Maupay nga Pasko! (Merry Christmas)

Hello my family,

I forgot to mention until now but the Philippines starts Christmas celebrations in September so we have been singing Christmas hymns and we got our apartment decorated up this week which was a pretty good time.

This week has been amazing!  Probably the best week of the mission so far.  So first off we had our zone conference in Tacloban with Elder Haynie, who is a member of the Philippines Area Presidency.  He chose 5 missionaries that he wanted to interview before the conference and of course I got selected haha.  It was really cool though to get interviewed, he just asked about how I was adjusting, if I liked my companion and the mission president.  He then gave me some cool counsel from his mission experience and showed me some stats about the Philippines missions and a challenge to look for scriptures that talked about the isles of the sea.  While I was waiting for the interview I got to talk to my mission president and one of our AP's Elder Serafin who is one of my favorite missionaries in the mission.  They both gave me some great advice about the mission.

Anyways, the zone conference went until about 3 pm and he talked a lot about the importance of finding and establishing the church around chapels in the mission.  We have heard a lot about that lately of getting the work going right around our chapel so we focused on that a lot this week.  I also got to meet and talk with some other missionaries from the zones around us which was super fun.

My next cool experience of the week was I went on exchanges with the zone leaders in Mayorga.  I spent the whole day with Elder Gunn who is in month 21 of his mission.  He is super awesome and he has like all the same interests as me so it was really cool to find someone who into the same movies and stuff like that.  We had a good day of finding and teaching.  We then went back to Burauen and couldn't go to our area because a huge rainstorm came through.  That's just how it is in the Philippines I guess haha.

The best part of the week was that we set a goal to get 10 new investigators this week which was a big goal because we only had 4 the first two weeks combined.  Too make matters worse we only got 2 days to find because of all the other things going on.  Anyways we ended getting 23 new investigators this week because we worked super hard and got some great help from the members so miracles do happen.  

The language is still super hard but I have started to lead some lessons which is pretty amazing considering I don't really understand what is going on most of the time but it is coming along.

To answer some questions, we do use the Anibong Chapel as our base camp and it is just a chapel with about 6 rooms on the sides for other classes.  I will get a picture next week.  I only get to read emails as I email every Monday.  That is super awesome for Logan and Alyssa, heck yes tell them they need to name him Wade, if it's a boy.  I have been feeling great, no sicknesses just sore legs from biking.  The work is going well, we are getting it going good, because my companion had some tough companions which made it hard to work so we are getting it going.

I don't think I need anything right now but I will see how long it takes to get this package. I will work on getting more pictures of me.  

Oh send me your favorite conference talks next week because we get conference a week late so I want to know which talks to look forward too.​

Love you,

Elder Holmstead

Ghetto picture of the beach with Elder Gunn

Ghetto picture of the beach 

Our Christmas Tree 

Our apartment 

Crazy ceiling that had at least 15 lizards on it at a members house

Checkers Philippines Style 

Downtown Anibong 

President Azucena's House 

Me pumping the water

Maupay ng Kulop (Good Afternoon)

Kumusta an akon kaganak!?

This week has been a lot better than last week.  I am learning to really love the long bike ride to my area everyday.  It gives me a good opportunity to release some stress and have some good times talking to my companion.  My apartment is also starting to grow on me.  I started thinking I was going to die because it was kinda gross and stuff but now I love it and it is becoming my home.  We shower from a big bucket with cold water but it's not as bad as it sounds.  We have a neighbor that rents the apartment to us and he is not a member but he is like an eternal investigator but he is super cool and comes and talks to us every night. His name is Brother Rito. He helps us do our laba (laundry) every week.

As for food, we cook most meals which means my companion and Elder Jaring the other trainer do all the cooking because they actually know how to work all the appliances and stuff.  We have lots of rice and chicken and stuff which is really good.  For breakfast we usually eat bread because they have bread shops on like every single corner.  The bread is super good here!  It is super sweet and they usually put sugar on it so it tastes super good.  I think I am gaining weight haha.

The bike is not my bike, it stays in the area, but it is a piece of crap bike.  One of the pedals fell off of the bike while we were riding home this past week so I to basically scooter it like 2 miles until we got to a barangay that was big enough for trikes to give a ride home.  Pretty good times haha.

The work is kinda tough in our area.  We have like 8-10 barangays that are spread really far apart.  We are trying to focus all of our efforts in Anibong and Villa Hermosa which are the closest barangays to the church.  We can't really visit people further that 1 barangay away because they don't have any way to get to church besides walking so that's good.  Our branch is also like 1 year old so they don't have a lot of organization in the area so it is kinda frustrating.  Like the 1st counselor in the branch presidency is less active and lots of members don't like how the branch is run so it is hard to keep people coming to church.  Man do I miss the good organization of our ward.  Aside from all these challenges we are working really hard to get the work going.  My companion is pretty good with the language which is good but he is kinda introverted so we don't do super good at finding and I am super eager to talk to people I just don't really know what to say so I am trying to stay patient.  We are still working with Hanna Kim.  She is super awesome and we really want her to be baptized.  She is also kinda my language teacher even though she is 10 years old haha.  My coolest experience of the week was that we were teaching and I usually can never understand her because she has an accent and talks super fast, so I said a prayer in my heart that I could understand the words that she was saying.  After I said amen I started listening and I started to pick up on a lot of the words that she was saying and I was able to bear my testimony about following the prophets.  It was a great experience to me about the Gift of Tongues.

As for the language it is improving every day.  I am starting to be able to understand like 1-2 sentences every conversation.  I write down lots of words everyday and I am learning.  It is super hard because there are lots of words that I want to say but I don't know how.  I am really working on patience and then I remember that I have only been here like 2 weeks.  But I am happy that I can at least introduce myself to people.  They always freak out when I tell them I am 18 years old and they are always like "Taas" which means tall.  It is super funny.

Thanks for the messages about digging in and having grit because I definitely needed that.  I have realized that it is going to be hard but I know it is making me stronger and helping me grow.  I love that word Grit, I was reading that letter you  sent in the MTC this morning about Burke saying it takes Grit to get through the first few months and I believe it.  The Lord is definitely helping me to have grit, courage, and strength.

We had zone interviews this week with our zone which was pretty awesome because I got to meet all the other missionaries in my zone.  They are super cool especially one of my zone leaders, Elder Gunn.  He is just super funny and cool.  Since my companion is the district leader I will get to go on exchanges with the zone leaders twice this cycle and I get to go on transfers with the two elders that live in the apartment with me which will be pretty fun.

We also had a special mission meeting.  I think that is what you saw all the pictures from.  We had a member of the seventy presidency Elder Soares and Elder Haynie from the Philippines area presidency come and speak to us about focusing on exact obedience and working in the center of strength in our areas.  It was fun because I got to see some of the Elders from my batch at the MTC.  Everyone from my batch is actually learning Cebuano except for 3 of us.  I think they chose the best ones to learn Waray-Waray haha.

We actually have zone conference tomorrow so I will let you know next week what we do there.

I know that God is real and that he loves his children.  Even the ones who I am pretty sure have never seen a white person or left their little wooden house in the "bukids" of the Philippines.  I know that this is the true church and that God is truly answering my prayers. I can definitely feel your prayers helping me on the hard days.  I have realized that when I start trying to enjoy the little things when the going gets hard that my day gets so much better because I stop worrying about myself.

Love you tons!!

Elder Holmstead

 Me in front of the Chapel in Anibong

 A view from the Chapel (they have the greatest sunset here ever)

 Chapel in Anibong

 A "small" spider by the church bathroom

 Missionary Devotional with Elder Soares and Elder Haynie @ the Tacloban Stake Center attended by Tacloban, Tolosa, Carigara, and Biliran Zones Sept 15, 2017

Tolosa Zone Missionary Interviews Sept 13, 2017

Tolosa Zone Conference Sept 19, 2017 

Zone Conference Lunch Sept 19, 2017

Ika-una Semana ha Field

Kumusta akon pamilya,

I will start mixing some Waray-Waray into my letters because of course I was assigned to a Waray-Waray area.  My area is called Anibong which is on Leyte about an hour from Tacloban city to the south.  My apartment is actually in a place called Burauen which is close by to Anibong.  I ride a bike to my area everyday which is about 1 hour from my apartment so any weight I gained in the MTC is gone. The branch that we cover has about 8 barangays, or like little neighborhoods, so our area is pretty big.  Lots of bike riding.

The language is pretty crazy.  It uses almost no cebuano so that was kinda of a waste for the last 6 weeks.  It has been kinda hard because I barely understand what people say so I kinda start to tune out but I am trying my hardest to stay focused.  It was crazy, out of my Batch all of them are speaking Cebuano except for 3 of us are speaking Waray-Waray.  And to make it even better there are 7 languages in the mission:

Waray-Waray H (My language)

Waray-Waray S

Cebuano

Cebuano J

Tagalog

English

Ilicano

And there are like different dialects in every area so I am told it will be like 3 months or so before I will be able to start speaking confidently.  It is humbling and is helping me to be more patient. They actually give awards to any elders who learn all seven languages while they are here, it is called the Tower of Babel award haha.  There is a running joke that it was here that the tower of Babel was built.

The weather here is hot and humid.  It is super hot all the time but the wind is really nice whenever that happens.  It also rains a lot and that feels really good. Mom you were right about sleeping and sweating and rolling over haha.  

My trainer is named Elder Roth.  He is pretty cool.  He is from Layton Utah so he speaks english which is a pretty big blessing.  He is kinda a computer nerd and loved to do online gaming in his free time.  We are definitely pretty different but he is super obedient and is helping me learn the language really well which is super helpful.  He has been out a year so his language is pretty good.

I have been feeling a little more homesick this week just because everything is super different here.  I think it is mostly culture shock so I am just trying to be patient.  It helps when I read all the emails of my friends and their crazy experiences.  I have already had a couple crazy experiences, here are just a few of them.

First I ran over a dog with my bike because I tried to swerve out of the way but the dog tried to beat my swerve and just got destroyed and the guy next to the dog started laughing.  

Second, the first day in Tacloban we got interviewed and then we went out and went proselyting with some elders for 2 hours.  We found 1 new investigator and gave out an Aklat ni Mormon.  The people here are super nice and willing to listen to messages about Jesus Christ. Also President and Sister Argana are super awesome and they definitely love us missionaries. Anyways, that night we stayed in the AP's apartment with all of the new elders and trainers which was like 25 elders in an apartment made for 2 which was crazy packed.  I ended up sleeping on a pad on the floor with my bag as a pillow so it was a pretty rough night.

Next morning we went to McCarthur Park where a group was doing some zumba dancing which was pretty hilarious to watch.  We then got our trainers and headed to our areas.  I am in an apartment with my trainer and with Elder Jaring and Elder Hassan.  Elder Hassan was in my batch and he lives in Kaysville so he knows Dax pretty well so it's a good time there.

I finally got to speak in Sacrament Meeting.  My first Sunday, it was pretty crazy.  My trainer was like they will probably have you speak next week like they do with most elders but then they came up to me and were like will you be the concluding speaker and I was like I guess haha.  It was on forgiveness and I didn't even know the word for forgiveness until right before I had to speak.  It was a pretty good time.

Lastly I extended my first baptismal commitment and our investigator, Hanna Kim accepted.  It was super awesome and the spirit was super strong.  She is an awesome little 10 year old girl and we were really happy so see her accept and are excited to see her get ready for baptism.

The work is definitely what is helping me through the stress and homesickness because I start to focus on others and it makes my day better.  All the little kids here are super adorable and they make me so happy!  I will try to send some pictures of them.

One interesting thing is the standard of excellence for the mission:

1 Baptism a week

5 investigators with a baptismal date a week

5 investigators at sacrament meeting

10 new investigators a week

They are some big goals but they are totally possible and me and Elder Roth are working super hard to achieve these goals.

My address for packages is:

511 Maharlika Hwy
Fatima Village, Tacloban City
6500 Leyte
Philippines

Also if you want to know any Waray-Waray words I can let you know.

I know that this is the Lord's work and that I need to be here in the Philippines teaching and learning from these amazing people.  The Book of Mormon is true.  Every time I am feeling like I can't do it I pray and read and I am always given comfort or motivation for the future.  I know that families are forever and it makes me so happy that I got the best one ever.

Nahigugma ako ha iyo!

Elder Holmstead

Safe Arrival of Elder Holmstead

Dear Holmstead Family,

We are happy your missionary has arrived safely in the Philippines Tacloban Mission. Attached is a  photograph taken after his arrival and also a map of the Philippines Tacloban Mission.  Your missionary has been prayerfully assigned his first companion and trainer, Elder Roth and together they will be serving in the Anibong area.

We appreciate all of the love and support you have given your missionary to prepare him to be a faithful representative of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He will make an important contribution to the work of the Lord by inviting others to come unto Christ and enabling their eternal conversion. It is a great blessing to have him in our Mission.

Sincerely,

Eduardo M. Argana

Mission President

Philippines Tacloban Mission