Getting ready for Holy Week

Super solid week this week.

We hit our goal for church attendance so we will not be a branch.  Super good.  The other major good thing was that we had a guy who is the son of a really old member tell us that he wants to get baptized which is super awesome because it has been tough lately finding new people to teach.  We already taught him once and he is super awesome.  His name is Orlando if you want to send some prayers his way.

This week I also had two different exchanges which was a pretty good time.  My first was in Carigara which is basically a mini city.  They have a super good ward there and we actually got to teach with members that would work with us.  It was kinda weird.  I also got fed by some other really awesome members so it was a super awesome exchange.  The only bad part was the apartment they live in was an old hospital that was turned into an apartment and everyone swears it is haunted. It was kinda freaky but it was a good time.

The second exchange was in Calubian with the other elders in our district from San Isidro and we had a good day of work.  Me and Elder Bao-as taught a bunch of lessons and we found some new investigators so it was a successful day.

Oh and Calubian is kinda getting crazy right now for holy week.  they are setting up shrines all  over the town and the Catholic Church here always has like 50 people there.  It's gonna be crazy.  The craziest part is that I hear they are doing actually live Crucifixions in Tacloban.

Answer to the question (What is your favorite thing about serving a mission in the Philippines?):  My Favorite part is either the food or honestly just being on a mission and seeing the miracles of the Gospel.  But probably the food because it is super good.  And it is kinda cool to think that I can speak a language that like a very small percentage of the world knows.  

Love you tons,

Elder Holmstead

Philippines Tacloban Mission

A fish swimming in the gutter in Carigara

Me and Elder Sarmiento

Adventure is out there

Not too much happened this week but it was super good.  We had zone conference in Tacloban and got to meet back up some of my batch that I haven't seen since the MTC so that was super fun.  We had a bunch of good trainings and then President Argana gave a big training about the Book of Mormon.  It was super good I love the Book of Mormon.  I also finished it for the second time on the mission last week so yeah.  It's the best.

Another good experience this week was after church we got invited to the house of Nanay Tigley who lives as far away from anything as I have possibly seen.  We hiked for probably 2 hours up a mountain and through some crazy hills to get to her house.  After we got there we got fed a huge feast so that was great.  I felt that some of the people we passed had never seen white people before.

Well our ward attendance went down this week which kinda stunk.  Our less actives are very stubborn but we are gonna get them eventually.  We keep getting threatened by stake leaders that we are going to become a branch but that is mine and Elder Martin's goal to not let that happen.  

Aside from that pretty normal week.  Lovin life in the mission field.  Even when success isn't very easy to see it is always there.  At least I feel closer to Christ if our less actives don't.  I think that's the secret to the mission.

Love you tons "Don't worry Mom I am doing great :)"

Also thanks so much for the package it was amazing.  For my birthday we decided to celebrate in Tacloban after zone conference and we ate at an american pizza place and got real chocolate shakes it was amazing.  And they had cake at zone conference.  Also I ate Durian which as described by President Argana "smells like hell but tastes like  heaven"  I think it tastes and smells like hell.  Pretty disgusting.

Elder Holmstead

Philippines Tacloban Mission

Pictures from Zone Conference:

Lubi-Lubi

First off, Thanks for all the Birthday Shout outs!

One more year as a teenager, pretty crazy.  As for plans for the birthday usually the person has to cook up a meal for basically everyone in the town and then everyone comes and parties and gets drunk and all that good stuff.  I don't think we are gonna do any of that but one of the recent converts here is gonna cook us up a little bit of food so that's great.

As for this week kinda disappointing.  We didn't have any investigators at church and our attendance was pretty low but I blame it on the rain.  We had a little rain storm before church and that usually hurts the attendance because lots of members like in the mountains.  But I got the opportunity to speak.  They told us we were the speakers about 10 minutes before sacrament started so we kinda just winged it but it was a great experience.  I just spoke about the importance of member missionary work and how all members are called to share their testimonies in word and action.  

This week we also did a lot of finding or tracting to get some new investigators.  This area is like the church capital of leyte I swear.  In 1 barangay, which is like 1 neighborhood there are about 5-6 churches and their are probably 10 barangays that we work in.  Lots of churches and not many people want to change religions so that has been a little tough but I have learned about some pretty interesting churches.  It just helps remind me how true of church really is.

Elder Holmstead

Philippines Tacloban Mission

All the Filipino money

Studying in the apartment

Carigara Zone - after interviews

Birthday Package!

All the Coconuts You Could Ever Want

Another week in Calubian!

This week was super good we got a text really late on Wednesday night that we had zone interviews so we woke up super early and traveled to Carigara.  It was pretty cool meeting my new zone and getting to know them better.

We have been focusing a lot this week on Less Actives and members because we are trying to get our ward to not become a branch.  We got  the attendance up from 65 last week to 80 this week so pretty good improvement.  We want to hit 100 by the end of march so pray for us.  

We have been exploring the mountains of our area to find new people to teach because my companion has been here for 3 months and has basically found in all the normal spots so we have been exploring which has been kinda fun.  We were able to find a really nice family, the Hillboy Family who was super nice and listened to our message so hopefully we can see them progress.

To answer some questions Elder Martin is super cool. We did play a little bit of basketball at the church this week.  It was pretty fun.  He not super into sports but he is willing to play.  He is more of a gamer but we played a lot of the same games so we get along good. We shop for groceries in the local market but we buy meat from a meat shop because the meat at the market is a little freaky. Most of the milk is super weird here so we don't ever buy it.  We usually buy meat, veggies, rice, soy sauce.  My favorite recipe is Adobe which is basically chicken with soy sauce, vinegar, and a little bit of brown sugar, onions and garlic. It's super good. and Elder Martin is a chef so we eat good.

Oh we also had one really good lesson this week to one of our investigators named Layza.  We taught her about the book of mormon and at the end her mom bore her testimony of the book of mormon and I just started thinking about how much the book of mormon has blessed my life and I just felt it was true.  At the end we invited Layza to pray and she did and cried during the prayer and the spirit was super strong. 

Anyways good week of work in Calubian, btw I got my birthday package but I haven't opened it yet!

Elder Holmstead

Philippines Tacloban Mission