Hey Guys! Last week has been another great week. It was transfer week so I transferred to my new area in Naic in the Naic branch. It's really nice here too. It's kinda like Palawan but without mountains. My new companions name is Elder Griffin. He's cool. :D Last week we just spent time getting to know the people we are teaching in aic and stuff. Its a really really huge area and there is tons of less actives. We also have a baptism next week in the area. Her name is Nicole. She is the daughter of a recent convert and her baptismal interview is tomorrow. We are excited for her and it be great! :D Its really weird that I am coming home in four months. I really want to make this last area the best. After Nicole we only really have one more person preparing for baptism. Her name is Emma. She is really cool. She lives with her son. She is about 50 years old and is kind of blind. She Lives next to a member of the church though so almost everyday that member goes to sister Emmas house and reads to her the Book Of Mormon. Its really really great and she is doing good! :D This coming week should be a good week. We need to find more investigators. So we will be doing a lot of that this week. Oh yea. To answer your guys' questions... There are stores in Naic. We have a few malls, not in our area but pretty close to our area. So its not to bad. We have a big place called puregold thats kind of close to our area which is great! I'm going to try and send a lot of pictures today so this will be another short area. Sorry again! I love you guys! I hope you all have a great week! Love, Elder Gagnon

September 17th, 2012 - Transferred to Naic!

Hello Everyone! My last week in Makati was really great! We just looked at the transfer announcement! And I am transferring toooooooo............NAIC!!! Haha! You guys guessed right! I'm really really excited! The mission is divided into 3 parts, Cavite, Metro Manila and Palawan and Cavite is the only place i haven't been to. So Now i get to go there! My companion is Elder Griffin. He is really kool. He is batch with Elder Kunzler and I'm going to be his first white companion! I'm really excited about Naic, I hear it's just as beautiful as Palawan. So I'm really happy about where I'm going! Last week was really great though here in Makati. We got quite a bit of rain. But we have been seeing great success with a lot of our investigators. I'm really sad I won't be here for another transfer. I think we might have 8 baptisms here in this area for October. Things have just been going really great. We have been teaching Tatay Rolly and his wife and they have been doing great. Then last week we taught our investigator Brother Arthur and he accepted to be baptized this coming October 16th. Things have just really picked up! Something really kool though happening is Elder Hernando is leaving the zone and his trainee will need someone to follow him up and that will be Elder Antonio, who is my batch who is also the one who referred Sister Elaine to us. They are both friends from Davao. Sister Elaine is doing amazing. I think Elder Antonio will actually get to baptize her because he is going to be in the zone next transfer. It will be a great experience for both of them. Anyways, today I really don't have a lot of time to email. I have to send a huge report to the assistants of all the returned less actives in the zone since last January. It's going to take a while because there's a little bit over 100 of them! In our area, we have had over 20 return since I have been here, meaning the people who were less active came to church 4 consecutive weeks. We have really been focusing on less active work for a while now and it's been going really great. Last week we had another Tatay, Brother Soponasky come back after being inactive for about 3 years. He is doing great too. He even came to church last week early so he could help set chairs up! He is doing awesome! :D Oh yea, I bought a new camera. I bought an Olympus VG-170. It's an awesome camera. I will send pics as soon as I get the chance. It will probably be in Naic though. Also, my shoes that I bought at the begining of this transfer tore really really bad. So I had to buy some rubber shoes. Haha. I like the shoes I have now. They are just rubber and won't tear easily. It was funny though I was walking and then realized they had torn really really badly. I will send a pic of how bad it had torn. Anyways. I really have to go. I don't have anymore time. Everything I got at the missionary mall is pretty good for the most part. No complaints. I have only bought 2 other white shirts since I have been here. That's about it though. I might buy a few things before I leave because everything is really cheap here. Thank you so much for everything I hope you all have a great week! I love you guys! Elder Gagnon! :D

September 10th, 2012

FHE with the Moquerio family

Hard at work....

Mandaluyong district and us, bowling! :D

FHE with The Pardoncillo family

Hello Family! We had another amazing week in Makati! I was a little bit sick with a cough, which I had during ZLC. It has gotten quite better now though. Things are going so great in Makati. I don't really want to leave. We have a lot of great things happening in our area and in the zone and it's too bad because I probably won't be here to see it all happen. Next week is transfer and Elder Munk told me last night that my time is for sure up in Makati. I'm pretty sure my next area will be my last one. I'm really anxious to see where it will be. At the same time though I'm kinda disappointed I won't be here for another transfer. I could definitely stay one more. I actually want to see if you guys could maybe guess where I'm going. It could be one out of 11 zones Cavite, Dasmarinas, Las Pinas, Makati East, Manila, Naic, Narra(Palawan) Pasay, Paranaque, Puerto Princesa (Palawan) and San Gabriel. It could be any of those 11 zones. President also mentioned that there will be a few zone leaders training new missionaries next transfer because we have a lot of new missionaries coming in. I'm excited to see where I will go. Well, last week we had our zone activity. We had a zone dinner at Sister Neneng Menesses (R.S President) house in our area, then we sang. It was really kool. People from outside were looking through the window and were wondering why there were a bunch of people singing in her house. It was a fun night. Also, that day we went bowling with the Mandaluyong district. It was fun. Bowling is a bit different here. There are no computers that keep track of the score, we had to write it down and the balls are really really small. It was really fun though. Elder Declaro won. It was a really fun day. I still have to get the pictures from Sister Menesses camera so I can send those pics from the dinner home. The people we are teaching in Makati 2nd are doing amazing. We even found more people to teach. We have a never ending list of people who want to be taught in our area. We are always busy with going to appointments and teaching a lot of lessons. It's really really great. Last week, we found someone who was really really prepared. His name is Tatay Rolando and his wife Sister Juliet. We found them at a community service project where the community used the chapel for doing free health checks. We gave out pamphlets and copies of the Liahona and The Book Of Mormon. We spoke to Tatay Rolando at the place, and invited him and his wife to attend church. Tatay came and loved it. We had an appointment with him that night where we found out that he has been really happy but at the same time thinks that something is missing in his life. He also mentioned that he felt at home while in the church. We taught him a lesson about the gospel and committed him and his wife to baptism on the 13th of October. They are going to do great. Every week we have found new people to give baptismal dates to. So far we are now at 15. Elaine is also really close to baptism. She should be on the 22nd of September if everything goes great. It's too bad I probably won't be here though.... Then we also have Sister Janet, who is doing great. Brother Albert, Brother Joel, who are also doing really great. Albert still has trouble with the word of wisdom but it is going down. Joel needs to get married, which we are still working on. Then we have Sister Anna, who is also doing amazing. She also needs to be married. Next week, her husband, brother Marlon will be fully active again in church. We are really really excited for them, they are even finally talking about marriage, which is just amazing. It's been great seeing them grow as a family. We actually had a family home evening with them last night which went great! :D Well I don't have a whole lot of time left. I have a few things I have to fill out and stuff. Things are going great though. Oh, Tell Sherece, congrats on her call! And good luck! Also, that's too bad about the whole thing with Quebec. I guess I might not be going home in 5 months after all, if you guys move to Ottawa! Haha. That's fine. Thank you so much for everything and for all the updates and good luck mom with being a teaching assistant. I'm sure you will do great! Anyways have a great week! :D Love, Elder Gagnon

September 3rd, 2012

Hello Family! Things have been going great here in Makati. Elder Kunzler and I have both been working sooo hard! We are starting to have too many people to teach. We are always busy everyday teaching a lot of people. Last week for the first time in my whole mission we taught over 50 lessons in a week. It's just been insane! We are still making sure to always find new people to teach though. We have a goal to always find 10 good new investigators every week. Last week we got 12. We found this one new guy named Edward, we found him while teaching a less-active family. He is really receptive. We set a return appointment with him yesterday, we taught and set a baptismal date for this coming October. He seems pretty sure too. We're really excited for him. Sister Elaine is also doing really great. We taught her the Word of Wisdom and the Articles of Faith last week and she has just been doing amazing with everything. We really think she is going to get baptized this coming September 22nd. We also have Sister Janet who will be getting baptized on the coming September 15th. That will probably be my last baptism here in Makati. She has been doing great and she is really excited for her upcoming baptism. We are also teaching Brother Arthur. He is really really smart and is doing really great as well. We do not have a goal date with Brother Arthur yet, but he is doing really great. We are also teaching that family of 7, the Sanchez family. They are also doing really great. Just like everyone else. Oh, President Stucki worked with Elder Kunzler and I last week. He wants to work with all the zone leaders before the transfer ends. We brought him to 3 appointments and they were all really amazing and great lessons. We brought him to people who could understand english so Elder Kunzler and I wouldn't have to translate. One of them even came back to church. It was really great to see. President Stucki is just amazing and I was really happy to work with him last week. Anyways, that's really too bad about the whole Quebec wanting to separate thing.... Do you really think it will happen? I was also really dissappointed to hear about Dan Rosenberg... I hope he's doing alright. I won't worry about moving to Ottawa yet, but that's pretty crazy with everything that is going on. We have a zone activity later today at a member's house, but we're also going bowling today with the Mandaluyong district. Something that is funny here in this computer shop is there is a Nanay right beside Elder Kunzler and she is on skype but she is really really loud. haha. It's kinda funny. Oh yea, I think I'm just going to buy a new camera.. I still didn't get mine fixed yet... Also, there was no earthquake here. It didn't even rain that much here. Mindanao (which is where the earthquake was) is pretty far... That's where Elder Chiong and Elder Berse are from. I hope they're ok... Anyways I'm really sorry but my time is up. I had to do a bunch of other things today so it took up quite a bit of our time here at the shop... I will write a lot more next week. Please tell Granny and Auntie Lynn I said Happy Birthday, and Richard and Kathryn that I said "hello" and hope they are doing great! I love all of you so much and hope you have a great week! Take care! :D Love, Elder Gagnon

August 27th, 2012

Me with Elder Walch and Elder Kunzler on top of our roof for transfer day before Elder Walch got sent to Palawan.

This is before Rosemar left to go back home to Bacolod. It's us, Rosemar, Jacob and Jarad

This is the morning before the baptism at the temple tour with Janet, Sister Bunny and her son, Flynt.

Elona's baptism!:D That is the Nanay she works for.

Hello! First of all, that's really great about Justin getting his mission call! I'm really excited for him! I still haven't received any pictures though... That's ok though. I can't believe he leaves so soon. He is going to be a great missionary. I'm going to make a video once I get my camera totally fixed. I haven't been able to really find a good place where I could get it fixed though... I'm going to look around a little more today. Don't worry! :D It has been a really really amazing week though. Elder Kunzler and I have been working so hard in our area. We also went on exchanges with our district leader, Elder Grob. Elder Grob is a great missionary, he worked in our area because he had a baptismal interview to do and I worked in his with Elder Pugmire in his area. Something that's different about their area is that while running an area, they are also the finance and supplies office elders, so they don't get to work in their area a whole lot like everyone else. Elder Pugmire and I had a really good day though, we taught a few less actives and found a few really good new investigators. We were even able to commit one to baptism! :D Sister Alona was baptized last week! :D Which is really great! She was so happy and she was really emotional when she bore her testimony. That has always been one of my favorite things being here is hearing new converts bear their testimony of the restored Gospel. Something that was also amazing about the baptism was that Sister Reyna Spoke! :D She had her talk on baptism and did such an amazing job! She has been doing really great. Elder Kunzler and I both think she is going to go on a mission in a year. We even jokingly (but seriously) brought it up once, we said that she will be a missionary and all she said was "Sana.." which means hopefully. It would really be the best if she went. Something else that is really awesome about our area is that we have a ton of people to teach. I actually don't have enough time to write everyone in here.... Elaine is doing great, so is Albert, and Janet, they all came to church last week. I think they will all be baptized too in September. We also have the Saberola family again, they now have baptismal dates, we have 2 other investigators, Sheryl and Margie, who both have baptismal dates, Brother Ramon has a baptismal date, so does sister Anna, who has been taught for 2 and a half years. Actually she has been really amazing. In our area book she has 5 teaching records she has been taught by countless missionaries, including myself and Elder Duero(we stopped teaching her because she was not progressing and went on vacation for a while)...... Well about a week ago, we decided to try and visit her. So we did. Her problem by the way is her boyfriend, who has been inactive for a really long time(years...) and they aren't married, but living together but do not have plans to be married. The first lesson we just reviewed a few things with her about the restoration and about baptism and gave her a goal date. Then the next lesson we felt really impressed to talk about family prayer. I also did a little drawing on the back of my planner that showed her when 2 people focus what they do on teachings of Jesus Christ, they become closer together. We committed her to have family prayer every night and promised her if she would there would be peace at home and her husband would actually have a desire to come back to church. We visited Sister Anna a few days later and right away she told us that she had tried doing family prayer for the last 5 nights and she told us that Brother would come to church that Sunday... and he did! It was a really great spiritual experience. We never even taught Brother Marlon(Anna's husband) once but yet he found that desire to come to church. It was really amazing! It's really just the power that the teachings of Christ has on people. I will send you a pic of the drawing I did. Oh and sister Anna came to the temple tour last Saturday. I really think she could also be baptized this September, but it really depends on Brother Marlon... Another new investigator we have, who has been to church 3 times now, is Brother Joel. I guess he isn't that new...Anyways his girlfriend was less active but has been to church 3 times now and Brother Joel has a baptismal date for September as well. We just need to make sure they get married first, which is what they want. Another great thing, was yesterday, we only had found 5 new investigators for the whole week but our goal was 5. So we did some finding after church and found a new family of 7 who want to be taught and agreed to be baptized on the first lesson! We do not have a date yet, but we are really excited about this family, they are the Sanchez family. We are hoping they will progress, they were really receptive in the first lesson. And also we have Brother Arthur who is another great investigator. Really receptive and has a lot of questions. The ones I mentioned are the ones that are really progressing and doing great! :D Church was really great too. We had so many less actives and investigators come that some of the active people had to sit outside. The whole church was filled. It was soooo crazy. We had a less active family come, another Tatay came for the first time, then we had 7 investigators there. The chapel was sooo full. We also hit all of our goals last week and hit 91% of the standard of excellence. We would have hit 100% though if we had one more investigator come to church... Anyways so that is about all the really exciting things that happened last week. Oh yea, another great thing is I'm not very tired today, because we really just rested this morning after studies and stuff so this email actually looks like an email! We are working so hard though. A cool thing is we have 12 people committed to baptism on a specific date and I think we might be able to get 8 more(The Sanchez family and Brother Arthur). So we are getting really busy. But it is great! :D That's about all the excitement for me this week. Thank you all so much for your support! Congrats on your call Justin! I will send you an email if I have time today... Also please tell Kameron I love him too and hope he is doing great. Oh and I still don't know if I am going to stay in Montreal... I might just live and go to college on Palawan after the mission. Haha. Just kiddin! I love you all! Have a great week! :D Elder Gagnon

August 20th, 2012

We had a small service project where we just talked about being prepared and 72 hour kits to Barangay officials. We were given t-shirts! :D

Elder Kunzler and I with Sister Angel, one of the head people in Barangay Poblation. :D

Hello Family! This week was a really great week. It started off a little hard but we really ended up with a great week! Last Tuesday we had our zone meeting, we set goals as a zone for the next month of September. Unfortunatly, Makati zone does not look like it will hit it's goal of 20 baptisms for the month of August... We set a lower goal of 15 though for the month of September. I'm pretty sure we can can get that. 15 is still really really high, but not impossible. :D We also taught about the Book Of Mormon and we sang Book Of Mormon stories. Then we practiced introducing the Book of Mormon. It went really well. :D Well last week was really great, we found a lot of new investigators and we were also able to give out more baptismal dates to people, we now have 8 people with baptismal dates. Sister Elaine, who we have been teaching for a while now, finally accepted to be baptized on a date! She should be on the 22nd of September. We also have sister Janet and Albert who are doing really good and should be in September. We also have brother Ramon who is new but really wants to change and make things right with God. Then we have Sheryl and Margorie, who we have only taught once, but accepted to be baptized on October 6. So that is the goal date for them. Things are going really good in our area as of right now. I am really excited and happy for Elaine though. We also have Sister Alona getting baptized this coming Saturday and we are very excited for her. She has really come a long way. :D Last Sunday I gave a talk on missionary work and I just went through some small things (mainly living the gospel, praying and having charity) that any of us can do to make a big difference in missionary work. We also went to a baptism in Mandaluyong last Saturday. They had 2 baptisms which was really great! We are going to have a zone activity this transfer. It's been harder to do one in the city because there's not as much to do, but we are finally going to have one this transfer! :D It was really crazy to see all of those pics. Everyone looks different. Haha. Especially Andrew! Kelsey too also looks like she has grown a lot. I didn't even recognize her. I actually think the only one who hasn't changed at all since the last time I saw him was Jason. He still looks the same! :D haha! I'm really excited to hear about Justin's call! I hope it comes this week. I'm still wondering about where he is going to go. Oh yea, I received a Dear Elder from Marie. Please tell her thank you so much for the letter and for everything! That's about it for this week! Please tell Kameron I said congrats for finishing his mission and please thank him for his service! :D That's about it for this week. I don't think I'm going to buy a new camera, I'm going to get mine fixed soon. Anyways thank you so much for everything! Have a great week! I love you! Elder Gagnon

August 13th, 2012

Hello Family! Everything is really good here in Makati. Things are going good, there was a lot of rain, but despite the rain, Elder Kunzler and I got quite a bit of work done... There was a bit of flooding here in Makati though. It wasn't too bad. I felt bad though, because on the day there was flooding we had to take the new missionaries from Provo out to work and on their first day they were in water up passed their knees! I wanted to get pics, but my camera is kinda broken.... I'm going to get it fixed today though so I can take pics. Things are going really great here. I can't wait to hear about Justin's mission call. I'm still hoping he gets sent here to the Manila mission, then maybe I could train him or be in the same zone as him. It would be really cool! :D We did a lot of finding last week, we had some success, we found a new investigator whose name is Joel and he came to church last week. His girlfriend is also a member, but is less active so we are going to be working with both of them this week. Brother Albert is doing really good, so is sister Janet. They won't be getting baptized though, because they both were not able to attend church last week. Elaine was able to go to church though, she is doing great we are going to be finishing the plan of Salvation with her this week. She is progressing really well. So is Sister Alona, She should be getting baptized August 25th. She is doing really amazing. Well, today we have to prepare for our zone meeting. It will be on the Book Of Mormon which will be the focus of the training going on for the month of August. I love the Book of Mormon. I have been reading it through for a while and I just finished Alma3. It's such an amazing book! I'm really sorry I don't have more to write. I know I have gotten bad about writing emails, it's just mostly because I am so tired while at the computer shop and can't remember everything that happened in the last week. If you guys have anything that you want to know about or any questions or anything, that would be great. I'm going to try and be better at keeping a journal this week also and then bring it to the email shop so I can remember things better. Anyways, I'm doing really great and I hope everyone there is doing awesome! I'm excited about Justin's call. I know he will get sent to the right place. I love you guys so much and have a great week! Mahal ko po kayo! :D Elder Gagnon P.S. This is Nancy (Chris' mom)....At the same time Chris was sending this email, I was online on my email sending emails back and forth with him (sort of like an email chat)...Here's a few of the things he had to say... I'm doing really great...really tired. I'm sorry but this won't be a long email... Haha. I know it might sound sad but I feel like I have finally gotten bad at writing good emails. I got to see my anak last week, Elder Villa, so that's really kool. My camera is broken though, so there won't be any pics. I'm going to get it fixed later today. I just saw the pics... Andrew is HUGE!!! How tall is he, and what is his weight? How is he doing? Oh yea, Poor Elder Villa, my anak got sent from Palawan to Manila, which is like the most populated zone in the mission, so I feel kinda bad for him :( I'm sorry about the emails. Being a missionary is just soooo tiring, I can't even think when I'm at the computer shop.... There was flooding here. it got pretty high to, way up my leg. It was kool because we had new missionaries work with us from Provo and that was their first taste of the Philippines. I'm going to write a better email next week I promise. We have a zone meeting to prepare for tomorrow, also, Elder Kunzler and I were both sick so we weren't even able to work in our area till Wednesday and that was the day we took the new missionaries out to work. My camera is a beast it just has a little something wrong with it and it can't take good pics.... I'm going to get it fixed later today... :D We were both just sick with a fever. We both feel great now. We just think that everytime one of us would get sick, we would only rest for a bit, then go out and work and then we would get sick worse, so we didn't work Monday night or all day Tuesday and on Wednesday we only got out at 3pm. So yea. We both feel a lot better now... I'm just about to finish the email. It's a little short, but it's only because we stayed inside for a while. How is Ben doing? What about Kameron? Or Derek? Is Derek doing the whole blog thing? Also, when does Ben come home? Next month? Yes I'm still here, I just finished emailing President Stucki. Haha. It's raining outside pretty hard. We're going to wait a bit before we go outside... that's good about everyone... Do you guys have any questions for me? I'm still really happy to be here in Makati. What about Andrew, does he have a calling in church? Does Justin still have his calling? Also, how is your calling and the missionary work in Montreal doing? I'm glad to hear about your calling. I'm actually really excited to go back home, not just to go home but to do missionary work when I come back! I'm hoping that I will be able to work with the missionaries a lot when I get back. Anyways, I really gotta go. I have a ton of things to do and prepare. I love you guys so much and it was great talking to you for a bit. Have a great week! Love you! :D Elder Gagnon

August 6th, 2012

Hey Everyone! It's transfer announcement day and guess what??? I'm staying in Makati for another 6 weeks! I'm really happy. Elder Kunzler and I have been doing great work and things are going really great. Last week actually we had ZLC and President asked what I thought about staying in my area for another transfer. I told him I would be happy no matter what happened and we stayed! Other kool news though is the Sisters in Mandaluyong 1st are getting pulled out and they are putting 2 new elders or sisters in there. And Elder Comish is going to my old zone Las Pinas as a zone leader. So that's always kool. And Elder Baltazar is no longer our AP. He is going to another zone and he will be training a new missionary. Elder Quintana is our new A.P. He is in a picture when I was on Palawan. He was there in Puerto when I was in Roxas. :) Things with our investigators are going really good. Sister Alona is doing great! She is really understanding everything and is always coming to church. She will be getting baptized this coming August 18th. Sister Janet was also supposed to get baptized this month, but she wasn't able to come to church last week, so we have to move her date till September. We have a few new potentials that we are working with a few goal dates, but as of right now I think Alona and Janet are the 2 who are really making great progress. It's been raining a lot here lately. It's getting really hard to stay dry... I need new shoes. I'm going to buy some rubber ones today, I'm tired of my socks always being wet. It floods a little bit here. It hasn't gotten higher than our ankles yet though. I know it's a lot worse in Mandaluyong. The Sisters in that area are all having a hard time and work has been a little bit low. Everything in Makati is pretty good though. :D I don't have a lot to say. Oh yea, Elder Glodo is going home this Wednesday. He is done his mission. I spoke to him on the phone earlier. He was one of my favorite companions. Last Thursday was ZLC. It went really well. We are going to be focusing on the BOM this month. We have a 3 hour zone meeting we are supposed to prepare for tomorrow so we are still trying to figure out what we are going to teach and practice. It's going to be great though. Also how did you and Justin do on those questions I sent last week? Were they too hard? Also that's really great about Justin's papers possibly coming in this week. You should maybe send a video of him opening it or something. If not though that would be fine. How is everyone else doing by the way? Has Kameron come home yet? If he has tell him I love him and I hope he loved his mission! :D Also is Ben really coming home next month? I can't even believe that. I'm really really nervous about going home now. It's coming really fast. Anyways, that's about it for this email. Sorry it's really short. Things are going great over here. Happy Aniversary Mom and Dad! Also Happy Birthday Dad. I love both of you guys and hope you all have an amazing week going camping! Take Care! Love you! Elder Gagnon

July 30th, 2012

Elder Kunzler, Elder Grob and I at Reynas baptism 2 weeks ago!

Some of the Makati zone at Brother Holmes house a few weeks ago! :D... The one sitting at the bottom right is Elder Young, and his great great grandfather is Brigham!

Elder Kunzler and I with a New tatay we found at an FHE! :D

Charlene's Baptism last Sunday

Hello family! It's been another great week in Makati! We were supposed to have a zone activity today but it ended not happening so I can finally rest on a Pday and not have to worry about anything at all! :D I was really happy to read you guys' email! I'm really excited for Justin. Time goes by so fast. I can't believe that this is the last week of this transfer. I have made a lot of good progress this transfer both as a missionary and in the area, Makati 2nd.. I think this may be my last week though here in Makati. I can just sort of feel it.. Not this Wednesday, but the next Wednesday is transfer day. However, we may find out on Thursday who is transferring because that is ZLC and all the zone leaders are going to be talking about transfers.. If not though, I will know next Monday when I receive the transfer announcements for the zone. I'm excited to see what will happen though. I want to stay because I love the area, but I wouldn't mind leaving because it would be something new and exciting. I love Makati 2nd though. Our investigators are doing great. Charlene was baptized last Sunday. She has a lot of good friends in the church and she even said she wants to serve a mission. So she is awesome! Sister Elaine is doing really good, she just has some things that need to be worked out first. But she is awesome! We also have Janet who came to our ward activity last Saturday. We played sports. There were pictures taken... but not by me.. I will get them from Sister Neneng... It was really fun. Um.. Albert is also doing great! He really wants to quite smoking and he will. It will just take some time. We are actually trying to find more Tatays that we can teach in our area so we can teach more families. I love being a missionary. It's the most tiring thing, but really amazing. I don't have the test that we did last week. But I do remember some of the questions. The point of the test was to see how familiar people are with the Book Of Mormon. It says in PMG P.180-181 that when you use scriptures, you should identify who is speaking and really introduce the scripture. So we asked a few questions that mostly had to do with the background of scriptures that we might use often in our teaching in the Book of Mormon. We also did another test, where we asked one person to stand and without looking at their PMGs, state the order of doctrinal principles in both lesson 1 and 2 in Chapter 3 of PMG. Here are some of the questions that we asked. . It's probably best to not read PMG before you do this... Just maybe look at the references after you take the test. XD Who is speaking in Alma 34 about the Purpose of life? (Less than half got the answer right...) Who is testifying of Christ in Nephi 10-11?(Based out of page 48 of PMG I think... Or page 47... It's at the beginning of L.2 in chapter 3 of PMG) Who is teaching about Agency in 2 Nephi 2? (Nobody got this one.... :@) What chapters in the Book Of Mormon does King Benjamin teach of Christ? Where in the Book Of Mormon does it make clear the Purpose of the Book Of Mormon(Name 2 places)? Who is Teaching of the pure love of Christ in Moroni 7? What is being taught in 2 Nephi 31? (easy question...) Which prophet does Jacob quote in Jacob 2 relative to the Allegory of the Olive tree? (One Of my Fav chapters in BOM! :D.... Nobody got the answer to this though...) There were a few others... But I forgot them. The scores were unfortunately really really low.. I guess the questions were not the easiest either. It was still fun though and people enjoyed it. :D We have another zone meeting next week. I will take pictures then. I do have a few pictures from the last few weeks though. My camera is a beast. It's still going really strong. Oh, please tell Kaylia, that I received her letter last week. It was nice to hear from her. Please tell her I will answer her questions as soon as I can. She didn't write a return address so it's going to be a bit hard... But please tell her that I said thank you! :D That is about it for this week, my time is almost up and I am still going to send pictures. Have a great week everyone! :D Love ya! Elder Gagnon

July 24th, 2012

Hello Family! Last week was a good week. We had interviews with President Stucki yesterday so today became our Pday. Things are going really good. President told me I might be staying in Makati! I'm really excited! Things are going really well in our area. Even though I have been here for a long time I still really want to stay. If I did stay this would become my longest area in the mission. Last week we had our zone meeting. It went really well. We made a test on the Book of Mormon of things that were in PMG and we were a bit disappointed with how well the zone did... The highest was a 7/10... Some of the questions were a little bit hard, but it was still all based on things in PMG, so it should have been a lot better.... Anyways we also talked about daily planning and why it is so important and how to tell if you daily plans are effective. It was a good meeting. Our investigators are doing really well. We will have another baptism this Sunday after church. Sister Charlene will be getting baptized. We are really excited for her. We also had a baptism last Saturday, Sister Reyna was baptized. She is doing really great and will be a strong member. She also wants us to start teaching her brother, but he is never around. Hopefully though we will be able to teach him. All the pictures that were taken are on Elder Kunzlers camera. I will get the pics from him though. It's also really kool that Derek is now a missionary. I'm really excited for him. If you could, please send me his mailing information so I could write him. I'm really excited for him. I'm also really excited for Justin. I really hope he is studying hard. He will need it no matter what mission he serves in. Also, I have been getting sick and exhausted more often, it's mostly because there's a lot of rain though and floods. We're just really tired from working really hard. Don't worry though, I'm eating fine and I'm taking vitamins. :D To answer more questions, yes I did get my guitar back and I still play it a bit. I haven't really used the CDs that much though. It would be better just to maybe buy just a USB that he can use and plug into speakers. That's what we use now when we want to play music and it's good. There are those though, who use Ipods and speakers. Just make sure his mission president knows about it though. Also, I never really used the big blanket I got, but that's just because its 100000 degrees out here. I also never sewed anything because I can get that done here for really cheap. I use the shoe shine every once in a while, whenever we have interviews or zone conferences or other big meetings. Everything else I think I use... I'm not sure though. I think if you just sent Justin out with 7 white shirts, a few pair of pants, a lot of pairs of socks, a good razor to shave, tooth paste, PMG and a compact sized quadruple he would be fine. He can mostly buy everything else in the place wherever he will be assigned. (Unless he gets assigned in Palawan, then maybe buy him a few ties, and bed sheets.) That's about it though. I love this mission. Yesterday I had to text Elder Comish because I needed a number from someone in the Cavite zone. He texted it back and I said "Thanks batch! Love ya Batch!" Then He texted back and said "Love ya too batch. 6 Months na lang! :D" It was pretty funny and it made me realize that yesterday, I have exactly 6 months left in the mission. I'm really not excited to come home. I mean I am, but I just don't know what I'm going to do once I come home. I want to start thinking about what I'm going to do but there's no time. It's just really amazing how fast time goes by. I love my mission! I love serving and working hard and teaching and everything about it. It's been one of the greatest and happiest things I've ever done. Anyways, that's about it for this week. It was a great week. Thank you so much for all of your support! I love all you guys! Take care! Love, Elder Chris Gagnon

July 16th, 2012

Batch from the MTC - Elder Morris, Elder Comish and Elder Gagnon

Hello family! We had another excellent and tiring week. Elder Kunzler and I have been working so hard in our area. Things are going really amazing too! Last week we were able to commit 2 more people to baptism on a specific date. We committed Sister Janet to August 25th, who is a friend of sister Bunny, a member here. And we also committed Sister Elona to August 4th. Both are doing really well and really progressing. Sister Janet even came to church without her friend, Sister Bunny. Things are looking great in August for Makati 2nd. This month we are going to have 2 this week. Sister Reyna is going to be baptized this Saturday and then we have Sister Charlene on Sunday. They are both really excited and we are really excited for both of them. Also doing really good is Brother Albert, He still has word of wisdom problems but it's going down a lot. He is doing really great. We are also still teaching Sister Sheila who is doing pretty good and should be baptized on August 18th. Then we also have Sister Elaine, who came to a baptism in Mandaluyong last Saturday again and she loved it. I think her going to those is really great because she gets to see the love of the members to each other. She also gets to meet a bunch of other missionaries which is really kool! :D Last week we also had ZLC. It was really good. All the batch that I came with to the Philippines with was there. Elder Comish is still the Zone leader in Cavite, and Elder Morris the Zone leader in Narra. It's always great to see batch! The ZLC was about a lot of different things. President said that we really need to be inviting people to be baptized more often. We also spoke about faith and how we can retain new converts to the church. It was a good ZLC and a lot of what we discussed is what we will be discussing in our zone meeting tomorrow. Elder Kunzler and I are still not 100% sure what we are going teach, but it will be a great lesson! :D Well, I don't have much else to say. I need to take a nap today. Things are getting crazy in Makati. Elder Kunzler and I have both been working harder than ever. Everyday we have just come home exhausted. And it's usually like that but even more so this transfer. I'm sorry if my emails have been really short lately. It's just because I'm really tired though and can't really think about what to write. I think I might bring my journal with me and just copy what I write in there and send it to you guys. That's really great about Justin sending in his mission papers. He is going to be a fantastic missionary! The only advice I would have for him is to memorize Preach My Gospel and read a chapter of the Book Of Mormon and the New Testament every day. Elder Kunzler thinks he is going to England and I think he will be going to Germany. We both say he is going to Europe though. I'm also really excited for Chris Morales. I could see him serving in......This mission! Haha. Maybe he will and I will train him! That would be really kool. I know he will serve in the Philippines though. Possibly San Pablo mission or Quezon City. It would be sooo kool if he served in the Manila mission though! Keep me updated on everyone who is about to leave and where they will be serving. That is about it for this week though. I love you guys so much! Thank you for painting my room, oh and please tell Christian Ocay that I was happy to hear from him and also I met someone who knew him when he was serving a mission who lives on Palawan. She's also an RM and they were in the same district. I can't remember her name because she was in the Puerto Branch. Anyways please thank him for the letter. Have a great week everyone. I love you! Elder Chris Gagnon

July 9th, 2012

Elder Kunzler and Elder Gagnon with the "McDo guy"

Elder Gadberry, Elder Grob, Elder Gagnon, Elder Kunzler and Elder Pugmire at Chilis! :D

Hello family! Last week was really great here in Makati, we're working really hard and great things are happening in our area! We didn't have a lot of time to work in our area last week because of meetings with the stake and stuff, but we still got a ton of work in and had a lot of success. Things with Elder Kunzler and I are going great! Last week Elder Kunzler and I taught district meeting in the Mandaluyong district, because their district leader, Elder Grob, was getting an operation. So we taught about chapter 4 in PMG and focused mostly on relying on the spirit. It was a good district meeting. After that we were told that we had a stake coordination meeting, but it ended up getting cancelled. So we went to the stake center for nothing.... It was too bad because we cancelled some appointments that night.. We had stake coordination the next day though and it went great! We just focused on how to improve the missionary work in the stake and what problems the missionaries are facing and what problems the leaders are facing with the some of the missionaries in the zone and what we could do to improve those kinds of things. We also reported the work for the last few months and had a great meeting. We also got to go to the temple last Wednesday which of course is always great. But we won't get to go for a while now because it will be closed for a month. Oh and last Friday, Elder Kunzler turned one year in the mission! So we went to Chilis and spent some money on a lot of food! We went with Elder Grob and the other office elders because it was also Elder Grobs 1 year in the mission day. We have a lot of people we are teaching that are really progressing great! Elaine came to a baptism with us in Mandaluyong and loved it. She made friends too with Sister Campoto, who is in our zone and just loved the whole baptism. She also came to church the next day. We are also teaching Sheila, who is doing sooooo great now. She is living the word of wisdom, and was able to come to church for the first time last Sunday. Elona, who we are teaching came to church last Sunday also. Albert didn't come because he had something to do but he has committed to quit smoking once and for all. Reyna is doing great and will be baptized in 2 weeks, Charlene will be baptized in 2 weeks. We are teaching a lot of less actives who are also coming back to church. The work is just going great. Elder Kunzler and I make a great team! Our teaching is going really well and we are working really hard. Also, last week we hit almost all of the standards of excellence. We almost didn't get the standard for new investigators (10) because last Sunday we only had 6, but then we visited a less active member, and found a family of 5 who now wants to be taught and wants to come to church! So we ended up having 11 new investigators for the week! It was just a really amazing week. I really think this new family will progress too. They are really receptive and have questions and want to come to church! :D This week we have a ton of people to go back to and teach. We also have ZLC this week which I am excited for. ZLC is always really great! I don't have much else to write in this email. I love you guys so much! Thank you so much for your support! I hope you all have an amazing week! Love you! Elder Chris Gagnon! :D

July 2nd, 2012....Happy Canada Day!

New companion Elder Kunzler

Elder Berse, Elder Bueno, Elder Fisher and Elder Gagnon at the DiVisoria Mall

Elder Gagnon, Elder Querebin and Elder Berse at the mission office

About to attempt eating the "Big Burger" in under 5 mins. Elder Querebin was the only one who succeeded and got his picture on the wall!

With MTC missionaries they worked with for a day

Hey Family, I hope you enjoyed the quote I put in the subject box. I heard it last week from Elder Kunzler and I really liked it! :D Last week was really tiring. We didn't get to work in our area till Thursday but the work we did was really great. I got sick last week too so we only got one lesson last Saturday. Elder Kunzler is an awesome companion! We're getting along great! We teach really well together and we're both working really hard. He was also really happy that we became companions. We're going to do great this transfer! Our investigators are doing really great! By the way things are looking, we are going to have at least 2 baptisms this month. We are going to shoot for 6 though. We have a lot of potentials. Sister Reyna is doing great! She has been to church for the last 2 weeks so we are looking at the 21st for her baptism. She is already really strong and reading the Book Of Mormon everyday. We also have Sister Charlene who came from Leyte. She was taught before and really wants to get baptized, so we have her scheduled for the 22nd. She is also really strong and has a testimony that Jesus is the Christ and restored his church through the prophet, Joseph Smith. Sister Sheila is also doing great. We extended a baptismal date to her in August. She is doing great though and wants to be taught everyday. So we're going to try and visit her as much as possible. There were 2 weeks where we couldn't visit her and she realized how much more she really needed to be taught and how bad she wants the gospel in her life. We are going to try and help as much as we can. Then we have Albert who is also doing great, we didn't get to teach him, but he came to church and said that he was doing great and that he wants to hopefully be taught tonight so we are going to him tonight. Things are really great in Makati, we're seeing a lot of great things happening in our area. I'm really grateful to serve here now with Elder Kunzler. Oh yea, another great thing about him.... His favorite band is Muse! :D Also, he is from Utah, He is also part American Indian and the anak of Elder Duero. People here say he looks like Jacob from Twilight. We actually saw each other when we were on Palawan and Elder Duero talked about him quite a bit. We're gonna have a great transfer. Oh yea, I was sick a little bit last Saturday but now I feel great! Things are going good with my health. Oh yea. The MTC exchanges happen once every transfer. Since the MTC is so close to us, occasionaly they will do a proselyting activity with actual missionaries like me. So Elder Berse and I took 2 missionaries out teaching actual people. It was a good experience. Also the Temple tour is just a tour around the temple with sister missionaries teaching about the temple and other things about the church. It's a great experience! That's about it for this week. I have to get going now! I love you all and hope you have a great week! :D Love, Elder Chris Gagnon

Farewell Elder Berse and Welcome Elder Kunzler!

Carlos Baptism Elder Berse's last Sunday Missionaries from old Puerto district Palawan Makati missionaries Elder Berse, Sister Lilly, Carlos, Justin, Reyna and Elder Gagnon Little boy who wanted his picture taken :) Saying farewell to Elder Berse Hello Family! Last week was super great! It ended perfectly with Carlo being baptized! It was a great experience for everyone who attended. :) We also had a ton of other things to attend and stuff but the week was really great! Elder Berse and I worked really hard for our last week together and we went 91% green on the standards of excellence! That was the highest I've ever gotten since being here in Makati. We also taught a ton of lessons last week. Which was great. We had a really great, busy and hard working week! Last week on Wednesday, we got to go to the temple and we get to go again next week. It was great. Then after that, we had MTC exchanges. I worked with Elder Oquaman. We taught a lot of lessons that day and it was really good. Elder Oquaman will be a great missionary. He started off really shy but once he got going it was really good and we had a really great exchange. Last Thursday we had a training meeting with President Stucki. It was super amazing! We got to hear great instruction from him and from our APs. I learned a lot. I think the biggest thing I got out of it was that I need to really do my best at being more obedient. I'm not really bad or anything but sometimes with the morning schedule I don't do my best. I don't sleep in or anything but it's just with the morning studies sometimes, and exercise. I've made it a goal to really do my best this transfer at being 100% obedient to the morning schedule. It was a really good training meeting. Last Friday was the only day where we actually got a full day of work. We taught a lot of lessons to less actives and to new investigators. We have a pretty good teaching pool as of now. We also contacted three referrals that day, who were not very interested. But other than that it was a good day! :D Last Saturday we had the temple tour, which was really cool. It was my first time. We took Sister Lilly, who is a member, Carlo, his younger brother Justin and Reyna, who is a new investigator, who is also awesome! We went and toured the temple and saw other missionaries and it was just a great day! The spirit was really strong. Later that night, Carlo was baptized! We made the program for the baptism and sang I am a Child of God. Elder Berse did the baptism because it would be his last baptism of his mission. It was a good service because Carlos dad came. He was going to come to church too the next day but something came up so he couldn't come. After that we had a dinner appointment at the Nellas family and had fish and fried chicken. Last Sunday we had 8 investigators at church! It was really awesome! We have had good sacrament attendence for the last few weeks too. The rescue mission has been really good too. We rescued 3 people last month, which was great! Tatay Moises, who went inactive for about a month and a half came back to activity this week. We're just trying to get him the priesthood now. That night Elder Anderson slept at our house, he came from Coron and we had a dinner appointment at the Mutuc family. It was a good night. Then today I said good bye to Elder Berse. It was funny as we were in the mission office, Elder Berse saw the transfer board and saw that Elder Kunzler was going to be my new companion, which is kool! :D Last week was crazy too. We were asked if we had to close an area in the zone which one would we close, so I told President to close Manda 1b(Elder Bueno and Elder Fisher) because they were doing ok and their area was really small. So he replied the next day and told me that he would close Manda 1A(Sister Mohrmon and Sister Roofi), which doing really well, and the Manda 1B elders would just take over their area. I told sister Mohrmon that night and she pleaded that it wouldn't close, so I text back President asking if there was anything else he could do. Then the next morning he texted me and told me that he pondered and prayed about what I asked him and decided to close Manda 1B and the Manda 1A Sisters would take over their area. It was really cool. Anyways, so Makati zone is getting smaller. Hehe. There will now only been 7 companionships, 1 being the APs and 1 being the office elders. Then there's us, the Manda 2A elders, Manda 1 sisters, Makati 3 sisters and Manda 3 sisters. One of the office elders this transfer will be a district leader as well. And that's about it! I don't know who is coming into the zone yet but we will know on Thursday which is transfer day. Until then, I don't get to work in my area. I will work in Manda 1B with Elder Fisher. And that is it! :D Well, things are pretty crazy. It's transfer week again... I'm happy Elder Kunzler will be my new companion. I saw him last temple tour and joked with him saying he is going to be my companion. Well, I guess it wasn't a joke! :) Our investigators are doing amazing. We're going to go for 5 baptisms this transfer, hopefully 3 in July and 2 in August. Right now we have sister Elaine, who was a referral from my batch, Elder Antonio, she came to church last week and loved it. We haven't taught her a full lesson yet but we have visited with her 2ce. She is super awesome and loved coming to church last week. We also have sister Reyna, who is Carlos aunt, She is doing great, she has a baptismal date for the 21st of July. She came to church last week and to the temple tour and to the baptism. She is doing awesome! Her Brother, Tata, is also doing great. He wasn't able to come to church, but he is interested and also doing really well. Then we also have Elonia, who is a referral from the Mutuc family. She also loved church and we will be teaching her a lesson on Friday. We have a plan to baptize her on July 21st. Then we also have Albert, who came to church and is slowly quitting smoking, he has a goal date for the 21st as well. We are praying that he can quit smoking though. He is doing great though. And that is about it for everyone! Thank you so much for your email, even though I haven't received it yet. I love you guys so much and pray for all of you everyday. I love my mission so much! :D Have a great week! Mahal ko po kayo! :D Elder Chris Gagnon

Week of June 18th, 2012

Hello Family! This week was really good. We found a bunch of new people and we're really increasing our investigator pool which is really what we wanted to do. It's going really well. Last week though Elder Berse got sick so there was one day where we were not able to get as much work done as we wanted to, which was too bad. :( Last week, we had Elder Querubin sleep at our house. He is the zone leader in Puerto and he had to go back home to Ireland because he had a problem with his Visa. So we met him at the mission office last Monday and then he slept at our house that night, came to district meeting the next day, then went home. Haha. He came back last Saturday though. Last Saturday night after stake conference, we went to a place called Burger avenue and they have this challenge where if you can eat this burger in under 5 minutes, you get the burger for free. The burger was HUGE though. I almost finished it, Elder Berse didn't come close, and Elder Querubin ate the whole thing in like 3 minutes. So he got the burger for free, and he got his picture taken, which they will post on a wall. Haha. Anyways, Elder Querubin is a really cool missionary, he was born and grew up here, but moved to Ireland when he was like 10 then came back to serve a mission. When he speaks english though he has an Irish accent, but in Tagalog it's like Filipino, so it's funny. haha. Last week we had stake conference. Last Saturday we had the Adult and Priesthood session and then on Sunday we had a broadcast from Salt Lake which was really good. It was to everyone who lives in Luzon Philippines. Elder Tom Perry spoke about the role of fathers and how important it is and stuff. It was a really good conference. Last week we were able to teach Albert and he is doing really well and will be baptized in July if he can work out his problems with the word of wisdom. :) We also have Carlo getting baptized this Saturday! It will be a good baptism. We are also teaching people who live near to Carlo who are also doing really well. We were not able to teach Sheila last week though which was too bad. Hopefully this week we will be able to teach her. She has been really busy though. Also, last week, we had a new Elder come into the zone. He is in a threesome with Elder Fisher and Elder Bueno in Mandaluyong 1B. He has been really sick though. So they have to keep him near a hospital. His name is Elder Swainson and he is from CANADA! :D Hehe. I got to go on exchanges with him and Elder Fisher last week in their area. He was really sick though, which is too bad. Last week the work in that area was really low and it was because they weren't able to work because Elder Swainson was always sick... This is Elder Berse's last week this week. So next week, him and 3 others from the Makati zone will go home. Since Elder Fisher's companion, Elder Bueno and my companion are going home, I will probably be with him for a few days. Also, since Elder Bueno was the district leader and won't be there to teach District meeting, I will get to teach the district meeting in Mandaluyong on the Tuesday which I'm actually pretty excited for. I haven't taught a district meeting since I've been on Palawan. I've taught zone meetings, but district meeting is different because it's smaller and there are less people and no announcements from President or anything. It will be fun! :D Well that's about it for this week. I don't have a lot of time left to email. Happy Fathers Day Dad! I have a Fathers Day pic that I will need to pick up. I don't have it with me now but I will email it next week. I love you Dad! I love all of you and hope you have an amazing week! :D Elder Chris Gagnon!

June 11th, 2012

Hello Everyone! This email is going to be a little short, I don't have a lot of time to email today. Actually, right now I'm in the Manila zone. Elder Berse wanted to go to a mall where everything is really cheap because he is going home soon. This place is called Di Hello Everyone, this email is going to be a little short, I don't have a lot of time to email today. Actually, right now I'm in the Manila zone. Elder Berse wanted to go to a mall where everything is really cheap because he is going home soon. This place is called Di Visoria and everything here is really really cheap. I bought a few things today. It's a really cool mall. It's super different and there are a lot of things you can buy for really cheap. It's a cool place though. Kinda hard to describe though. I bought a 16G USB for 700P. So now I finally have something to save all my pictures on which is great. I also bought a nice neck tie for 125P. A pair of shorts for 200P and a nice new belt for 250P. Everything looks really new but it's all fake stuff. It's cool though. Anyways, so I spent a bit of money. I will probably come back here when I'm going home to buy some stuff because its really cheap here. Last week was a really good week, we taught a lot of lessons and found a lot of new people to teach. The focus of the mission right now is finding and we're doing a pretty good job at that right now. Last week we found 14 new investigators and had 7 investigators at church. Carlo is doing really good. He will be our only baptism for the month of June. We have a few other potentials in July though, which is good. I can't believe how fast this transfer went by. Elder Berse goes home in 16 days. Hehe. He's pretty excited. It's really weird for me. He has a pretty good idea for what he's going to do when he goes home and I still have no idea what I'm going to do... I'm not too nervous about it though. I know things will work out. Oh yea, last week 2 of our really progressing investigators left and are not coming back. So we referred them to the other mission and hopefully they will get taught where they live. It was too bad though. We're working really hard in our area though. Things are going really well. We didn't get 73% of the standards of excellence last week but we got 62% I think. The zone improved a lot last week too. Things are going really well for the zone. We have only had 1 baptism so far for June and this Saturday and Sunday there will not be any at all because there is stake conference. But for the last week we are looking to have 8 baptisms for the whole zone so that is good. Things went really well with our zone meeting last Tuesday too. We still have our goal to get 100% percent priesthood ordination. And since we made the goal when Elder Duero and I were companions the percentage has gone from 68% to 82%, so we're getting there. :) This week we have plans to give out a lot of baptismal dates for July so hopefully everything goes perfect this week. Last week we also got to go on 2 exchanges. I got to go on exchanges with Elder Young in my area. He was Elder Christie's companion in the MTC. He is a good elder. And we had a good day. We were able to teach Zaldy, who is finally feeling better and is able to get taught again. We taught a good lesson on scripture study because that is the focus of the whole Philippines. It was a good lesson and it was also really good to teach Zaldy again. Later that week I got to go on exchanges with Elder Gadberry, he is also a really good elder. He works in the office so him and his companion don't have a lot of time to go to their area. But we were able to go for a little bit and work. It was also a really good day. Last Sunday we had a really good talk by Sister Corry, she teaches institute and she was asked to speak about the seminary program. It was such an amazing talk. She even had some of her old Sunday school students come up(during the talk) and talk and bear testimony of the seminary program. It was really amazing! One of her students was from Makati east, one now lives in Cavite and one other one lives in Florida and she came here to speak and talk about the seminary program. It was really cool and something that I've never seen anyone do. It definitely made me want to take seminary though. It's a really important program of the church. Anyways I really liked her talk. That was about it for last week. Sorry if this email is short. I gotta go. I'm going to try and send some pictures though. I hope you have a great week! Mahal ko kayo! Elder Chris Gagnon

June 4th, 2012

Dinner Appointment we had at the Dimacali home! :D This is the Makati zone, without the office elders...(I was the only one who didn't know we weren't doing wacky faces or poses. Hehe.) This pic is of the elders on Coron, Elder Anderson and Elder Partridge who slept at our apartment one night. This is Elder Munk and I (with the office elders, Elder Gadberry and Elder Pugmire) at zone conference. We have the same birthday and we got called to celebrate our birthday during the zone conference. Hello Family! This week was really great, we had 2 big meetings, a zone conference and Zone leaders council. Both were really great. We also got a ton of rain last week. There was a day where it was kind of a flood. It was a small flood but still a flood. We ended up going home because it was close and we took our flip flops, rolled up our pants and got to work. There was a lot of rain. It went down after a while though. :) We weren't able to teach a whole lot of lessons last week because of all the meetings and stuff. We still had 8 investigators at church though. Which was awesome! :D Sheilla is still doing really great, we weren't able to teach her but we were able to talk with her over the phone and she is doing awesome! We were also able to speak with Albert and he really wants to get baptized, but he has to stop smoking, so that is where we are with him. We actually have an appointment with him later and hopefully it will go really well. Oh yea, about Steve Martin. We aren't sure what happened. He was really on fire when we first met him and was doing amazing. He actually just disappeared and we don't know where he is. His store is no longer around and we never see him on the corner of our street.... :( Last Tuesday we had our zone meeting. It went really well. We discussed one of my favorite lines in PMG "You cannot convert someone beyond your own conversion" P.182 I think of PMG the last sentence of the 1st paragraph. One of the thoughts I had about that when I was in my first transfer that I wrote down was that "the first convert of your mission should be yourself". So we kind of dicussed that for a while and then we taught about how we can better understand things so that we could teach about things more clearly. Then we had the zone split into 2 groups and identify the "What" and "Why" of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and The Principle of Repentence. Then they shared what they wrote down and I will make a typed copy of what they wrote and give it to the zone. I had a drawing for how we can understand things more clearly, I will show it when I get home. It was a good lesson though. We also discussed the Priesthood for the zone that hasn't yet been ordained. We set a goal that all 1 year converts that can have the priesthood will be ordained by the end of this month. When we made the goal there were a few who said that there are some 1 year converts, that can be priesthood holders, who don't want to be taught or come back to church. So we decided as a zone to fast for them. I really want to make this goal and I know that Makati is definitely able to do it! Well, the other meetings we had were really great. At zone conference, President Stucki spoke about how we need to be always finding new people to teach and we need to be more balanced with finding and teaching. Finding is actually going to be the focus for this whole month of June. So for the practices we did, we practiced a few different finding situations, but we had to do it in English! It was really weird, because I'm not used to teaching or talking or doing any missionary work in English. It was super weird. For the first practice we just had to talk with someone we met on the street, find common ground and get a return appointment. There were 3 other zones at this conference and this practice was a one on one thing. So the cool thing was I ended up getting paired with.....Elder Glodo! Hehe. He's such an awesome missionary. He also goes home really soon, not this transfer, but the next transfer. He is doing great though. I love Elder Glodo. Then for the other practices, it was done in companionships. I got paired with Elder Meyer, he is pretty new in the mission and he is from Indonesia! He's a great missionary. We just practiced talking with less actives and trying to share a message with them for the first time. :D At the end of the conference, the missionaries going home either this transfer or next transfer bore their testimony. There were so many! Elder Berse, Sister Gupta, and Elder Glodo and a lot of others who I know bore their testimony. I was surprised. There's a lot of missionaries going home this transfer... Makati will actually be losing an area because of all the missionaries going home. :( Then last Friday was ZLC. It was really good. President showed a video about football. It's in the movie Facing the Giants and it's when the coach makes the captain do a death crawl. Anyways, he showed that, which was awesome, then at the end President said, "Elders you are the most influential missionaries on the team." It was really epic and the spirit was so strong. Anyways it was a great zone conference and President now expects the zone leaders to baptize every month and hit 73% of the standards of excellence. We're doing pretty good. The last week of the month we were one of the only zone leaders to hit 73% of the standards of excellence. President asked us to stand and then he shook our hands and congratulated us. There were only 4 that got 73%, Cavite(Elder Comish and Duero), Dasmarinas, Makati(Us), and Puerto. I felt so motivated to work really hard and really do my best. It was a great ZLC. Something new though that Elder Comish and I suggested during the ZLC was that the zone meetings should be the week after ZLC instead of the week before so we can share what we learned with the zone right away. Anyways, we now have another zone meeting which we have to prepare for tomorrow so that will be awesome! It's going to be more focused on finding people to teach. Anyways I love my mission! I love everything about it. It's really amazing! I'm really excited for Justin to send in his papers. Just make sure he reads a chapter from the Book Of Mormon, A Chapter from the New testament and a little bit of Preach My Gospel everyday and he will be great! I'm actually going to try and send him an email today. President said it was actually ok for us to email all of our family. So I'm going to try and get an email out to Justin. Anyways, that is about it for this week. I hope you're all doing amazing and I hope you have an amazing week. Take care! Love you! Elder Chris Gagnon

Special zone conference with Elder Nelson...

Mark's baptism

April's baptism

Elder Fisher and I after Friday night exchanges

Merlita Tort, Brother Art, Elder Berse and I at the restaurant in the hotel Brother Art works at.

Hello Family! We had a really amazing week in Makati. Before I get going on that though, Happy Birthday Justin! I hope you're doing great and have an amazing day! I was really sad to hear the news about the Alois. Please tell them I will be praying for them and thinking about them. I am really sorry about the news. To start off, last week we had a special zone conference with Elder Nelson. We were unfortunately, not allowed to take pictures though. Sorry! It was really great though! He invited people up to the stand and asked them questions and tested them on a few things. He asked someone how they would just start talking to someone on the streets, so they practiced and he mentioned that when we introduce ourselves, do not put our hand on the name time. That is something I do sometimes, I'm not sure why but he is right, so now I have stopped doing it! :) He was also able to explain things very clearly and some of the practices they did were really good and funny. I got a lot of notes from the conference. It was definitely a highlight of my mission! Last week we were also able to visit the temple which was great! I love going there. Last week Mark was also baptized. That was also a great experience. He is a really smart kid and really understood everything we taught him. His mom, who is a recent convert, spoke at the baptism and his grandfather was the one to baptize him. It was a great experience for everyone who attended. I will be sending pictures later. Last week we also found a new investigator, her name is Sheilla. She is super awesome! She has quite a few problems in her life right now, but after teaching her for the first time, she said that what we were teaching her was what she needed. The 2 lessons we had were really spiritual and she is really recognizing that she is feeling the spirit. She is doing really well and loves being taught. She also read more than what we left her to read and then had a bunch of questions so I love it when investigators are like that because it makes the lessons more interesting. She was also the second person I have met on my mission who asked what the Urim and Thummim! :D Kennedy wasn't able to be taught last week because he has a new job and has no time anymore. We're not sure what we're going to do. We need to find time to be able to teach him. Carlo is doing well. If everything goes perfect he will be baptized on June 16th. We have a few other new and good investigators too that could be potentials for July. That is about it for this week though. It was a good week. This week we have zone conference and zone meeting. So tomorrow we will meet as a zone and discuss how the Makati zone is doing. Then we will also have a lesson that we will teach about Repentence and the Atonement. For Zone conference we also have to sing a hymn about the Savior, so we will also talk about that during our zone meeting. And that is about it! I hope you guys are doing great! I love my mission so much. It's the greatest thing ever. I hope you guys have an awesome week! :D Love Ya! Elder Chris Gagnon