Bagyo ba?

Another stellar week here in Sogod.  

We started off the week with the whole mission freaking out because we had a typhoon coming.  The AP's called us and told us that it was like going to come right over our zone so we needed to prepare 72 hour kits and make sure everyone was safe.  When the day of the typhoon was supposed to finally hit.....all that we got was light rain, haha.  No problems at all.  We were pretty surprised and grateful.

The Philippines is in full out Christmas mode right now so I got out my little elder stocking and we have a mini christmas tree in our apartment so we are prepared.  Christmas music is playing in all the stores, I love it.  Our next transfer day in December 12 so me and Elder Arienda probably won't be together for Christmas :( because he has already been here for 7 and a half months.  

We also had our branch primary program this week, complete with kids running all over the place and some not really knowing the words to the songs.  We also had the older kids in Primary who really don't want to be there so it was fun and reminded me of home.

As far as investigators are going, Sister Daisy is having a problem with her marriage papers so we may have to push her back until next year which is kind of a bummer but we finally had Sister Jane, who has been an investigator for like 6 months come to Church for the 1st time so that was super awesome.  Also we had a cool experience yesterday.  We were just trying to find some new people when we talked to this nanay who immediately said she was busy.  We offered help and she wasn't really about it but then we introduced ourselves and she was like "oh you are those mormon people" we then explained the name of the church and she completely changed and was super interested in our message and committed to pray.  She opened up that she is not really active in any church so she will see if this is the right one.  Pretty cool experience.  Her name is Sally Zamora so keep her in your prayers to receive an answer to her prayers.

Um, no updates on Elder Arienda's grandma we are still praying for her.  We actually do have to give a presentation at the branch christmas party and I think we are singing a cebuano christmas song so it should be pretty good.

Love you tons!!!

#LightTheWorld

Elder Holmstead

Philippines Tacloban Mission

Me with some baby goats

Pics of us at the ocean during the typhoon

Video of us at the ocean during the typhoon

Spiritual Power of the Sacrament

We had some really awesome experiences this week.

The first was kind of sad because a really good member that was in our branch passed away.  His name was Peter Paul. He was 20 and was super close with us missionaries and he was having a problem with his heart.  We were able to visit him the day before he passed away and give him a blessing and there was just a big spirit of peace as we blessed him.  I know he is happy now and free from all pain and sickness.  He had a lot of health problems but he was the only one in his family that was active.  Such a great blessing to have the knowledge about the Plan of Salvation.

On a not sad note we also had a really great Zone Conference this past week.  It had a few different focuses.  The first was about working with Mission Leaders, then about Learning the Language(we had some really funny role plays with people trying to describe how to touch your toes and then spin in circles in cebuano haha)  The last was from President Argana about making the Sacrament a special part of our week.  I realized sometimes I am more focused on investigators coming to church than the sacredness of the Sacrament kinda goes away but this past week I really focused on the Savior and renewing all my covenants, not just baptismal ones and it really became a special experience. 

Thanksgiving was during zone conference so we didn't really get to celebrate but Sister Argana brought us some Chocolate cake and then we had our whole zone at our apartment during the night so we just talked and had a good time.

Our investigators are all still doing about the same.  Daisy is getting her papers ready for marriage and she is super awesome so we are excited for her baptism.  Bro. Neil has not been around this week so hopefully we can talk to him again this week.  We found a new nanay named Lita who is really kind and said she is going to come to church next week.  And sister Angelica is still working on her marriage.  

Thanks for all the prayers for investigators!!

Love you tons!!

Sogod Zone Conference

The Washing Machine 

Rocking my sandals because of my ingrown toenail:(

 Here's us with our assistant BML, the legendary, Bro. Mama

Maayo Kaayo nga Semana

This was super awesome.  I know I probably say that for every week but this week was especially good.

It started with the MLC.  We had a bunch of minute to win it games and my team took 2nd place.  I hope Sister Argana posted some pics cause I forgot to take any.  We had FHE at the mission home with all the leaders for the mission and it was super awesome especially because like 5 or 6 of my batch was their as well so it was fun to catch up on stories since we first got here.  Also I got a hot shower :)

The next day we had a big training and we just had a big discussion on how to be more christlike missionaries.  I felt the spirit super powerfully as we all shared experiences and insights.  I realized how much the Lord wants us to become like him and how willing he is to help us as well.

We also had our zone interviews with President Argana and as usual he really inspired me to keep working to be a Christlike leader.  

Our work was pretty slow this week because we had so much going on but we did have one cool little story that I want to share.  We were teaching this kid named Neil he is 17 i think and we were sharing about the Book of Mormon.  He started asking some pretty deep questions like "How do you know Joseph Smith translated the Gold Plates exactly right and What time period were the Jaredites from?"  Not usually the questions we get from investigators haha.  But we were trying our best to answer all his questions but then I got a prompting from the Spirit to let him read and answer his own questions so we just stopped bore our testimonies on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and committed him to read.  It strengthened my testimony that the best thing we can do as missionaries is to give people the way to resolve their own concerns.  

Also one side note, please keep Elder Arienda in your prayers as well because his Grandma who raised him is in the hospital and it doesn't sound like she is doing super well so I know he would appreciate some prayers his way.

Love you tons!!!

Also good news President Argana made our email time back to 1 hr and a half so hopefully I can send some more stuff in my emails :)

Elder Holmstead

Philippines Tacloban Mission

Padayon na lang

The big transfer day came and Me and Elder Arienda are both staying.  I am super excited because we are doing really well right now.  We are hoping for 4 baptisms in December so hopefully it all works out.  

We only had 2 people transfer from our whole zone so transfer day was super easy.  We got one new american elder in our zone and I haven't met him yet but I'm excited as well.  

Our good progressing investigators right now are Rayza and Raya Bautista, Michael and Daisy, Janel Monter, and Angelica Lastimoso.  They are all doing pretty good.  Michael and Daisy have been investigators for over 2 years and they finally have decided to get married so we are super excited for them.  Rayza and Raya are kids that are part members so they are pretty sure to get baptized.

We also had a member die over this past week so we got to participate in some funeral services as well.  They do this a bit differently here.  They have had like a week long viewing and every night they do like a little service with talks and food.  I got to give a talk on Saturday night about the Plan of Salvation and I am always reminded how amazing the knowledge we have.  We don't have to be sad but we can know that God loves us and we can keep moving forward.

We are here at MLC right now in Tacloban, i'll some pics of the activities we do.  

Thanks for all the Halloween pics.  We didn't celebrate Halloween but we did celebrate All-Saints Day and All-Souls Day last week which was basically everyone goes to the cemetary and then get drunk and parties.  It was pretty fun.

Question from Mom & Dad: Did anything funny happen this week?  Actually we did have a funny thing happen this week.  We had the two holidays All-Saints and All-Soul's day and we were supposed to have a curfew, you know for safety reasons but somehow on our phone the number for the Assistants got blocked so we didn't know about the curfew so me and Elder Arienda worked like a normal day haha.  We even visited the cemetary and there were so many people there.  We finally learned afterwords about the curfew and everyone was safe.  Crazy life in the Philippines.

Love you tons!!!

Elder Holmstead

Philippines Tacloban Mission