Finally....pictures from the Philippines! :)

Elder Gagnon and his new companion Elder Glodo meet at the airport in Puerto Princesa

Elder Gagnon with the both the Narra and Puerto zone missionaries

Elder Gagnon with Sister Juliet Ramos and her family

Las Pinas zone Family Home Evening at the Razo family home

Sister Penaranda's baptism with Elder Guarino, Sis. Penaranda and Aljie

Elder Gagnon, Elder Guarino (Chris' trainer) and Elder Guarino's trainer


Hey Guys!
I had a great week last week! Got quite a few new investigators and quite a few are really starting to progress really well! I'm going to start off by saying sorry. I did not bring my camera with me this time because I thought it wouldn't work..... I will bring it next time though and will send a few emails of pictures. I promise. Sige!

So last Tuesday, we emailed first thing in the morning, then that day we taught Sister Lee, Brother Alfred and their neighbors, Tatay Guilliermo, his wife, and Sister Lee's mom! We taught them part of the Plan of Salvation. That was the first time Tatay's wife actually listened in, usually she was too busy, or just didn't want to, so it was nice to see her listen. She participated too and had lots of questions and everything. It went really well. Then we taught Marilou about tithing and she said she has no problem with it. Her baptism is still going to be on the 9th of July and we're really excited for her. After her we taught the husband of a member, Brother Anthony. He is really nice, we taught him a small message about prayer. After that we went finding for a while and that was it for Tuesday.

Last Wednesday we went to see an inactive member who lives at a castle. Yes. A castle. She doesn't think she will come back to church which is really too bad.... It's because the owner of the castle is Italian and has her watch the house all the time. She is really nice though. Don't worry I got some pictures of the castle :P After that, we went finding. But no one is really around.... Like no one at all. Our area is like a ghost town during the weekdays. At night we visited an inactive family. They don't want to go to church, they don't want anything to do with it either. :(

Thursday, the Elders from the Taytay area (an area from our district) came over because it was their Pday on Thursday. They asked to take it on that day because the next day was zone conference, where all the Elders and Sisters from Palawan go to the Puerto Chapel and have a meeting with the Assistants to the President and President Howard. I'll talk more about that after, but anyways the guys from Taytay live 4 hours away by shuttle and on the way there is our house, so they came to our house and emailed here, had lunch with our Branch president, President Bayaras, then emailed and made their way over to Puerto, which is 2 hours away for us. So we only got to work till 5 that day because we had to catch our shuttle ride at that time. We stayed at the Elders house in Puerto that night. That day we taught Sister Marilou from 1 Nep 8 and we also shared a small lesson with Sister Lee and Alfred about going to Church. We didn't teach them about the Plan of salvation because Sister Lee had questions about Church. So that's what we taught :) After those 2 lessons, we made our way over to Puerto.

Friday. Woke up went to zone conference. This would be the last time we would see President Howard and I think it was also his last zone conference so that would have been the last time he had seen a lot of the missionaries. It was a good conference; we spoke about heroes and we practiced contacting and how to begin teaching, which went great. President Howard also spoke to us about how much of a miracle Sister Howard was. And how we really do need to be obedient. He also said that the Manila Mission might split again next year as the Manila mission North and South. I also spoke with Elder Afaga, he is one of the AP's and he said he read my blog, which is funny. He said he found it by accident when he was looking for pictures of the Philippines Manila mission. So, Elder Afaga....if your reading this. Stop! :P Elder Afaga also told me that I was lucky because for a long time when they were doing transfers trying to figure out where everyone would go, he said that my picture was in the Pasig zone, which becomes part of the Quezon city mission July 1st. If Elder Jance(the last Elder here in Roxas) didn't get sick and go home, I would have been there in the Quezon City mission. Haha. So also at that meeting, since it was President Howard's last, he gave every missionary a mission president's blessing. It was a great blessing. And then at the end we all sang God Be With You Till We Meet Again to him. It was pretty emotional. I am really going to miss Presidnt Howard. He was really great, nice, exciting, and really hard working. I also loved his history here. He was one of the first 17 missionaries sent here to the Philippines, he was set apart by President Hinckley and got to watch the country go from like 6 members to 650 000. I'm gonna miss him a lot. After that we just went home, we got back at around 7.

Saturday we did a lot of finding and found quite a few new people. We taught the Plan of Salvation to Sister Lee, her mom, Brother Alfred, Tatay Guillermo and his wife. We invited them all to come to church the next day. The lesson went great. Tatay has a harder time understanding because his main language is Ilongo, which I don't know. But Anne does and she was with us, so she helped him understand. It went really well. The wife of tatay had a lot of input and it was really great. After that we went finding, taught Anthony, and visited a few inactive members. 2 of the families asked for blessings for their sick children, so we did. And Yea. One of the less active families came back to church the next day.:)

Sunday. What a crazy day! K so it started off...I went to go remind Tatay Guillermo and Sister Lee about church. So I did that with a ward missionary, Chris, while Elder Glodo went to remind other people in another part of our area. So we went to church, got there about 8:30 and President Bayaras says "Elder, we need you to introduce yourself to the ward because I didn't get to do it last week." Then he found out that the 1st councellor in the branch presidency wasn't going to come in that day, and he is the only person in the branch who plays piano. So he asked me, "We're also going to need to you to play piano." And this is like 10 minutes before church starts, so luckily they had a simple hymn book there that I used and played the 3 songs for sacrament. Another thing was before church started we had 11 investigators there! So we had a pretty big investigator class. We watched the Joseph Smith story and it went really well. Like really well. Yea. So after church we went on splits, I worked with Chris and Elder Glodo worked with Sam, our other ward missionary. It went alright we went finding and we taught Sister Marilou about Charity, which also went really well.

And that is about it for last week! It was a good week all in all. Please tell Elder Bell I said "Hey", and I hope he is having a great time doing missionary work in greatest place on earth. The last missionary had high blood pressure and apparently he was also a little home sick and wanted to go home... So I do not think he will be coming back. He was out the exact same time as me. We did not get any rain last week. All is great over here in Roxas! We are in a branch, but there was more than 100 people last week at sacrament. So I don't know why it isn't a ward yet.... Anne is also leaving tomorrow. She is moving to Manila tomorrow. The other language, Bisaya Ilongo, is nothing like Tagalog. At least to me it's not. My companion doesn't understand it really. It's a different dialect, so Im sure there are some similarities.

So that's about it for now, I gotta get going... I got your package last week by the way! Thank you! Thank you so much for everything! I love it here on my mission. I'm doing great! I love you all! Talk to you next week! Thanks for everything!

Elder Chris Gagnon

P.S Tell Dad I said Happy Father's day. I know it was last week. But yea! Happy Fathers Day Dad! I love you!

So once we finally got the monkey off me....

Hey Guys!

Sorry I'm emailing a little late, I'm actually doing this Tuesday morning before we go out to work. It has been a great week here in Roxas! It's sooo amazing here! Everyone lives in tree houses made of bamboo. It's super amazing. It's a lot different from the city too. There are not as many people in the streets and not all of them speak Tagalog either. Some can understand Tagalog, but only speak Bisaya. I have a harder time with some of our investigators now. I'll pick it up though. Anyways this email probably won't be too long but, yea....


So last Wednesday I moved in, met some members, and had a great time.


Thursday, I got to meet some of our investigators. We had a member, Anne working with us the whole day so that was great. She is a returned missionary who works with us almost everyday. It's great. So I got to meet most of our progressing investigators. Their names are Marilou, Brother Alfred and Sister Lee, Brother and Sister Ibanez and Tatay Guilliermo. So I got to meet them and we just kind of shared a few small messages with them and yea! It went really great! That night we had a dinner appointment at the branch president, President Bayaras' house. He seems like a really nice guy. He knows english pretty well. Which of course is great:) For dinner that night we had this bamboo thing, I can't remember what it is called and fish. I also tried this small shrimp thing that apparently no non-Filipino likes. I tried it though and it was good. Just a bit salty.


Friday, We had to get food because there was none.... So we did that, then had lunch, then went finding, found some people, then we taught Marilou about baptism and now she has a baptism date for the 9th of July! I'm really excited for her, she is really nice and just understands everything very well. After Marilou we went to another investigator's house, Christine, and we taught her about prophets. Then we went finding for a little while longer, then we had choir practice for the rest of the night because last Sunday was branch conference and the choir was singing for it.


Saturday. Saturday morning was cool. We were having personel study and I looked outside and saw a monkey on top of our neighbors house! So we went outside and got pictures with it. It was cool. It stayed there for a long time too. Sister Anne came to meet us at our house, the monkey was still there so she picked it up, and put it down. I picked it up too. Actually it stayed on me. It wouldnt let go of my shirt and would freak out if I or someone else tried to move it. So once we finally got the monkey off me, we put it down, and tied it to a chair with a leash sort of thing. After that we taught Sister Lee and Brother Alfred about the sabbath day and what goes on in our church. It went really well! Sister Lee actually came to church that day! It was great! So on the way back to our apartment for lunch, we got some bananas, and gave some to the monkey and then let it go. And don't worry! Yes I washed my arms and put on a new shirt after touching the monkey! Anyways after lunch it started raining really hard. And here we're not allowed going out because of the coconuts that could fall from trees and kill us, so Anne ended up going home, and we ended up studying till it was time to go to choir practice again.


Sunday! We dropped by a few of our investigators houses before church. Then we went to church at nine! Tatay Guillermo came, Sister Marilou came and Sister Lee! It was great to see them all there! Branch conference went really well. I got to meet the district president here and yea. Then after that we went out to work. I worked with a new convert and now ward mission leader, Chris. He's really kool, he also knows the area very well because he actually worked as a missionary the week before I got here. The missionary I replaced here is actually home right now in Bacolad.... He got really sick. Which is really too bad. He was in my going home batch, meaning he was supposed to go home the same time as I am..... So it was me and Chris working, and Elder Glodo worked with another Ward missionary and Anne and President Bayaras' daughter. So work with Chris and I went really well. We dropped by Sister Marilou and taught her the plan of salvation. Which she understood perfectly. Then we taught Brother and Sister Ibanez. This was the first time I met Brother. He is really nice and funny. He talks unbelievably fast though. Haha. We taught them the Apostasy and he understands everything. He says he really likes reading the Book of Mormon, which of course, is great! I really like those 2 a lot. After that, Chris and I went finding. We visited a few inactive members and that was about it!


Then Monday was our Pday, but we ended up going to a branch activity. We cooked some fish, some rice, some other stuff. Played sports and that was about it. Then we had a dinner appointment at a members house. We had adobo there. Of course. It was great!


So everything here is really good. I don't know why the pictures don't send. I'll try and get them on a C.D and send them over to you as soon as I can. That's if there is a place that does that here. I don't know. The area I am in doesn't even have an ATM....The closest one to us is in Puerto Princesa which is 2 hours away. So yea...


I actually do not have Sister Canada's address. She doesn't really have one either. It's Maligaya 7 in San Pedro. But Maligaya 7 is huge and they don't have adresses there. But, if you want to send mail to her, send it to the mission office to San Pedro 2nd Ward with her name on it, then Elder Nye will take care of it!


Everything here is great! I had to leave a lot of books behind. I only really brought PMG, my quad, journals, BR, and my mission Book of Mormon. That's about it. I will get everything back when and if I get transfered back to the mainland. Elder Glodo is great! We're working pretty effectively so far. He doesn't really know english but he is learning. He has been a member since birth and is from Tacloban, which is where Elder Guarino is right now. It's going great! Everything is moved in. We're both happy. The apartment is great, unlike my last one! haha! The members here are all really supportive and very involved with the missionaries. I love it here!


Anyways that's about it for this week! Please tell Justin congrats on graduating! I love you guys soooo much and I hope you all have a great week!


Love,


Elder Chris Gagnon

The heaven of the Philippines!

Hey guys!

So last week was pretty hectic, I'm only emailing today because it is transfer week so our p-day is on transfer day, which is Wednesday(today!) So before I say about whether I got transfered or not I will talk about what I did last week starting with Tuesday!

Tuesday was terrible! It started to rain a lot at about 11:30. We only left the house at about 2, because Elder Nye was sick. So we got out taught a few people, knocked on doors at a richer part in our area. I pretended to be cold at one point and one family actually let us in and we shared a good message with them! They wanted us to go back, and we did later on that week, but they were never there. We ended up going back home at 6 because it did not stop pouring rain and Elder Nye was still really sick. So that was about it for that day. We taught one new person in her house and we found a new couple who seemed pretty interested but were gone for the rest of the week.

Wednesday. It still had not stopped raining and that day we were both sick. We left the house at about 11:30 and it stopped raining at about 12. We spoke to sooooo many people that day and no one was interested. We visited an inactive family and we taught them a small lesson about obedience. It went well but none of them seemed to listen.... Then later we taught Charmaine, who lives in the same house as Theresa. We taught a good lesson. She just has a few odd questions..... Like about dreams and stuff. yea. We also went back to a guy that we were supposed to go back to on Tuesday. So on our way he actually found us...and he was drunk..... He started yelling at us and swearing at us for not being there the last night. He used very bastos (rude,obscene) filippino words that I didn't appreciate.... He also gave a rod to his son that was laying beside him, and said "take this because I don't know what I'm going to do with it." So yea. Elder Nye and I told him we would come back another day when he wasn't drunk and got the heck out of there.

Thursday. I was still sick, runny nose, LBM non-stop, I threw up once. Not good. No work. The zone leaders did come back though. They were at the hospital because Elder Jimenez needed an operation for an injury he got a while ago on his leg. Poor guy.... Anyways he said that he was talking to Elder Afaga, one of the assistants to the president, and he was saying that Elder Nye would probably train this transfer, BUT! He said it wasn't for sure. So we were all still wondering.

Friday. We went finding again. Spoke to a lot of people taught a few good lessons. It went really well. We taught one new guy who seemed really interested. His name is Alex. I really liked him. We taught him the restoration. We also taught Charmaine that night again. She hasn't been reading anything we give her. So of course, that's too bad. :( We taught a good lesson and she always offers to pray. So it's going alright with her.

Saturday. We went finding in the morning, found 2 really good families to teach. Then in the afternoon Elder Nye had a baptismal interview. He said it wouldn't be too long because it was just 2 kids. But it ended up taking like 3 and a half hours to get there, do the interviews and come back. The kids apparently had a lot of questions. While I was at the house I met sister Canada's (Mac) girlfriend. They both met at a temple tour which is something our mission does with our investigators, basically we take them to the temple and talk about it, we haven't been able to do it yet. Anyways she was saying that Mac really wants to be baptized. So that was really cool. We planned to teach him but he is always out.

Sunday. We had church, no one came again.... That morning we taught a lesson to Ronnie. He says he doesn't have time to read. Which it too bad... We taught him a small lesson. Nothing big. Then we went to church. Taught a few lessons to one of the families we found on Saturday. I also felt that we should try going back to Jomar, so we did. We taught him a lesson and he says he wants to be taught more but the only day he has off is Sunday... I like him though. I also got pictures with Ronnie and Jomar and his family because I had a feeling I might be getting transfered. I also dropped by Juliet's and got a picture with her family. They were too busy to listen to us though. That night the Zone leaders got home a bit later at about 9:45. They knew everything about the transfers. They said they were excited for Elder Nye because he is going to be training. So that means I was going to get transfered. The way they were talking I thought I was going to get transfered to Pasig zone which becomes a part of the new Quezon city mission first week of July. So of course I do not want to go out there because I won't really know anyone.....

Monday! Transfer announcements! So how they do this is by companionship and they make us say nice things about each other. I had a lot to say about Elder Nye. He was an amazing companion! We had a lot of good times together and I learned a ton from him. So they started with him, said he would stay as a district leader and train next transfer. Then they got to me and said I would transfer to................................................PALAWAN!!!!!! YAY!! So, that is where I am now, the heaven of the Philippines! It is great here. The rest of that day I started washing clothes and packing.

Tuesday I said goodbye to some members and finished packing. It was too bad, I'm going to miss Elder Nye! That night I only fell asleep at 12.

Wednesday. And that was really bad because I had to wake up at 2 to go to the Buendia chapel for 5 to catch a plane to Palawan at 8. So that's what I did. Went there and said goodbye to Elder Nye. I also had to leave one of my 2 suitcases at the mission office because were only allowed 50 pounds of luggage going to Palawan. I also had to leave my guitar there too... :( But I got on the plane, slept a bit, Got off the plane and WOW!! That is really all I could say. It is amazing here! So many trees. There's apparently a lot of monkeys too, I didn't see any yet though. I fell asleep on the 2 hour shuttle ride to my area. My zone is Puerto Princesa and my area is Roxas(pronounced Roahas). My companion is Elder Glodo he is a Filippino and he's awesome. I am sooo excited to be here! Elder Jimenez and Elder Eduria said they both loved it here and it was just beautiful. I'm really happy to be here! It is very provincy. I can't really explain that by email. Haha. It's super kool though. Oh, actually, I did see a boar on the shuttle ride actually. And that was kool I guess. haha!

Anyways so I'm really excited to be here. It is hotter than my last area, but also 10X cleaner and the air is fresh!

Anyways that's about it for this week. I'm pretty much out of time for emailing. Sorry if it was kind of scattered and short. I'm going to try sending pictures from this computer. I love you guys so much! Thanks for everything. Oh and one more thing. I have a few letters that I'm sending to some people. Just to let everyone know! It's probably going to take a really really long time. I also might not get your package for a while. At least another month maybe.

Please tell Justin congrats on graduating seminary! That's great! And please tell Nick Gould Congrats! I love you all! And thanks for all your support!

Love,
Elder Chris Gagnon

P.S. Since Chris hasn't been able to send us any pictures yet, here's a few pictures of Roxas I found on the internet :) Nancy


Here's a map of where Roxas is...it's on Palawan, an island south west of the mainland of the Philippines.

Last week was great and not great...I'm still happy of course! :D

Hey Guys!

Sister Howard is getting out of the hospital this week! I thought I said what happened, but I guess I didn't.... About the 2nd week into my mission, Sister Howard got an infection in the pancreas. I don't actually know all the details, but it got a whooooole lot worse. The doctors actually told President Howard to fly his children over here to Manila because it might be the last time they could see their mother. They also told him that there was a 60% chance of her not living. So President Howard has been extremely stressed,of course. But just a few weeks ago, with a lot of prayers from all the missionaries, and blessings given from President Howard to her AND the First Presidency of the church has been praying for her, she started getting better and last Saturday she was able to walk and take her first shower in 2 months! People at the hospital, whenever they see President Howard, they refer to him as "the husband of the miracle patient". It really is amazing that she lived. They are both finishing their mission next transfer I think. I know next transfer, which is next week, President Stookey is starting, but I think President Howard stays for that transfer or at least half, in order to train the new guy. I'm going to miss President Howard so much.


Anyways last week was great and not great....I'm still happy of course! :D


Last Monday, we did not have our P-day, it was on Wednesday. Last Monday we went looking for an apartment for 2 Elders in our district because they are getting kicked out of theirs....So that's pretty much what we did for that day until about 6:00. We found one really nice one that they were supposed to move into today, but the person called them and said NO. Which is NOT good because they do not have any other apartments and they are getting kicked out this week. The apartment they have there is horrible haha. It's really bad, loud! They have one room which is their laundry, cooking, eating, studying, dishes. Everything. Haha... It's really bad. They needed a new one. The reason they are getting kicked out is because the people in charge of the apartments, one of the senior couples, said they won't pay for that apartment because it's horrible. I think it even leaks now.... It's bad. Anyways after we went looking for an apartment we went to a family home evening at a member's house with a few recent converts that we organized for last week. It was fun, played guitar, ate spaghetti, and shared a message from 2 Nephi 5 about being happy!


Last Tuesday we had interviews with the President in Buendia. So we went there and did that. He told us that Sister Howard was getting better and expressed the importance of talking to everyone. Which was good. Then I had my interview. It's not big or anything. It was good though. He asked me to share a scripture with him so I shared 1 Cor 13:13 which I use a lot when we teach someone about charity. It's one of my favorite scriptures. Charity is also my favorite thing to share about. It really is the most important thing for everything. We spoke about how I was doing and stuff. He said there is a good chance I am getting transferred next week because Elder Nye will probably be training. So this week might be my last in San Pedro
2nd... After that we visited a few people but no one could see us.....We were actually about to share with the Adelina group but one guy just started yelling at us and said "ayaw ko, ayaw ko!" which means "I don't want, I don't want!" We don't know what happened. We havent been able to share with them since, because no one is around....


Last Wednesday was P-day. We got up at 4 and went to the Temple because it was temple day for the city missionaries. It felt great to go, we went to the 6 o'clock session. I love going there! I also got to see Elder Morris. I hope him and I become companions. Or Elder Comish and I. I don't really want to get transfered though.... Anyways after the temple we got food. Oh by the way, the week we got dorian, it was NOT GOOD. It smelled, it made the apartment stink, even though it was in the fridge, and it tasted horrible. We gave it to our neighbors. Because they like it. Haha. It was sooooooooo bad. I was disappointed. But this week we tried Lychee. And it was good. This week we bought Dragon fruit again because Elder Nye hasn't tried it yet. So we're going to eat that later. Fruit here is amazing! That's pretty much it for last Wednesday, We also emailed and did laundry. And that's it!


Last Thursday was bad, we went to all of our investigators and none of them could see us, not Melanie, Juliet, Ronnie, Pacita, the Adelina group, no one....We tried talking to a ton of new people and no one wanted to listen, they were all busy. They would come up with bad excuses too. Someone actually told us, "I'm cooking rice." Ugh. Haha. That night we had an F.H.E at Sister Boco's house with the Fabia family, and the Canada family. Sister Canada's daughter still hasn't come back and she hasn't heard anything from her either. It was good though. I played guitar, of course :). And we sang some hymns. And we shared a message about prayer and played games. And ate spaghetti. It was fun.


On Friday we visited Tatay Lito. He was saying the day before that he hadn't eaten in a while because he has no job, so we bought him 3 kilos of rice. He was really happy! We shared with him after, and well....he just doesn't understand. He has different views about God and how he works. One of his questions was "do we worship, Lord? Or God?" He has different ideas about things. We tried visiting everyone again. But again. No one was around. We taught like so little lessons this week. It was bad. We spoke to over 50 people though that day. No one we shared with would give a return date. Because they don't want to promise to be there and then not be there....


Saturday we finally got to share with Ronnie. He hasn't read or prayed yet. He wants us to keep coming back though. He didn't come to church this week. After him we went finding, had no success, then we had a Birthday party/DA at the Yangs. We watched the Joseph smith movie and ate, and played scrabble. It was fun they had prizes for scabble, we played on teams. There were the missionaries, which was the sister missionaries in San Pedro 1st,Sister Anjum, Sister Fabrigas, then there were the Elders in San Pedro 1st, our room mates Elder Jimenez and Elder Eduria, and Of course Elder Nye and myself. We got last! haha. So we got the worst prize, but then everyone gave us their prizes...even though we told them not to. There was like a box of cookies, Powdered chocolate milk, and little snacks and stuff. So after that we went home, and then opened our fast.


Sunday we had no one at church again. We taught Ronnie before we went and visited the Adelina group, but no one came. After church we went home, broke our fast. Then I got sick from the Adobo we cooked.... So that was about it for that day. It was probably the worst week so far in terms of our investigators. We have no progressing investigators this week. It was soooooo bad. We're going to try and find new ones. We also called Juliet last night and she said that she doesn't want to meet because of personal problems. So we told her if there's anything she needs she can always call us. She said she would text for our next appointment.....


So yea, it was a rough week. We plan on talking to over 200 people this week and finding new solid people to teach. That's our big focus. We will visit some of our other investigators, but we will be more focused on finding. Oh and buying a guitar is allowed, I asked President Howard before I bought it. He just said make sure it's not a distraction. He also let us watch Lion King today as a district activity. So we did as a district. It was good. Haha. He said the rule is that if it is either a F.H.E at a members or P-day and if it is a Disney movie, we are allowed to watch it. After we watched Lion King, we came here and now I'm emailing! Haha.


Yes Theresa's house is 10 feet above the ground, and no I didn't really clean my shoes, I know...gross. But we were really in a rush and it was raining, so it probably got washed off. If not, oh well!


Anyways I'm running out of time. So that's about it for now. I'm going to try sending pics now! I brought my camera and we're at a different internet cafe! So I hope this works! ....p.s. It didn't...they came through as DAT files?! Nancy:(


Tell Justin I said "Happy Birthday"! Please thank Auntie Lynn for her birthday card!! Thanks for everything!


Mahal ko kayo!


Elder Chris Gagnon

Water was almost up to my knees...it was crazy! :D

Hey! Sorry I'm writing only on Wednesday this week! We had P-Day on Wednesday this week, today was the temple day! I had a great time! Forgot my camera though! Sorry! Also I'm sorry I haven't sent any pictures! I'm going to be getting them on C.D when I get a chance to go to the store. The store is far though, it's at a mall that's about an hour from where we live.... I probably won't be able to get it done today because I have a lot of stuff to do! I'm always busy haha! Last week was really just ok. We had a tough week.....


Last Monday I forgot to mention, I bought a guitar. It didn't cost too much. I took out personal money and bought it, and we have been able to use it. It's actually a really good thing. Also last Monday after we left it rained a ton and we had to walk like 30 mins back home, I have never been so soaked in my life! The rain at home is nothing compared to here. I actually lost both my flipflops, picked them up and ran home bare foot, my planner got wrecked.... it's intact but like super dirty. Water was almost up to my knees. It was crazy! :D


Then on Tuesday, of course, we had work, we had to go to Muntinlupa because Elder Nye had to conduct a baptism interview. The person wasn't there though, sooooo me and Elder Lanticese(Old District leader, training now), went back to our area to work. We taught Theresa, about the importance of church. We followed up on how she felt about the last time she went, and she said she loved it and wants to go back! Yay! Then we went magfinding(by the way that's just finding, but the "Mag" is a tagalog conjugation, there are a bunch of different kinds of verbs, "mag" is one of them, so sometimes when using a word like "find" we just add mag to it. I do it sometimes when speaking tagalog E.G: Pwede Po ba kaming magshare ng mensahe sa inyo((can we share a message with you?)) I love the language because people do it all the time. They throw in english words like that all the time. I try not to do it, but sometimes it just happens because I hear it so often) and we found one girl who just argued with us.... It was annoying. It happened a lot to us this week.. Anyways that night we went back to Muntinlupa but couldn't find Elder Nye or Elder Lanticse's anak (kid in the mission). So we just went to his apartment and I slept there. It rained a lot that night too. We got on a jeep and the water was almost level with where you get on the jeep. Waves of water were actually hitting cars behind us and splashed. It's amazing how much water there is when it rains.


Wednesday, went back home and we thought we both needed a haircut, so we got it done that day early in the morning. Then we went out finding, we taught this new woman we're teaching, Sister Olandria. She didn't really get everything. She had a hard time understanding what prophets do. So we keep trying to go back but she hasn't been home as much. We also went to the group at Adelina, the 4 from there that came to church, they weren't all there, so we actually shared with them the Joseph Smith story again, and we watched the small DVD, then reviewed, it went well.


Thursday, we worked with Arjoe Yang, Brother Yang's son who is preparing to leave on his mission in a year. We taught this older lady that we found, and Juliet! We had a long discussion with Juliet, just answered a ton of questions that she had, then she asked what things were bawal (forbidden) in our church. So we taught her the Word of Wisdom and committed her to stop smoking. She said that would be the hardest thing. We have been trying to get back to her to see how it's going but she is never there. It's hard getting them at a time when they are all there, and we don't have a lot of time on our phone to contact these people.... Ugh. Anyways she really loves the Gospel. And She wants her whole family to listen too. Which is great! We would love to teach her whole family! :D


Friday we went to the Adelina group, who weren't there. They don't even have a phone so we can't contact them..... Then we went finding and found Ronnie! Ronnie is the best, super friendly, he lives in like a really small room. I might compare it to your closet if your closet was square, that's about the size of his and his son's house. He lost one of his arms a few years ago, but he is just super kind and always understands everything. Great guy, we taught him on Saturday as well. Then we taught Theresa, we taught the first bit of the Plan of salvation, up until our life on earth. It went great! She really wants to get baptized and knows that this church is true! She has a kid though, who is always crying, I don't know why he was, but this was kinda funny, but not really..... Their house is like ten feet above the ground, it's a squatters house, which is made of just anything, and there's like pieces of wood holding them up. Anyways so this kid was crying, he walked to go outside and took a step and one of the wood pieces gave out, he almost fell through! He just got one leg stuck though, so I got him out, of course he was crying more now though..... ANYWAYS... That night we had a F.H.E at the Canada's house (all of our other F.H.Es we planned for that week all fell through BTW) So we had a bunch of people there. We had Sister Pabia and her family there, Sister Canada and her son, an inactive member, and Sister Boco, all recent converts to the church... all of their families were there as well. Sister Canada's daughter hasn't come back yet either... She's 20 by the way, and no that was not the first blessing I did. I have done a few. I just forget to write all of them. Sorry! Anyways! Elder Nye conducted the F.H.E then I shared a message about loving one another and charity. It went really well. My favorite verse is 1 Cor 13:13. Which Elder Nye later used for his talk on Sunday. Then we sang Love One Another, which I played on the Guitar :) then we played some Filippino games that I learned here, and went home.


Then Saturday another big day, we left early, taught Ronnie about the Book of Mormon which of course went great! He said he would read it and pray about it and go to church(we hadnt even invited him yet, he just said he would come, haha. We were going to invite him though.) Then we taught Theresa about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It went pretty hard because it was raining, and the roof is tin so we had to speak a little louder.. Did a lot of repeating. Once we were done Elder Nye got his shoes on and went outside, the kid was also outside, by the way this kid is always naked for some reason, he never has pants on. So I asked Elder Nye to grab my shoes, he said "yea, just a sec I'm gonna get mine on" and like three seconds later I look at my shoes and guess who was peeing in them.......Ugh. So yea. That kid peed in my shoes.....After that we went to Elder Lanticse's baptism because we were doing a musical presentation, then after that we went to Elder Dela Cruz' baptism and played there. We played I Am a Child of God at both. Elder Nye and I both played guitar. People liked it a lot. Then that night we went to the Razo's. They were that really rich family I went to about a month ago. I was talking to the guy and about ten years ago he was in the squatters, but he worked hard and now he owns a ton of businesses. We had some food, he has a pizza oven and ice cream machine, they fed our whole zone! Then we had F.H.E. with them and played I am a Child of God on guitar. It was fun! Only problem was I still hadn't started my talk!


So that's what I did Sunday morning. I wrote like a bunch of ideas on paper, in english and brought them with me. I spoke second after Brother Boco, a recent convert, husband of Sister Boco. He spoke for about 8 minutes, then I spoke for 15, and Elder Nye spoke for 15. It was perfect! I loved speaking! I just spoke about member missionary work and why it is important. I shared some scriptures, and spoke about blessings I've received while serving. Everyone really liked it. I really liked Elder Nye's talk though. He spoke of requirements we need to have to do missionary work, he spoke a lot about charity which is something he and I have discussed a lot this past week. Unfortunatly though no one came to church because it was raining. We have plans though. Because people think it is too far to walk to church and too much for transport, so there is a railway in the area where we find that goes to the church, so this week we're going to build a cart so that recent converts and investigators on the railroad can come to church. That is our focus for this week, finding the materials and whatnot. It is going to be good! Anyways after church we taught Theresa, who told us that was her last day in San Pedro, and she was going back to her province, so that is really too bad... she actually left too:( We got pictures with her though and got her adress and gave it to President Howard who will give it to the mission president in the other mission, who will give it to the missionaries in that area! :) I know she will find them no matter what!


Anyways that's about it for this email. I will write about yesterday Monday, next Monday because I am out of time. That's great that Justin is having his grad soon and that he gave a great talk and won that award! Great!


Melanie we didn't get to see all week, she has been busy....


I can't go to that picaso site because I'm not supposed to. I will send a C.D with a lot of pics soon, I promise! Please be patient! I am sorry! :)


And that's about it I am out of time! Sorry I didn't get to write more! I love you guys! Please thank Auntie Lynn for her birthday letter, I got it last week! Please tell her I love her and I'm doing great! Thanks for everything guys! Have a great week!


Mahal kita!


Elder Chris Gagnon!

Sick with LBM?

Hey Guys!

This week was alright! I was actually sick Monday to Thursday with LBM. I'll let you guys look that one up ;) Anyways work wasn't the best this week, but at the same time it was, haha. I'll explain!


So on Tuesday I got really sick. It actually started the night before but it pretty much went on Tuesday too. We left late so we only had time to contact someone we had an appointment with that was an hour away from where we lived, and she couldn't see us at that time. BUT! On our way there we met this awesome Sister who used to be a member. She was a stake missionary and worked with the missionaries as a translator. Her english is the best I have heard any Filipino speak. We plan on getting to her next week because this week she is out of town, but she is way nice. We just found her on the street on the way to our appointment. It was soooooo cool! She's really nice. After that we did a bit of magfinding! We didn't have a whole lot of success but we went back to this one house that we went to before, they were too busy to hear our message before though. Anyways we shared with them the plan of salvation because Brothers baby died when he was an infant. What's really kool about this is there were quite a few people there. So we spent time getting to know some of them and while Elder Nye was speaking to the Father, I was speaking to this older woman. And guess what? I found out that she has a sister whose Mormon! What's even cooler is she lives in MONTREAL! So if you ever see Sister Rodolf, please tell her we are teaching her sister! :) She seemed interested and wanted us to come back, we did but she hasn't been there.... We plan on going back tomorrow night! Anyways that was it for Tuesday!


Wednesday we had splits because Elder Nye is district leader. So I worked with Elder Cardova, from Bacolad. He doesn't speak any english and he doesn't slow down when he speaks Tagalog. Haha! I think the language is coming along pretty well because we didn't have any problems. We taught a few lessons that day. There was one in particular I really enjoyed. I contacted these two ladies on the street, one of them said "Sure, come in". So we went through this gate to her house and we're greeted by like 20 people! Haha! So I taught the lesson and everyone seemed really interested and loved us. They asked when we would come back. And I did with Elder Nye on Friday, but I'll get there later. Later on we taught a new investigator named Randy, whose kool, He wants to know about why we're here, and what's our purpose on earth, so we're teaching him the Plan of Salvation.


Thursday. Still being sick, we got out late that day again. I was still working with Elder Cardova. We went finding for a while, found some people who were interested and heard a small message from us. We taught Melanie, the woman who read up to 2 Nephi. She wanted to know what she should do because she feels bad when she smokes, and drinks. We taught her about repentance, because she was pretty much asking how. When she asked me, I kind of asked her that question. I love doing that! People ask "what should I do?" After that I usually ask them, "Well what do you think you should do." They always give a good answer too :) It was a good lesson, I never taught that one before. I love teaching Melanie she's doing great, she's even marking her Book of Mormon now. She highlighted verses she likes and verses she has questions about. She's doing GREAT! Anyways then we taught one of our old investigators for an hour and 20 minutes only to find out that she wasn't interested. Later on there was a huge ulan! So we also had to go home early because the appointments we had were all outside kind of.... So yea, probably one of the worst days of my mission...LBM is not good! I hated getting out late those three days....


Friday Elder Nye came back and Elder Cardova went back to his area. We went finding on Friday, and taught that big family again. This time there were even more people listening. There were actually tons.... We taught them, they said they loved us and told us we're sooo real and stuff. It was nice to hear. They also asked me how many years I had been in the Philippines. I told them I was only there for 2 months and they were really surprised! Haha. I have been hearing that a lot more lately. I don't think I'm fluent in Tagalog yet though. I have a goal to be fully fluent by the end of next transfer though. :) After that we did more finding. Then Elder Nye and I both felt that we should go to visit Sister Canada, even though we didn't really know why. We got there and she was telling us about how her daughter left Thursday and didn't call or anything and didn't come back, so she said she was tired because she didn't get any sleep or anything the night before and she was worried. She was actually crying. It was sad. I gave her a blessing of comfort which was just so good. I said it in Tagalog too. It was good. She thanked us. We have a FHE night with her on Friday.


Saturday. Another good day. We taught Theresa, she said she might be leaving this week. It's not for sure. We gave her the invitation to come to church. Then we taught Melanie and Pacita (she's always been there, doesn't participate as much as Melanie, but progressing.) about faith which went great. We invited them to church too. Then we taught that large group that we first contacted on Wednesday. I brought a bag of Book of Mormons and as soon as I opened my bag everyone crowded around and wanted one. We gave away 9 after that lesson. Of course we invited them to church. Oh and all of those lessons we set up family home evening nights, so we have one every night this week from Tuesday to Friday. I'm really excited for all of them! We have one with Juliet and her family and another family that is friends with her family! GREAT!


Sunday came along. Reminded a few people about church, like Melanie, Pacita and Theresa. Theresa came with us which was great! We got one investigator to church, But she might be leaving. So this is the best part of the week for sure. We're sitting down in sacrament, and then 4 investigators from that big group came. It was so amazing. So this week we had 5 investigators at sacrament! I was soooo happy! So was the ward. Brother Yang got really excited. He said it's been a while since so many investigators were there. That same day, Elder Nye finally organized the date for our fireside for giving away a Book of Mormon. It's going to be on June 12th. We're going to teach 3 wards how to give away a Book of Mormon. And why it's important and stuff. Then right before we left the Bishop stopped us and asked us if we could give a talk this week in sacrament. So we are! Exciting! It's on missionary work of course. I'm going to be the closing speaker too. I have to figure out which part about missionary work I'm going to be doing too. It should go well!


Anyways there was more on Sunday, but I don't really have time to write everything. There's so much I dont have time to write! haha!


Anyways I'm doing great! Crazy busy! No longer sick!


I'm so happy. I really am! I love being on my mission! We bought Dorian, which is a fruit that is really expensive. I'll take a picture of it. It's really kool! I gotta get off the comp now! I hope everyone is doing great! Thanks for everything guys! I love you!


Elder Chris Gagnon

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

Phone Call home for Mother's Day!

We had a great phone call home from Chris for Mother's Day! He called home on the Saturday night (Sunday morning for him) and we talked for almost 2 hours! It was so great to hear his voice and hear how well he's doing despite the constant crowing of a rooster in the background and lots of noise from out in the street outside his house. He really likes his new companion and he's loving his mission. Despite what seems to be some challenges from our eyes, when asked what has been the most difficult thing about his mission so far he answered "Nothing Mom. I love everything about it!" So glad to hear it....He sends his love to all and is very grateful for the letters and Dear Elders he received from his family and friends. So now on to his letter this week which we received Monday morning...

Hey guys!

Happy mothers day! Haha! We just finished getting pagkain for the week. We got a lot...haha...
Today we also went to a music store just to see what they had. I played a bass there, which was good. This week was really good....Elder Nye is a great companion. It's really great working with him, he is fluent in tagalog and can teach anything. He has been out for a year more than me. He reported like January 5th to the MTC. He is from Utah and we're getting along really well.

So 2 Sundays ago as I told you we had area conference because it has been 50 years that the church has been in the Philippines. John U Teh (area authority), Quentin L Cook and Boyd K Packer all spoke. President Packer and Elder Cook were both in Utah though.... They were all great talks, Elder Teh's was really great. He expressed the importance of reading the scriptures everyday. He said we should always ask 3 questions: 1. Am I reading the scriptures? 2. If no, then what is my excuse? and 3. Is my excuse good enough? It was a really good talk. After that, Elder Guarino and I went out finding in our area and we found some new people who are interested.

There is a family Elder Nye and I have really been working with now, they don't necessarily get everything the first shot, but we ask a lot of questions to make sure they understand everything we are teaching them. There's a lot of children there, but it is mostly Sister Lori and Sister Teresa we teach.

Then Monday and Tuesday I worked in Elder Jimenez' (Zone leader) area, so I won't talk about that. We went finding, and visited some less actives in his area. Iyan lang.

Then Wednesday was transfers. Elder Samson got transfered to Pasig which will become part of the new Quezon city mission next transfer so I will not see Elder Samson again unless he gets transferred to somewhere in the Manila mission, but I doubt it.... Then Elder Eduria, from our zone became the new zone leader replacing Elder Gamolo who finished his mission. So now I am living with Elder Eduria, who is a great cook, Elder Nye, my companion, and Elder Jimenez who was there last transfer. It's great! I love it!

Thursday we worked in our area, went finding and taught some families. We taught Sister Juliet and her son for 1 hour and 30 minutes. It was a long lesson but she had a lot of good questions about everything we taught. We taught her some of lesson 1 some of lesson three. It was more of a discussion, more than just us giving a lesson. It was weird though because she speaks english to us, and then she would speak tagalog. It gets confusing because if she asks me in english I will answer in english but if she asks me in tagalog I will answer in tagalog. haha. I taught half the Joseph Smith story in english and the other half in tagalog haha. It was a really great lesson. She and her son are both really interesting.

Friday we had zone planning, which means me and my comp plan for goals we want for this transfer. One of them we thought real hard about and we both said we are going to get 5 baptisms, and it will happen, a lot of people are making progress. We also plan on working with a lot of less actives too. That night we visited one and nanay was there and said she wanted us to teach her son and his nobia. Then tatay (also a recent convert but less active, we were trying to get him to come back to church...) came in and starting yelling and stuff, soooooo he was drunk. The kids were crying, tatay hit them, it wasn't the best setting at all. So we shared a message with him, and he said he would come to church with his wife on Sunday. He didn't though because of the Paqiuo (Filippino boxer a national hero here) fight.... No one really came to church there were a lot of people watching the Paqiuo fight....

Saturday we went finding in a different part of our area, there wasn't much though we only found a few new people to teach..... Not much to say for that day. We tried looking for people who were closer to the church, but we got nothing.

Then yesterday I called you guys. And we had a lesson right after that. We taught brother AnakTa and his nobia sister Daisy. They have 5 kids. It did not stop raining yesterday. I was soaked the whole time. It was bad.... After church we visited Sister Lori and she said she would come to church next week with Sister Teresa. Which is good of course! We are going to work with them a lot this week. They are both really nice. Then we had a DA at the Canadas and that was it for Sunday!

By the way I don't know if I mentioned this in my last blog but the fruit here is amaaaaazing! The mangoes the bananas, the pineapples. Its soooooo good! I'm addicted to it! I tried this other fruit called Dragon fruit and it was also amazing and looks really awesome! I'm sending pictures soon, I promise!!! About Brother Yang, he is almost 50 i think. He has a son on a mission now. Really nice guy haha!

Anyways I'm really happy! Everything is going great! And yea! Please thank the stake presidency for their b-day card and please thank Justin L.V for his Dear elder.... I just got his first one. I don't know if he sent more or not.....Anyways about the temple thing I'm going to organize my thoughts a bit, so I'm not just throwing random thoughts here, so yea! I will write down some blessings of the temple and send them to you next week!

I have to go now unfortunately, so I'll talk to you guys next week! Take Care! Love you!

Elder Chris Gagnon

Transfers, a new companion and Jubilee week....

Hey Guys!

Last Week was great! Elder Guarino was going home so we had a few DAs. Haha. Transfer day was today by the way, and so is our P-day. I worked on Monday. Last week was also the Jubilee, which we got tickets for, but ended up not being allowed to go because the assistants said no. It was at a colliseum in Quezon city and they didn't want missionaries going there. It would have been cool to be there though. The acts that performed were really kool. We got to watch it on a video screen at the stake center in Las Pinas. Anyways I'll describe my week now!


So Monday night last week was horrible. It was about 12 at night and like 7 dogs a cat and a chicken were all yelling at each other. It was the worst thing in the world. I got like no sleep that night. Dad would have went crazy! Anyways I think I wrote about that Monday last week, so I just thought that I should share that. Animals here are crazy. Dogs are also really gross...haha


Tuesday we taught Sister Magarso, whose boyfriend served a mission in '91. They are living together. We only taught her that day about the law of chastity and how her and brother need to be married....Brother already knows this. Sister Magarso really wants to come to church but Brother works on Sundays though. He really wants to repent though. We dropped by Jomars house again. He wasn't home but Sister Jenny was. We taught her the introduction page about the Book of Mormon, I gave the lesson, which was hard. I emphasized that it's important to read and to pray to know that it is true. I'm getting better at teaching. People are starting to say I'm fluent and stuff. It's not true though. Haha. After Jenny we dropped by her neighbors house, Sister Reo. We taught her about obedience from 1 Nephi 3:7. Elder Guarino taught. Then dropped by 2 recent converts houses. Then we went finding, then Elder Guarino and I both felt sick..... So we called it a day at about 7. It was soooooo hot that day I think we both got dehydrated.... We got bananas and made banana shakes. It tasted great!


Wednesday was mostly finding. We dropped by Sister Daisy's (one of our investigators) house and her husband who was never there, was there! This family has 6 kids. They're awesome! Anyways we taught Tatay about God, His plan for families and prophets, which is what we usually teach the first time we meet someone. He seemed sooooo interested. We're going to visit him tomorrow, and I'm pretty excited for that! Later on, we went to brother and sister Fabia (recent converts) and her sister was there, so we taught the whole family about family prayer. I shared with them about the time at young men's camp when it was raining hard, then Justin prayed for the rain to stop and it did instantly! This went really well.....I never shared that experience with anyone, either in Tagalog or English. Sister Fabia's sister seemed interested. We're trying to get her to come to church now. They are a great family and they teach me a lot about the language. Last week they said a word that I had no idea what it meant. Sister said "Nangangalay" so I asked what that was. No one could explain it to me in english so they did in tagalog. "Nangangalay" means numb... Haha. After that we went to Shakeys and had pizza. Then bought mangoes and went home and made shakes. The Mangoes (and all other fruits) here are amazing!!! I love them!


Thursday we had a DA at the Yangs. Brother Yang is awesome. I love him. Elder Guarino shared about obedience and Brother Yang shared about his mission and his life after the mission. It was kool. He said to not worry about everything because the Lord will provide. When he got back from his mission he had nothing. Then he got a job at a new bank that opened in Manila over a bunch of people who were more qualified. The reason he got the job was because the test asked the people to write a story in english without using I or me. So he wrote the Joseph Smith story in English, which he learned while he was on his mission! I learned a lot from Brother Yang. He's sooooo enthusiastic about everything, especially the gospel. Which is how everyone should be talaga!


Friday I worked with Elder Jimenez(ZL, Filipino) in his area, we went finding there. Taught a few lessons. His area is also pretty far. While we were finding it rained for like 3 minutes, which was kool. It doesn't get dark when it rains. It's like really sunny and stuff, so yea! It's really nice when it rains. After all that we dropped by Brother Boyd, who is a recent convert who is gay. Crazy nice though. Fed us a ton of food. Hamburgers, chocolate, drinks. Crazy nice guy. Funny too..... We went to shopwise because we needed food, for the next few days. Getting there was nuts because it was palengke(market) day, so there was a ton of people in the streets. So crowded. It's market day every Friday. There's a lot of stuff, just everywhere. Anyways we looked at a few things and Elder Jimenez and I were talking to this guy about what we do as missionaries, the guy was working, but wanted to know more. Somewhere in the conversation we mentioned the Book of Mormon and the guy was interested so we gave him one. He lives in Elder Jimenez's area though so I won't see him. BUT! There was an older man listening to our conversation and said that I was really good in tagalog, the weird thing was he said that in english.... He is fluent in both english and tagalog and was wondering if we could give him an english Book of Mormon. I took down his name and address and we're going to stop by there tomorrow! He also wants to be taught in English, so it will be great! haha!


Saturday, I'll just skip to the Jubilee. It was a celebration of 50 years of missionary work in the Philippines. Super kool. We saw people from our ward in it. It was a bunch of singing and dancing acts. Really kool. The primary children of the Philippines sang too. It's funny because for Filipinos there is no V or F, so instead of V they say it like B and F they say it like P. So instead of follow it is "pollow" or love is "lobe". Kids make that mistake the most when singing....


Anyways this email was waaaay long. And I'm over time so I gotta go. I'll finish what I did this week next week! My comps new name is Elder Nye. He is suuuuuuper mabait, which means nice. He is from Utah and is fluent, he has been out a long time. I'll talk more about him on the phone call this week.


So about the call! I'm going to call home Saturday morning here, so make sure someone is home Friday night to set up the call for Sunday.


Anyways Love you guys! Bye!


Elder Chris Gagnon

Every morning a rooster yells at 5:00 a.m.!

Hey guys!

Whats up! So I'm going to dive into this week right away since it's so short!


So last Thursday was our investigator Sister Paranadas baptismal interview, so I went to Muntinlupa and worked with Elder Samson again while Elder Guarino and Elder Lanticese(D.L) went to teach and interview her for baptism. Working in Muntinlupa was great! We went to this dangerous area and tracted there, contacted 2 less actives, we had to be out of there by six because it gets dangerous at night. After that we went to an investigators who was sick, so me and Elder Samson taught her about priesthood blessings and then gave her a blessing. Then we taught a small lesson to her about the tree of life in Nephi chapter 8. This woman has been taught everything and knows the church is true but cannot make it to church because she doesn't have the money to get there. Also during that day we went to this very awesome place with a very thin bridge, with almost no rails, that we had to cross to get to this place. I'll admit I was really nervous about falling.....We taught an investigator who just started learning about the church about the plan of salvation! It was a great day. Elder Samson is a great teacher I learn a lot working with him.


Friday I went back to our house. We got a text once we got there saying that the other four elders went to go help a member move. So Elder Samson and I just did personal and companionship study for a while, then went out finding in my area. We taught one of our investigators who we haven't seen in a while because they are always out. One actually used to be a member and served his mission in Bacolad he works Sundays though, we teach both him and his wife, his wife is new to the gospel and seems pretty interested. They are both very nice. We invited them to church, they said they would come, they didn't though..... Anyways so we went back to my house at around 4 and found out that Sister Paranada (Sister Cell) was actually being baptized in one hour! So we took a breath, then left to go to her baptism. The zone leaders and the sister missionaries also had baptisms so there were 4 baptisms that took place that day. It was great! Sister Cell was baptized by a ward missionary, Algie, who is leaving May 28th for his mission in the Philippines. He comes out with us every so often. He is really awesome. Sister Cell bore her testimony after. She seemed so happy! I loved it a lot. Not much happened after that. It ended at about 7:30, so we went out got food and went back home and ate.


Saturday we went finding, we had appointments but none of them went through. We visited 2 less actives who came to church the next day which was great! One of them also gave us a fan, because ours broke. It was great!


Sunday we went to church and got 2 DAs this week. We had one that night at the Canadas, we had chicken adobo, and rice...it was great. Before we went there we went finding and dropped by another less actives family.


Then there's today! We went to district meeting, then ate lunch at McDo, went back to our house and did laundry! Now I'm here....ha!


This week is Elder Guarino's last week, I'm gonna miss him. He taught me a lot. I liked working with him a lot. Great guy talaga.


So yea we didn't do anything really special for Easter....just had a normal DA. I know Easter is really big here. A lot of stores were closed on Friday, and the whole week is called "holy week." It's awesome that Bill Kaufman wrote a song for me... I'm actually coming home in 21 months though. Last week has been three months since I have been on my whole mission. These past 6 weeks went by crazy fast. That's really awesome about April! Tell her I said congrats on her baptism!


Thats sooooooo awesome that you saw Elder Bell. He really is nice. Really great guy! That's sooooo kool that you saw him. When you see him tell him I said "Bonjour"! I miss the MTC. Speaking of which I looked for the MTC video that you were talking about and I found it. You can actually see me for a small second when they're talking about the gym. I'm playing 4 square. I'm in a black shirt. You can see my back in it for a very small time. You can also see Elder Comish in the background in a sweater. So Yea!


Sorry, I thought I explained what a shotgun area was. It's when 2 missionaries both get transfered and then 2 "new to the area" missionaries come in and take both their places. It is hard because you both have to get to know all the members, and their names, and all the investigators. When we got here there were no investigators so we had to find a lot for the first week. We still do a lot of finding. I find out who my new comp is on Saturday. I'm looking forward to it I guess. This will be my 5th comp!


Haha....Elder Dela cruz is awesome! I don't know how he did it (gained weight), he said eat a lot of pork and ginger...and snacked all the time, which I do. There's a lot of small ??? I don't even know the english word.....In tagalog it's tindihan... It's like a small little sort of store with water, rice and stuff. Mga Tindihan (stores) are everywhere.


Oh ya..... I guess I'll explain this.....So most (if not all) bathrooms in the Philippines don't have a flusher (our house does) or toilet paper. I use my left hand. That's all I have. Wipe with your left, shake with your right was Brother Molinas motto! haha! Anyways I won't go too much into that.....I will put the pics on a CD next week. I promise!! You will be able to see our whole apartment. Oh and our shower is just a bucket with a ladle! Our bathroom is a bucket, a toilet and a small faucet to fill the bucket. It's small.
I will find out about the Mother's day phone home next week! I believe it's 30-45 minutes, I will check when I drop Elder Guarino off at the mission home! I gotta go now. Supper time! Bye guys! Have a good week!


Mahal kita!


Elder Chris Gagnon

P.S. Oh yea and no I did not see monkeys yet. There aren't any in my area. A lot of dogs, cats, and chickens. That's about it. Every morning a rooster yells at like 5 o'clock! It wakes me up sometimes.....

A Baptism this Saturday!

Hey guys!

Had an alright week last week. I was sick the whole time so work has been a lot harder. I had a bad cough and a stuffy nose. After pizza on my birthday I felt terrible, oh and we ordered. It's 2 for one because I got this card that works for a year. It's a buy one get one free...its great! Oh also the reason I'm only emailing on Wednesday is because we had the temple trip today, so we have that and our p-day today. The temple was awesome!!! I loved it, I saw Elder Morris there for a bit. He doesn't seem too happy..... I don't know why, I didn't get to talk to him too long. He is also in a shotgun area and said he's finding it hard.... Poor guy... Anyways this is how my week went last week!

Last Tuesday we woke up got ready and stuff, I drank my water bottle (2 liters) and went to fill it up and there was no water.....Like nothing was coming out of the filter.....so yea, it wasn't a good thing for sure. We went out to go and teach Peter and Pili and they said no because they were sleeping, so we went finding. Then we went to see how Sister Abigail (member) was doing. She and her family are doing good. We're teaching a friend of hers named Behbe (not sure if that's the right spelling). We went finding after that, visited a guy who we gave a pamphlet to, and he read the whole thing and wanted to know more, but had to go to work at that time....It's great that he read all of it, but when we keep trying to visit him he always just has to go to work..... So yea.....

Wednesday was awesome, we went on splits. I was with Elder Samson who has been out six months. I went to his area, and the district leader, Elder Lanticese came to our area. We had a good day. Went to Chow king for lunch, had a halo halo, then went to the tracting area. We taught like 7 lessons, which is good when finding and taught one lady who wants to be baptized but can't make it to church because she doesn't have money to get there...which is sad. I slept there that night and left the next morning. I was happy to work with Elder Samson. He's awesome.

Thursday was alright, there's one family that hasn't been to church for 4 weeks now and we're trying to get them to come back, we visited them and I shared a spiritual message about obedience. They fed us after too, just a snack though. Then we went finding....found no one...:( I found out this week that our area is really tough, which is too bad. It's alright though.

Friday was the best day for sure! We taught a referral from the bishop and she is getting baptized this week on Saturday. She's been to church 3 times and she wants to get baptized, so we have been teaching her. The reason she is getting baptized this week is because next week is the Jubilee, and the bishop said it would be better if she could get baptized this week. She seems ready, she knows everything....That night we had eaten at this member's house who lives about 40 mins away from our bahay. They fed the whole Las Pinas zone missionaries, which is like about 16 of us. We had chicken, fish, rice, amazing mangoes, pork, pizza (they had a pizza restaurant style oven) and ice cream (they had a machine for ice cream). Their house was huge! Biggest I have seen in the Philippines by far (it even had a bathroom with toilet paper!).

Saturday we had Elder Dela Cruz with us, and Elder Cahilig (missionaries in our zone) with the zone leaders. We taught a new investigator who said she would come to church but didn't....And we visited a few recent converts. Elder Dela Cruz weighed 110 before his mission and now he's 150. And at one point on his mission he was 165lbs. He's an inspiration to me! Haha! I don't know if I have gained or lost anything yet... I'm going to check when I go to the mission home in 10 days for transfers. I can't believe I'm almost done my first transfer and am going to have a new comp soon!

Sunday we went to church, went finding the rest of the day, ate at Sister Canadas house. It was alright. Actually I ate something like a fish and almost threw up right there, I tried not to show it though. haha. Thats about it for Sunday though.

Monday I went on splits with Elder Gamolo(Z.L) to his area. It was great we taught like a ton of lessons and had a ton of oyms. This is his last transfer. He taught me quite a bit that day about Tagalog. Even though he doesn't really speak English we got a lot of work done that day. It was a good day for sure.

Tuesday we had Zone conference. So yea, went there, role played how to resolve investigators concerns, like going to church. It was alright. Then we went to Shakeys (Pizza) for lunch, I had my card so we got 4 family size pizzas for the price of 2. Then we went back to our bahay, then went out and taught new people, oym'd and yea!

Then today was the temple/P-day, and now we're about to go out to get groceries, then call it a day from there!

I'm excited for our baptism this Saturday for sure. She's soooo excited to! She's having the interview tomorrow, so E.Guarino is going to be with Elder LAnticese(D.L) and I will go to Elder Samsons area again. It will be great!

Anyways to answer some of your questions, We missed the G.C last week because of the service project. It ended around 4:00. Sister Canada (pronounced Sister Canyada by the way) has 4 kids, 2 boys, 2 girls, she was baptized last November. She is married but her husband has been away for work for a while now. According to her investigator profile she was golden, they gave her a Book of Mormon right away and she read up to second Nephi 15. WOW! She knows a lot about the gospel, she's smart. We actually stopped seeing Jomar now because he doesn't really listen anymore. So we haven't visited him for a week now......He's also never there, always at work... And it was a church organization we did the service project with. It was with one of the branches in our zone. It was kool for sure!

That's awesome about all the switch up at the ward! I'm going to write to them soon. Tell them all I said Kumusta! haha! Also tell Justin the game he is thinking of is Bomberman 64. Thanks for everything guys! I know I said I would send pics and haven't yet and I'm sorry. They won't save on the Internet Cafe, so we're trying to find one that will send pics! I gotta go now guys! Love you!

Elder Chris Gagnon!

Sick this week...

Hey Guys!

Hows it going! We're about to go out to get pizza for my birthday! Our p-day ends at 9:00 p.m. tonight because we had district meeting this morning. So yea! I have my journal and stuff! Thanks for the birthday gift! Things over here are going really good. Last week we did quite a bit of finding because a lot of our investigators bailed on us. Like half were either not there or sleeping, and we're not allowed waking them up. Peter was there once though (we found him almost 2 weeks ago). He committed to being baptized with his wife on May 14th, which is awesome! We still have quite a bit to teach him though. He's cool though. We finally taught Jomar last night with his wife, they were both there. Together. Which was awesome! They said they would read and pray as a family. They're a great family!

So last Monday our DA went well. The Zone leaders and us went to the Yangs house. We had fried pork, and Pork adobo. I tried both and they were both awesome. They tasted great, I loved it! Then they played scrabble which was fun. Elder Jimenez (zone leader) won. It was in english too and he was really good.

Then Tuesday we went out and taught, no one was there so we went finding but we didn't really have that much luck that day. I also started to get sick with a cold. That night we had a DA at sister Canada's house. She fed us fish, and more fish. We had this weird dry fish that was.... well....dry, and like suuuuuuper salty, it was alright. Haha.

Then Wednesday we had a zone meeting at the president's house. It was kool. It was about how well the mission was doing and we had a few activities and such, and of course food. There were 3 zones there, so I saw Elder Comish from the MTC. He is doing great. He got sick, and his shoes got stolen... But he really does seem to be doing good. He's in the Manila city so it's dirty and really crowded.

Thursday I was still sick. We did a lot of walking, again almost our investigators bailed. We visited a few recent converts though, just to see how they're doing. Not much else to say about that day. Sorry!

Friday, still sick. We visited a recent convert who lived in a secluded area, it took a while to get to where she lives. She seems to be doing great, her son wouldn't pay attention though.. She gave us a snack, and we shared a message with her and then she gave us a referral, who we contacted and taught later that day.

Saturday we had service. We helped feed a bunch of hungry kids who didn't have much. Then we played a bit of basketball, then went to our house, studied for a bit, then went to general conference, which was awesome! There was a talk by the 1st Counsellor in the Young Men's presidency that made me think of Andrew. Great talk! President Eyrings talk was also really great....

Sunday we went to conference first thing in the morning, because of all the travel, it took us about an hour and a half to get to. We got back around 5, where we taught a few lessons, and had dinner at Sister Canada's again. She's really nice. She also gave us a ride back to our house that night.

Then today we had district meeting, did groceries, laundry and now I'm here!

So I will answer your guys email now. Everyone knows it's my birthday. They announced today in district meeting. That's awesome you saw President Mciff. He's actually great. I'm surprised you didn't see me though, I would have been right next to Elder Andrus there on the stairs, if it's where I think it is. Haha. Try looking again! It's good that things are getting warmer there. Things are always hot here. I can't send an email to anyone else but you guys and my mission president (we have a strict area president.) So please tell Justin great job on getting into Vanier for me!

General conference was great for me. I really liked it. While studying, it's mostly Tagalog, so i don't think you will want to hear about that. haha. We also have reading assignments from Pres.Howard. We're in Acts right now. Anyways from general conference, one quote that stuck out to me was by Thomas S. Monson, he said when you get married it's important to choose your love and love your choice, so that stuck out to me a lot for some reason. haha. Unfortunately we missed the Saturday afternoon session, so I missed Elder Ballard, Packer and Oaks.....which is really too bad. I took a lot of notes at conference. Pres. Uchdorf's talk was great. Sorry I can't think of more to write.. haha.

Anyways I'm going to try sending pictures now and we gotta go. So Have a Good week! Mahal Kita!

Elder Chris Gagnon

P.S. I just tried uploading some pictures, but it wouldn't work. I'll have to think of something else. Sorry! Gotta go!

Love Chris

1st picture from the Philippines!

We received a letter today from Chris' mission president basically telling us that he arrived safely, telling us about his first day there and giving us some guidelines for sending him letters etc...Enclosed was a letter from Chris and this first picture of him in the Philippines with his companion Elder Guarino, and President and Sister Howard. What a special treat to receive this on the weekend of Chris' first birthday away from home!

More pictures from the MTC - Thanks Joanne!

E. Andrus, E. Johnson, E. Morris, E. Leishman, E. Gagnon, E. Tomasi, E. Tuitama, E. Comish





Elder Andrus and Elder Gagnon





Tatlo D with Brother May