Mauswagon nga Bagong Tuig

Happy New Years!!

We are getting prepared for the festivities and we aren't allowed outside after 5 today so that should be fun.  The Filipinos love their new years.

This last week was really great.  We spent the first few days in the Hospital with an Elder who had Dengue but we gave him a blessing and he recovered just in time to get out of the hospital on Christmas day.  We had a pretty good Christmas just visiting members and enjoying some good food.

We also had a typhoon come through but it was not super strong.  We just had a lot of rain but nothing to major.  Everyone was safe and we were excited that nothing bad happened.  

We finally got some time to get back to work and visit some of our investigators.  One of them named James Carlo is doing super good and should get baptized this January.  Another investigator named Sister Lyka also has started getting pretty interested in the Church so we are hoping that she will start progressing.

Also I finished the Book of Mormon just this morning.  I marked any references to Jesus Christ and his attributes/actions and words and I was so amazed at how many there are.  I think it was on every page.  It strengthened my testimony that the Book of Mormon really helps people come to know Jesus Christ and to come closer to him. I know I have through reading it.  And I would invite everyone to keep reading it everyday.  It will truly bless your lives.

Love you tons.....2019 here we come!!

Elder Holmstead

Philippines Tacloban Mission

Thanks for the Shirt haha Elder Tabelisma liked it as well

Question from mom and dad:  Can you tell us more about the Candidate family?  Mom became friends with Karen on FB.

Yeah it's actually the Candidato family.  Sister Karen and Brother Lito are the parents and they have 4 kids, a girl and 3 boys.  The youngest Miguel has the same birthday as you mom hence the celebration.  Sister Karen has been a member for a while but Brother Lito was baptized 2 weeks before I transferred here so we retaught him and two weeks ago he got the Melchizedek Priesthood.  They are awesome!

Pics of us celebrating Miguel's birthday, Filipino style! 

Maayong Pasko!

Merry Christmas!!!

This was a big week of Christmas celebrations and we still have more to come.

The first big news of the week was my ingrown toenails are officially gone and I survived a medical operation in the Philippines.  It was about as scary as it sounds.  The doctor rolled up in a plaid t shirt and jeans and grabbed the needle with the anesthesia and just proceeded to go to work on my toes. But I survived haha :)

After the operation we couldn't go home so we spent the night helping the AP's get set up for the Christmas zone conference.  Me and Elder Murphy made a killer version of Jeopardy and we all had a super good time.

Other notable events of the week.  MLC was great as always.  We had a big activity where we built nativities but the baby Jesus was missing so we had to search around the Church to find it.  They were hidden in certain places were we had to do service to find them.  It was a cool activity and a great way to get in the true Christmas spirit.

We also had Zone Conference.  We played a bunch of games and also performed a zone song. We sang O Come All Ye Faithful and it actually turned out really good so I was happy.  Also Sogod Zone won the whole conference so Yeah we're the best.

An Elder in our zone got Dengue so we have also been in the hospital helping him get better so we have been literally visiting the sick.  It has been a really fun time and I am excited for another week of celebrating Christmas and helping people get closer to Jesus Christ.  It truly is the greatest to be able to be the ones who spread the Gospel light to all the world at this special time of year.

Merry Christmas, Love you all!!!

Elder Holmstead

Philippines Tacloban Mission

Elder Holmstead and Elder Tabelisma

I'm doing great! It doesn't even hurt I just have to wrap them up every day. 

Christmas Day with the Candidatos

Pictures from Karen Candidato

Christmas Call 2018

We got an early Christmas present this year and got to Skype with Elder Holmstead on Sunday, Dec. 16, 2018!  His mission president lets his missionaries Skype home anytime between Dec. 15-30th so the 17th (16th for us) worked best for Wade.  He is so happy and really loves his mission.  I don't think he stopped smiling during the whole 45 minute call.  Here are some highlights from our visit.  Enjoy!

• Wade decided to Skype with us on the 17th because he is Tacloban for MLC and the internet is more reliable there.  It is a 2 1/2 hour van ride from Sogod.
• They will spend the day with other mission leaders doing activities and having FHE together.  Then tomorrow they will spend the day in a training meeting with his mission president.
• He got a new companion that week.  He said his name 3 times, but I still can't pronounce it.  He's from the Philippines and Wade really likes him.
• He didn't get his toenails taken out yet because he was waiting to do it in Tacloban.  He should have gotten them taken out after our call so we hope everything went ok.
• He is comfortable speaking Cebuano and Waray Waray (he forgot a couple of English words - haha) and he can understand Tagalog but can't speak it much.
• They got around by hiring trikes.  He said it's kind of expensive...10 cents per ride.  We laughed with him because that's less than $1 per day.  He's going to have some adjusting to the cost of living in America when he gets home.
• The members of his branch feed them a lot more than in other areas so he loves that!  He said they had 2 dinner appointments the night before.
• He hopes to not repeat the experience of slurping chicken brains out with a straw.  That was not the most pleasant experience.
• He is so happy and loves his mission so much!  He can't believe he only has 4 transfers left.  His release date will be sometime around July 10th but he didn't want to talk about that too much.  He is just enjoying every minute of where he is at.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but more like summer

Crazy Food of the Week:Chicken Brain, slurped straight out of the head 

This was another great week.  Lot's of people that we talked to and lots of crazy travels.

This was the last week of the cycle so we had to finish up all of our exchanges.  We had 2 this week and I was with both the missionaries who were still in training.  One of them is from Utah and he is assigned in a pretty tough area and has struggled a little bit to adjust so it was a really awesome experience to be able to minister to him and share experiences from my mission.  He is doing really well and it's awesome

My other one was with a filipino and he is basically fluent in english.  But plot twist he actually has a british accent because he said the american accent is too hard haha.  But we had a super good day teaching and were able to talk to a lot of new people and share the gospel.

Our crazy travels for the week took us down to Maasin twice.  On Saturday we had to go and have a meeting with the District President to  discuss how the missionary work is going here in Sogod.  Many of the areas are new branches and most of the members are new converts or just 2nd generation so the Church is so young so we discussed how to help members learn their duties especially when it comes to missionary work.

We then on Sunday had District Conference and we had a bunch of speakers from the district and also from the mission presidency.  One of the counselors of President Argana gave a talk (all in Tagalog) about not procrastinating marriage and it was super hilarious.  Then President Argana gave a power talk about how much he trusts the missionaries and how the members really need to support and help the work in order to get a temple in Region 8.

Transfer annoucements are tomorrow so we will see if me and Elder Arienda will be sticking together for Christmas time.  Also I am planning on doing Skype calls on December 17 in the morning here.  Not sure exactly how to time works out there but thats the plan.

Thanks for all the Love and Support

Love you tons!!!

Elder Holmstead

Philippines Tacloban Mission

Lighting up Sogod

Maayong Pasko!

Mahimong Kahayag sa Kalibutan!

This week was a whirlwind.  So much was going on that I don't even remember everything that happened.

The first day of the week we had exchanges with the Macrohon Elders in our zone and in Sogod they were having a celebration of lights in the center of Sogod.  They had huge fireworks and the municipal hall has tons of Christmas lights, its no Temple Square but its pretty cool :)  

We also had exchanges this week in Tacloban with the AP's.  That means we had to switch back to Waray-Waray for a day and teach in the biggest city in the mission.  I was with Elder Murphy from my batch and we had a really good time reminiscing on all the good times on the mission and how we can keep improving.  I again testify of the Gift of Tongues because somehow the people of Tacloban could understand me and we were able to teach some really powerful lessons.  Really good times.

Most of the week was devoted to traveling or having district meetings and stuff so we didn't have a lot of time to get work done here in Sogod.  Our investigators are pretty much the same.  We had a little bit of miracle because one of our investigators Angelica has started making progress on her marriage so we were super excited.  

Love you tons!!! and keep Lighting the World

Also pray for the mission because we only need 65 baptisms in December to hit 1000 for the year.  

p.s. I have lots of pics but this computer isn't working so next week na lang

Elder Holmstead

Philippines Tacloban Mission