November 2, 2011 -- The Last One

So yes ladies and gentlemen, this is that last email that will be sent by Elder Brandon Treadway. Its been quite the last two years. I think that all of us have grown in our individual ways. I've learned more about myself in the last two years than I could have learned anywhere else. Definitely worth the leaving the iPod behind, avoiding the movies and TV shows (that are in Tagalog anyway so not too much of a burden). Just love everything that I've learned. Yeah I made mistakes and stuff but that's what learning is all about. Right? Just looooved it all so much.

And now for the recap for this week. If you thought that last week's email was crazy, then this one is going to blow your minds!!! What a great way to end the mission--with this email.

So the plan for Saturday was to have Ernie and Rowena get married at 10 am and then get baptized at 11 am with Lynn-lynn. Well, that was the plan. So Friday night at the interview we find out that Rowena and Ernie have something to do in the morning and won't be able to make it all done-up and ready for a wedding at 10 am and 1 pm would be much better. So now we have to get a hold of President Piol who is going to be the one marrying them. I contact him and he tells me that he can't postpone anything. But he can do 11 am. So now the question is what do we do now??? So we decide  to have it at 11 am and pray that it'll work.

Morning comes. The marriage contract isn't done. No witnesses. WHAT?!?!?! I totally thought that that was all done. I guess not. So then all morning we were running around trying to save this wedding. Because if it doesn't happen, then no baptism!! We go and get the marriage contract moving and edited up but its wasn't printing right at all!!! So the whole time I'm just praying that this stuff is going to work out before 11 am. FINALLY we get everything printed off and it looks great at 11:15. Elder Hardin and I run to the church and bust in the door to the church holding the papers. President Piol (who is not a very nice guy and didn't want to be there at all anyway) looks at the papers and I'm holding my breath. They're alright and the wedding happens. The wedding is over, they're man and wife, we have a nice lunch and then have the baptism. Happiest day of my entire life. No joke.

Then I reach in my pocket to check the time. No cell phone. I ask Elder Serrano if he has our cell phone. Nope. That means we left it at our Branch Presidents computer shop on his desk. No problem. We call the girl watching the shop but the phone isnt there. So we start calling the phone like crazy but nothing. So then I realize where it is. It fell out of my pocket while we were riding in the trisikad! Now, there are over 300 sikads in Toledo. They are all painted blue and they are the equivalent to New York cabs. I instantly gave up hope. Tough break! Looks like I'm gonna have to lose money outta my support for this one. But Elder Serrano, my companion and best friend, didn't give up hope. He told me later that he was praying all day that it would get found.

Later that night, Elder Hardin and I were taking care of some contract papers when we get a call on their cell phone. Its from some girl named Shirley. Her uncle is a sikad driver who found a cell phone in his kad. She was wondering if we knew anyone who had lost a cell phone. I was like "YEAH!!!!" So she told us to meet her uncle, Willie, over by the church at 8 am and he would bring the cell phone to us. Serrano's prayers were answered and I was quickly rebuked by the Spirit for my lack of faith and my neglecting to call upon the name of the Lord. Thank heavens for honest people tho, right? Right.....

So we go to the corner at 8 am the next morning and wait for the guy. Nothing. We waited until about 8:45 and then head home to get ready for church. Then we head back and wait. We talk to every sikad driver that we see asking them if they know Willie. Nobody knew him until we met this on guy who told us that Willie's number on his kad was 4 Largo. We wait for a long time and I'm just sitting there praying my brains out this this guy passes by. Then this lone sikad wheels by slowly. 4 Largo. Elder Serrano and I are in an instant full-on sprint for this guy. I catch him and ask his name. Its Willie. But he doesn't have the phone. He left it at home. He says he'll bring it to the church tomorrow at 10 am. Deal.

Next day. Church at 10. Nothing. We get on sikads for an hour just tracking back and forth looking for 4 Largo. Nothing. Praying like crazy again. Then that night we get a call from a member who happened to call us. The people were going to bring our phone but didn't have any money to make it to Toledo since they are from the next town over. But they say that tomorrow they will meet us at the church in Lutopan and give us the phone there.

Then yesterday morning Elder Serrano and I got up and headed out to Lutopan. At 10 am we got there and after a little waiting two girls get off a motorcycle and come across the street. I'm  wondering which one is Shirley because I want to thank her. Turns out NEITHER of them is Shirley. Turns out Shirley turned around and sold our cell phone that night after she called us! But she was dumb enough to not delete the contacts and the girls who bought the cell phone were former investigators that were pretty close with the Elders. So they were going through the contacts (Shirley didn't delete them) and saw some Elders in there and then got a call from the member. They brought us the cell phone cuz they felt bad for us. We flipped them 500 pesos cuz they spent 700 on our phone.

Crazy stuff. The prayers we said definitely got answered. It was a lot of work and a lot of prayer but somehow everything still happened to work out. Crazy. Who gets their cell phone back AFTER it gets pawned off??? That's impossible. But not with Heavenly Father answering prayers. He brought that phone right back to us.

Just a lil story to keep you guys full spiritually. Love you all.

See you next week!!!

B-Rad.

October 25, 2011

Hey everyone.

Hahaha. So this is my....second to last email. And this last week has just been soooo crazy! Its just Elder Serrano and I trying our hardest to get all these baptisms through before I'm outta here. Its so nuts! So much fun and so much running around. Just helping people while trying to keep my sanity and my patience too.

For example....

So we had a wedding planned for this last Saturday for Lynn-Lynn. SHe's the one whose been an investigator for the last 6 years and hasn't been able to join the church cuz she's living with her member boyfriend and they havent had the money to get married. So she got this paper from the government certifying that they had been living together for 5 years and we were told that that was the paper that certified them as married. Well, on Friday night, Churchill got called back to work in Surigao which meant that we needed to finalize everything ASAP. We went over to their house and Elder Hardin looked at the 5 year affidavit that they had gotten and said that that was the paper that considers them married. So we congratulated them and then went home for the night.

But the Philippines government isn't THAT easy.....not by a long shot.

The next morning, the day of her baptism, I get the prompting that we need to go double check with someone to make sure even though EVERYONE was telling me that that paper was the final deal. We go over to the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare something starting with a D) and ask them what that paper means. Well, turns out that the paper takes the place of the marriage certificate! We still have to have a ceremony in order to make this thing official! So then we went into a frenzy calling the district president and anyone else that we can to see if we can get these two people married before 6 pm that night. But just one dead end after another. And the worst part was that we knew that Churchill wasn't going to make it until next Saturday so we were definitely running out of time. Turns out that the thing that we needed now was a Marriage Certificate that they would need to sign at their wedding ceremony and we didn't even know what that looked like. Well, it was going to be postponed. THat was the bottom line. But that night during the baptism (we couldn't baptize Lynn2x but we still had 3 others get baptized) I went into the Branch President's office feeling really anxious and not good at all. I was really worried about Churchill leaving back to Surigao and Lynn2x not getting baptized. But as I prayed I said, "We did everything that we could, Lynn2x and Churchill did everything they could and I don't understand why we still failed. I know it is your will that Lynn2x be baptized" and then I felt the response of, "Yeah. It is My will. But not this week. If it was my will for it to happen tonight then it would be happening. Don't worry. Its all good." And then I felt fine.

But I had a new determination. I realized that Lynn2x's baptism was conditional on all of us doing the best that we could to make it happen. If we started slacking then we were going to lose the Lord's help. Elder Serrano and I decided that we could shoot for a wedding on Tuesday if we worked really hard on it. The Lutopan branch president sent us some papers for the marriage contract with the Elders at District MEeting. Then we were off to work. We needed to have this thing all typed out before Tuesday morning. We ran all over the place Monday afternoon looking for someone who could put these forms in a typewriter and get them all typed up. But that was looking impossible now. We got to the DSWD office and asked if they could do it and they said no. It was 5 o clock. People everywhere were going home. The government was going home for the night. In desperation we went to our branch president and asked him what we could do. He sat in his internet shop and proposed that he make a template for the forms and then print them off. We thanked him greatly and then left with a prayer in our hearts. Long story short, he couldn't but his wife was able to make a template. But then we didn't have any witnesses. So Tuesday morning we were running everywhere to get witnesses. Got four of them and then got back to the internet shop. We got it printed off and got to the church at 11 am for the 1:30 wedding. Lynn2x and Churchill got married yesterday and I was there for it. Sooooo happy. Maybe the happiest moment of my mission. Its definitely becoming the happiest weeks of my mission.

We're getting prepared for Lynn2x, Rowena, Ernie and Klein to get baptized this Saturday and then Soy2x the next week.

Love you guys. See you in two weeks. And here we are.....

October 19, 2011

Hey everyone.

So you probably were expecting an email about 24 hours ago NOT expecting me to be writing you on Thursday rather than the regular Wednesday. So first off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! Its still your birthday back home so its nice that I get to wish you a Happy Birthday on your actual birthday rather than a day before. So the reason why we are emailing right now as opposed to yesterday is because in...5 hours we will be sitting at the feet of Jeffrey R Holland and hearing what he has to say to us. I have no idea what he is going to speak about but I'm super stoked. I got selected to be in the choir which really blew my mind because I dont fancy myself as any kind of standout singer or anything. Usually I just sing in choirs out of pure necessity or I get pulled into it....which is kinda what happened here I guess. We read the Book of Mormon in like 4 weeks or something to prepare for Elder Holland. Well, just my district. Elder Hardin and I thought it would be a good idea to prepare us for this super sweet chance. I am on Moroni 6 right now so I think I'll finish up as we are studying before he walks in with President Teh and Tad R Callister of the Seventy (Who I am super excited about!) It would really suck though to not finish with such little bit left!!!

The thing with the baptisms is getting crazy. Satan is trying sooooooo hard to postpone these baptisms. I have now payed for TWO weddings with my birthday money and I am all out of cash (so I would really love it if you could stick that extra birthday money in my account so I can get something for my going away party). Lynn-Lynn and Churchell (who is a member) are picking up their Certificate of No Marriage on Friday and then going straight to the Judge to declare Article 34 that states that since they did everything they needed to in order to be married before and have been living together for 7 years, the country considers them married and then BOOM! you may kiss the bride. Lynn2x is getting baptized on Saturday. 6 years of investigating the church just waiting for the wedding to happen. No money. Glad I could help thanks to all of you.

Then you have Jonathon who is ready as you can be. He's a really great guy. So full of the Love of God and humility. He's gonna be a great member. Great Priesthood holder.

Ernie and Rowena and Klein. Holy cow. These three have been quite the roller coaster. Just the most beautiful little family you ever did see! Rowena is one of the most converted people I have been able to teach my entire mission and Ernie isn't far behind. Klein is just 8 years old but gets read to out of the Book of Mormon Reader between playing with his friends and watching episodes of Dragonball Z (oh, to be a kid again!!!) But then we had a couple of bumps. First, they need to take some Family Living seminar before they get married. They got scheduled for October 26 but then at the same time, they also have to wait 10 days for their Marriage License after that. Which would postpone their marriage for 2 weeks. They are supposed to be baptized this week. I was curious if there was a way around it so Elder Hardin and I went up to the City Hall and talked to some lady who didn't want to help us at all and referred us to an office across town and so we headed over there and we were told that the seminar HAD to happen no matter what. I offered 500 pesos for them to get out of it. Nope. So then I just asked if it were possible to get them pushed up to this Wednesday rather than the next Wednesday. They talked about it and they approved it. So Rowena and Ernie did it yesterday. They get baptized on the 29th.

But then another road bump. On Monday, a member came to Elder Serrano and I and told us that he saw Ernie smoking a cigarette and drinking and stuff which made no sense to us because he doesn't ever do any of those things. We talked to Rowena and she said that he didn't so we talked to the member and he defended himself really hardcore that he saw what he saw. Well, we told the member that we were grateful for his coming to us but it all really depended on what Ernie said. We knew that he wouldn't lie to us and whatever he said, we were going to accept that as the truth and then deal with it from there. He got all flared up and said that Ernie didn't deserve to be baptized yet and that I shouldn't focus on numbers but on conversion. That kinda got me flared up but I just heard him out. He went off for a minute or so. I told him thanks for his help and that it was up to Ernie. Then the member said that if Ernie gets baptized and starts smoking, then I would be blamed. I said that was fine and that I wasn't worried about that anyway.

Then he said that he would testify forever to what he saw. I asked him to whom he would testify because I didn't want this guy spreading garbage about my boy Ernie. He said he was going to testify to the Lord. I told him that was good and that it should stop there and then he said the words that for the last two years, after all my work and focusing on the Atonement to help me in my weaknesses, and improving and trying to become more Christlike, have become just a dagger to who I feel I have become. He said, "You are so prideful". Two choices. I could blow up on this guy and tear him down for being the prideful one in the situation or I could walk away. I just said, "Okay, thank you", then turned around and walked away. I was breathing soooo deeply trying to keep myself from acting out, punching a tree, hitting a fence, throwing a rock, etc. Just clenched my fists and walked away breathing it out. And the Academy Award goes to.....

I can kinda see where he is coming from. He's an RM from a different time. The work soooo much more on the Spirit and Revelation than it was in his time. I know by the Spirit that Ernie is ready. In my view of how the Atonement works, a man with no addiction to smoking shouldn't have his baptism postponed (and in effect a wedding and the baptism of his family) because of 2 puffs of a cigarette. I'm not excusing him. But that's what the Atonement is about. Forgiveness for mistakes. He made a mistake and he deserves forgiveness.

Well, (as you may have guessed) turns out that Ernie did smoke. He took two puffs of a cigarette that his friend brought back from Italy. He confessed to Rowena when she asked. Its not going to stop his baptism. Not a shot. Two puffs isn't condemnation. He just needs to repent before the 29th and thats why we are here. He feels horrible about it. Might I say, the "pains of a damned soul". haha. But he's ready. Just a bit of paghinulsol and he's good to go.

So 4 baptisms on the 22nd, 3 on the 29th and hopefully 1 on the 5th.

What a week. Still sane and still lookin good....well, as good as I can.

Love you guys. See you in a bit.  Brandon