May 7th, 2012

Hello Family! Things are going great in good old Makati! We're having success and looks like May is also going to be another great month! :D We had ZLC last week which went really well. Makati had the most baptisms in a really long and we had the second highest amount of baptisms out of all 12 zones! We also discussed a few of the problems we are having in the mission and I think the biggest one we spoke about was the morning schedule. There are a lot of missionaries who don't follow the morning schedule and either don't wake up on time, don't do studies or don't leave on time. I'm not perfect with all of those. But I try really hard and now I have made it a goal that before the end of the month I will be perfect with everything about the morning schedule. :D Last week we were able to teach Mark Tort. He is a part member and doing really well. He is actually really smart for an 11 year old. Yesterday he came to church and told us what faith meant. We left him Alma 32 and he was able to tell us what faith was and how to show faith. He is getting ready for his baptism this coming May 19th. We also have Kennedy who we taught 3 times last week. He wasn't able to come to church last week, but he is doing really great! We taught the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ and The Word of Wisdom and he doesn't have any problems with anything and that is great! Brother Avila also came to church for the first time in a long time. He came with his wife and kid. So we are finally seeing progress which is great! Elder Duero and I have been seriously teaching him since we got here and that was the second time he came to church. Elder Duero and I were surprised but really happy and hope that he and his family will continue to come. We had 12 investigators come to church today which was the most we had since we have been here in Makati. These were all people who we had taught a least once before. April came to church today too which was really great. We are finally hoping to teach her. Her baby was blessed last Sunday by her father in law, the Stake President. I really like President Arzaga. He is a good teacher and leader. He does things that are so different. He also really cares about missionary work. He always welcomes investigators, and always asks us how the work is doing, I always tell him the work is going great! Last week I also got to work with Elder Baltazar. President Stucki told him a few weeks ago that he and Elder Hernando need to go on more exchanges with Zone leaders, so Elder Hernando worked with Elder Duero in our area and I worked with Baltazar in his area. It was nice to work with Baltazar again. We have grown a lot since the last time we worked together when I was in Roxas and he was in Taytay. We taught a few good lessons. They actually do not get a whole lot of time to work in their area so when I worked there it was the first time in 3 weeks that missionaries had been in that area. So yea. It was a lot of finding... Hehe. We had fun though. He is a really great teacher. And I actually learned a few different things from him. We had a really good day. There was one point where he didn't know where he was going because most of the times they have a car and just drive everywhere. So there was one part of the day where we had to walk into a gated community because that is where one of their investigators live and we couldn't find the entrance. At first we tried going in through some village, which was wrong, then we walked around the whole gated community and tried the entrance that cars use, then we found out we couldn't walk in through that way, then we had to walk back and through the gate. It's kinda hard to explain here. In other words, we walked for about 2 hours trying to get into a gated community. It was ok though. We still had a great day. Well, today I have to buy the calling card. I will be calling sometime this week. Possibly on Saturday so expect a call on Friday night or Saturday morning.... I'm not sure when I'm going to call for Mothers Day. Elder Duero and I are still going to talk about it. I will do the set up call though on Saturday. That's about it for this email. Sorry if it's short. I hope you guys have an amazing day though! And an even better week! I'm excited to call home this week, this will be my second to the last phone call home before I come home. It's really weird. I don't like how fast time goes sometimes because I still have a million things I want to get better at in the mission. One of my focuses right now is how to more effectively use the Book Of Mormon. I can do it really well but I have a plan to know it inside and out before I leave. I'm also working on how to plan effectively. Things are going good though. I'm learning a lot. :D Next week is transfer week so hopefully it won't be as stressful as the last one. Hehe. It will be fine. I know how to handle transfer week better now so everything will go more smoothly this time. Anyways. I gotta go! I hope you guys have a great week! Love you! Elder Chris Gagnon ! P.S. Oh yea! Please also tell sister I miss and love her too! Thank you!