Training is so much fun!

Hey Guys!

Last week was amazing! We are having so much great success
in our area now it's crazy! It looks like we are going to have 3
baptisms that are for sure, which is great! Training is so much fun!
Elder Villa is such an awesome companion and we are getting things
done!

Last week we taught Carleto, his interview with President Stucki is
this Friday so we are going to see how things go with that. I might
have to translate because Carleto doesn't know a whole lot of English.
In other news though, we thought that we should invite Sister Pass to
be baptized on February 4th because it could be a really long wait if
Carleto gets passed to be baptized. So we invited her and she said
yes, and their apo, Cheryl who has been coming to church with them
for a while now, who we havent taught a whole lot said that she also
wanted to be baptized! So we are going to have 2 on February 4th! I'm
really excited for both of them. Cheryl is super awesome! She is 15
and we were teaching about the Word of wisdom to her and Carleto and
Pass and Carleto had another question about why in the Book of Mormon
and Bible they could drink wine and to our surprise Cheryl answered!
It was super cool! It was a perfect answer too. Haha. We also helped
Carleto last week at work and harvested Mani! Which was tiring but
really fun! We also ate a bit at his mountain. I will send some pics!

We also have an inactive family who we are working with who have been
to church 2ce now and their daughter who we are teaching with them
should be baptized on Feb.11th. She is only 9. We are also trying to
work with the father of the family but he just won't listen to us.

We also have been working with the Magalianis family. They are really
kool but really new. We will see how things go with them.

Then we have Nonoy. This guy has been at Carleto's house a few times.
He is fluent in english so when we speak to each other it's in taglish.
He has always been loud and always joking though, and we have tried to
share with him a few times, but Pass' birthday was last week and he
was there and we got into a doctrinal conversation and he said that he
wanted to be taught and he wanted to read a Book of Mormon. So we were
going to give him one, but he said he wanted it in english, so we came
by the next day and gave him an English copy of the Book Of Mormon,
shared a little bit about it, then scheduled a return appointment on
Tuesday. I'm excited to see how it will go...

Everything is going awesome here! This transfer is awesome! haha. Tell
Justin I am so proud of him for making the decision to serve. It's the
greatest thing in the world! I can't even use words to describe it. You
can use some of my savings if it will make things go faster. I can
work too when I get home. :) I hit my year my last Thursday which is
weird. It's going by so fast and it's scary, everyone who is an RM here
says the last year is the fastest, so I'm really worried and not looking
forward to that at all. I love it so much out here on the mission. I
know this work is true and I am so grateful everyday to be a part of
it.

Please thank the Glowas for their Package, I'm wearing the tie they
sent me right now! Tell them I love them so much and really appreciate
everything!

Thank you so much for your guys' support I love you so much and pray
for you all everyday! Have a great week!

Love you!

Elder Chris Gagnon

Oh yea! Please wish Kameron a Happy Birthday! I think it was January
12th.... Thanks guys! Love you!

Last dinner appointment at the Maico's with Elder Christie

Elder Gagnon and his new companion, Elder Villa at the airport

Hey Guys!

It has been quite a week here in STA Monica. Really exciting! We have a ton of referrals to contact and stuff. It has been great though. So again, I have a new companion. His name his Elder Villa and I am his Tatay. He is brand new right out of the MTC. He is from Nueva Ecija which is in the Angeles mission. He is super cool and just great! He has had no trouble at all teaching and everything. It's great! Also his birthday was yesterday! Where he is from, they speak Tagalog which is really kool so he hasn't had to adjust to that at all. We are having a blast together. The only thing that has changed is that instead of 1 hour of companionship study, it's 2 now. So it's pretty hard. Haha. But I love everything about it. I'm still a District Leader too so it's going to be really fun training and being a District Leader.

Things are going great in STA Monica, well sort of. We have been contacting a lot of less actives and because Elder Villa only got here on Friday we didn't get a whole lot of work done. We had a broadcast and the Zone leaders had a baptism so we went to that. So Elder Villa and I haven't had a full day of work yet. We will on Wednesday though. :D

Tatay Carleto is doing great. He wants to get baptized so bad. He was our first lesson to an investigator as a companionship and we were just reviewing the baptismal questions. There were some issues though that have to be dealt with, so he may have to wait a few months to be baptized. So that is too bad. I know he will be a very strong member when he does get baptized. President Maico said that he will be a very strong leader and maybe even the group leader out in Irawan. We will just have to wait and see. Sister Pass, his wife, will probably get baptized first. That was a pretty crazy lesson for Elder Villa though.

Sister Nancy is also going to be getting a calling soon! President asked me what I thought and I told him that is exactly what we want for her. I think she might becoming a councillor or teacher in Primary. We will find out soon I guess. :)

Brother Jeffrey is also doing great. He really wants to get baptized and he will on the 11th of February. We are also really excited for him. He loves the Book of Mormon!

Anyways I guess that's about it for this week. Sorry if it's a bit short but I need to go now. Haha. I love you guys so much! It was great to see pics of you! Thank you so much for everything!


Elder Chris Gagnon

Guess what....?!

Yolly's Baptism

Hello family!

I haven't received your email yet...It has been a great
week here in STA Monica. Things are really picking up. Annnnnnnnnnnnd.....
Guess what? I am going to be..............staying......Haha.
Yes, I just got a call from President Stucki about 20 minutes ago to
find out that I will be staying in STA Monica and I will be training a
new Missionary! Sooo I'm buntis now! Haha. And on Friday I think I get
to meet my Anak! I'm pretty surprised. Haha. I'm kinda nervous. But at
the same time I am really excited to meet my Anak. It's really
exciting. Haha. I don't know if I am going to stay as a District
Leader though. I think the districts might be changing and I
might get to be in the same district as Elder Comish. But we will just
have to see about that and stuff.

Things are going great in the area. Yolly was just baptized this past
Saturday. She was really happy. We had a recent convert baptize her.
Nancy also gave her talk and she did amazing. It was definitely one of
the best parts of the week. Nancy was just baptized and now she gave a
really good talk and I was just really happy. Yolly was very happy.
She thanked us at the end and she bore her testimony and it was just a
very good day. Especially seeing where she came from when we first
found her until now. She has made amazing progress. We are really
happy for her.

I had to do three interviews last Saturday. They went super well. It
was for the zone leaders and I'm really happy that this family is
getting baptized because I taught them a few times while on exchanges.
There are really awesome. I'm happy for all of them. :)

Carleto and his wife are also doing really really well. Carleto came
to church last week which was really good. He is participating
really well in the classes. He is going to be interviewed hopefully
this week. He is doing good. But I just want to make sure that his
testimony is there before he gets baptized with his wife. His wife
said she knows these things are true and she also wants to be
baptized. They have both stopped drinking completely which is great!
:D

We also found a new investigator this week that is golden. His name is
Jeffrey. He just moved next to the 1st Councillor in the district
presidency. So they referred him, we contacted him one night, taught
him the next day and gave him a baptismal date and he came to church.
He met President Peterson a while ago while delivering water to his
house and President gave him a Book of Mormon and he has been reading
it! He does have a bit of a hard time reading but he is really great
and really wants to be taught. :D

We also found a few other people that have potential. But we did drop
Nelson because he stopped progressing. It's been kind of hard this
transfer because of the Holidays. But I think this transfer we will
see a lot of success. I'm really excited for everything. Haha.

Well that's about it for this week. Ive been taking a lot of pictures
because I really thought I was transferring. But no! Haha. Well that's
about it for now I guess. I don't really have much else to write. I
will write a ton more next week though. I PROMISE!!

I love you guys so much and thank you so much for all of your prayers.
I pray for everyone back at home and I hope you all have an amazing
week!

Love you!

Elder Chris Gagnon

Maayong Adlaw At Manigong Bagong Taon!

Maayong Adlaw At Manigong Bagong Taon!

We have a new mission address!
Philippines Manila Mission
P.O. Box 1997
0714 Makati City
Metro Manila, Philippines


Had a really great week last week! Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun last week even though Andrew is still in a cast. That's too bad. Who was the person that Thiago knows? I don't know anyone that has served in Vancouver from the Philippines....Unless there was someone in Las Pinas that served there.....I can't remember though. Haha. We had such a good week even though I didn't get to work in my area for most of the week.....I got sick last Wednesday and then last Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Berse in his area. We had a great time doing finding! Haha. He is pretty new in his area he is pretty old in the mission. He goes home in 6months. It was a really good day. We found a few inactives that had gotten offended. It was crazy! I never met more offended people in my whole life. Haha.

Yolly is going to be getting baptized this week. We will finally have one the week before the transfer ends! I'm really excited for her. She went to church in Narra last week and she is really excited to be baptized. She has been to church 6 times so she is really ready. She has also started to give us referrals so she has been doing great! She will be a great member of the church. OH! And Nancy, the one who was baptized last October will be giving a talk at her baptism and Brother Abria, a brother who was baptized at the same time as Nancy, who was an investigator in the Sisters area will be performing the baptism. I'm really excited for both of them!

Carleto and Pass are also doing amazing! Last week we had a lesson with them and we were talking about the word of wisdom and how it was going and Tatay really wasn't sure if he would be drinking on Saturday, New Year's Eve... So we spoke about faith and had a really good lesson about that. We also gave him a blessing at the end to help him deal with temptation. At some time during the lesson he said that he wasn't going to promise that he wouldn't drink. That Sunday he and his wife both came to church. And it was funny because when we saw them we also saw Gerson, who I know because he is from Taytay and he was up here because his wife was in the hospital. But he was really encouraging them. It was really nice to see him and he is really new in the church but he is an amazing missionary. He really just testified to Carleto about everything and it was really nice. That day we went to Carleto's house and spoke to him and he told us that he didn't drink the night before because he really didn't want to and the thought of it made him sick. I thought it was amazing because he had a really big party at his house where there were a lot of drunk people and he didn't drink at all. I was really really happy for him. And now he accepted to be baptized on the coming January 14th with his wife. They told us that they have control over what they do and they made the choice to not drink again. I am super happy and proud of both of them. They have both been amazing people to teach and I think I might miss their baptism because I might not be here because transfer day is January 11th.

I love this area so much and we are starting to have a lot of success in finding interested investigators and less active members who want to come back and make it to the temple. I love my mission so much and I really love the people we teach.

To answer some of your questions....Yes, I did get both packages. I got everything that was in them too. They were all wrapped. It did not look like anything was open. Thank you again for those packages! I love you guys so much and pray for you all everyday. I hope you all have an amazing week!

Elder Chris Gagnon