Maupay nga Semana!

Well another week down!

We have been putting in the work in Anibong this week and it has been great.  We have been teaching Neljane some more and I think she will be baptized next week, it was supposed to be this week but we can only teach if a 30 year old guy is with us so that is a challenge but she is progressing super well which is great.

We haven't been able to find any houses and i'm not sure we actually will, they just don't have a housing market in the Philippines but it's all good.  The bike ride is keeping me nice and healthy.  Oh, and about the bike situation, I got a new bike.  Our new supply manager brought me a nice bike from another area of the mission, but sadly I have no pictures but I will next week.  It already had to get the pedals and seat replaced but now it is a beast.  

I have been understanding a lot more this week in Waray-Waray and I have actually been able to hold some conversations with people which is pretty awesome.  We have been teaching our Gospel Principles class at church so I get some good opportunities to share to some people.  

The biggest news of the week, I got my first baptism.  Not technically a convert baptism but I baptized this little 8 year old girl named Jennalyn.  She is super awesome and I got the opportunity to baptize her.  Luckily the baptism was in english so I didn't mess up the words to bad but I could feel the spirit super strong as I saw the happiness that came to her as she was baptized.  I have found that as I have been focusing on others I am a lot happier and I feel the spirit a lot stronger. sadly I got no pictures:(

Elder Roth got sick on Sunday so we have been staying in the apartment the past few days.  It has been giving a great opportunity to read the Book of Mormon.  I started at Alma chapter 1 after church and now I am at Alma 46.  It is truly an amazing book and it changes lives.

We have zone conference tomorrow so that should be a pretty good time.  Can't wait for Snowbird 2019 with the bros.  

Ginhigugma ko kamo!

Elder Holmstead

Baby Shark has taken over the world....and lots and lots of rain

Another week down!

Transfer announcements came in and I will be staying in Anibong and Elder Roth is still my trainer. But a little news is that our district changed boundaries so now we are in a different district than the house that we live in.  We think it is President's little way of telling us we really need to find a new house.

Speaking of finding a new house.  We have found 3 new apartments that are possibly.  One is to small, one is too big and really scary, and the other is really expensive.  So the hunt continues....

As for the big bad bike problem. We asked our supply manager if we had permission to buy a new bike and they said no so we took the bike to a welding shop and it is temporarily fixed for the time being.  Probably like a week of so.  The new supply manager is bringing a new bike for me so hopefully that works out.  Before we heard if we could buy a bike we tried to take the public transportation to our area, which is trikes which is basically a motorcycle with this big sidecar, but they don't go out to our area so we ended up walking 13 miles to get to our area and back.  After that we sent some good texts to the supply manager and now we are getting a new bike which is great.

Sadly we may have to drop the Raynada family because they haven't been coming to church, but Neljane is still progressing really well so that is great.  We are just trying to work as hard as we can and hope that everything will work out.  I have been realizing that I can't just force someone to get baptized or listen to us, they still have agency to accept our message so I don't need to be discouraged because they are not rejecting me but they are rejecting Christ.  and sadly no new investigators but that will change next week :)

P-Days in the mission are still a pretty busy day.  Most of the time we have to go to Tacloban to email because the internet in Burauen is bad which takes up a lot of the day.  We get to eat some KFC,which is great, but of course it is served with rice.  It is crazy here because the nicest and most expensive restaurants here are McDonalds.  They charge the same prices as in America so it is pretty expensive compared to other stuff so it is like a luxury meal.  It's pretty funny.  Anyways, we withdraw money, sometimes we go to the mission office to talk to the elders that are there. Oh and of course we laba a lot.  They don't believe in washing machines so it is all by hand which takes a while. And then we work in our area in the evenings so not really any rest but at least we have half a day off. 

Love hearing about the basketball news.  That is crazy with Gordan Hayward, I guess that is karma for leaving the Jazz.  I'm kinda rooting for the Thunder this year I think unless they end up being terrible haha.  We don't play much basketball but it's all good because we gotta put in the more important work.

Oh I should probably describe what the subject line of my email is.  The song Baby Shark has literally been played on every radio all the time in the Philippines.  I hope it hasn't made it to America because it is terrible.  It even made it's way into our ward Primary Program.  And our Branch Activity.  Oh and the rainy season has been coming down hard.  We weren't able to even go to our area on Thursday because it was storming the whole day so we did some studies and played some Uno which was a pretty good time.

Sad that I missed Dad's birthday but I hope it was great!!  The mission life is great.  I love being able to focus on the gospel and bringing people closer to Christ.  I have been learning a lot about relying on the Lord and putting my trust in him.  I have been working on really reading, pondering and praying about the Book of Mormon everyday and it makes my days so much better.  I finished Jesus the Christ, that was an amazing book.  

Love you tons thanks for the recipes!  I will give them a try.

Elder Holmstead

Broken Bike and Moving Apartments with a side of Exchanges

Kumusta an akon kag-anak

This week has been pretty good.  They do transfer announcements tonight because we are finishing up the first cycle on Wednesday.  Crazy how fast it has gone.  I am 99.2% sure that I am staying in the same area and keeping the same companion.  Training takes 12 weeks so if something crazy happens I will let you know.

As for this week it kinda feels like we were barely in our area this week because the last week of transfers is always crazy in the mission I guess.  First we went on exchanges with the zone leaders again.  This time I went with Elder Basulgan, who is from the Philippines so I spent a full day trying my best to speak only Waray-Waray.  It was super fun actually and Elder Basulgan is super funny.  We started getting chased by dogs in the area and he turns to the dogs and was like "come follow me and I will make you fishers of men" it was pretty hilarious. Also we spent some more time with Elder Gunn who is going home in a few months so I was filling him in on some stuff that he needs to check out when he gets home.

The other exchange that I went on was with Elder Hassan who is in my batch and actually kabalay with me. Meaning we live in the same apartment.  We are both getting trained so we were nervous about anyone being able to understand us, pero the gift of tongues is real and we actually found 3 new investigators and got to teach like 5 lessons, it was a miracle for sure.  

Crazy part of the week was we were on exchanges with the zone leaders and in the morning we get a text from the AP's saying they are coming to their apartment so we speed cleaned the apartment and then the AP's and President Argana came, because they are moving apartments but he comes up to me and Elder Roth and just straight up is like you need to move apartments you don't have enough privacy and you are too far from your area so we have been apartment hunting in Julita which is pretty tough.  Their is not really a housing market in the Philippines because people usually just build the house they live in and never move so I will let you know how that goes.

Lastly, my bike has officially broken so now I think I will be replacing the bikes out of necessity and not just because it was a piece of crap so I may be withdrawing a little bit of money because I want a bike that will at least stay together as long as I am here. 

Aside from that I am doing good.  This week was a little stressful with all that has been going on but I am feeling great.  The Waray-Waray is coming hinay-hinay.  I guess sometimes I have culture shock at just how different the Philippines is sometimes.  It's super crazy.  Me and Elder Roth always joke how we could improve some of the funky things they have here.  It's a good time.  

Anyways, excited to get those packages.  and yeah if it is possible to email some recipes that would be great.  I want to try my hand at cooking filipino style.  I am already learning a few filipino recipes and I am a pro at cooking rice now.  

Love you tons,

Elder Holmstead

Elder Hassan made a hat out of the burned rice. He's crazy 

Elder Basulgan said that "the field was yellow already to harvest" 

Toko lizard chilling on the outside of our house. 

Chillin with the kids that live outside of our house

More pics of the kids

My "totally real" adidas sliders that i bought for $2 dollars

My sad excuse for a bike:(

Another Week Down

Wow,

The weeks seem to go by really fast because it feels like I was just emailing.  The days feel really long but the weeks fly by.  The weather is really hot and raining.  We are just hitting the rainy season so it rains everyday.  The weather never really changes, somedays it is just cloudy and others really sunny.  The humidity is great, I haven't really noticed it all.

This week was alright for the work.  We did exchanges with the Burauen elders so I was with Elder Jaring, who actually took me out for my first day proselyting in Tacloban so it was kinda fun to be back together working.  We found 5 investigators and taught some more lessons to Neljane and the Raynada Family.  The Raynada family is still going really good but I guess the parents are members of the Iglesia ni Cristo, which is a popular church here that has a lot of the same beliefs as us, so we have been focusing a lot on the Book of Mormon and the Priesthood and stuff like that.  We are really hoping that they gain a testimony of the book because they actually read it which is pretty awesome.

Conference was super awesome.  Elder Roth downloaded the whole thing last Monday and then we have been listening to it throughout the week because we thought it might be in Tagalog at the church.  Well it was it English so I have heard it twice, but I loved it.  I have lots of favorite talks some of them include President Uchtdorf's First Talk, Elder Holland, President Nelson and Elder Callister.  I really liked the ones that focused on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, that was like the main thing I got out of conference.  I also really like Elder Maynes talk about integrity.  It has just stuck with me.  And also Humility from some of the other apostles, I guess their was lots of things I liked from conference.

That is crazy the thing is Las Vegas, we just heard it was like a terrorist attack and lots of people got killed, that is nuts.  As for Christmas music we are only allowed to listen to Hymns, Children's Songbook or MoTab in the mission so we have been listening to lots of Christmas hymns and stuff like that.  Sadly no carpenters :(

I can't believe Jonathan is already home, that is crazy.  He looks pretty much the same.  I usually send emails around 4-5 pm on Mondays.  Sundays are kinda like any other day.  We ride to Church then we stay in Anibong all day.  Our Branch President feeds us lunch every Sunday after church.  This week nobody from our branch came to conference on Saturday sadly but on Sunday are the morning session we had a budil fight, that thing were they pour the rice on the banana leaves with the meat, it was amazing.  I have no special responsibilities at church aside from occasionally speaking and passing the sacrament.  It would definitely be hard to be the Branch President and be a missionary haha.  Oh and we have around 30-50 members at church each week just depends.

Oh we don't have an oven just a stove top and a little toaster oven and a microwave.  If you can send me some good recipes that don't require an oven that would be awesome.

Can't believe you got an old truck dad haha.  Send me a pic I want to admire it.  

That's all I got this week.  

Love you and the Church is true,

Elder Holmstead

 Me and Elder Roth watching General Conference alone on Saturday.

Me at the internet cafe and I got a haircut.

4 Weeks in the Field

Kumusta an akon pamilya!

Maupay ini nga semana!  I have been learning lots of Waray-Waray and slowly I am starting to contribute a little bit in the lessons.  This week was pretty tough with the work.  Our investigator Hanna Kim got made fun of at school for talking with the missionaries and now she wants to wait to get baptized.  Satan is the worst haha.  But, we found a girl named Neljane who is the daughter of a member and she is progressing super well and will probably be baptized the first week of November so that's pretty awesome.  The main highlight of this week was the Raynada Family.  Last week we found them but this week we finally got to go and teach them some lessons, they are so awesome.  They have a family of 10 with 7 young men and they are all super cool.  They are the first family that we have been able to teach and they are always so engaged in the lessons and they ask questions and it is sooo awesome.  We taught them about the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation and gave them the Book of Mormon and they accepted our challenge to pray.  It was great.  Another miracle that happened is that last night during fast sunday "by the way fasting here is brutal because we bike way far and don't get water" but anyways our we went on visits with our ward leadership and when we came back to the chapel the District President came by. He said he just felt like he needed to come tonight which was crazy because he lives in Tolosa which is pretty far away.  We got to ask questions and get the organization for our branch figured out a little bit which was pretty great.  My companion had a list of concerns about the branch that he asked and it really helped our Branch President figure out some of him responsibilities.  

I love the map in our house that is Maupay hinduro.  I am so happy Hunter got to go through the temple, I miss the temple.  Our mission is really focusing hard on getting like 2 more stakes because if they do they could get a temple built here and our district is the closest to becoming a stake right now so we are really focusing on that.  Thanks for the conference notes I am super excited to get to watch it. 

Thanks for all the love and support.  Love you tons and I hope you have a great week!

Hinay Kamo,

Elder Holmstead

 Normal view from the road

 Elder Roth with one of many problems with our bikes

Me just biking by

 Me in front of the Anibong Billboard

Me in front of the Anibong Billboard with the mga bata

Mission map hanging in the Holmstead kitchen