I Love Being On a Mission!

Kamusta pamilya!

This week was the best and the worst...haha! It was really busy...Elder Nye and I have been working really hard! We have even bigger goals for next week. That's something that I have found really important here. Planning your time is soooooo important because there really aren't enough hours in the day to get done what you want to get done! As Elder Guarino always said "mabilis talaga ang panahon." He probably said that like everyday.... It's soooo true though. Planning is HUGE out here! Anyways enough of that! I'm going to tell you how my week went!


Last Tuesday was a good day. We got to our area late though because Elder Nye had to do a baptismal interview for a kid that I actually taught when I was working with Elder Samson during splits a few weeks ago. It went well. Haha. Then we went back to our area and we found one new family who speaks Taglish really well. Normally people just speak Tagalog and will throw in English words every now and then.... I started doing that now, one example is makipagshare which means to share with someone. Haha. It's confusing because makipag is a confusing conjugation to explain. Anyways the family we started teaching is the Villenueva family (family of ten!!!). We didn't get to see them the rest of the week though. They are very nice people, just weird talking to them though because they switch from english to tagalog all the time. After that we went to Juliet's who said she believes the chuch is true and wants to get baptized. She told us that day about her brother who committed suicide and heard that he would be in a state of nothing kinda thing...... So we taught her about after this life from the plan of salvation, and that lasted about an hour and a half. It's great teaching her. She asks so many questions. Which is great! After her we taught Brother Anakta and Sister Daisy about why God gives us trials because they asked why is life so hard even though we are good people and didn't do anything wrong. It went well. After that we went finding! And that was about it!


Wednesday was great! People in the Philippines, whenever they see me or my companion they always say "Hey Joe!" or "Amerikano!" which is funny, but I made it a goal to talk to those people, because they don't usually expect me to do so! So last Wednesday I got "Hey Joed" by a women sitting on a bench with an older women. So I went up to them, started talking to them, then kids came around us, then next thing I knew there were like 25-30 adults and teenagers and then a bunch of other kids! There were sooooooooo many people! So since we were outside, we taught all of them! We gave them a short lesson about the plan of salvation. It was soooo good to teach so many people. After we were done we gave out a bunch of pamphlets, and one women said where is this book? And she pointed to a picture of the B.O.M which is on the back of the pamphlet. So we told her. And she said she wanted one. So we gave her one! This story gets cooler. But the rest of the day we taught one of our investigators Lori and Teresa. Lori left though because she had something..... So we taught Teresa! She's doing amazing! She reads the Book of Mormon everyday. Her story also gets cooler... haha. After all that we taught a tatay for about 1 hour, who wouldn't understand a need for a prophet.... BUT he thought he was a prophet... I don't even know....!


Then THURSDAY! We worked with the Teaching Assistants, so Elder Nye worked with Elder Whetman, and I worked with a Filippino missionary, Elder Perez! I never met him before but I understand why he's a T.A. He is a great teacher, and great at loving everyone! He met Juliet on the street(we bumped into her) and she wanted him to come to the next lesson which was on Friday because he was so funny. Haha. We found a few other people, taught brother Anakta, and another investigator of ours Tatay Lito. Tatay Lito has a little bit different theories about stuff, he doesn't want to pray for some reason. We had to teach both of them together, which was weird because they have completely different concerns. I learned a lot working with Elder Perez. I learned that Filippinos will laugh at anything! haha. It was a good day!


Friday we had zone conference. We got to listen to Jeffrey R. Hollands talk that he gave in the MTC the week before I got there. It was such an amazing talk! If you can find it somewhere do it! It's amazing! Then President Howard spoke to us. Gave us an update on Sister Howard, she has been recovering. Then we had a zone activity then left! Elder Comish was there. We had a choir practice because there was a Musical fireside that coming Sunday! After Z.C we had some pretty bad news.... We taught Juliet about the Book of Mormon. Which went great! BUT! She is leaving for 2 weeks..... So we won't get to teach her for a while.....:( Then even worse...we went to teach Teresa and Lori, and Lori is like super sad and Teresa is super happy, but told us she was going back to her province on Monday! So that's 2 really strong investigators leaving... I was sad about Teresa. She said we could come back on Saturday to visit her though. While we were walking that day one of the ladies we had taught with that big crew (the one we gave the book of mormon to) stopped us, confirmed our appointment for Saturday at 2 then said that she couldn't stop reading the book! She said it's amazing and she was at 2 Nephi!!! So we were really excited to teach her the next day!


Saturday! This day we taught Teresa and she gave us great news that she might not go to the province. So she said if she doesn't, then she wants to be baptized! So we gave her a date! (June 11th). And that's the plan for now! We taught her more about baptism that day which was nice! She really gets it and understands everything. We ask her to read one chapter in the Book of Mormon and she reads 5! And then shares what she read with us and what verses she likes! Teresa is awesome, she also said that her and Lori would come to church! Then we visited the other women from the other day,(I can't remember the name....) She has been reading and said she would some to church with her friend that we also taught. Then we visited an inactive family who at first we tried looking for in a town outside of where we have investigators and they weren't home, so we started to go back. Then I said no, there's someone in this town, so I knocked on 2 doors across the street and neither were interested, but as I did that, Elder Nye oymed(open your mouth) someone on the street who showed him where the inactive family lived which was close to the house where we thought they lived! So we found and taught them and they said they would come to church and would have FHE at there house on Monday! YAY!


Sunday! No one came to church..... ugh! After church we had the musical fireside which went really well! Look for it on Youtube! haha! That's about it for Sunday. All the missionaries were at the fireside except a few.... It was really good! We just sang a bunch of songs for people. That was about it for that day. The musical fireside was in Makati which takes 1 hour and a half to get to! So yea. Far away....


Then there was today....we bought groceries and had zone conference and did laundry and now I'm here! Awesome!


So about the temple. I really enjoyed getting to go every week at the MTC. Everytime you go you learn something new because there is so much to learn by going. It was really the greatest thing getting up at 6:00 a.m. and getting there about 7:00 a.m. to do work. I loved it a lot because I got to do work for Elder Andrus' ancestors. It was the perfect way to start P-day because you would just be happy for the whole rest of the day. Going there just makes you want to be happy. I can't really explain it! haha!


I'm glad you guys had a good Mothers Day last week! That's good to hear! It's also good to hear that Justin's show went well! Survivor sounds amazing. That's also really good. Haha!


Anyways here things are going great! Elder Nye and I are trying to organize a fireside for our ward about the Book of Mormon and we are going to try and have every member give a away a Book of Mormon and find someone that we can teach! One thing I liked that Elder Nye said this week was that missionaries should be the full time teachers and members should be the full time finders! So that's about it for this week guys! I'm soooo happy! I haven't gotten your package and I probably won't till either next week or 3 weeks from now. But that's alright! I love it here! The language is great! Everything is! I love being on a mission!


Love you guys!


Elder Chris Gagnon