission and what it takes to go on a mission. Both of them plan on going. He's 15 and she's 18 so that's not a bad plan. They asked me if I thought they're age gap was too big. I said I didn't have an answer. I know from experience that it is. hahahaha.
So Friday we taught the mother of a sister in the ward. Sister Olayao. She kept telling us that she wanted us to teach her mom and we wanted to. We had kind of taught her before but it was just a sample. So we go back--mind you, she knows that we are coming. We show up and then she opens up the gate, sits us down and asks us what we are there for. What we are there for? We are here to share with you the gospel of Jesus Christ! So we kind of get in this little discussion. It was just going nowhere. So finally I realize that we haven't started with prayer. So I offer a prayer and then I come right out of the prayer and say, "We are here to invite you to be baptized by proper authority into the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Will you be baptized on January 8th?" I think Brother Olayao's jaw hit the cement. She just looked at me like, "are you crazy?" She declined and I asked why not. Then she told me about how she is Catholic and doesn't want to change religions because she is Catholic. So we taught her about the Great Apostasy and how the prophets and apostles testified for years about a time when the church would be lost from the earth. Then I said, "Look. This has happened. But the church has been restored. And we are inviting you to be a part of it." She declined again. She discussed some scriptures with us and I used the Bible and Book of Mormon (and a little Doctrine and Covenants for some flavor) to show her that the priesthood power was lost. It eventually got to the point where she understood what we were teaching. She even got to the point where she said OUT OF HER OWN MOUTH that the Catholic Church cannot be true because the priesthood power was lost. Then I asked her again, "Then will you be baptized by the proper authority into Christ's true and living church?" She said no. NO! I couldn't believe it. But that's okay. She is just "kicking against the pricks" of revelation. She told us to come back again but I doubt we'll be going back there. I did my part. Something interesting was that when I first pulled out my scriptures, I opened them up "by chance" to 1 Corinthians where Paul says that he wasn't called on a mission to baptize but to preach the gospel. Yeah. Sometimes it just doesn't happen.\

Saturday night was the Youth Cultural Celebration. That was pretty cool. The youth have an annual road show. It is quite something. They said that every year the youth look forward to it. Thats something they should implement everywhere. Especially in Sac North Stake.

Our investigators are either fizzling or sizzling. That's just kind of how things go I guess but like I said, we have that one investigator that had that great experience about knowing that the church is true and then getting drunk that night and not coming to church. Our other investigators are doing well. Apparently Elder Atanacio and Elder Palasan made some great work yesterday on our companion exchange with some former investigators in our area and had a pretty spiritual lesson with a less active family. Elder Frecker and I on the other hand had a great day. We had 7 new investigators in his area and committed all seven to baptism. Even more incredible was that four of them didn't believe in God when we started and then committed at the end of the lesson. It was a great day. As for converts, the retention with our recent convert Duane Del Castillo is going great. He has the priesthood, bore his testimony on his own on Sunday and I think will be getting a calling here in a bit. I'm so excited for him. Not to mention, he's getting his family history done. That was cool too.
Today was played some games as a zone for our zone activity and had lots of fun. We got some zone t shirts. Its the Run DMC logo but it says RUN LAZ (Run Lilo An Zone). It looks so siiiiiiiick. Love it. Everyone does. I'll send some pics. The shirt was my idea by the way.
Alright everyone. Love you all sooooo much. Last Christmas coming up. Promise. hahahaha.
Brandon

November 23, 2010

Afternoon folks.

So this week has been pretty good. We spent most of it in training actually. We had training from Thursday morning until Friday night. Then Saturday night was crazy. Because we got soooooo freakin stuffed. The Catantan Family in our ward just pounded food on our plate. I ate until I was full and then ate some more. There was fish (isda), lentil soup (monggos), lumpia (...lumpia) and a bunch of rice. I chowed. It was so good and then as if that wasn't enough they busted out some ice cream and FORCED US to eat ice cream. FORCED us. I swear.

But it was nothing compared to Sunday night.

We went over to our bishop's house for Family Home Evening which was crazy. They did it all in English. It's weird. I've gotten to the point where in a Filipino setting I prefer to speak Visayan rather than English. Its just more comfortable. I feel very out of place. Even if everyone around me is speaking English. They had me share a story about unity and I told the story of the Gadianton Robbers trying to kill the Nephites but Lachoneus had them united in the city so nobody was killed. It was good. So then we finished and (by the way, our bishop has a monster Samsung Flat Screen) then we sat down for dinner. Everything on the table was covered with tin foil. Sister Ramirez uncovered the first thing. Fish. Okay. Plausible. Second. Rice. Didn't take a genius to guess. And then three--spaghetti. Now let me first tell you that Filipinos love spaghetti. But not good spaghetti. The spaghetti here is sweet and has hot dogs in it and its just gross. So I picked some up and put it on my plate. It was not sweet. It was legit Italian spaghetti. Then she uncovered the next dish. Salad. I almost dropped out of my chair. I haven't had salad since the MTC! Then grapes. I haven't had grapes since home! And then oranges. Home as well! I ate. and ate....and ate....and ate... I ate more than I have eaten since....I don't know. They were amazed. They just kept telling me to eat more and adding more. So then I finish. I'm looking like a balloon. I'm sure. Then Sister Ramirez says its time for desert and pulls out another pan. She pulls off the tin foil and its some kind of yellow thing. Like brownies but not. She cuts me a block and you'll never guess what it was........it was sweet potato pie. My favorite. But Verna is the only one I know who knows how to make it! When I told her that we have that in America and that I love it they were just giving me more and more. I was full until Monday around 2 pm. It was a great night.

So then on Monday was had another Family Home Evening at the Salde home. It was great because it was this middle age member, Sister Salde, her grandkids who were recently baptized, their friends who were recently baptized and THEIR friends who were either not baptized or not 8 yet. It was packed. Almost 15 kids. And then one of the dads came over too. You would have cried Mom. Usually everyone sings Love at Home as the opening song for Family Home Evening. But the kids were BEGGING us to let them sing I Know That My Redeemer Lives. 15 Primary kids. So we sang it. Those kids sang so loud. Even the nonmembers who had never been to church were singing. LOUD. I have it on camera. Sister Salde got kind of emotional. Here was a bunch of kids. Some of them were only 8 or 9 and the only members in their family. But here they were--singing at the top of their lungs that they KNOW that their Redeemer lives. It was great. Then Elder Atanacio taught about prayer and then I led the game 'Gubat! Gubat!' ( War! War!) which they loved. So we finished the game and I asked what song they wanted to sing. I was expecting Familie Can Be Together Forever. But they wanted to sing Come Follow Me. So we sang that one too. It was great. Christ would have loved it.

Then yesterday we just did lots of tracting. So not so eventful outside of the lessons that we have taught so far this week and the great Family Home Evenings. I love Family Home Evening. Its a great missionary opportunity.

So Greg! You know, I knew about Shay a long time ago. At least I think so. You'll have to let me know Greg. (You better be reading this)  Thats awesome! I was expecting to be home before he got married. Dang. Can't win them all I guess. Sweet. That means next year I'm the most eligible bachelor in the family. Score.

Dad. Holy cow. I was just salivating reading about RPM. We are going when I get home. I was reading that story about the crash and was just imagining the two of them glancing back and forth at each other just daring the other to back down...dumb. Props to Ben for giving it to the old guys. Nice work Ben.

So if anyone is wondering what they could send in a Christmas package, I always am down for old polyester neckties. If you think its ugly, its probably amazing. When in doubt, its awesome.

Love you all,

Brandon