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| December 18, 2011 |
Thursday, December 22, 2011
12-18-11 E-mail!
Why hello there everyone!
This week was great of course. Got to fly for my 11th and 12th times since leaving the MTC. Put on an embarrassing skit at the mission christmas party, and taught a lesson to the entire police staff here in Coron. Well I gotta go! See you all later!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
There we go, had to get rid of the posers who don't actually read the whole letter. This is for my true followers. haha
But yeah, this week was great! Still kickin it here in Coron. It's crazy how fast its going! On Christmas I'll be about 5 months in the field and 7 months into the mission. Ridiculous. I'm not happy. haha Just kidding, of course I'm happy, but seriously this goes too fast.
So on Monday, we decided to have Family Home Evening (Family night with lesson/games) with the Decleto family, which was kinda random cuz I don't know, that's just not the first family we would think of to have FHE with, but it was awesome! The Decletos are a part member family, and tatay (Dad) seems definitely not interested in the church, but friendly nonetheless to us. But he was there and FHE was great! And I was just pumped cuz he was enjoying himself and the family was having fun together and it was just a good way to start I think for him.
Tuesday was great too. We visited an investigator family but they weren't there, so instead we talked to their eldest son who is awesome! He's tried a bunch of different churches and you can definitely tell he's looking for the truth and it's exciting to tell him that he's found it, but at the same time it's sooo frustrating when people won't even give it a chance. Later, we hit the Jucaban's and Brother Jucaban is reading the Book of Mormon and loving it! He wakes up at 4:30 in the morning to read it before work, cuz he rocks!
Wednesday we were off to Manila! But not before I spilled Mango on my shirt...haha You can't go to Manila with Mango on your shirt! Ugh! But I got it changed and it was all good. The guy that lives across the street from us was rocking a Dave Syverson for Illinois Senate shirt and I saw Carlos Puyol at the airport haha. (editors note: He plays soccer for FC Barcelona. I'm pretty sure he wasn't in Coron.) And then our plane got delayed for 4 hours...oh that's fun stuff...haha But we made it to Manila it was all good! I saw a bunch of friends in the Quezon City Mission at the temple that night it was awesome! Probably almost worth the delay earlier that day.
Thursday was the Mission Christmas party in which the Coron elders performed a skit that was the best of all the performances, "daw." (Not) We hadn't practiced but like once or twice and it went pretty well! It was fun and hilarious. I have a video, but the quality is really poor, and it doesn't fit in the email sorry! The devotional before the party was way good too! And then we had a gift exchange/dirty santa in which my little Coron souvenir thing was well fought over, so I kinda rock. I got a rubix cube, and it's intense! I messed it up to the point that I can't fix it though.. =( haha but it still looks cool! But the best part was that I got to see everyone there and I loved it! Actually I lied the best part was that I grabbed some Krispy Kream at the mall hahaha That's how I role!
Friday, we flew back and we were all exhausted! We'd gotten about 8 hrs of sleep in the past two days, but that's all good. But I had a cool little epiphany thanks to Elder Bagahansol! So how I am, is if I don't know the people very well I'm not as myself as I usually am, and I'm even quieter if it's like a group of people. The bigger the group the quieter I am. So when we teach families for like the first time I usually am afraid to say much, even though I wanna talk. But what I learned is, when I'm playing soccer and basketball I'm almost always the loudest one on the court of field and there's usually a ton of people there of which I don't really know that well, but I'm loud nonetheless. So how much louder should I be when I'm on the Lord's playing field, when souls are at stake instead of wins and losses. So yeah, I try to keep that in mind all the time when I feel scared to talk or whatever. It was sweet.
Saturday we visited this really nice old lady who lives in an awesome house! The toilet even flushes! We shared a little bit with them and it turns out the lady used to always read the Liahona (Church magazine) because of her member friend and then her eldest son loved what we were about and told us to come and share in their weekly police meeting on Monday morning so earlier today we did that and rocked it of course. So that was pretty crazy awesome.
However on Sunday, I was supposed to speak in sacrament meeting and teach in Sunday School, which woulda sucked cuz we had like no time to prepare this week, but I woulda worked out of course. However on Sunday I woke up and I didn't have a voice! haha I had like a cold-ish and it really hurt to talk. So luckily the night before I talked to Tonton about speaking for me cuz it started like Saturday afternoon and he said that was fine. And Elder Bagahansol taught for me. So it all worked out. Also, I've started rocking cereal Sunday! Cuz it rocks! (Wow i use the root word "rock" alllll the time) But I've been doing it for a while but this week I even got Elder Bagahansol to join, so yeah. Rockin it.
So yeah that was pretty much this week. Still "rockin" it here in Coron. Merry Christmas sa inyong lahat! Listen to Star ng Pasko. It's Tagalog but like my favorite song haha. (I'll post the link to Star ng Pasko. KG)
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
0676--0697 -- FHE at the Decletos
0708--0717 -- Fun after district meeting
0724--0733 -- Flying pics
0731 -- DOUBLE RAINBOW ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE SKY
0733 -- Those are rice fields, daw. But I think they might be fish farms instead but idk
0734 -- MAGANDA! I rock.
0736 -- My companion and Elder Butler..? I don't know why he wanted a pic with him. But elder butler rocks!
0737--0741 -- Temple at night
0742 -- I just took this for fun and it turned out really good! It's a flower by the temple
0743 -- gift exchange
0784 -- Me and Sister Afu! We're best friends.
0749 -- The baggage claim at the Coron airport haha
0750 -- Bogs playing with his gift exchange prize
0761 -- Mine, messed up to the point that I can't fix it...haha
0762/0763 -- My mom sent these for my bday from peeps! And now they're in my BR, thanks!
0767 -- Our police man hook up. He wanted pictures haha (Dad take note from your book, I think you know what I'm talking about) and I'm rocking one of the ties Gma and Gpa C sent me!
0774--0778 -- View from breakfast this morning
0779 -- The police people we taught this morning!
This week was great of course. Got to fly for my 11th and 12th times since leaving the MTC. Put on an embarrassing skit at the mission christmas party, and taught a lesson to the entire police staff here in Coron. Well I gotta go! See you all later!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
There we go, had to get rid of the posers who don't actually read the whole letter. This is for my true followers. haha
But yeah, this week was great! Still kickin it here in Coron. It's crazy how fast its going! On Christmas I'll be about 5 months in the field and 7 months into the mission. Ridiculous. I'm not happy. haha Just kidding, of course I'm happy, but seriously this goes too fast.
So on Monday, we decided to have Family Home Evening (Family night with lesson/games) with the Decleto family, which was kinda random cuz I don't know, that's just not the first family we would think of to have FHE with, but it was awesome! The Decletos are a part member family, and tatay (Dad) seems definitely not interested in the church, but friendly nonetheless to us. But he was there and FHE was great! And I was just pumped cuz he was enjoying himself and the family was having fun together and it was just a good way to start I think for him.
Tuesday was great too. We visited an investigator family but they weren't there, so instead we talked to their eldest son who is awesome! He's tried a bunch of different churches and you can definitely tell he's looking for the truth and it's exciting to tell him that he's found it, but at the same time it's sooo frustrating when people won't even give it a chance. Later, we hit the Jucaban's and Brother Jucaban is reading the Book of Mormon and loving it! He wakes up at 4:30 in the morning to read it before work, cuz he rocks!
Wednesday we were off to Manila! But not before I spilled Mango on my shirt...haha You can't go to Manila with Mango on your shirt! Ugh! But I got it changed and it was all good. The guy that lives across the street from us was rocking a Dave Syverson for Illinois Senate shirt and I saw Carlos Puyol at the airport haha. (editors note: He plays soccer for FC Barcelona. I'm pretty sure he wasn't in Coron.) And then our plane got delayed for 4 hours...oh that's fun stuff...haha But we made it to Manila it was all good! I saw a bunch of friends in the Quezon City Mission at the temple that night it was awesome! Probably almost worth the delay earlier that day.
Thursday was the Mission Christmas party in which the Coron elders performed a skit that was the best of all the performances, "daw." (Not) We hadn't practiced but like once or twice and it went pretty well! It was fun and hilarious. I have a video, but the quality is really poor, and it doesn't fit in the email sorry! The devotional before the party was way good too! And then we had a gift exchange/dirty santa in which my little Coron souvenir thing was well fought over, so I kinda rock. I got a rubix cube, and it's intense! I messed it up to the point that I can't fix it though.. =( haha but it still looks cool! But the best part was that I got to see everyone there and I loved it! Actually I lied the best part was that I grabbed some Krispy Kream at the mall hahaha That's how I role!
Friday, we flew back and we were all exhausted! We'd gotten about 8 hrs of sleep in the past two days, but that's all good. But I had a cool little epiphany thanks to Elder Bagahansol! So how I am, is if I don't know the people very well I'm not as myself as I usually am, and I'm even quieter if it's like a group of people. The bigger the group the quieter I am. So when we teach families for like the first time I usually am afraid to say much, even though I wanna talk. But what I learned is, when I'm playing soccer and basketball I'm almost always the loudest one on the court of field and there's usually a ton of people there of which I don't really know that well, but I'm loud nonetheless. So how much louder should I be when I'm on the Lord's playing field, when souls are at stake instead of wins and losses. So yeah, I try to keep that in mind all the time when I feel scared to talk or whatever. It was sweet.
Saturday we visited this really nice old lady who lives in an awesome house! The toilet even flushes! We shared a little bit with them and it turns out the lady used to always read the Liahona (Church magazine) because of her member friend and then her eldest son loved what we were about and told us to come and share in their weekly police meeting on Monday morning so earlier today we did that and rocked it of course. So that was pretty crazy awesome.
However on Sunday, I was supposed to speak in sacrament meeting and teach in Sunday School, which woulda sucked cuz we had like no time to prepare this week, but I woulda worked out of course. However on Sunday I woke up and I didn't have a voice! haha I had like a cold-ish and it really hurt to talk. So luckily the night before I talked to Tonton about speaking for me cuz it started like Saturday afternoon and he said that was fine. And Elder Bagahansol taught for me. So it all worked out. Also, I've started rocking cereal Sunday! Cuz it rocks! (Wow i use the root word "rock" alllll the time) But I've been doing it for a while but this week I even got Elder Bagahansol to join, so yeah. Rockin it.
So yeah that was pretty much this week. Still "rockin" it here in Coron. Merry Christmas sa inyong lahat! Listen to Star ng Pasko. It's Tagalog but like my favorite song haha. (I'll post the link to Star ng Pasko. KG)
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
0676--0697 -- FHE at the Decletos
0708--0717 -- Fun after district meeting
0724--0733 -- Flying pics
0731 -- DOUBLE RAINBOW ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE SKY
0733 -- Those are rice fields, daw. But I think they might be fish farms instead but idk
0734 -- MAGANDA! I rock.
0736 -- My companion and Elder Butler..? I don't know why he wanted a pic with him. But elder butler rocks!
0737--0741 -- Temple at night
0742 -- I just took this for fun and it turned out really good! It's a flower by the temple
0743 -- gift exchange
0784 -- Me and Sister Afu! We're best friends.
0749 -- The baggage claim at the Coron airport haha
0750 -- Bogs playing with his gift exchange prize
0761 -- Mine, messed up to the point that I can't fix it...haha
0762/0763 -- My mom sent these for my bday from peeps! And now they're in my BR, thanks!
0767 -- Our police man hook up. He wanted pictures haha (Dad take note from your book, I think you know what I'm talking about) and I'm rocking one of the ties Gma and Gpa C sent me!
0774--0778 -- View from breakfast this morning
0779 -- The police people we taught this morning!
Sunday, December 18, 2011
12-11-11 E-mail!
What up peeps!
So this week was def better. And pretty great of course cuz I'm still here in Coron! And this upcoming week we get to go to the mainland again! for a couple days and go to the temple and go to like a mission wide Christmas party, pumped! Oh be tee dubs people, thanks for no one telling me happy birthday on my birthday! haha Just kidding, I'm sure my facebook wall was still destroyed like how everyone's wall gets destroyed on their birthday. So yeah this week was definitely unique but way good!
Tuesday...hmm. Well I got a haircut which was probably better than the first one I got, but I'm not a big fan of it...Brother Michael cut it, and I asked him to fix it up a bit, but he hasn't had time to yet...So I'm probably going to the mainland and meeting the entire mission for the first time looking like this...hmm. =/ But Dante and Janise got married today! It was a surprise haha Cuz they thought they were getting married on Wednesday but apparently the judge wanted to get it done on Tuesday so we had to go to their house at like 7 in the morning and try to catch them before they went to work to try and tell them what was going down. But luckily we caught them and it all worked out so it was all good. I noticed today I'm doing better and better at teaching and doing my thing in Tagalog, so I'm excited! But there's still a long ways to go.
Wednesday was like almost kinda opposite to Tuesday. The first thing we did was went out to Bayo-Bayo Dos to visit the Encina family who's mother died on Sunday. So Wednesday marriage; Tuesday visitation. But when we went out there this kid that's probably like 12 years old comes up to me with a smirk on his face and starts to talk to me. And so I conversed with him. After he realized that I could communicate with him in Tagalog. He ran back to his friends and all his friends laughed at him cuz he thought he was going to look all cool confusing the white guy...Not up in here! hahaha So yes, I took some pleasure in taking care of the 12 year old. haha Later that night we visited Dante and Janise. While we were sharing with them we gave their little girl that picture book with like all the church pictures in it to entertain her so she'd be be entertained. Well she still managed to interrupt the lesson to ask if Jesus was a girl or if he was gay due to his long hair. Yeah that was interesting..haha
Thurday was my birthday. =). One of the main things in my head throughout the day was that this was the worst haircut I've ever had on my birthday...hahaha But it's all good cuz it was a great day nonetheless. Manneken made me a cake and sang. AND the Jucaban's had their surprise wedding kinda! This one was even more of a surprise cuz we found out in the morning that they could get married Friday but they needed to get an interview with the judge later that day first, so we had to confirm with the judge when she wanted them and then go out to the Jucabans to tell them cuz there's no signal out there. And so Brother Jucaban was working so sister texted him and we just had to hope that he got it and was able to make it to the court room. So we showed up at the court and they were there! Brother Jucaban was rockin the tie I gave him, a shirt from Bogs, and Elder Hopkins' old pants. But it all went well. We were sitting in the court room and I was sitting behind Brother Jucaban and he turned around to me and was like, "Elder?" Me - "Ano po?" Him - "8th ngayon, diba?" Me - "Opo." Him - "Ah, Happy Birthday!" It was probably like the best birthday wish ever. I told them that my birthday was the 8th like a couple weeks ago and just made short mention of it, even. It was awesome.
Friday was great too of course. It's been awesome having Elder Misa living with us. He's way fluent at Tagalog and has helped me a ton. He stressed to me the importance of embracing the culture. Learn their superstitions, learn what they like, even learn their music. So yeah, I'mma be completely Pinoy by the time I get back. I can already do the "Filipino squat" and Elder Mwea told me earlier today that I wash clothes like a Filipino today haha. So boom shocka locka. Today was one of those days that was a little rough, but we had an awesome lesson with Dante and I realized that it only takes one good lesson to make a good day, as long as you're doing your best. Cuz I was thinkin about the day and it seemed like it shouldn't have been that good of a day but the spiritual lesson with Dante like made the day it was great.
So Saturday it rained on us all day! Woo! haha It was kinda fun, it's kinda fun to work in the rain sometimes, as long as it's not all the time. haha So you know the song 1982 by Bowling for Soup? I always wondered what the song, "St. Elmo's Fire" was cuz of that song. Well I heard it for the first time on Saturday. Sung via karaoke (Filipinos are CRAZY for karaoke just FYI) by a drunk member that we were hoping to go teach...So yeah, not exactly how I would want to hear that song but it's all good. Later, we were talking with this really nice lady that seemed really interested and it was going really well. But in the background there was music playing pretty loud and Bottoms Up came on followed by Coming Home by Diddy...haha So yeah, I was doing my very best to focus on her and talk to her and what not with the music going...it was hard! haha But I managed it.
Sunday, was pretty average. But I'm def not looking forward to next Sunday when I have to give a talk AND teach Gospel Principles...AND we're going to be in Manila for 2 or 3 days! Ugh. Good luck sa akin. But all's well of course.
Well geez, this was long...I better wrap it up. I'll let you guys go. Thanks for reading! Heart you all!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Age: 20.
Pictures
0604-0615 -- Dante and Janise Anohan marriage
0619-0621 -- Bayo-Bayo Uno/Dos pics
0625 -- Mannekin birthday cake
0629/0630 -- An investigators house during high tide! haha We had to wade through the water it was awesome!
0631/0632 -- Tonton and his dog
0635/0636 -- Cake that President Nepomuceno made me. And card that his five year old, Josh made me
0637-0649 -- Joseph and Veron Jucaban marriage
0653 -- awesome thingy!
0658-0670 -- We had an eclipse! It was hard to take a picture of!
0674-0675 -- The bubbles mean I'm magaling sa paglalaba haha
So this week was def better. And pretty great of course cuz I'm still here in Coron! And this upcoming week we get to go to the mainland again! for a couple days and go to the temple and go to like a mission wide Christmas party, pumped! Oh be tee dubs people, thanks for no one telling me happy birthday on my birthday! haha Just kidding, I'm sure my facebook wall was still destroyed like how everyone's wall gets destroyed on their birthday. So yeah this week was definitely unique but way good!
Tuesday...hmm. Well I got a haircut which was probably better than the first one I got, but I'm not a big fan of it...Brother Michael cut it, and I asked him to fix it up a bit, but he hasn't had time to yet...So I'm probably going to the mainland and meeting the entire mission for the first time looking like this...hmm. =/ But Dante and Janise got married today! It was a surprise haha Cuz they thought they were getting married on Wednesday but apparently the judge wanted to get it done on Tuesday so we had to go to their house at like 7 in the morning and try to catch them before they went to work to try and tell them what was going down. But luckily we caught them and it all worked out so it was all good. I noticed today I'm doing better and better at teaching and doing my thing in Tagalog, so I'm excited! But there's still a long ways to go.
Wednesday was like almost kinda opposite to Tuesday. The first thing we did was went out to Bayo-Bayo Dos to visit the Encina family who's mother died on Sunday. So Wednesday marriage; Tuesday visitation. But when we went out there this kid that's probably like 12 years old comes up to me with a smirk on his face and starts to talk to me. And so I conversed with him. After he realized that I could communicate with him in Tagalog. He ran back to his friends and all his friends laughed at him cuz he thought he was going to look all cool confusing the white guy...Not up in here! hahaha So yes, I took some pleasure in taking care of the 12 year old. haha Later that night we visited Dante and Janise. While we were sharing with them we gave their little girl that picture book with like all the church pictures in it to entertain her so she'd be be entertained. Well she still managed to interrupt the lesson to ask if Jesus was a girl or if he was gay due to his long hair. Yeah that was interesting..haha
Thurday was my birthday. =). One of the main things in my head throughout the day was that this was the worst haircut I've ever had on my birthday...hahaha But it's all good cuz it was a great day nonetheless. Manneken made me a cake and sang. AND the Jucaban's had their surprise wedding kinda! This one was even more of a surprise cuz we found out in the morning that they could get married Friday but they needed to get an interview with the judge later that day first, so we had to confirm with the judge when she wanted them and then go out to the Jucabans to tell them cuz there's no signal out there. And so Brother Jucaban was working so sister texted him and we just had to hope that he got it and was able to make it to the court room. So we showed up at the court and they were there! Brother Jucaban was rockin the tie I gave him, a shirt from Bogs, and Elder Hopkins' old pants. But it all went well. We were sitting in the court room and I was sitting behind Brother Jucaban and he turned around to me and was like, "Elder?" Me - "Ano po?" Him - "8th ngayon, diba?" Me - "Opo." Him - "Ah, Happy Birthday!" It was probably like the best birthday wish ever. I told them that my birthday was the 8th like a couple weeks ago and just made short mention of it, even. It was awesome.
Friday was great too of course. It's been awesome having Elder Misa living with us. He's way fluent at Tagalog and has helped me a ton. He stressed to me the importance of embracing the culture. Learn their superstitions, learn what they like, even learn their music. So yeah, I'mma be completely Pinoy by the time I get back. I can already do the "Filipino squat" and Elder Mwea told me earlier today that I wash clothes like a Filipino today haha. So boom shocka locka. Today was one of those days that was a little rough, but we had an awesome lesson with Dante and I realized that it only takes one good lesson to make a good day, as long as you're doing your best. Cuz I was thinkin about the day and it seemed like it shouldn't have been that good of a day but the spiritual lesson with Dante like made the day it was great.
So Saturday it rained on us all day! Woo! haha It was kinda fun, it's kinda fun to work in the rain sometimes, as long as it's not all the time. haha So you know the song 1982 by Bowling for Soup? I always wondered what the song, "St. Elmo's Fire" was cuz of that song. Well I heard it for the first time on Saturday. Sung via karaoke (Filipinos are CRAZY for karaoke just FYI) by a drunk member that we were hoping to go teach...So yeah, not exactly how I would want to hear that song but it's all good. Later, we were talking with this really nice lady that seemed really interested and it was going really well. But in the background there was music playing pretty loud and Bottoms Up came on followed by Coming Home by Diddy...haha So yeah, I was doing my very best to focus on her and talk to her and what not with the music going...it was hard! haha But I managed it.
Sunday, was pretty average. But I'm def not looking forward to next Sunday when I have to give a talk AND teach Gospel Principles...AND we're going to be in Manila for 2 or 3 days! Ugh. Good luck sa akin. But all's well of course.
Well geez, this was long...I better wrap it up. I'll let you guys go. Thanks for reading! Heart you all!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Age: 20.
Pictures
0604-0615 -- Dante and Janise Anohan marriage
0619-0621 -- Bayo-Bayo Uno/Dos pics
0625 -- Mannekin birthday cake
0629/0630 -- An investigators house during high tide! haha We had to wade through the water it was awesome!
0631/0632 -- Tonton and his dog
0635/0636 -- Cake that President Nepomuceno made me. And card that his five year old, Josh made me
0637-0649 -- Joseph and Veron Jucaban marriage
0653 -- awesome thingy!
0658-0670 -- We had an eclipse! It was hard to take a picture of!
0674-0675 -- The bubbles mean I'm magaling sa paglalaba haha
Sunday, December 11, 2011
12-4-11 E-mail!
Hello people!
Well....this week was great of course....but hard. We worked all week, tried our best and seemingly accomplished nothing.haha But such is life I guess sometimes. It's to be expected sometimes butttt....I don't like it hahaha. But all's well here of course! Elder Robbins and Elder Osumo left and we got two more elders out here in Coron so that was exciting. Like I said earlier not a whole lot happened this week so I don't have too much to report but I'll see what I can do.
So I did really bad at recording the things that were exciting this week so I'll just kinda summarize the week.
Well starting December 1st, the plaza in the middle of the city was allll decked out for Christmas. It's astig! President Nepomuceno has a couple stands down there that we helped build. I've got some pics of the stand and what not, it looks way cool! And like all the stands down there are decked out like that too, it's legit!
Elders Robbins and Osumo left, and I couldn't even say goodbye! Their ride to the airport showed up 20 minutes early and I was still in the shower! I was ticked! hahaha But it's all good. Friday, our new kabahays arrived. It's Elder Misa and his anak, Elder Mwea. Elder Misa was an AP the last three transfers and is now going to train Elder Mwea until he heads home in February. Elder Misa is huge! And from America Samoa but lived in the states for some of his life. Elder Mwea is brand new and it's funny having someone here that doesn't know Tagalog and it shows me how far I've come. Everyone keeps noticing how I was like him when I first got here but now I'm good at Tagalog, they say. haha Elder Mwea is from Tiribati (Island south of Hawaii?) and is big too! I'm the smallest missionary now! haha
Inspite of our lack of work, we found and taught a couple cool families that I'm excited to hopefully see them progress. Oh and our mission is like changing directions. Well actually all the missions in the Philippines. So there are about 650,000 members here and only 130,000 of them are actively attending church. Can you believe that?? So the whole Philippines, mission wise, is focusing on retention and reactivation. They've told us that "tracting" is like the last option cuz we want to focus so much on the recent converts and less actives. So yeah that's kinda interesting/exciting to try and turn things around.
So yeah, I don't have too much to say, sorry! I'm out!
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
0521-0523 -- I think it's a Philippines only thing. But like everyone makes "BR" pages for each other. Like the missionaries for other missionaries and then the members for missionaries as all. So these were the BR pages I made for Elder Robbins and Elder Osumo. I'm pretty proud of them. Good huh?? haha
0533/0534 -- Cool thing that's going to become a straw! Kuya Angelo made it out of straws! Hopefully I'll get a pick of the finished product too
0537/0538 -- President's stand down at the plaza under contruction
0540-0544 -- They're adorable! I couldnt delete any of them, they were all too good!
0545/0547 -- President's finished stand and Brother Michael dancing
0550-0564 -- Cool sunset one night
0569 -- President's finished stand
0572 -- Somebody wants a boy to text them, so they wrote their number on a twenty peso bill haha it was funny
0573 -- No more Brother Orlan! sad...
0579 -- Cool lookin lizard livin in our apartment. There's tons of little lizards like him in our apartment but he's the coolest lookin haha
Well....this week was great of course....but hard. We worked all week, tried our best and seemingly accomplished nothing.haha But such is life I guess sometimes. It's to be expected sometimes butttt....I don't like it hahaha. But all's well here of course! Elder Robbins and Elder Osumo left and we got two more elders out here in Coron so that was exciting. Like I said earlier not a whole lot happened this week so I don't have too much to report but I'll see what I can do.
So I did really bad at recording the things that were exciting this week so I'll just kinda summarize the week.
Well starting December 1st, the plaza in the middle of the city was allll decked out for Christmas. It's astig! President Nepomuceno has a couple stands down there that we helped build. I've got some pics of the stand and what not, it looks way cool! And like all the stands down there are decked out like that too, it's legit!
Elders Robbins and Osumo left, and I couldn't even say goodbye! Their ride to the airport showed up 20 minutes early and I was still in the shower! I was ticked! hahaha But it's all good. Friday, our new kabahays arrived. It's Elder Misa and his anak, Elder Mwea. Elder Misa was an AP the last three transfers and is now going to train Elder Mwea until he heads home in February. Elder Misa is huge! And from America Samoa but lived in the states for some of his life. Elder Mwea is brand new and it's funny having someone here that doesn't know Tagalog and it shows me how far I've come. Everyone keeps noticing how I was like him when I first got here but now I'm good at Tagalog, they say. haha Elder Mwea is from Tiribati (Island south of Hawaii?) and is big too! I'm the smallest missionary now! haha
Inspite of our lack of work, we found and taught a couple cool families that I'm excited to hopefully see them progress. Oh and our mission is like changing directions. Well actually all the missions in the Philippines. So there are about 650,000 members here and only 130,000 of them are actively attending church. Can you believe that?? So the whole Philippines, mission wise, is focusing on retention and reactivation. They've told us that "tracting" is like the last option cuz we want to focus so much on the recent converts and less actives. So yeah that's kinda interesting/exciting to try and turn things around.
So yeah, I don't have too much to say, sorry! I'm out!
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
0521-0523 -- I think it's a Philippines only thing. But like everyone makes "BR" pages for each other. Like the missionaries for other missionaries and then the members for missionaries as all. So these were the BR pages I made for Elder Robbins and Elder Osumo. I'm pretty proud of them. Good huh?? haha
0533/0534 -- Cool thing that's going to become a straw! Kuya Angelo made it out of straws! Hopefully I'll get a pick of the finished product too
0537/0538 -- President's stand down at the plaza under contruction
0540-0544 -- They're adorable! I couldnt delete any of them, they were all too good!
0545/0547 -- President's finished stand and Brother Michael dancing
0550-0564 -- Cool sunset one night
0569 -- President's finished stand
0572 -- Somebody wants a boy to text them, so they wrote their number on a twenty peso bill haha it was funny
0573 -- No more Brother Orlan! sad...
0579 -- Cool lookin lizard livin in our apartment. There's tons of little lizards like him in our apartment but he's the coolest lookin haha
Sunday, December 4, 2011
11/28/11 E-mail!
=D
I'm STAYING IN CORON! =D I get to spend my birthday and Christmas here! Boom-shocka-locka! So yeah I'm pretty pumped about that. Elder Robbins and Elder Osumo are leaving....haha Elder Robbins was totally confident that me and Elder Osumo were leaving, and I kept telling him that he was the one leaving. And boom. He's out. I'm the last of the openers of Coron here! Rockin it.
This week I feel like I don't have too much to report, but I do have a ton of pictures so smile, because I love you.
So Tuesday we found out that Janise and Dante Anohan, who have been living together for ever but haven't been married cuz of laws here in the Philippines. Suddenly decided that they wanna get married. Which is awesome! Cuz once they're married Janise can receive a calling (responsibilities in the church), that will greatly help us, and Dante can get baptized! I was pumped to hear that! Also Sister Lagrosa recognized how fast I've learned to Tagalog and said that I know Cuyunen too and next is Visian haha Compliments are nice =). And lastly while we were visiting Sister Sengco. She stopped us and was like "I noticed something with you two." (I'm pretty sure she said all this in English, too haha) We were like "What?" She said, "You too have really good bonding." That like made my day! Cuz like my parents know, when I first started the companionship with Elder Bagahansol, I kinda struggled. I felt like we didn't really get along and we were just too different, and the language barrier was driving me nuts, but over this past transfer we've really worked really well together and I've really enjoyed working with him. So I'm more than happy to spend at least one more transfer with him. So cool.
On Wednesday, we had companionship exchanges and I worked with Elder Osumo. We were teaching about Ammon and sharing his story and Elder Osumo said that Ammon chopped off the hands of all the robbers and I was like wait isn't "arm," "braso?" And he looked at me weird and I was like so when the king so all the hands he asked his servants where are the rest of their arms?? (be tee dubs, it was really all in Tagalog of course) And then Sister Princess and I laughed really hard cuz it was hilarious, but maybe not hilarious to you guys. You had to be there. hahaha That night we taught another family and after the lesson the father was like it's better that you're here cuz I can understand what you're saying a lot better than Elder Robbins. Which was another nice little confidence booster. For the most people say that I'm doing better than him, but the thing is I think I'm just more confident when I speak Tagalog and he kinda freaks himself out a little and is way nervous it seems when he speaks to another Filipinos.
Thursday was Thanksgiving! My lunch was this delicious like soup of spices and vegetables with chicken in it and rice that I really like. I forgot what it's called haha But I always get it at the Carinderias. And dinner was homemade bread that we always buy from Pres Arnold and jam. haha Also, I talked to a couple guys from England! That was fun! So of course I asked them who their team was, and one of them said Arsenal so I can dig. haha
Friday as always we did service! We helped build a house for the seventh day adventist dude! I even have a pic of him for you haha I got to rock the machete again and we got super dirty! haha It was probably the funnest one yet. Also today was the day that I've officially been away from home/on my mission for 6 months! But only out in the field for four. It's been flying! So crazy how fast it goes!
Saturday really wasn't anything too exciting and Sunday was decent. I had to speak in sacrament meeting and it went really well I felt! It was about likening the scriptures to us. I hated talking in front of people in English, but now I have to do it in Tagalog. So when I have to do it again in English it better not freak me out! But I'm sure it still will...haha And that was about it for the week, like always it was a great week. Peace out homies!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
283/284 -- Me messin with Elder Robbins's planner =)
300 -- Me and the Maanyo family, minus parents and Sara
301-310 -- Rockin the Uke
317 -- Gettin ice cream! That stuff was masarap!
319 -- Me and Bro Orlan candid
320-331 -- Baptism!
333-336 -- Fun after baptism
342 -- Chillin at Angelos house
349-357 -- Fishing adventures
364 -- Tonton rockin the lobster
366 -- I tried that as my ulam...Yeah that was not good at all...haha But cheese nips make a decent ulam.
371 -- The tamaran thingy that I ate and it was suuuuper sour, but kinda good.
372/373 -- Sweet basketball hoop we found!
376 -- Coron sign and view
378/379 -- Seashore pics
383 -- My to do list the Sunday I had to do the Sunday school lesson
385 -- Okay the sugar with the apple makes it freakin good! But is it still healthy?
393/394 -- Elder Robbins really wanted me to make hand turkeys with him, so I did. And he called my turkey an abomination to all hand turkeys and was rather upset...haha It was fun. Elder Robbins -- "I would like to say that Elder Gadberry completely desecrated the whole idea of hand turkeys, and I feel like it would be better to burn his picture than for an entire nation of hand turkeys to dwindle in abominations and whoredoms!! Robbins out!!"
397 -- Our 7th day superventist friend! hahaha
398-400 -- Workin on the house. Note my machete!
402-404 -- We were super dirty, so we took pictures.
410 -- Our turkeys on the fridge! Cuz that's where you put all works of art right?
414 -- Brother Orlan and I
417 -- Elder Bagahansol and Tonton
452-454 -- My ties! I'm goin keep a progression of all my ties as I gain and lose ties. Idea from Robbins, I dig it. Also, all my ties have names, it's cool, I'm cool.
481/482 -- What district meetings in Coron look like
492-509 -- Picture sesh after district meeting and while we were waiting for food! haha
Last one -- Us and Elder Ardern
I'm STAYING IN CORON! =D I get to spend my birthday and Christmas here! Boom-shocka-locka! So yeah I'm pretty pumped about that. Elder Robbins and Elder Osumo are leaving....haha Elder Robbins was totally confident that me and Elder Osumo were leaving, and I kept telling him that he was the one leaving. And boom. He's out. I'm the last of the openers of Coron here! Rockin it.
This week I feel like I don't have too much to report, but I do have a ton of pictures so smile, because I love you.
So Tuesday we found out that Janise and Dante Anohan, who have been living together for ever but haven't been married cuz of laws here in the Philippines. Suddenly decided that they wanna get married. Which is awesome! Cuz once they're married Janise can receive a calling (responsibilities in the church), that will greatly help us, and Dante can get baptized! I was pumped to hear that! Also Sister Lagrosa recognized how fast I've learned to Tagalog and said that I know Cuyunen too and next is Visian haha Compliments are nice =). And lastly while we were visiting Sister Sengco. She stopped us and was like "I noticed something with you two." (I'm pretty sure she said all this in English, too haha) We were like "What?" She said, "You too have really good bonding." That like made my day! Cuz like my parents know, when I first started the companionship with Elder Bagahansol, I kinda struggled. I felt like we didn't really get along and we were just too different, and the language barrier was driving me nuts, but over this past transfer we've really worked really well together and I've really enjoyed working with him. So I'm more than happy to spend at least one more transfer with him. So cool.
On Wednesday, we had companionship exchanges and I worked with Elder Osumo. We were teaching about Ammon and sharing his story and Elder Osumo said that Ammon chopped off the hands of all the robbers and I was like wait isn't "arm," "braso?" And he looked at me weird and I was like so when the king so all the hands he asked his servants where are the rest of their arms?? (be tee dubs, it was really all in Tagalog of course) And then Sister Princess and I laughed really hard cuz it was hilarious, but maybe not hilarious to you guys. You had to be there. hahaha That night we taught another family and after the lesson the father was like it's better that you're here cuz I can understand what you're saying a lot better than Elder Robbins. Which was another nice little confidence booster. For the most people say that I'm doing better than him, but the thing is I think I'm just more confident when I speak Tagalog and he kinda freaks himself out a little and is way nervous it seems when he speaks to another Filipinos.
Thursday was Thanksgiving! My lunch was this delicious like soup of spices and vegetables with chicken in it and rice that I really like. I forgot what it's called haha But I always get it at the Carinderias. And dinner was homemade bread that we always buy from Pres Arnold and jam. haha Also, I talked to a couple guys from England! That was fun! So of course I asked them who their team was, and one of them said Arsenal so I can dig. haha
Friday as always we did service! We helped build a house for the seventh day adventist dude! I even have a pic of him for you haha I got to rock the machete again and we got super dirty! haha It was probably the funnest one yet. Also today was the day that I've officially been away from home/on my mission for 6 months! But only out in the field for four. It's been flying! So crazy how fast it goes!
Saturday really wasn't anything too exciting and Sunday was decent. I had to speak in sacrament meeting and it went really well I felt! It was about likening the scriptures to us. I hated talking in front of people in English, but now I have to do it in Tagalog. So when I have to do it again in English it better not freak me out! But I'm sure it still will...haha And that was about it for the week, like always it was a great week. Peace out homies!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
283/284 -- Me messin with Elder Robbins's planner =)
300 -- Me and the Maanyo family, minus parents and Sara
301-310 -- Rockin the Uke
317 -- Gettin ice cream! That stuff was masarap!
319 -- Me and Bro Orlan candid
320-331 -- Baptism!
333-336 -- Fun after baptism
342 -- Chillin at Angelos house
349-357 -- Fishing adventures
364 -- Tonton rockin the lobster
366 -- I tried that as my ulam...Yeah that was not good at all...haha But cheese nips make a decent ulam.
371 -- The tamaran thingy that I ate and it was suuuuper sour, but kinda good.
372/373 -- Sweet basketball hoop we found!
376 -- Coron sign and view
378/379 -- Seashore pics
383 -- My to do list the Sunday I had to do the Sunday school lesson
385 -- Okay the sugar with the apple makes it freakin good! But is it still healthy?
393/394 -- Elder Robbins really wanted me to make hand turkeys with him, so I did. And he called my turkey an abomination to all hand turkeys and was rather upset...haha It was fun. Elder Robbins -- "I would like to say that Elder Gadberry completely desecrated the whole idea of hand turkeys, and I feel like it would be better to burn his picture than for an entire nation of hand turkeys to dwindle in abominations and whoredoms!! Robbins out!!"
397 -- Our 7th day superventist friend! hahaha
398-400 -- Workin on the house. Note my machete!
402-404 -- We were super dirty, so we took pictures.
410 -- Our turkeys on the fridge! Cuz that's where you put all works of art right?
414 -- Brother Orlan and I
417 -- Elder Bagahansol and Tonton
452-454 -- My ties! I'm goin keep a progression of all my ties as I gain and lose ties. Idea from Robbins, I dig it. Also, all my ties have names, it's cool, I'm cool.
481/482 -- What district meetings in Coron look like
492-509 -- Picture sesh after district meeting and while we were waiting for food! haha
Last one -- Us and Elder Ardern
11-21-11 E-mail!
Hellooooo!
Guess what! I'm in the Philippines! Whoa! Crazy huh?! Guess what! I'm almost six months through my mission! =( =/ CRAZIER! So this week has been another great, we should know transfer announcements this upcoming Saturday! Whoa! No pictures this week cuz we're at a different internet shop and it like disabled my documents or somethin, I don't know. It's weird, so next week na lang!
So to answer a couple questions my mom asked. One: Sister Lagrosa did get baptized this weekend, it was great! =D The cool thing is, we now know the whole story of her disowning. So I guess like two Saturdays ago, her dad warned her that if she continued going to church and listening to the missionaries she would be kicked out. She ignored it and continued doing what was right. As she got ready to go to church Sunday morning her dad followed through on her threat and told her that if she left she couldnt come back. So she comes to church bawling but had already got the okay to live with some relatives. Later that night, she finds out that her parents want her back (kinda mostly cuz she does the washing and cooking..haha) but then she got taken back! So it was all good! So all in all kinda like a severe test of faith, and she rocked it! Two: "Are you still running or did the dogs scare you from exercise?" Well, I would still be running but higher authority, the ZLs I think, told us that we couldn't do splits of me and robbins to do that, so that kinda killed that one. =( And three: "You do realize how sad it is that you just barely cooked your first scrambled eggs right? Do you get to eat eggs often?" Yes, that's bad, BUT I'm not a big egg fan and better late than never right?! ha! And yes, everyone else in the apartment eats eggs for breakfast every day. They're about 6 pesos an egg so really cheap cuz there are chickens EVERYWHERE! They're really annoying. haha Oh and four, "What should we send you for Christmas?" haha well...... just kidding! Lots of letters =D Those are the best if you really wanna send me something. Okay moving onto this past week.
So Tuesday, I've got exciting news! I got to ring a doorbell! haha It was actually fairly exciting so don't laugh. There are no doorbells here! Later on in the day we saw Sister Aurora's husband and stopped to talk to him a little bit. He's pretty cool cuz he wants to join the church with his family but kinda doesnt wanna change but is really busy but knows he'll get baptized eventually haha (He, like half the other fathers here, are fisherman. And they are out fishing 5 of the 7 days of the week so they're often out at sea on Sunday and its really frustrating cuz we need priesthood holders) But Aurora's husband said that his son Renz (The adorable little guy that likes to wear his white school shirt to church to be like a missionary and wants to be a missionary when he grows up) always counsels his father. Everytime he sees him smoking he's like "Dad don't you know that that's bawal? Throw those away" or if he's drinking he tells him pretty much the same thing. Renz rocks! And we tracted (knocking doors) into our "friends" who are 7th Day "Super"-ventists haha It's like going to war talking to them, I'm really not a fan of that. Yet we've went there three times this past week cuz they're super friendly and say that they're receptive to our message but its like hard to get a word in with them haha. I think we're going there like one more time this week and if it goes how its been going this past week, wala na.
Nothing really exciting happened on Wednesday, sorry!
Oh geez....Thursday...haha We ate lunch and then went out and tracted for five hours straight! Oh geez that night, I was exhausted! But it was actually really pretty successful, probably cuz we honestly worked really hard. And it was surprisingly successful because its like hard to have success during the afternoon cuz everyone is either sleeping or working like I've said before haha, but it was a good time. I try to keep track of all the people we give pamphlets and talk to so that we can talk to them another time, there were so many people that I literally wrote "wayyyy too many people" under my "pamphlets" section of my notes in my planner. It was a good day though!
Friday we had Service, we just cleaned up a lot for a family by the church and organized all the junk that they keep so they can sell it haha. But I got to build a fire, being the great eagle scout I am haha so that was fun. And Sister Lagrosa and John Robert passed their interviews that day so they could be baptized on Saturday, woo!
Saturday, was the really the first "war of words" with the 7th day superventists we brought the ammunition of a couple RMs as well as us two haha. But it went pretty good, like I said earlier it just doesnt feel like the other lessons so it's kinda weird/annoying. Of course they made sure that we would return and talk again. But on the way to their house, I broke another tulay...hahaha That makes number two for me and I still get crap for the first one! I dont know why though cuz both Elder Robbins and Osumo had broken two tulays before I had broken my second one! Not fair! Then that night we had baptisms! It was like night baptisms haha cuz it was almost dark when we had them and the font is outside, so it was kinda fun cuz of that.
So Sunday was church! In correlation/PEC meeting that morning I learned that I have a ton more duties that they want me to do on top of what they already have me doing which hasnt been too bad yet. But ugh! But its all good =D I got this don't worry. Then I taught Sunday School! In the to-do list of my planner I wrote "Rock Sunday School Lesson" and then "Sunday School lesson." After the lesson I checked the Sunday School lesson box. I didn't feel like I rocked it but it went pretty well, I was content. And I found that I could say most everything I wanted to, so that was good! We had war number two with the superventists that night. This time we brought President Nepomuceno and he brought his brother hahaha Again they're super nice, but not much for listening. They believe (from what they've read on the internet) that all those who worship on Sunday are under the Pope. And that the Pope and Obama are going to ban all commercial activity all over the world on Sunday to the extent that you cant buy anything, you cant go anywhere and you can't even go to the hospital. So yeah...hahaha But on the bright side we started teaching a sweet family! They're asking super questions and seem to be really interested, I'm pumped!
Earlier this morning, we went fishing! =D I woke up at 5:45.. =( But its all good|! I didn't catch anything =( But Bogs caught a cool little fish and Tonton caught a little fish and a couple little crabs. So that was fun! I'll have pictures of it next week I think.
So this weeks been great! Hope I'm not transferred next week! Cya later! Ciao!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Guess what! I'm in the Philippines! Whoa! Crazy huh?! Guess what! I'm almost six months through my mission! =( =/ CRAZIER! So this week has been another great, we should know transfer announcements this upcoming Saturday! Whoa! No pictures this week cuz we're at a different internet shop and it like disabled my documents or somethin, I don't know. It's weird, so next week na lang!
So to answer a couple questions my mom asked. One: Sister Lagrosa did get baptized this weekend, it was great! =D The cool thing is, we now know the whole story of her disowning. So I guess like two Saturdays ago, her dad warned her that if she continued going to church and listening to the missionaries she would be kicked out. She ignored it and continued doing what was right. As she got ready to go to church Sunday morning her dad followed through on her threat and told her that if she left she couldnt come back. So she comes to church bawling but had already got the okay to live with some relatives. Later that night, she finds out that her parents want her back (kinda mostly cuz she does the washing and cooking..haha) but then she got taken back! So it was all good! So all in all kinda like a severe test of faith, and she rocked it! Two: "Are you still running or did the dogs scare you from exercise?" Well, I would still be running but higher authority, the ZLs I think, told us that we couldn't do splits of me and robbins to do that, so that kinda killed that one. =( And three: "You do realize how sad it is that you just barely cooked your first scrambled eggs right? Do you get to eat eggs often?" Yes, that's bad, BUT I'm not a big egg fan and better late than never right?! ha! And yes, everyone else in the apartment eats eggs for breakfast every day. They're about 6 pesos an egg so really cheap cuz there are chickens EVERYWHERE! They're really annoying. haha Oh and four, "What should we send you for Christmas?" haha well...... just kidding! Lots of letters =D Those are the best if you really wanna send me something. Okay moving onto this past week.
So Tuesday, I've got exciting news! I got to ring a doorbell! haha It was actually fairly exciting so don't laugh. There are no doorbells here! Later on in the day we saw Sister Aurora's husband and stopped to talk to him a little bit. He's pretty cool cuz he wants to join the church with his family but kinda doesnt wanna change but is really busy but knows he'll get baptized eventually haha (He, like half the other fathers here, are fisherman. And they are out fishing 5 of the 7 days of the week so they're often out at sea on Sunday and its really frustrating cuz we need priesthood holders) But Aurora's husband said that his son Renz (The adorable little guy that likes to wear his white school shirt to church to be like a missionary and wants to be a missionary when he grows up) always counsels his father. Everytime he sees him smoking he's like "Dad don't you know that that's bawal? Throw those away" or if he's drinking he tells him pretty much the same thing. Renz rocks! And we tracted (knocking doors) into our "friends" who are 7th Day "Super"-ventists haha It's like going to war talking to them, I'm really not a fan of that. Yet we've went there three times this past week cuz they're super friendly and say that they're receptive to our message but its like hard to get a word in with them haha. I think we're going there like one more time this week and if it goes how its been going this past week, wala na.
Nothing really exciting happened on Wednesday, sorry!
Oh geez....Thursday...haha We ate lunch and then went out and tracted for five hours straight! Oh geez that night, I was exhausted! But it was actually really pretty successful, probably cuz we honestly worked really hard. And it was surprisingly successful because its like hard to have success during the afternoon cuz everyone is either sleeping or working like I've said before haha, but it was a good time. I try to keep track of all the people we give pamphlets and talk to so that we can talk to them another time, there were so many people that I literally wrote "wayyyy too many people" under my "pamphlets" section of my notes in my planner. It was a good day though!
Friday we had Service, we just cleaned up a lot for a family by the church and organized all the junk that they keep so they can sell it haha. But I got to build a fire, being the great eagle scout I am haha so that was fun. And Sister Lagrosa and John Robert passed their interviews that day so they could be baptized on Saturday, woo!
Saturday, was the really the first "war of words" with the 7th day superventists we brought the ammunition of a couple RMs as well as us two haha. But it went pretty good, like I said earlier it just doesnt feel like the other lessons so it's kinda weird/annoying. Of course they made sure that we would return and talk again. But on the way to their house, I broke another tulay...hahaha That makes number two for me and I still get crap for the first one! I dont know why though cuz both Elder Robbins and Osumo had broken two tulays before I had broken my second one! Not fair! Then that night we had baptisms! It was like night baptisms haha cuz it was almost dark when we had them and the font is outside, so it was kinda fun cuz of that.
So Sunday was church! In correlation/PEC meeting that morning I learned that I have a ton more duties that they want me to do on top of what they already have me doing which hasnt been too bad yet. But ugh! But its all good =D I got this don't worry. Then I taught Sunday School! In the to-do list of my planner I wrote "Rock Sunday School Lesson" and then "Sunday School lesson." After the lesson I checked the Sunday School lesson box. I didn't feel like I rocked it but it went pretty well, I was content. And I found that I could say most everything I wanted to, so that was good! We had war number two with the superventists that night. This time we brought President Nepomuceno and he brought his brother hahaha Again they're super nice, but not much for listening. They believe (from what they've read on the internet) that all those who worship on Sunday are under the Pope. And that the Pope and Obama are going to ban all commercial activity all over the world on Sunday to the extent that you cant buy anything, you cant go anywhere and you can't even go to the hospital. So yeah...hahaha But on the bright side we started teaching a sweet family! They're asking super questions and seem to be really interested, I'm pumped!
Earlier this morning, we went fishing! =D I woke up at 5:45.. =( But its all good|! I didn't catch anything =( But Bogs caught a cool little fish and Tonton caught a little fish and a couple little crabs. So that was fun! I'll have pictures of it next week I think.
So this weeks been great! Hope I'm not transferred next week! Cya later! Ciao!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Sunday, November 20, 2011
11-14-11 E-mail!
What's up everyone, but my parents! (My parents didn't even send me an email this week so you guys should yell at them for being lame parents) =D
So this week has been pretty awesome! and I have a fair amount of pictures so you guys better be happy!
So I'll start with Monday, preparation day (laundry/letter writing/sightseeing day). That evening we decided to go "fishing." To go fishing we needed two things, hooks and line. Well we set off and got the hooks pretty easily. But then it was impossible to find any fishing line! We walked around for like at least 20 minutes asking every tindahan, random houses, and the occasional passerby if they had any fishing line we could buy, but no one had any! Until we found some at this obscure little tindahan. We were so pumped when we found the fishing line that we took a picture at the store where we found it, haha. So off we go to the baywalk to go fishing, but first we stopped at the palengke and a nice lady gave us some of her extra pig fat for bait. And now we're off! We get out there and prepare our lines. Our lines consisted of fishing line, hooks, a piece of wood torn off a nearby palm tree to hold the extra line, and a rock to make the bait sink. We were sure it'd be a great success! We threw our lines in and pulled it in again and again and again, and caught nothing! Only one person caught anything, and it was this really ugly looking fish, but it was hilarious. Good times for sure, we'll be more successful next time.
Tuesday was pretty exciting, too. We had an appointment with Sister Lagrosa, and she has pretty much memorized everything we've taught her, she's awesome! And she's going to be baptized this Saturday! And Dante, the husband of a member, and dean at the Palawan State University here in Coron, knows that it's true but is like super busy with school so we're trying to help him work through all that, but it's still exciting! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAKEY!
Wednesday, like every other day was great. Robbins and I have developed quite the American-Tagalog, and we regularly practice it during language study its probably too fun for language study. We just try to apply American slang to Tagalog and it doesn't work at all but we think it's hilarious. But don't worry we always start language study effectively! It just seems to always end in screwing around like that, but hey you gotta have some fun. While we were out and about we found that they were having cockfights out by an area we usually visit. One of the chickens got beat up but didn't die so we watched a guy do "first aid" on it for a little while, that was pretty gross but slightly entertaining haha. And we taught Angelo Cuizon again and he rocks! He's still an investigator but he's like sharing the gospel with his friends and what not, what a stud.
Thursday wasn't too exciting. We had an angry monkey jump at us three times. He was tied to the tree and when we stopped to look at him. He jumped at us. His "leash" stopped him like a foot in front of our faces and then he would climb up his chain and attack again. We stayed and entertained him for like three jumps, it was fun-ish!
Now this is the day you've all been waiting for. This is the question. What were you doing one 11/11/11 at 11:11. Woooow! I, was in the bathroom after service taking a freezing cold shower via bucket. Wow! Exciting! How many of you can say you were doing that, that's right none of you! haha For service I learned how to tie fishing nets! The people here thought it was funny seeing an American do it, and they were impressed that I learned fairly quickly, it was fun! Also, after showering, we were without electricity and I was like ugh! I need electricity so I can cook! And right when I said that, the electricity came back on! It was legit! Later, kumain ako ng pubo! Which directly translated means, "I ate straight up sugar cane, yo!" I was def hesitant at first but then Bogs told me it was sugar cane and I was like I gotta try this! And it was pretty good, decent. And it was my mom's birthday! I would tell you all to wish her a happy birthday but she didn't email me this week... =)
Saturday was astig. For the second day in a row we taught John Robert outside just chillin on the tulay, it was fun. He's way cool. Coron B had baptisms and I had to conduct them, ugh! I really hate speaking Tagalog in front of people... That night we taught a family with 9 kids! And then like 8 of their cousins were there too! It was ridiculous but fun! And they all came to church on Sunday! And I made my first scrambled eggs that night cuz I was just feeling it. Be proud! hahaha\
Sunday was where it was at kinda. Well first of all there was almost zero men there cuz they were all watching the Pacquio fight...hahaha Which I've heard is to be expected, and I also heard he won but I'm not too sure. But the whole 9 child family made it to church! Sister Lagrosa made it to church too, bawling. I guess earlier that morning she had been disowned by her family.... But she still made it to church! She's so ridiculously awesome! Sister Lagrosa is like 27 and still lived at home cuz she's not yet married and she does all the cooking and laundry for her family, but now she's living with relatives for now. Also, we met a chick from Utah! haha The Filipinos here treated her as if she was like famous or somethin it was pretty hilarious, but it was exciting as well. AND I can play Once There was a Snowman on the Ukelele! Sweet stuff!
That's about the week, I gotta get rollin! Peace out homeboys and girls!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
0079 -- We have fishing line!
0080 -- Preparing the lines
1635 -- Fishing
1636 -- Us and our catch!
0118 -- Satan hot sauce!
0120/0121 -- Sketchy, sketchy tulay we walked to tie nets
0123 -- View from the little boat house thing we tied nets at
0124/0125 -- Us tying the nets with Brother Panserga (the guy with 9 kids)
0131 -- 11/11/11 at 11:11; Robbins took the pic, cuz like I said was rockin the shower!
0136/0138 -- The sugar cane!
0140-0147 -- I thought the sky looked cool but the pictures are just okay
0157-0165 -- Teachin John Robert out on the tulay
0181 -- Me and Marvin Duran!
0183/0185 -- The Duran Family
0186/0187 -- The Duran Family and us!
0212 -- My companion and everyone else here have found the fish eye effect on my camera and think its absolutely hilarious, it's pretty great
0219 -- Us and the Mormon chick! haha
1633/1634 -- More blurry fishing pics! haha
So this week has been pretty awesome! and I have a fair amount of pictures so you guys better be happy!
So I'll start with Monday, preparation day (laundry/letter writing/sightseeing day). That evening we decided to go "fishing." To go fishing we needed two things, hooks and line. Well we set off and got the hooks pretty easily. But then it was impossible to find any fishing line! We walked around for like at least 20 minutes asking every tindahan, random houses, and the occasional passerby if they had any fishing line we could buy, but no one had any! Until we found some at this obscure little tindahan. We were so pumped when we found the fishing line that we took a picture at the store where we found it, haha. So off we go to the baywalk to go fishing, but first we stopped at the palengke and a nice lady gave us some of her extra pig fat for bait. And now we're off! We get out there and prepare our lines. Our lines consisted of fishing line, hooks, a piece of wood torn off a nearby palm tree to hold the extra line, and a rock to make the bait sink. We were sure it'd be a great success! We threw our lines in and pulled it in again and again and again, and caught nothing! Only one person caught anything, and it was this really ugly looking fish, but it was hilarious. Good times for sure, we'll be more successful next time.
Tuesday was pretty exciting, too. We had an appointment with Sister Lagrosa, and she has pretty much memorized everything we've taught her, she's awesome! And she's going to be baptized this Saturday! And Dante, the husband of a member, and dean at the Palawan State University here in Coron, knows that it's true but is like super busy with school so we're trying to help him work through all that, but it's still exciting! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAKEY!
Wednesday, like every other day was great. Robbins and I have developed quite the American-Tagalog, and we regularly practice it during language study its probably too fun for language study. We just try to apply American slang to Tagalog and it doesn't work at all but we think it's hilarious. But don't worry we always start language study effectively! It just seems to always end in screwing around like that, but hey you gotta have some fun. While we were out and about we found that they were having cockfights out by an area we usually visit. One of the chickens got beat up but didn't die so we watched a guy do "first aid" on it for a little while, that was pretty gross but slightly entertaining haha. And we taught Angelo Cuizon again and he rocks! He's still an investigator but he's like sharing the gospel with his friends and what not, what a stud.
Thursday wasn't too exciting. We had an angry monkey jump at us three times. He was tied to the tree and when we stopped to look at him. He jumped at us. His "leash" stopped him like a foot in front of our faces and then he would climb up his chain and attack again. We stayed and entertained him for like three jumps, it was fun-ish!
Now this is the day you've all been waiting for. This is the question. What were you doing one 11/11/11 at 11:11. Woooow! I, was in the bathroom after service taking a freezing cold shower via bucket. Wow! Exciting! How many of you can say you were doing that, that's right none of you! haha For service I learned how to tie fishing nets! The people here thought it was funny seeing an American do it, and they were impressed that I learned fairly quickly, it was fun! Also, after showering, we were without electricity and I was like ugh! I need electricity so I can cook! And right when I said that, the electricity came back on! It was legit! Later, kumain ako ng pubo! Which directly translated means, "I ate straight up sugar cane, yo!" I was def hesitant at first but then Bogs told me it was sugar cane and I was like I gotta try this! And it was pretty good, decent. And it was my mom's birthday! I would tell you all to wish her a happy birthday but she didn't email me this week... =)
Saturday was astig. For the second day in a row we taught John Robert outside just chillin on the tulay, it was fun. He's way cool. Coron B had baptisms and I had to conduct them, ugh! I really hate speaking Tagalog in front of people... That night we taught a family with 9 kids! And then like 8 of their cousins were there too! It was ridiculous but fun! And they all came to church on Sunday! And I made my first scrambled eggs that night cuz I was just feeling it. Be proud! hahaha\
Sunday was where it was at kinda. Well first of all there was almost zero men there cuz they were all watching the Pacquio fight...hahaha Which I've heard is to be expected, and I also heard he won but I'm not too sure. But the whole 9 child family made it to church! Sister Lagrosa made it to church too, bawling. I guess earlier that morning she had been disowned by her family.... But she still made it to church! She's so ridiculously awesome! Sister Lagrosa is like 27 and still lived at home cuz she's not yet married and she does all the cooking and laundry for her family, but now she's living with relatives for now. Also, we met a chick from Utah! haha The Filipinos here treated her as if she was like famous or somethin it was pretty hilarious, but it was exciting as well. AND I can play Once There was a Snowman on the Ukelele! Sweet stuff!
That's about the week, I gotta get rollin! Peace out homeboys and girls!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
0079 -- We have fishing line!
0080 -- Preparing the lines
1635 -- Fishing
1636 -- Us and our catch!
0118 -- Satan hot sauce!
0120/0121 -- Sketchy, sketchy tulay we walked to tie nets
0123 -- View from the little boat house thing we tied nets at
0124/0125 -- Us tying the nets with Brother Panserga (the guy with 9 kids)
0131 -- 11/11/11 at 11:11; Robbins took the pic, cuz like I said was rockin the shower!
0136/0138 -- The sugar cane!
0140-0147 -- I thought the sky looked cool but the pictures are just okay
0157-0165 -- Teachin John Robert out on the tulay
0181 -- Me and Marvin Duran!
0183/0185 -- The Duran Family
0186/0187 -- The Duran Family and us!
0212 -- My companion and everyone else here have found the fish eye effect on my camera and think its absolutely hilarious, it's pretty great
0219 -- Us and the Mormon chick! haha
1633/1634 -- More blurry fishing pics! haha
Monday, November 14, 2011
11-7-11 E-mail!
How's it goin everyone??
I've got a ton of pics for you! Be happy!
So speaking for a little bit in front of a ton of people and Elder Ardern on Wednesday went pretty well. Oh geez I was sooo nervous before I got up there. But I got up there and I feel like it went pretty well and I didn't feel terribly nervous. Hopefully that means the Spirit was helping me out and I said something half way important to someone out there..haha Overall, the Mission Tour Conference was beast! It was held at Buendia Chapel in Manila which is the first church building built in the Philippines and it's like this decently sized church building surrounded by sky scrapers and really tall buildings haha. I got to see a fair amount of people that I know too! That was exciting and awesome to talk to and see everyone for a little while! But everyone from my district in the MTC was not there so that stunk! But it's all good of course.
After conference, cuz we were the last ones to leave, we even got a pic with Elder Ardern and the Coron Elders! It's not in this email cuz it's on Elder Osumo's camera but I'll have it next time. Then that night after the Conference we went out and worked with some of the missionaries in Makati. I was the second selection in the draft and was chosen by Elder Belarmino, one of the APs. It was sweet to work with him and to learn from him. And way different to work in the city but sweet nonetheless. One of the families we visited was way impressed with my Tagalog and I don't know why. And I finally experienced my first Jeepney and had Jollibee for the first time, it was just an all around great day.
The next morning we had to get up at 5! To get to the airport, ughhhhh! By the way I still despise mornings or Hindi mahilig ako talaga sa umaga. So Thursday we made it back to Coron and at this point flying is pretty boring so being the good elder I am, I read from the Book of Mormon the entire time. Did you know? By my count, there are 25 references to Christ before the book even officially starts in Nephi. Fun fact of the day. By the way that was my 10th flight on my mission, its pretty legit. I heart flying. But I miss driving.
Friday for our "community service." We just helped them paint the fence around our houses. The house is blue, and now the fence is white. Sooo....we have a BYU Cougar House! Boom! Rockin it. Not a whole lot of new and exciting things happened since I last emailed. Our mission has a goal to have 300 people baptized in the month of December, and we're working really hard and things are startin to look good for us! We have 9 people scheduled for December right now and we're still working really hard to continue to find those families that the Lord has prepared for us, I'm excited about our work here its awesome! But I'm sad cuz someone's leaving Nov 30th and I'm afraid its me, ughhhh! But we'll see.
So yeah, sorry that's kinda it for this past few days, but there's lots of pictures! =D haha
Love ya'll (I'm hick)
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures:
1110/1112 -- Me and my machete
1115-PA211402 -- Try to find that lizard in pictures 1115
DSCN1503/1504 -- Havin fun with brother Tonton; I don't know why he looks so small/weird cuz he's just a little bit shorter than me...
1122/1123 -- The huge crabs of one of our investigators
1127-1148 -- Coron sunset. Be jealous. (I rock at pictures!)
1153-1155 -- Umm yeah, I ate that. Be proud. It tasted decent...weird texture fa sho
1157 -- Yep, that tasted much better.
PA281513-PA281520 -- Our terrifying spider
DSCN1542 -- Coulda been a really cool pic if I had a better camera but decent nonetheless. Taken from our back balcony porch thingy
PA301512 -- The newly formed branch! Not everyone made it that Sunday but an awesome turn out still
1104-PA301521 -- Havin fun after becoming a branch
0006-0035 -- Manila Temple pics! I think my favorite may be 0013
0039-0043 -- Enjoying the mainland! McDonalds delivers! And so does everywhere else
0049-0071 -- WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS! Who can deny the Cardinals and this adorable puppy! haha
I've got a ton of pics for you! Be happy!
So speaking for a little bit in front of a ton of people and Elder Ardern on Wednesday went pretty well. Oh geez I was sooo nervous before I got up there. But I got up there and I feel like it went pretty well and I didn't feel terribly nervous. Hopefully that means the Spirit was helping me out and I said something half way important to someone out there..haha Overall, the Mission Tour Conference was beast! It was held at Buendia Chapel in Manila which is the first church building built in the Philippines and it's like this decently sized church building surrounded by sky scrapers and really tall buildings haha. I got to see a fair amount of people that I know too! That was exciting and awesome to talk to and see everyone for a little while! But everyone from my district in the MTC was not there so that stunk! But it's all good of course.
After conference, cuz we were the last ones to leave, we even got a pic with Elder Ardern and the Coron Elders! It's not in this email cuz it's on Elder Osumo's camera but I'll have it next time. Then that night after the Conference we went out and worked with some of the missionaries in Makati. I was the second selection in the draft and was chosen by Elder Belarmino, one of the APs. It was sweet to work with him and to learn from him. And way different to work in the city but sweet nonetheless. One of the families we visited was way impressed with my Tagalog and I don't know why. And I finally experienced my first Jeepney and had Jollibee for the first time, it was just an all around great day.
The next morning we had to get up at 5! To get to the airport, ughhhhh! By the way I still despise mornings or Hindi mahilig ako talaga sa umaga. So Thursday we made it back to Coron and at this point flying is pretty boring so being the good elder I am, I read from the Book of Mormon the entire time. Did you know? By my count, there are 25 references to Christ before the book even officially starts in Nephi. Fun fact of the day. By the way that was my 10th flight on my mission, its pretty legit. I heart flying. But I miss driving.
Friday for our "community service." We just helped them paint the fence around our houses. The house is blue, and now the fence is white. Sooo....we have a BYU Cougar House! Boom! Rockin it. Not a whole lot of new and exciting things happened since I last emailed. Our mission has a goal to have 300 people baptized in the month of December, and we're working really hard and things are startin to look good for us! We have 9 people scheduled for December right now and we're still working really hard to continue to find those families that the Lord has prepared for us, I'm excited about our work here its awesome! But I'm sad cuz someone's leaving Nov 30th and I'm afraid its me, ughhhh! But we'll see.
So yeah, sorry that's kinda it for this past few days, but there's lots of pictures! =D haha
Love ya'll (I'm hick)
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures:
1110/1112 -- Me and my machete
1115-PA211402 -- Try to find that lizard in pictures 1115
DSCN1503/1504 -- Havin fun with brother Tonton; I don't know why he looks so small/weird cuz he's just a little bit shorter than me...
1122/1123 -- The huge crabs of one of our investigators
1127-1148 -- Coron sunset. Be jealous. (I rock at pictures!)
1153-1155 -- Umm yeah, I ate that. Be proud. It tasted decent...weird texture fa sho
1157 -- Yep, that tasted much better.
PA281513-PA281520 -- Our terrifying spider
DSCN1542 -- Coulda been a really cool pic if I had a better camera but decent nonetheless. Taken from our back balcony porch thingy
PA301512 -- The newly formed branch! Not everyone made it that Sunday but an awesome turn out still
1104-PA301521 -- Havin fun after becoming a branch
0006-0035 -- Manila Temple pics! I think my favorite may be 0013
0039-0043 -- Enjoying the mainland! McDonalds delivers! And so does everywhere else
0049-0071 -- WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS! Who can deny the Cardinals and this adorable puppy! haha
Sunday, November 6, 2011
11-1-11 E-Mail!
I'm just about caught up...
Alright! What's up people!
It's been an exciting week! So I'm in Manila (9th plane flight of the mission, ha!) and I have no access to stuff to review what happened this past week so this will probably be a fairly short email telling you the exciting news of the week!
This week started off dumb though, I was stuck inside the apartment all day Tuesday cuz I was sick, it was annoyinggg! But then I pretty much got better and was able to work the rest of the week, so yay!
So this week we had two investigators (people interested in learning about the gospel) pray, and receive answers to their prayers regarding the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. They were Angelo Cuizon and Florenze Lagrosa. We are pumped for them, its really exciting. But it was slightly overshadowed by the events later in the week.
So President and Sister Stucki (president over the entire mission of Manila) as well as one of his counselors, President Peterson and his wife, came to Coron on Saturday and Sunday. So we had to get the apartment all cleaned up for them of course, and that's when the excitement started. Robbins was cleaning the kitchen area and found a pretty huge spider just chillin right by his hand. Elder Osumo and I were hanging out, toying with his ukulele, when Elder Robbins let out quite the scream, it was hilarious and chaos ensued. Elder Bagahansol, being a man, picked up the blender it was on and took it outside and set it down. Shortly after he set it down, it came running back inside towards me, Robbins, and Osumo, so of course, we took off the other direction and ran out the front door. Bogs came to the rescue and swept him back outside, of course towards us for his entertainment. Eventually we got him on the broom and threw him into the woods and all was safe. But that was almost a crisis. The spider was nearly the size of Osumo's hand! I'll have pictures next week, I have a ton I need to send in general.
Saturday they got here, it was a great day! We received a little instruction from President and each of us had interviews with him. He's awesome! I love him. And his wife brought us stuff to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch! It's been a longgg time! And she brought oreos and doritos and just the good stuff, it rocked. They also brought me two packages from you guys! And mail! It was a great day! Then President Stucki, went out and worked with us that night for a few appointments it was sweet working with him. Even though he knows absolutely no Tagalog, the lessons were still awesome.
Sunday morning, before church I got "the news." President Stucki asked to have an interview with me before church. In that interview he extended to me the calling of Branch Executive Secretary. In sacrament meeting, CORON BECAME A BRANCH! Just three months and a day since we/the missionaries arrived in Coron, we received clearance to go ahead and form a branch! Brother Arnold, the group leader was called to be the Branch President with Elder Bagahansol as first counselor and Orlan Arbado as second, and me as Executive Secretary. It's crazy! Michael Arbado was called to be Elder's quorum president and Michael Jubilado as branch clerk. Crazy stuff! And that's all we have for now but I think we'll be extending more callings within a week. But the important thing is... CORON'S A BRANCH! We celebrated. Hopefully this is somewhat exciting to you guys reading this too, cuz I'm still pumped! (This means that there are enough members to formally organize their congregation )
Monday was Halloween and they don't celebrate it here. They do more of a Dia de los Muertos kinda thing on Nov 1st I think.. And it was Tyler Semples birthday! Happy birthday!
We flew to Manila this morning (Tuesday). And were able to eat fast food! and go to a mall! and see people! and go to the temple! It was a sweet day too! But tomorrow we get to meet Elder Ian S Ardern of the Seventy (he bashed Angry Birds in General Conference, haha). He's doing a mission tour of our mission and that's why we're in Manila, for a special mission conference. President asked me if I'd share my testimony in that meeting tomorrow, ugh! I gotta get up in front of like, at least half the mission (cuz they're having a couple difference meetings for different areas) and a General Authority and speak! Ugh! So hopefully that goes well, I guess you'll know next week.
So that's what's been up this week, it's been excitinggg! I have a ton of pics, but I couldn't send them, sorry! Next week you'll get a bunch though!
The End. WE'RE A BRANCH!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
PS -- The Cardinals won the World Series!!! =D WOOOOO!
Alright! What's up people!
It's been an exciting week! So I'm in Manila (9th plane flight of the mission, ha!) and I have no access to stuff to review what happened this past week so this will probably be a fairly short email telling you the exciting news of the week!
This week started off dumb though, I was stuck inside the apartment all day Tuesday cuz I was sick, it was annoyinggg! But then I pretty much got better and was able to work the rest of the week, so yay!
So this week we had two investigators (people interested in learning about the gospel) pray, and receive answers to their prayers regarding the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. They were Angelo Cuizon and Florenze Lagrosa. We are pumped for them, its really exciting. But it was slightly overshadowed by the events later in the week.
So President and Sister Stucki (president over the entire mission of Manila) as well as one of his counselors, President Peterson and his wife, came to Coron on Saturday and Sunday. So we had to get the apartment all cleaned up for them of course, and that's when the excitement started. Robbins was cleaning the kitchen area and found a pretty huge spider just chillin right by his hand. Elder Osumo and I were hanging out, toying with his ukulele, when Elder Robbins let out quite the scream, it was hilarious and chaos ensued. Elder Bagahansol, being a man, picked up the blender it was on and took it outside and set it down. Shortly after he set it down, it came running back inside towards me, Robbins, and Osumo, so of course, we took off the other direction and ran out the front door. Bogs came to the rescue and swept him back outside, of course towards us for his entertainment. Eventually we got him on the broom and threw him into the woods and all was safe. But that was almost a crisis. The spider was nearly the size of Osumo's hand! I'll have pictures next week, I have a ton I need to send in general.
Saturday they got here, it was a great day! We received a little instruction from President and each of us had interviews with him. He's awesome! I love him. And his wife brought us stuff to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch! It's been a longgg time! And she brought oreos and doritos and just the good stuff, it rocked. They also brought me two packages from you guys! And mail! It was a great day! Then President Stucki, went out and worked with us that night for a few appointments it was sweet working with him. Even though he knows absolutely no Tagalog, the lessons were still awesome.
Sunday morning, before church I got "the news." President Stucki asked to have an interview with me before church. In that interview he extended to me the calling of Branch Executive Secretary. In sacrament meeting, CORON BECAME A BRANCH! Just three months and a day since we/the missionaries arrived in Coron, we received clearance to go ahead and form a branch! Brother Arnold, the group leader was called to be the Branch President with Elder Bagahansol as first counselor and Orlan Arbado as second, and me as Executive Secretary. It's crazy! Michael Arbado was called to be Elder's quorum president and Michael Jubilado as branch clerk. Crazy stuff! And that's all we have for now but I think we'll be extending more callings within a week. But the important thing is... CORON'S A BRANCH! We celebrated. Hopefully this is somewhat exciting to you guys reading this too, cuz I'm still pumped! (This means that there are enough members to formally organize their congregation )
Monday was Halloween and they don't celebrate it here. They do more of a Dia de los Muertos kinda thing on Nov 1st I think.. And it was Tyler Semples birthday! Happy birthday!
We flew to Manila this morning (Tuesday). And were able to eat fast food! and go to a mall! and see people! and go to the temple! It was a sweet day too! But tomorrow we get to meet Elder Ian S Ardern of the Seventy (he bashed Angry Birds in General Conference, haha). He's doing a mission tour of our mission and that's why we're in Manila, for a special mission conference. President asked me if I'd share my testimony in that meeting tomorrow, ugh! I gotta get up in front of like, at least half the mission (cuz they're having a couple difference meetings for different areas) and a General Authority and speak! Ugh! So hopefully that goes well, I guess you'll know next week.
So that's what's been up this week, it's been excitinggg! I have a ton of pics, but I couldn't send them, sorry! Next week you'll get a bunch though!
The End. WE'RE A BRANCH!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
PS -- The Cardinals won the World Series!!! =D WOOOOO!
Friday, November 4, 2011
10-24-11 E-Mail!
What's up people!
So this week has been pretty good of course. Recently I've been trying to do better at recognizing the Lord's hand in my life and recognizing His tender mercies. And early in the week I had a pretty cool experience. So Monday, it was beautiful all day, which is perfect because we rely on warm weather to dry our clothes. Then that night, pretty close to right before we were going to bed the power went out, which random power outages are very common here. That was the worst time to lose power cuz without our fans blowing on us, it's nearly impossible to go sleep cuz it's so hot. So of course, when I prayed before going to bed I asked Heavenly Father to help us to be able to sleep in spite of the outage. Shortly after my prayer we hear thunder, which means we gotta get all our stuff from outside so they don't get rained on. We hurried up and did that and right when I got everything in it started pouringgg. Then the next morning the sun was back out and we were able to finish drying our clothes the next morning while we were studying. So essentially, Heavenly Father gave us a beautiful day on Monday, gave us rain Monday night so it would cool down some and we'd be able to sleep, and then gave us an awesome Tuesday too so we could finish drying our clothes it was awesome.
We've had some pretty cool progression with some investigators. Dante, his wife is a member, has grown to enjoy reading the Book of Mormon. He's an awesome guy but hasn't been progressing forever, cuz he's the dean at PSU here and is super busy. But in one of the times we visited him this week he told us that he feels differently when he reads the Book of Mormon and that he believes that the things in their are true. It was awesome and exciting to hear that from him. That was Tuesday also on Tuesday, me and Robbins decided we'd sit out on our back ledge thing and just look at the stars cuz they rock, and I saw a shooting star! It was legit cuz I never see shooting stars so I get pretty excited when I see one.
A lot of times, the afternoons here are rough. I really loathe some afternoons. We had a couple rough ones this week. The problem is the people here in the Philippines generally do three things: eat, sleep, and work. That's a generalization but its surprising how accurate it is sometimes. Especially in the afternoon everyone will either be working or sleeping. So there were a couple afternoons this week where we just wandered around trying to find someone home that was awake and home, those afternoons lasted forever!
On Thursday, Sister Singco's (lost member that's like 60 years old we found just a couple weeks ago) Christmas came early, she was soooo pumped when we brought her and Liahona magazine and a Gospel Principles book on Thursday, it was hilarious.
On Friday we rocked the Community Service again and it was pretty legit! We were clearing a vacant lot that had become overgrown. And I got to rock a machete for a solid three hours to clear it out! That's right, I'm legit. I got blisters from it, but it was totes worth it of course. We didn't make a whole lot of progress on the lot because it was pretty bad but it was still legit, and we saw these chameleon-ish lizards! They change colors like chameleons but they didn't look like chameleons.
Saturday and Sunday we had a District Conference (multi-congregational meeting)with a live broadcast from Puerto Princesa, so that was kinda cool. We decided when it was worldwide general conference that general conference is like the huge basketball game for missionaries and then this weekend we decided that District Conference was like the high school game, cuz there was still cool stuff but it wasn't as good as general conference of course. Then between district conference sessions they showed this video that was called like "Highlight from Conference" and me and Robbins quickly decided, "SportsCenter!" It was great! Repeatedly in District Conference, Coron got shout-outs. It was fun. We rock.
Sunday was umm...quite the day.
In the morning we had baptisms, it was awesome! They were the kids of Edna and Aurora. It was an awesome program and everything went really well. I baptized Kieth Luceriano and JR Albuera and Bogs baptized Rhea Mae Albuera and Shaine Luceriano. Then working that afternoon went pretty well too. When we were at Sister Pelayos, I wanted to share with her Alma 32:28 (maybe...about the seed). So I started trying to share and I was struggling. I looked at Bogs and I'm sure my face was pleading for him to say what I was trying to explain cuz that's how I felt. All he did was give me a couple words I didn't know. Gee thanks..haha So I turn back to Sister Pelayo expecting to explain very poorly and quickly to turn the time back over to Bogs. Well I started to try to explain it again, and it worked! I knew pretty much how to say and explain what I wanted to it was awesome! I just had to be patient.
But then that night craziness happened. We had choir practice (that's for another time...haha) and then afterwords everyone started to go home when Rhea Mae started like shaking and struggling to catch her breath. She couldn't really talk so we had no idea what she needed or what had happened. So the first thing we did was to give her a blessing. I anointed her with oil and immediately felt the Spirit calm me. Then when Elder Bogs and I laid our hands upon her head to seal it, I felt the Spirit very strongly again, probably calming me as much as anyone cuz in my head I'm like freaking out. We eventually got her to the hospital and I don't really know what they decided was wrong with her but they let her leave that night, but she was still pretty shook up. We haven't heard from them today so I don't know how she's doing now, but I'm pretty sure she's better and fine. It was quite the experience.
So that's pretty much this week. It's kinda short cuz I've got an earache right now for whatever and I wanna go home and not do anything...haha But it's been a pretty good week! I have pictures to send but this computer internet shop doesn't really cooperate with uploading pictures. So yeah, peace out homies!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
So this week has been pretty good of course. Recently I've been trying to do better at recognizing the Lord's hand in my life and recognizing His tender mercies. And early in the week I had a pretty cool experience. So Monday, it was beautiful all day, which is perfect because we rely on warm weather to dry our clothes. Then that night, pretty close to right before we were going to bed the power went out, which random power outages are very common here. That was the worst time to lose power cuz without our fans blowing on us, it's nearly impossible to go sleep cuz it's so hot. So of course, when I prayed before going to bed I asked Heavenly Father to help us to be able to sleep in spite of the outage. Shortly after my prayer we hear thunder, which means we gotta get all our stuff from outside so they don't get rained on. We hurried up and did that and right when I got everything in it started pouringgg. Then the next morning the sun was back out and we were able to finish drying our clothes the next morning while we were studying. So essentially, Heavenly Father gave us a beautiful day on Monday, gave us rain Monday night so it would cool down some and we'd be able to sleep, and then gave us an awesome Tuesday too so we could finish drying our clothes it was awesome.
We've had some pretty cool progression with some investigators. Dante, his wife is a member, has grown to enjoy reading the Book of Mormon. He's an awesome guy but hasn't been progressing forever, cuz he's the dean at PSU here and is super busy. But in one of the times we visited him this week he told us that he feels differently when he reads the Book of Mormon and that he believes that the things in their are true. It was awesome and exciting to hear that from him. That was Tuesday also on Tuesday, me and Robbins decided we'd sit out on our back ledge thing and just look at the stars cuz they rock, and I saw a shooting star! It was legit cuz I never see shooting stars so I get pretty excited when I see one.
A lot of times, the afternoons here are rough. I really loathe some afternoons. We had a couple rough ones this week. The problem is the people here in the Philippines generally do three things: eat, sleep, and work. That's a generalization but its surprising how accurate it is sometimes. Especially in the afternoon everyone will either be working or sleeping. So there were a couple afternoons this week where we just wandered around trying to find someone home that was awake and home, those afternoons lasted forever!
On Thursday, Sister Singco's (lost member that's like 60 years old we found just a couple weeks ago) Christmas came early, she was soooo pumped when we brought her and Liahona magazine and a Gospel Principles book on Thursday, it was hilarious.
On Friday we rocked the Community Service again and it was pretty legit! We were clearing a vacant lot that had become overgrown. And I got to rock a machete for a solid three hours to clear it out! That's right, I'm legit. I got blisters from it, but it was totes worth it of course. We didn't make a whole lot of progress on the lot because it was pretty bad but it was still legit, and we saw these chameleon-ish lizards! They change colors like chameleons but they didn't look like chameleons.
Saturday and Sunday we had a District Conference (multi-congregational meeting)with a live broadcast from Puerto Princesa, so that was kinda cool. We decided when it was worldwide general conference that general conference is like the huge basketball game for missionaries and then this weekend we decided that District Conference was like the high school game, cuz there was still cool stuff but it wasn't as good as general conference of course. Then between district conference sessions they showed this video that was called like "Highlight from Conference" and me and Robbins quickly decided, "SportsCenter!" It was great! Repeatedly in District Conference, Coron got shout-outs. It was fun. We rock.
Sunday was umm...quite the day.
In the morning we had baptisms, it was awesome! They were the kids of Edna and Aurora. It was an awesome program and everything went really well. I baptized Kieth Luceriano and JR Albuera and Bogs baptized Rhea Mae Albuera and Shaine Luceriano. Then working that afternoon went pretty well too. When we were at Sister Pelayos, I wanted to share with her Alma 32:28 (maybe...about the seed). So I started trying to share and I was struggling. I looked at Bogs and I'm sure my face was pleading for him to say what I was trying to explain cuz that's how I felt. All he did was give me a couple words I didn't know. Gee thanks..haha So I turn back to Sister Pelayo expecting to explain very poorly and quickly to turn the time back over to Bogs. Well I started to try to explain it again, and it worked! I knew pretty much how to say and explain what I wanted to it was awesome! I just had to be patient.
But then that night craziness happened. We had choir practice (that's for another time...haha) and then afterwords everyone started to go home when Rhea Mae started like shaking and struggling to catch her breath. She couldn't really talk so we had no idea what she needed or what had happened. So the first thing we did was to give her a blessing. I anointed her with oil and immediately felt the Spirit calm me. Then when Elder Bogs and I laid our hands upon her head to seal it, I felt the Spirit very strongly again, probably calming me as much as anyone cuz in my head I'm like freaking out. We eventually got her to the hospital and I don't really know what they decided was wrong with her but they let her leave that night, but she was still pretty shook up. We haven't heard from them today so I don't know how she's doing now, but I'm pretty sure she's better and fine. It was quite the experience.
So that's pretty much this week. It's kinda short cuz I've got an earache right now for whatever and I wanna go home and not do anything...haha But it's been a pretty good week! I have pictures to send but this computer internet shop doesn't really cooperate with uploading pictures. So yeah, peace out homies!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Thursday, November 3, 2011
10-17-11 E-Mail!
Once again I've gotten behind on posting Michael's emails! Here is the latest...
What's up people!
This week has been awesome, but terrible, but frustrating, and I love it!
First things first, it was terrible because shortly after I got done emailing, last Monday, I got a haircut. By. Far. The. Worst. Haircut. I've. Ever. Gotten...................UGH. It was so bad, but you can kinda see it in my pictures. Robbins got his haircut first and it was super short so I told her to go longer and she said okay, and still cut it as short as Robbins's. I even stopped her and was like is that right? She said that she was just starting with that and would fix it later...so yeah not happy about my hair. Many people here say it still looks good, but that's just cuz I'm white...haha
This week was awesome and frustrating cuz I felt like we worked really hard and even focused more on getting more new investigators (people interested in their message) but the progress in that area is minimal. But I feel like the new investigators we have are good and our finding was effective for the most part. It's awesome cuz we had a great week, but frustrating cuz we didn't achieve the things we had hoped for. We still have the same problem that we have very little time for finding because of all the investigators we're visiting frequently to prepare for baptism. So yeah, its awesome but frustrating but mostly awesome, of course!
So as for more specific things that happened this week it goes like this: Well first of all I forgot my journal so I just have to go off my planner. But in my planner I always make a NtJ (Notes to Journal) little section for each day so I can keep track of cool stuff that happened to write it in my journal.
So Monday, I got that terrible haircut. The end. haha pretty much but this week I decided to buy apples and bananas rather than chocolate and cookies (that's how I really survive here hahaha). But yeah I made an attempt to go more healthy this week, but I don't like the fact that I can get 10 Choco-Moochos for about the same price as 3 apples... =( So we'll see how long going healthy lasts..haha I'll try to keep it up
Tuesday, nothing too exciting happened. Taught a bunch of lessons, received some referrals, you know the normal missionary stuff haha Oh and I saw huuuuge crabs, like the size of a frying pan it was legit!
Wednesday was pretty tight, though. It rained allll day! We got soaked but it made it a lot of fun haha People would inform us that it was raining but we would cheerfully respond that there was indeed no rain haha Or others would tell us that there was a storm (there was supposed to be a storm at 3 but it really just rained all day) and we would inform those people that Kami ay ang Bagyo (We are the storm!) haha it was fun. We had dinner at the Luceriano's and of course the ulam (in english ulam means "anything you eat with or on rice" good thing its just one word in Tagalog) was fish. They made sure I tried this one fish that was just little small fish like the length of a digital camera (I say that cuz I see my camera right here) that were caught and then, simply just dried in the sun (I'm pretty sure that's actually how it happens). They were tough and salty and fairly weird but not that bad. It was just weird cuz it was like the whole fish, head, tail, skin, the whole thing. Then later that night we had a lesson at the Jucaban's. It was a great lesson and towards the end I felt that I should share something (I've forgotten what it was) but I didn't know how to say most of the stuff or the story in Tagalog so I asked if it was okay that I tell it in English then my companion would translate. It was legit cuz I knew the Spirit had prompted me to share that, and even helped them understand cuz they understood completely the part of the lesson I shared in English, legit!
Thursday was pretty solid. When we got to the Luceriano's to share with them, they told us that Ekay could now read. So apparently what she does is every time she sees a book she picks it up and looks at it like she's reading and "reads" "Ang Aklat ni Mormon." It was pretty hilarious. Also, ever since my falling through that one tulay, every time we leave somewhere in parting it is customary to say ingot kayo or whoever. Ingot literally means like be careful but here its just like take care/cya later/bye. So for me they always say, "Bye Elder, Ingot sa tulay!" Its actually pretty funny.
Friday was Elder Bagahansol's birthday! Woo! It's legit cuz when you're companion has a birthday its practically your birthday too cuz everyone like gives them food and what not and that includes you too haha. For service we cleaned the cement outside our apartment mostly on the road outside our apartment as well as the cement outside the church. We did this for three hours with little brushes (see my hand in one of the pictures). I think it was an old school punishment/threat to like clean the sidewalk or floor or somethin with a toothbrush, well that's pretty much what we did haha. But it was actually pretty fun/cool/not too bad. While I was scrubbing I thought of what I thought was a cool analogy that I will proceed to share with you if that's okay. Okay, great. (If you don't wanna read it skip some lines and continue). So we're scrubbing the cement to get rid of the moss and gunk on the cement that had formed making it really slick, especially when wet. To clean the cement you first dump a little bit of water on the cement, then you scrub and scrub and scrub, and then you dump more water on it to wash away the dirt and stuff that you just scrubbed off. The connection I made was with the Atonement and repentance. The first thing you need to repent is faith in Jesus Christ and His Atoning sacrifice. You have to believe that he atoned for our sins and can make us clean again. That is the initial bit of water. Next you have to scrub and scrub and scrub; you gotta do your part. You have to do your part to get the dirt off and remove ourselves from sin. Then after you've done all you need to, you simply wash it away, gain through Jesus Christ. When I started the quest to clean the cement, it felt somewhat worthless, and I knew it was going to be a lot of work. But wow, grey never looked so good to me as I would dump water on the nasty brownish/green and it would reveal a fresh cement, beautiful grey. And so it is with repentance. I couldn't have done it without the water, and it would've been worthless to expect it to be clean without work on my part. The two go hand in hand, faith and works. The Savior is ever ready to cleanse of sin, no matter how hopeless it seems, but we must always remember to do our part and take the necessary action to forget and forsake the sin in order for it to qualify as true repentance and to achieve true forgiveness. THE END (for those of you that skipped that) So yeah I thought it was a kinda cool analogy, so I shared it to you, my captive audience. After service, we went to the Duran's for lunch cuz they wanted us to eat there cuz it was Bogs's birthday. Upon leaving, Robbins fell through the tulay! Woo it was me! So yeah that was exciting, he too stayed dry but it was funny nonetheless. We also received mail on Friday! I got some mail and I loved it! Shout out to all you that wrote me/are writing me! I heart you! And I plan on writing you back, but I can't do that until someone leaves Coron to go to Manila. So yeah, Friday rocked!
Saturday was legit too of course. Earlier this week I made the mistake of introducing that primary Latter-Day Prophets song to Aurora's kids and the other Manggahan kids cuz now everyyyyy time I go there I'm expected to sing that song, I don't even know why! It's not like like a vocally impressive song or anything like that but I'm forced to sing it every visit. Also, for anyone that cares the stars out here are amazinggg! At night I sometimes/somewhat frequently walk along the road just looking up at the stars, yeah its legit. You're totes jelly right? I knew you were.
Sunday, I not only heard a conference talk about the tender mercies of the Lord but I witnessed it first hand! So we were watching conference at 3, but Bogs and I had an appointment at 1 that didn't actually happen till like 1:30. Then we needed to go and invite people to conference/Group FHE on Monday. I thought it was worthless cuz by the time we got to Aurora's it was already 3, and I wasn't very happy about missing some conference. So we invited them and Edna's family too which is another trip before we could go to the church. So we finally got there at like 3:30 and what had happened is for whatever reason the people at the church had started watching the Sunday Afternoon Session of April's General Conference...so we walked in during the prayer of this conference's Sunday Afternoon Session. So we didn't really miss anything! I was pumped! And then later, Sister Aurora even showed up to watch even though she was late. So it was a successful trip and I didn't miss conference. =D Aurora's little kid, Renz gave me a quail egg to eat, so that was a first, nothing too special though. That night we went to the Jucaban's again and it was another awesome lesson! Everything just flowed so well, and when it was my turn my mouth was filled with the words that I felt I needed to say. Then at the end of the lesson I thought of another analogy that I felt I should share, and kinda tried in Tagalog but I had no idea how to say half the stuff so I just did it in English, and they understood it just fine again. It was awesome.
So yeah, that was my week its been great! As far as transfers go, I think I'm safe! The ZLs told us that we're all staying here! So we're pumped but of course that could change last second. As far as eating goes, the fish and stuff here isn't too bad, but I still am American in that I don't like taking time to make food and what not. So if we're just eating at the apartment its usually just like these noodles that are the same as Raman Noodles, plus its cheaper that way. But I'm yet to eat something that tastes horrible here. The gift of tongues? Maybe the Lord has blessed my tongue as far as food goes, and that's why the language is still frustrating and annoying that I can't say all that I want to say. Mostly its just frustrating that I'm not comfortable enough to say things how I want to say them. I can work my way to say most everything I need to say, but its annoying that I can't say things how I want to or how everyone else does, still learning and adapting, but I'm learning a lot and its coming along really well still. I'll stop talking now. Oh and the Sunday Afternoon Session was AWESOME too. I just didn't expound on it, sorry!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
1074-1077 -- Service!
1081-1086 -- Yep, that's my Firebolt. I'm legit.
1091-1095 -- The restaurant, Manneken Pis, for Bogs's birthday. We go there fairly often and the people there love us. So they decked it out for his birthday it was legit.
1096 -- Awww! Little kittens! hahaha These are my friends at the Maanyo's house. Me and Rafael play with them when we go there. Well its more like I hold them and try to protect them from the hands of a heartless two-year old. haha
What's up people!
This week has been awesome, but terrible, but frustrating, and I love it!
First things first, it was terrible because shortly after I got done emailing, last Monday, I got a haircut. By. Far. The. Worst. Haircut. I've. Ever. Gotten...................UGH. It was so bad, but you can kinda see it in my pictures. Robbins got his haircut first and it was super short so I told her to go longer and she said okay, and still cut it as short as Robbins's. I even stopped her and was like is that right? She said that she was just starting with that and would fix it later...so yeah not happy about my hair. Many people here say it still looks good, but that's just cuz I'm white...haha
This week was awesome and frustrating cuz I felt like we worked really hard and even focused more on getting more new investigators (people interested in their message) but the progress in that area is minimal. But I feel like the new investigators we have are good and our finding was effective for the most part. It's awesome cuz we had a great week, but frustrating cuz we didn't achieve the things we had hoped for. We still have the same problem that we have very little time for finding because of all the investigators we're visiting frequently to prepare for baptism. So yeah, its awesome but frustrating but mostly awesome, of course!
So as for more specific things that happened this week it goes like this: Well first of all I forgot my journal so I just have to go off my planner. But in my planner I always make a NtJ (Notes to Journal) little section for each day so I can keep track of cool stuff that happened to write it in my journal.
So Monday, I got that terrible haircut. The end. haha pretty much but this week I decided to buy apples and bananas rather than chocolate and cookies (that's how I really survive here hahaha). But yeah I made an attempt to go more healthy this week, but I don't like the fact that I can get 10 Choco-Moochos for about the same price as 3 apples... =( So we'll see how long going healthy lasts..haha I'll try to keep it up
Tuesday, nothing too exciting happened. Taught a bunch of lessons, received some referrals, you know the normal missionary stuff haha Oh and I saw huuuuge crabs, like the size of a frying pan it was legit!
Wednesday was pretty tight, though. It rained allll day! We got soaked but it made it a lot of fun haha People would inform us that it was raining but we would cheerfully respond that there was indeed no rain haha Or others would tell us that there was a storm (there was supposed to be a storm at 3 but it really just rained all day) and we would inform those people that Kami ay ang Bagyo (We are the storm!) haha it was fun. We had dinner at the Luceriano's and of course the ulam (in english ulam means "anything you eat with or on rice" good thing its just one word in Tagalog) was fish. They made sure I tried this one fish that was just little small fish like the length of a digital camera (I say that cuz I see my camera right here) that were caught and then, simply just dried in the sun (I'm pretty sure that's actually how it happens). They were tough and salty and fairly weird but not that bad. It was just weird cuz it was like the whole fish, head, tail, skin, the whole thing. Then later that night we had a lesson at the Jucaban's. It was a great lesson and towards the end I felt that I should share something (I've forgotten what it was) but I didn't know how to say most of the stuff or the story in Tagalog so I asked if it was okay that I tell it in English then my companion would translate. It was legit cuz I knew the Spirit had prompted me to share that, and even helped them understand cuz they understood completely the part of the lesson I shared in English, legit!
Thursday was pretty solid. When we got to the Luceriano's to share with them, they told us that Ekay could now read. So apparently what she does is every time she sees a book she picks it up and looks at it like she's reading and "reads" "Ang Aklat ni Mormon." It was pretty hilarious. Also, ever since my falling through that one tulay, every time we leave somewhere in parting it is customary to say ingot kayo or whoever. Ingot literally means like be careful but here its just like take care/cya later/bye. So for me they always say, "Bye Elder, Ingot sa tulay!" Its actually pretty funny.
Friday was Elder Bagahansol's birthday! Woo! It's legit cuz when you're companion has a birthday its practically your birthday too cuz everyone like gives them food and what not and that includes you too haha. For service we cleaned the cement outside our apartment mostly on the road outside our apartment as well as the cement outside the church. We did this for three hours with little brushes (see my hand in one of the pictures). I think it was an old school punishment/threat to like clean the sidewalk or floor or somethin with a toothbrush, well that's pretty much what we did haha. But it was actually pretty fun/cool/not too bad. While I was scrubbing I thought of what I thought was a cool analogy that I will proceed to share with you if that's okay. Okay, great. (If you don't wanna read it skip some lines and continue). So we're scrubbing the cement to get rid of the moss and gunk on the cement that had formed making it really slick, especially when wet. To clean the cement you first dump a little bit of water on the cement, then you scrub and scrub and scrub, and then you dump more water on it to wash away the dirt and stuff that you just scrubbed off. The connection I made was with the Atonement and repentance. The first thing you need to repent is faith in Jesus Christ and His Atoning sacrifice. You have to believe that he atoned for our sins and can make us clean again. That is the initial bit of water. Next you have to scrub and scrub and scrub; you gotta do your part. You have to do your part to get the dirt off and remove ourselves from sin. Then after you've done all you need to, you simply wash it away, gain through Jesus Christ. When I started the quest to clean the cement, it felt somewhat worthless, and I knew it was going to be a lot of work. But wow, grey never looked so good to me as I would dump water on the nasty brownish/green and it would reveal a fresh cement, beautiful grey. And so it is with repentance. I couldn't have done it without the water, and it would've been worthless to expect it to be clean without work on my part. The two go hand in hand, faith and works. The Savior is ever ready to cleanse of sin, no matter how hopeless it seems, but we must always remember to do our part and take the necessary action to forget and forsake the sin in order for it to qualify as true repentance and to achieve true forgiveness. THE END (for those of you that skipped that) So yeah I thought it was a kinda cool analogy, so I shared it to you, my captive audience. After service, we went to the Duran's for lunch cuz they wanted us to eat there cuz it was Bogs's birthday. Upon leaving, Robbins fell through the tulay! Woo it was me! So yeah that was exciting, he too stayed dry but it was funny nonetheless. We also received mail on Friday! I got some mail and I loved it! Shout out to all you that wrote me/are writing me! I heart you! And I plan on writing you back, but I can't do that until someone leaves Coron to go to Manila. So yeah, Friday rocked!
Saturday was legit too of course. Earlier this week I made the mistake of introducing that primary Latter-Day Prophets song to Aurora's kids and the other Manggahan kids cuz now everyyyyy time I go there I'm expected to sing that song, I don't even know why! It's not like like a vocally impressive song or anything like that but I'm forced to sing it every visit. Also, for anyone that cares the stars out here are amazinggg! At night I sometimes/somewhat frequently walk along the road just looking up at the stars, yeah its legit. You're totes jelly right? I knew you were.
Sunday, I not only heard a conference talk about the tender mercies of the Lord but I witnessed it first hand! So we were watching conference at 3, but Bogs and I had an appointment at 1 that didn't actually happen till like 1:30. Then we needed to go and invite people to conference/Group FHE on Monday. I thought it was worthless cuz by the time we got to Aurora's it was already 3, and I wasn't very happy about missing some conference. So we invited them and Edna's family too which is another trip before we could go to the church. So we finally got there at like 3:30 and what had happened is for whatever reason the people at the church had started watching the Sunday Afternoon Session of April's General Conference...so we walked in during the prayer of this conference's Sunday Afternoon Session. So we didn't really miss anything! I was pumped! And then later, Sister Aurora even showed up to watch even though she was late. So it was a successful trip and I didn't miss conference. =D Aurora's little kid, Renz gave me a quail egg to eat, so that was a first, nothing too special though. That night we went to the Jucaban's again and it was another awesome lesson! Everything just flowed so well, and when it was my turn my mouth was filled with the words that I felt I needed to say. Then at the end of the lesson I thought of another analogy that I felt I should share, and kinda tried in Tagalog but I had no idea how to say half the stuff so I just did it in English, and they understood it just fine again. It was awesome.
So yeah, that was my week its been great! As far as transfers go, I think I'm safe! The ZLs told us that we're all staying here! So we're pumped but of course that could change last second. As far as eating goes, the fish and stuff here isn't too bad, but I still am American in that I don't like taking time to make food and what not. So if we're just eating at the apartment its usually just like these noodles that are the same as Raman Noodles, plus its cheaper that way. But I'm yet to eat something that tastes horrible here. The gift of tongues? Maybe the Lord has blessed my tongue as far as food goes, and that's why the language is still frustrating and annoying that I can't say all that I want to say. Mostly its just frustrating that I'm not comfortable enough to say things how I want to say them. I can work my way to say most everything I need to say, but its annoying that I can't say things how I want to or how everyone else does, still learning and adapting, but I'm learning a lot and its coming along really well still. I'll stop talking now. Oh and the Sunday Afternoon Session was AWESOME too. I just didn't expound on it, sorry!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
1074-1077 -- Service!
1081-1086 -- Yep, that's my Firebolt. I'm legit.
1091-1095 -- The restaurant, Manneken Pis, for Bogs's birthday. We go there fairly often and the people there love us. So they decked it out for his birthday it was legit.
1096 -- Awww! Little kittens! hahaha These are my friends at the Maanyo's house. Me and Rafael play with them when we go there. Well its more like I hold them and try to protect them from the hands of a heartless two-year old. haha
Thursday, October 13, 2011
10-10-11 from Coron!
Bonjour!
Yep, I'm now in a French speaking mission. just kidding. But I got to spend the last two days watching conference and I loveeeeeedddddddddddddddddd it! Like I was totally glued to it the whole time! I hope everyone else enjoyed it! I willingly (as opposed to those dreaded times in seminary) took notes on conference and tabbed a solid 21 pages of notes! And we still haven't seen Sunday Afternoon yet! So yeah I loved it! It's such an awesome privilege to hear from the living prophet and his apostles and other servants of the Lord.
So I'll talk about my week first and then about conference.
So Monday, we had a sweet FHE with the Durans. The lesson was good and all, but we all know its all about the games right? haha So we played this game where you make a mountain of flour and put a piece of chocolate on top and you take turns cutting away from the flour until someone knocks the chocolate down. Then, the person who knocks it down has to fetch the chocolate in the flour with their mouth. It was definitely way entertaining. Especially cuz I never lost. I still was attacked by flour though of course. Check out the pics.
So on Tuesday we had exchanges, cuz the ZLs or APs or someone encouraged us to have exchanges often, like twice a month or so. So Elder Osumo and I kicked it today. We visited Sister Lagrosa, and we extended to her the baptismal date of Nov 5th and she gladly accepted it! Its exciting! Later that night, we show up at Sister Aurora's to teach and her whole family is just chillin in their home blasting music and dancing crazily together. They were loving it. I loved to see them having so much fun together. Then I thought about my family doing the same thing....and yeah...the Gadberries don't roll like that hahaha
Wednesday was the birthday of Caleb and Grandma! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! On Wednesday, I had a pretty cool experience at the Jucaban's that night. We taught about Joseph Smith and the Restoration and invited Brother Jucaban to pray at the end of the lesson and told him if he would like he could ask right now if Joseph Smith's experience was true. When he prayed, he asked. I felt the Spirit quietly and subtly witness to me that it was true, I don't know if he felt it, I hope he did but it was cool to have the Spirit witness to me that it is true as someone else prays. It doesn't sound too exciting but it was cool, okay?! haha
On Thursday, our friends at Manneken Pis (a restaurant here in Coron we commonly go to and have become pretty good friends with the employees) decided to pick people that they think we looked like. Originally they said I was Justin Beiber, but then they decided I look like the Governor of Palawan, Baham Mitra. So apparently the people here think I look like Zac Effron, Justin Beiber and Baham Mitra. Hopefully that's good haha Later at Aurora's she told us that her husband had been thrown in prison. Her husband is a fisherman, but here they fish by diving into the water and using spear guns to catch the fish. For whatever reason something they were using (which everyone uses I guess) is illegal. So they were caught at thrown into prison. Aurora was really worried so said a prayer with her family that night, and the next time we saw her which I believe was Friday, everything with him as alright, they were released. I'm not too sure on all the details, cuz it was in Tagalog..haha But I guess Marvin Duran got caught the same night for the same thing on their boat but they had nicer captures, so he was fine too.
Friday, we did service out at Bayo Bayo Dos. Its pretty far away from us but we went out there to clean up their beach. Its really pretty out there (I have a few pictures from out there) and their beach was in much need of cleaning. It was pretty fun. Later that day, I saw someone wearing a Cardinals hat. Maybe that was the Lord's way of telling me that the Cardinals made the playoffs and are in the NLCS!!!! WOOOOOOOO! Jakey slipped it to me. (You rock bro!) I can't believe they came back from 10.5 out and are now in the NLCS. That's awesome! Alright, off to Saturday and back to missionary mode.
So Saturday, when my alarm went off I could barely hear it due to the very very very strong rain we had that morning. So immediately, I was like crap, the members here are not goin be able to make it to watch conference! I was pumped for them to get to see President Monson and the other Apostles! So of course, I prayed, duh. haha (Oh and by the way twice here we've seen a shirt that says "Pray [in big letters and underneath it it says] It works. We've been debating weather that shirt says "Pray. It works" or "Pray it works.") So I prayed and then took a shower, by the time I was out of the shower, the rain had completely stopped. But unfortunately maybe like a half an hour later it picked back up again. I wasn't too worried about the rain being a factor, I kinda took the stop of rain earlier as a reassurance that the rain will stop or at least not be a factor in stopping our members and investigators from coming. It rained allllll morning. But at about noon (we started conference at 1) it stopped/sprinkled until 1 or 1:30. Then it rained pretty much the rest of the day. So Saturday I got to watch Saturday Morning Session and the Priesthood Session. They rocked! From the very beginning I loved Elder Scotts talk about the scriptures, followed by Sister Thompsons talk about the Holy Ghost and personal revelation. Her talk was sweet and reassuring. She said if we diligently keep the commandments and ask in faith, answers will come. As well as, often times the spirit or revelation operates so delicately that you do not even consciously recognize it working within you. And the story she shared about the lady that said "I didn't keep a testimony, my testimony kept me." Her talk was awesome! And President Monson is pretty much hilarious. All the talks were awesome! But Dieters was awesomest! I think.. It's so amazing that the Lord created everything and does everything for us. And not just for us as a whole but for us individually. The Lord created the world not out of boredom but in order to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. A couple things he said that I loved was, "Compared to God, man is nothing. But to God, man is everything." As well as something along the lines of "What matters most to the Lord is that I am doing the best I can, my heart is inclined towards him, and I am helping those in need around me." That was an awesome Session I could go on for a while but I'll stop cuz this will be really long. Hollands talk in the Priesthood Session was straight up beast. Go read it again. Favorite quote (probably not exactly correct) but somethin like "I am looking for men, young and old, who care enough about the gospel to stand up and speak up! We are at war." And Elder Waddell's talk about missionary work rocked too! I don't wanna just go on and on about everything I wrote down so I'll skip to President Monson's talk. He talked a little bit about how "the world says that moral decisions and moral problems are to be solved individually and personally." How sad would it be if that were true? We would be living life without direction, without help, and without purpose. However, how great are the commandments of God? In those we find direction, we have help, and we most definitely have a purpose or a goal in life. Moving on to Sunday now
Sunday! We watched the Saturday Afternoon Session as well as Sunday Morning. I found out that the people here in Coron understand conference better if its in English rather than Tagalog. I guess the Tagalog is too fast or too deep or somethin I'm not too sure. On Sunday most of them opted to watch it in English rather than Tagalog. The Saturday Afternoon Session's primary choir was astig! One of the speakers was Ian S Ardern of the Seventy. I met him! He was at the airport with Elder Teh (the only Filipino GA, also of the Seventy) one time when we were about to fly back to Coron. It was the most random meeting of those two, but I met them! I liked his talk about using our time affectively. "Let us be as quick to kneel as we are to text." Good thing I don't have a phone anymore so I can't feel guilty about that! =D Carl B Cook reminded us that we must look up, and step up, and as we do so we will cheer up. It's so important that we constantly rely on the Lord especially through any difficulty we're experiencing. He knows how to help us, He will help us, and we will be happier. And we all want to be happy right? Duh! Just do it! Ugh! everything was awesome! L. Tom Perry encouraged us not to be shy when talking about the church. We have nothing to be ashamed of! Definitely was fairly guilty of that before the mission. Off to Sunday Morning, my session with the most notes, but I have run out of time write about really... Maybe I'll share more next time. Sunday for lunch we cooked the pork we had leftover, in Coke and it was lami! (Cebuano for delicious -- I'm living with two Cebuanos haha) And I learned a funny Tagalog pick up line! This is it, you can translate it if you like "Apoy ka ba?" "Bakit?" "Kasi alab you." I found it hilarious.
Allllright! That was reallyyyy long sorry. Adieu
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Picture Explantions
1023--Funny translation of a kids english/tagalog story
1024-1043 -- Flour FHE!
1044 -- Much of the "Manggahan Kids" that are always there when we teach Aurora. Plus Ruby and Rose who are actually investigators and great ones at that
1046 -- me and Rhea Mae and Renz; Aurora's kids
1051-1062 -- Pictures taken from Bayo Bayo Dos
1063/1065 -- Dinner!
1069/1071 -- Different Dinner!
Yep, I'm now in a French speaking mission. just kidding. But I got to spend the last two days watching conference and I loveeeeeedddddddddddddddddd it! Like I was totally glued to it the whole time! I hope everyone else enjoyed it! I willingly (as opposed to those dreaded times in seminary) took notes on conference and tabbed a solid 21 pages of notes! And we still haven't seen Sunday Afternoon yet! So yeah I loved it! It's such an awesome privilege to hear from the living prophet and his apostles and other servants of the Lord.
So I'll talk about my week first and then about conference.
So Monday, we had a sweet FHE with the Durans. The lesson was good and all, but we all know its all about the games right? haha So we played this game where you make a mountain of flour and put a piece of chocolate on top and you take turns cutting away from the flour until someone knocks the chocolate down. Then, the person who knocks it down has to fetch the chocolate in the flour with their mouth. It was definitely way entertaining. Especially cuz I never lost. I still was attacked by flour though of course. Check out the pics.
So on Tuesday we had exchanges, cuz the ZLs or APs or someone encouraged us to have exchanges often, like twice a month or so. So Elder Osumo and I kicked it today. We visited Sister Lagrosa, and we extended to her the baptismal date of Nov 5th and she gladly accepted it! Its exciting! Later that night, we show up at Sister Aurora's to teach and her whole family is just chillin in their home blasting music and dancing crazily together. They were loving it. I loved to see them having so much fun together. Then I thought about my family doing the same thing....and yeah...the Gadberries don't roll like that hahaha
Wednesday was the birthday of Caleb and Grandma! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! On Wednesday, I had a pretty cool experience at the Jucaban's that night. We taught about Joseph Smith and the Restoration and invited Brother Jucaban to pray at the end of the lesson and told him if he would like he could ask right now if Joseph Smith's experience was true. When he prayed, he asked. I felt the Spirit quietly and subtly witness to me that it was true, I don't know if he felt it, I hope he did but it was cool to have the Spirit witness to me that it is true as someone else prays. It doesn't sound too exciting but it was cool, okay?! haha
On Thursday, our friends at Manneken Pis (a restaurant here in Coron we commonly go to and have become pretty good friends with the employees) decided to pick people that they think we looked like. Originally they said I was Justin Beiber, but then they decided I look like the Governor of Palawan, Baham Mitra. So apparently the people here think I look like Zac Effron, Justin Beiber and Baham Mitra. Hopefully that's good haha Later at Aurora's she told us that her husband had been thrown in prison. Her husband is a fisherman, but here they fish by diving into the water and using spear guns to catch the fish. For whatever reason something they were using (which everyone uses I guess) is illegal. So they were caught at thrown into prison. Aurora was really worried so said a prayer with her family that night, and the next time we saw her which I believe was Friday, everything with him as alright, they were released. I'm not too sure on all the details, cuz it was in Tagalog..haha But I guess Marvin Duran got caught the same night for the same thing on their boat but they had nicer captures, so he was fine too.
Friday, we did service out at Bayo Bayo Dos. Its pretty far away from us but we went out there to clean up their beach. Its really pretty out there (I have a few pictures from out there) and their beach was in much need of cleaning. It was pretty fun. Later that day, I saw someone wearing a Cardinals hat. Maybe that was the Lord's way of telling me that the Cardinals made the playoffs and are in the NLCS!!!! WOOOOOOOO! Jakey slipped it to me. (You rock bro!) I can't believe they came back from 10.5 out and are now in the NLCS. That's awesome! Alright, off to Saturday and back to missionary mode.
So Saturday, when my alarm went off I could barely hear it due to the very very very strong rain we had that morning. So immediately, I was like crap, the members here are not goin be able to make it to watch conference! I was pumped for them to get to see President Monson and the other Apostles! So of course, I prayed, duh. haha (Oh and by the way twice here we've seen a shirt that says "Pray [in big letters and underneath it it says] It works. We've been debating weather that shirt says "Pray. It works" or "Pray it works.") So I prayed and then took a shower, by the time I was out of the shower, the rain had completely stopped. But unfortunately maybe like a half an hour later it picked back up again. I wasn't too worried about the rain being a factor, I kinda took the stop of rain earlier as a reassurance that the rain will stop or at least not be a factor in stopping our members and investigators from coming. It rained allllll morning. But at about noon (we started conference at 1) it stopped/sprinkled until 1 or 1:30. Then it rained pretty much the rest of the day. So Saturday I got to watch Saturday Morning Session and the Priesthood Session. They rocked! From the very beginning I loved Elder Scotts talk about the scriptures, followed by Sister Thompsons talk about the Holy Ghost and personal revelation. Her talk was sweet and reassuring. She said if we diligently keep the commandments and ask in faith, answers will come. As well as, often times the spirit or revelation operates so delicately that you do not even consciously recognize it working within you. And the story she shared about the lady that said "I didn't keep a testimony, my testimony kept me." Her talk was awesome! And President Monson is pretty much hilarious. All the talks were awesome! But Dieters was awesomest! I think.. It's so amazing that the Lord created everything and does everything for us. And not just for us as a whole but for us individually. The Lord created the world not out of boredom but in order to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. A couple things he said that I loved was, "Compared to God, man is nothing. But to God, man is everything." As well as something along the lines of "What matters most to the Lord is that I am doing the best I can, my heart is inclined towards him, and I am helping those in need around me." That was an awesome Session I could go on for a while but I'll stop cuz this will be really long. Hollands talk in the Priesthood Session was straight up beast. Go read it again. Favorite quote (probably not exactly correct) but somethin like "I am looking for men, young and old, who care enough about the gospel to stand up and speak up! We are at war." And Elder Waddell's talk about missionary work rocked too! I don't wanna just go on and on about everything I wrote down so I'll skip to President Monson's talk. He talked a little bit about how "the world says that moral decisions and moral problems are to be solved individually and personally." How sad would it be if that were true? We would be living life without direction, without help, and without purpose. However, how great are the commandments of God? In those we find direction, we have help, and we most definitely have a purpose or a goal in life. Moving on to Sunday now
Sunday! We watched the Saturday Afternoon Session as well as Sunday Morning. I found out that the people here in Coron understand conference better if its in English rather than Tagalog. I guess the Tagalog is too fast or too deep or somethin I'm not too sure. On Sunday most of them opted to watch it in English rather than Tagalog. The Saturday Afternoon Session's primary choir was astig! One of the speakers was Ian S Ardern of the Seventy. I met him! He was at the airport with Elder Teh (the only Filipino GA, also of the Seventy) one time when we were about to fly back to Coron. It was the most random meeting of those two, but I met them! I liked his talk about using our time affectively. "Let us be as quick to kneel as we are to text." Good thing I don't have a phone anymore so I can't feel guilty about that! =D Carl B Cook reminded us that we must look up, and step up, and as we do so we will cheer up. It's so important that we constantly rely on the Lord especially through any difficulty we're experiencing. He knows how to help us, He will help us, and we will be happier. And we all want to be happy right? Duh! Just do it! Ugh! everything was awesome! L. Tom Perry encouraged us not to be shy when talking about the church. We have nothing to be ashamed of! Definitely was fairly guilty of that before the mission. Off to Sunday Morning, my session with the most notes, but I have run out of time write about really... Maybe I'll share more next time. Sunday for lunch we cooked the pork we had leftover, in Coke and it was lami! (Cebuano for delicious -- I'm living with two Cebuanos haha) And I learned a funny Tagalog pick up line! This is it, you can translate it if you like "Apoy ka ba?" "Bakit?" "Kasi alab you." I found it hilarious.
Allllright! That was reallyyyy long sorry. Adieu
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Picture Explantions
1023--Funny translation of a kids english/tagalog story
1024-1043 -- Flour FHE!
1044 -- Much of the "Manggahan Kids" that are always there when we teach Aurora. Plus Ruby and Rose who are actually investigators and great ones at that
1046 -- me and Rhea Mae and Renz; Aurora's kids
1051-1062 -- Pictures taken from Bayo Bayo Dos
1063/1065 -- Dinner!
1069/1071 -- Different Dinner!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
10-3-2011 E-mail!
What up party people!
Alright! So we got de-stroyed! by the typhoon! It was awesome! Joke lang it wasn't too bad here. It was just super rainy on Monday and Tuesday and kinda on Wednesday, and fairly windy on Monday and Tuesday. We had a little bit of damage done to our apartment from it, but like at no point was I scared or anything. What's a little rain and wind anyways? haha
So I'll just kinda go day by day from looking at my journal and adding my own commentary and what not
Tuesday was definitely like the best day. Cuz we went out to try and teach Marjury and Jomar Pelayo, and we get there and find our that Marjury has had her baby that morning! It was exciting! I got to see a baby that was ten hours old! It was a girl, and she was 10 hrs old and still didn't have a name. What a poor, confused little baby. just kidding. But she really didn't have a name yet. Later that day we were taking a tricycle between appointments and I saw a girl wearing a Cardinals t-shirt!! I was PUMPED! haha So we were teaching and find way out in Manggahan and we had an appointment in Tagum so we started walking back from Manggahan to Tagum. When we were about halfway in between the two, Bogs stops and is like "Do you hear that?" I heard something but wasn't sure what cuz it sounded far away. So we continued for a couple minutes, then it started sprinkling a little, and Bogs was like Run! So we take off running to Tagum as it starts pouringgg it was like a solid 10 minute run. It was awesome! We got there and took shelter in Jaime's tindahan. Where I found Jaime rockin a Jo-Bros t-shirt hahaha. Later while we were eating in the apartment, we got a call from one of the Paranaque elders to ask Bogs a question cuz that was where he was before he came here. So after they talked I got to talk to Elder Labinpuno and Tenny for a little bit. Elder Tenny is a fairly fresh missionary from my zone at the MTC and so I got to catch up with him and see how he's doing a bit, it sounds like he's doing great! And just when you thought the night was out of excitement. We went out to the Decleto's and as we were walking on the tulay, I took a step and CRACK! The tulay breaks and my left leg is headin for the water! haha I fell like halfway up my thigh of my left leg but luckily I was able to catch myself before I got wet. So that was legit too! Then after we were done teaching for the night we started heading back to the apartment when it starts pouring again! So we were running down the middle of the street in the middle of the city until a tricycle finally came. By the way I attached a fairly good picture of a tricycle to this email. And yep, that was just Tuesday.
Wednesday -- The finance elder called to see how I was taking the BYU loss, again, for the second time! I told him since I go to BYU and I'm so much better than everyone else, I'm going to take the loss in stride and not say anything about it. hahaha And remember Sister Lagrosa? I hated teaching her cuz she always just laughed at our Tagalog and I felt teaching her was worthless, but now she's becoming one of my favorite investigators! We've been reteaching the Restoration and she's really getting it! I think she's really close to getting a baptismal date, pumped!
Thrusday -- Was a fairly normal day. It was the anniversary of 2 months of missionaries in Coron so that was cool! It's a weird problem that we have here. We have so many investigators that we're teaching nearly everyday to help prepare them for baptism that it makes it hard to get "New Investigators." That's like a good problem to have, but we need to be getting new investigators like everyday but its almost like we don't have time for it, so yeah that's kinda frustrating but okay too I guess.
Friday, Friday. Doin community service on Friday -- So we had service in the morning, and we were going to fix the tulay that I broke but Josaphine's husband wasn't there and he had the stuff we needed to fix it. So we go off looking for a different service project. We go out on a different tulay and find these guys that maybe Brother Arnold knew that were building a house. And they let us help! So I got to help kinda build a house. They were pouring cement down around the wooden sticks that were the foundation. (Unfortunately I didn't have my camera) So we got to literally make and mix cement, legit! Like they pretty much made it from scratch and yeah I got to do it and it was tight, yo. Also, we were out teaching in Manggahan first to the Gueta family and then to Aurora's family. When we taught at Aurora's family there were 11 kids ages 3-10 there, ughhh haha But pretty fun. The kids out there loveee us. It makes going out there pretty fun. Also in those 11 little kids, one of them pee-ed on Bogs while we were teaching. It was hilarious. Even he thought it was funny so it was okay. The other day it just struck me that it was weird that at every house we go to, we sit on the floor. I just had never though of that. Like most anywhere else, we'd have chairs or somethin. But most of the time here its just the floor. Because of my inflexibility, sometimes its hard but it really hasn't been bad at all. Looks like I'm goin be savin money on furniture in the future! haha just kidding I can still enjoy a nice soft couch.
Saturday -- Well in the morning when me and Robbins went out running we passed this like group of like 6 dogs just laying in the road. Yeah, they were not happy letting us pass. They started chasing us and what not but we escaped and went a different route. To find kind of a trail (kind of a trail because we kinda made the trail ourselves at the same time haha) that over looks Coron beautifully. I'll get pictures of it sometime. That night we went out to Manggahan to teach again. When we teach at Aurora's one of Rhea Mae's (Aurora's daughter) best friends (Clarina) is always there and participates and is awesome. Well this time her very drunk mother came along, too and informed us repeatedly that she wanted to teach for her kids and got all emotional and what not. I felt really bad for her because like the kids and the adults that were around thought it was hilarious that she was making a fool of herself, and I felt really bad for Clarina cuz she had to see her mom like this and probably had to put up with this fairly often. Drunk people are very annoying.
Sunday was great! It was fast and testimony meeting so that is always great! Especially cuz the members here and even nonmembers are so willing to get up and share their testimonies. There were no pauses in the meeting. Our attendance this week got back up around 70 with a solid 67, and Elder Bagahansol and I had 15 investigators attend the church. It was great. Also while we were out working I saw a guy wearing a BYU tank-top! It was legit! But I'm 99% sure he's never heard of BYU and isn't a member, as is the case with most all shirts and stuff people where here. They usually don't know what it says or means if its in English or originates from America. While we were teaching Nelda Pelayo, we were talking about the gospel and how it blesses families and about eternal families and she was talking about how badly she wants her family to stay together and how amazing it would be if she could be with her parents, who have died, again, and she started crying and it almost made me cry...She's so awesome! I'm afraid I'm goin get transferred on October 19th! I don't wanna goooo! If I have to leave, I'm taking all my investigators and members with me.
So General Conference here goes down like this. We'll watch it this upcoming weekend. And they're goin have it for us in Tagalog! But Elder Robbins and I get to watch everything but the Priesthood session in English so that's a relief. I heard they're building another temple in Provo! That's crazy! hahaha Life out here is going so fast! I'm almost a quarter of the way through my mission! Ahh! Transfers are flying and I love it!
Love you all!
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
1012--Rain on Monday!
1013--Me rockin the glasses and a TOMMY HILFIGER (my favorite and almost only tie brand but I had to leave most of them behind) tie I found here for 80 pesos!
1014-- Jeepney
1016--Tricycle
1017-- Renz! Aurora's youngest. He wears his school uniform shirt to church so he can be like a missionary
1021 -- Our "washing machine" That's right I'm hardcore! haha
Alright! So we got de-stroyed! by the typhoon! It was awesome! Joke lang it wasn't too bad here. It was just super rainy on Monday and Tuesday and kinda on Wednesday, and fairly windy on Monday and Tuesday. We had a little bit of damage done to our apartment from it, but like at no point was I scared or anything. What's a little rain and wind anyways? haha
So I'll just kinda go day by day from looking at my journal and adding my own commentary and what not
Tuesday was definitely like the best day. Cuz we went out to try and teach Marjury and Jomar Pelayo, and we get there and find our that Marjury has had her baby that morning! It was exciting! I got to see a baby that was ten hours old! It was a girl, and she was 10 hrs old and still didn't have a name. What a poor, confused little baby. just kidding. But she really didn't have a name yet. Later that day we were taking a tricycle between appointments and I saw a girl wearing a Cardinals t-shirt!! I was PUMPED! haha So we were teaching and find way out in Manggahan and we had an appointment in Tagum so we started walking back from Manggahan to Tagum. When we were about halfway in between the two, Bogs stops and is like "Do you hear that?" I heard something but wasn't sure what cuz it sounded far away. So we continued for a couple minutes, then it started sprinkling a little, and Bogs was like Run! So we take off running to Tagum as it starts pouringgg it was like a solid 10 minute run. It was awesome! We got there and took shelter in Jaime's tindahan. Where I found Jaime rockin a Jo-Bros t-shirt hahaha. Later while we were eating in the apartment, we got a call from one of the Paranaque elders to ask Bogs a question cuz that was where he was before he came here. So after they talked I got to talk to Elder Labinpuno and Tenny for a little bit. Elder Tenny is a fairly fresh missionary from my zone at the MTC and so I got to catch up with him and see how he's doing a bit, it sounds like he's doing great! And just when you thought the night was out of excitement. We went out to the Decleto's and as we were walking on the tulay, I took a step and CRACK! The tulay breaks and my left leg is headin for the water! haha I fell like halfway up my thigh of my left leg but luckily I was able to catch myself before I got wet. So that was legit too! Then after we were done teaching for the night we started heading back to the apartment when it starts pouring again! So we were running down the middle of the street in the middle of the city until a tricycle finally came. By the way I attached a fairly good picture of a tricycle to this email. And yep, that was just Tuesday.
Wednesday -- The finance elder called to see how I was taking the BYU loss, again, for the second time! I told him since I go to BYU and I'm so much better than everyone else, I'm going to take the loss in stride and not say anything about it. hahaha And remember Sister Lagrosa? I hated teaching her cuz she always just laughed at our Tagalog and I felt teaching her was worthless, but now she's becoming one of my favorite investigators! We've been reteaching the Restoration and she's really getting it! I think she's really close to getting a baptismal date, pumped!
Thrusday -- Was a fairly normal day. It was the anniversary of 2 months of missionaries in Coron so that was cool! It's a weird problem that we have here. We have so many investigators that we're teaching nearly everyday to help prepare them for baptism that it makes it hard to get "New Investigators." That's like a good problem to have, but we need to be getting new investigators like everyday but its almost like we don't have time for it, so yeah that's kinda frustrating but okay too I guess.
Friday, Friday. Doin community service on Friday -- So we had service in the morning, and we were going to fix the tulay that I broke but Josaphine's husband wasn't there and he had the stuff we needed to fix it. So we go off looking for a different service project. We go out on a different tulay and find these guys that maybe Brother Arnold knew that were building a house. And they let us help! So I got to help kinda build a house. They were pouring cement down around the wooden sticks that were the foundation. (Unfortunately I didn't have my camera) So we got to literally make and mix cement, legit! Like they pretty much made it from scratch and yeah I got to do it and it was tight, yo. Also, we were out teaching in Manggahan first to the Gueta family and then to Aurora's family. When we taught at Aurora's family there were 11 kids ages 3-10 there, ughhh haha But pretty fun. The kids out there loveee us. It makes going out there pretty fun. Also in those 11 little kids, one of them pee-ed on Bogs while we were teaching. It was hilarious. Even he thought it was funny so it was okay. The other day it just struck me that it was weird that at every house we go to, we sit on the floor. I just had never though of that. Like most anywhere else, we'd have chairs or somethin. But most of the time here its just the floor. Because of my inflexibility, sometimes its hard but it really hasn't been bad at all. Looks like I'm goin be savin money on furniture in the future! haha just kidding I can still enjoy a nice soft couch.
Saturday -- Well in the morning when me and Robbins went out running we passed this like group of like 6 dogs just laying in the road. Yeah, they were not happy letting us pass. They started chasing us and what not but we escaped and went a different route. To find kind of a trail (kind of a trail because we kinda made the trail ourselves at the same time haha) that over looks Coron beautifully. I'll get pictures of it sometime. That night we went out to Manggahan to teach again. When we teach at Aurora's one of Rhea Mae's (Aurora's daughter) best friends (Clarina) is always there and participates and is awesome. Well this time her very drunk mother came along, too and informed us repeatedly that she wanted to teach for her kids and got all emotional and what not. I felt really bad for her because like the kids and the adults that were around thought it was hilarious that she was making a fool of herself, and I felt really bad for Clarina cuz she had to see her mom like this and probably had to put up with this fairly often. Drunk people are very annoying.
Sunday was great! It was fast and testimony meeting so that is always great! Especially cuz the members here and even nonmembers are so willing to get up and share their testimonies. There were no pauses in the meeting. Our attendance this week got back up around 70 with a solid 67, and Elder Bagahansol and I had 15 investigators attend the church. It was great. Also while we were out working I saw a guy wearing a BYU tank-top! It was legit! But I'm 99% sure he's never heard of BYU and isn't a member, as is the case with most all shirts and stuff people where here. They usually don't know what it says or means if its in English or originates from America. While we were teaching Nelda Pelayo, we were talking about the gospel and how it blesses families and about eternal families and she was talking about how badly she wants her family to stay together and how amazing it would be if she could be with her parents, who have died, again, and she started crying and it almost made me cry...She's so awesome! I'm afraid I'm goin get transferred on October 19th! I don't wanna goooo! If I have to leave, I'm taking all my investigators and members with me.
So General Conference here goes down like this. We'll watch it this upcoming weekend. And they're goin have it for us in Tagalog! But Elder Robbins and I get to watch everything but the Priesthood session in English so that's a relief. I heard they're building another temple in Provo! That's crazy! hahaha Life out here is going so fast! I'm almost a quarter of the way through my mission! Ahh! Transfers are flying and I love it!
Love you all!
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
1012--Rain on Monday!
1013--Me rockin the glasses and a TOMMY HILFIGER (my favorite and almost only tie brand but I had to leave most of them behind) tie I found here for 80 pesos!
1014-- Jeepney
1016--Tricycle
1017-- Renz! Aurora's youngest. He wears his school uniform shirt to church so he can be like a missionary
1021 -- Our "washing machine" That's right I'm hardcore! haha
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
9-26-2011 E-mail!
Alright, Alright. Alright-Alright-Alright. Hey! (Props to anyone that got that!)
So you know how last week was great? Well this week was like pretty much the opposite...
juuust kidding! This week was great too of course!
haha I must share this experience from last Monday. So we went out to the shore to try and see the sunset at the end of p-day and it was fairly anti-climatic, I only got like one decent picture. But as we were leaving, I was walking with Elder Osumo and this high school girl tries to discretely take a picture of me with her phone. She turned around and took it and then went back to talking with her friend. Osumo was like "You saw that right?" I was like "yep." It was pretty hilarious. And I'm ridiculously good looking.
So on Tuesday we had our District Meeting. I'll just pretty much copy what I wrote in my journal for Tuesday. "In District Meeting this morning, we learned about listening (From Preach My Gospel). Elder Bagahansol said that this lesson was especially for Elder Robbins and I, which, quite frankly, I wasn't too happy when he said that cuz I don't like being singled out like that. I thought 'One, obviously I'm trying my best to listen, but its kinda hard when you can't understand what's going on sometimes. And two, if I'm not constantly planning out what I should say in my head, I won't have anything to say.' But by the end I, slightly grudgingly, said to myself, 'Alright, whatever. I'll try it. I'm going to just listen to our investigators, pray I understand, and pray I have something halfway intelligent/correct to say.' So somewhat begrudgingly, I decided to test the Lord on His promise that my mouth will be filled, and I won't be confounded before men. So we went about our day. At the Maanyo's we were informed that Coron has received reports of an aswang (means mythical creature, in this case a vampire and I was informed yesterday by Ivy that the aswang likes to feed on Pregnant ladies) and there has already been two victims. In relation to "aswang," I related Elder Robbins' story about his district at the MTC always saying "May aswang po ba kayo? (Do you have a monster?" instead of "May asawa po ba kayo? (Do you have a spouse?) And they thought that was hilarous. Later, I learned some Cuyonon! The dialect they have here in Coron/Palawan. It's not too common, but plenty of people here know at least some." So yeah that was Tuesday!
Wednesday was the mark of 8 weeks now in the Philippines! And Sunday meant two months out here! and 4 months into my mission! That's crazy! Also, on Wednesday I finally smartened up a bit. Elder Robbins is a big time runner. But Elder Osumo is not a runner at all, so Robbins has been kinda dying being out here unable to run so finally I decided I should start running with him so we started on Wednesday.
On Thursday we had exchanges because we had 5 people in need on baptismal interviews by Elder Osumo on Thursday. So pretty much the whole day he was interviewing while I was chilling outside or wherever else with the kids or whoever else. So I got a bunch of Tagalog practice! An experiece I wrote in my journal "While interviewing the Lucerianos, the rest of us were chillin at the Durans. Now that was hard core practice. I had the young kids competing for my attention, Ivy and Arliza talking to me about music and whatever else, and then more like a regular conversation with Alriza cuz she does not stop talking (She even told me that herself haha). But I did pretty good! I focused on listening and understanding and I didn't do too bad!"
But Friday was where its at! I'm just copying the journal for this one. "Well first things first, I got up to go run like a good person when...Pala! May palaka so aking sapatos! (That's right you have to look that up). Yeah, I wasn't too happy about that. Kasi it's like 6:30, so I'm like barely conscious and I go to put on my shoe and felt something weird. I saw what it was, was fairly startled, and threw my shoe on the ground. The thing was huge! Like the size of a Ding Dong Hostess cake (ask Yocum about Hostess cakes). After I macho-ly removed the thing from my shoe by thrusting my shoe to the ground and it was all good. Later we went to Stephanies. So we get there and Josaphine is doing this ladies nails and the ladies' husband is there too. So we couldnt really teach but that's ok cuz we mostly needed to get info from Stephanie for her BCR. Well Bogs, was doing that so I was left to pretty much fend for myself, great.... So the husband starts talking to me. At first he didn't think I knew Tagalog, then he thught I didn't know very much because I had only been here for 2 months, and by the end he was very impressed! We talked for like 25 minutes! He said he was a born-again christian and he was a missionary like on a boat for 12 years. He told me he got to travel much of Asia. I told him that my dad served a mission in Korea. So he asked if my family were members of the church, too. He asked a little about my family. I told him about us. He said that like they used music for his mission and for church. He asked if we had music for church. I said we do but just piano. He asked if I played. I said no but I wish I did (fact.). But I do play trombone. He told me his favorite was piano but he also taught himself guitar, accordian, drums, and I think a couple other things, I forgot. I was impressed. He let me in on the 'secret' to learning anything like that. He said 'If you want to learn to ride a bike, first get a bike. If you want to learn to play basketball, buy a ball. So if you want to learn guitar, you've gotta get a guitar first; then practice for 20min-1hr a day and you'll learn it.' That wasn't all our conversation, pretty much the highlights. But it was legit. The Lord rocks! This guy originally thought my Tagalog would be minimal and funny/entertaining, then we ended up having a cool conversation! D&C 100:5! It wasn't a gospel conversation, but I was still not confounded before men. That experience gave me confidence for the rest of the day. The Durans had offered to make all 4 of us dinner that night so we get there and they still had a little while until it was ready so we hung outand Robbins and I were having Tagalog conversations, our comps were impressed. And yeah pretty much Tagalog was fun today."
Then Saturday we had 5 baptisms (Edna, JJ, Aurora, Stephanie, and RJ)! Four of them were our investigators (should've been 5 but Keith was sick and couldn't make it with his mom and brother). We now have a font at the church. They constructed it in less than a week, definitely with some help from the Lord. They had to get up at 5 Saturday morning to finish it, and we were still filling it up with water until like 9:30. The service was supposed to start at 9..haha We had to fill it up by dumping bucket after bucket after bucket of water into the font it was pretty classic. The water was like barely past my knees and I was supposed to baptize 2 full grown adults (one of them pregnant!) Yeah that was hard..haha Of our 4 investigators being baptized I got the honor of doing 3 of the baptisms. It was sweet! But later we visted Edna because E-Kay (my "best friend" haha) had a really bad fever. We gave her a blessing but Sunday she ended up going to the hospital, I think she's okay now but I haven't heard anything new. The hospital here is definitely different..haha Ok so unlike E-Kay cuz she was sick she didn't say like anything, but when she was at the hospital and they were putting on IV in her to keep her hydrated she got a little more like E-Kay. She shouted at the nurse and everyone else there "Mamatay kayo lahat!" Keep in mind that she's like 3..haha But that means "You will all die!" hahaha So yeah she wasn't happy with that IV but after that was done she went back to her depressing self. Also, on Sunday I heard the song that we Cha-Chaed to allll the time in Social Dance, and so I, of course, had to cha-cha for Stephanie and Josaphine is was pretty funny.
So yeah that was really long too, sorry! But that was pretty much my week. I would like to give any faithful readers the opportunity to ask me any questions that they might be curious about. So if you read this and have a question for me. Email it to my parents and they'll email me any questions in their next email.
Love you all!
Elder Michael Gadberry
So you know how last week was great? Well this week was like pretty much the opposite...
juuust kidding! This week was great too of course!
haha I must share this experience from last Monday. So we went out to the shore to try and see the sunset at the end of p-day and it was fairly anti-climatic, I only got like one decent picture. But as we were leaving, I was walking with Elder Osumo and this high school girl tries to discretely take a picture of me with her phone. She turned around and took it and then went back to talking with her friend. Osumo was like "You saw that right?" I was like "yep." It was pretty hilarious. And I'm ridiculously good looking.
So on Tuesday we had our District Meeting. I'll just pretty much copy what I wrote in my journal for Tuesday. "In District Meeting this morning, we learned about listening (From Preach My Gospel). Elder Bagahansol said that this lesson was especially for Elder Robbins and I, which, quite frankly, I wasn't too happy when he said that cuz I don't like being singled out like that. I thought 'One, obviously I'm trying my best to listen, but its kinda hard when you can't understand what's going on sometimes. And two, if I'm not constantly planning out what I should say in my head, I won't have anything to say.' But by the end I, slightly grudgingly, said to myself, 'Alright, whatever. I'll try it. I'm going to just listen to our investigators, pray I understand, and pray I have something halfway intelligent/correct to say.' So somewhat begrudgingly, I decided to test the Lord on His promise that my mouth will be filled, and I won't be confounded before men. So we went about our day. At the Maanyo's we were informed that Coron has received reports of an aswang (means mythical creature, in this case a vampire and I was informed yesterday by Ivy that the aswang likes to feed on Pregnant ladies) and there has already been two victims. In relation to "aswang," I related Elder Robbins' story about his district at the MTC always saying "May aswang po ba kayo? (Do you have a monster?" instead of "May asawa po ba kayo? (Do you have a spouse?) And they thought that was hilarous. Later, I learned some Cuyonon! The dialect they have here in Coron/Palawan. It's not too common, but plenty of people here know at least some." So yeah that was Tuesday!
Wednesday was the mark of 8 weeks now in the Philippines! And Sunday meant two months out here! and 4 months into my mission! That's crazy! Also, on Wednesday I finally smartened up a bit. Elder Robbins is a big time runner. But Elder Osumo is not a runner at all, so Robbins has been kinda dying being out here unable to run so finally I decided I should start running with him so we started on Wednesday.
On Thursday we had exchanges because we had 5 people in need on baptismal interviews by Elder Osumo on Thursday. So pretty much the whole day he was interviewing while I was chilling outside or wherever else with the kids or whoever else. So I got a bunch of Tagalog practice! An experiece I wrote in my journal "While interviewing the Lucerianos, the rest of us were chillin at the Durans. Now that was hard core practice. I had the young kids competing for my attention, Ivy and Arliza talking to me about music and whatever else, and then more like a regular conversation with Alriza cuz she does not stop talking (She even told me that herself haha). But I did pretty good! I focused on listening and understanding and I didn't do too bad!"
But Friday was where its at! I'm just copying the journal for this one. "Well first things first, I got up to go run like a good person when...Pala! May palaka so aking sapatos! (That's right you have to look that up). Yeah, I wasn't too happy about that. Kasi it's like 6:30, so I'm like barely conscious and I go to put on my shoe and felt something weird. I saw what it was, was fairly startled, and threw my shoe on the ground. The thing was huge! Like the size of a Ding Dong Hostess cake (ask Yocum about Hostess cakes). After I macho-ly removed the thing from my shoe by thrusting my shoe to the ground and it was all good. Later we went to Stephanies. So we get there and Josaphine is doing this ladies nails and the ladies' husband is there too. So we couldnt really teach but that's ok cuz we mostly needed to get info from Stephanie for her BCR. Well Bogs, was doing that so I was left to pretty much fend for myself, great.... So the husband starts talking to me. At first he didn't think I knew Tagalog, then he thught I didn't know very much because I had only been here for 2 months, and by the end he was very impressed! We talked for like 25 minutes! He said he was a born-again christian and he was a missionary like on a boat for 12 years. He told me he got to travel much of Asia. I told him that my dad served a mission in Korea. So he asked if my family were members of the church, too. He asked a little about my family. I told him about us. He said that like they used music for his mission and for church. He asked if we had music for church. I said we do but just piano. He asked if I played. I said no but I wish I did (fact.). But I do play trombone. He told me his favorite was piano but he also taught himself guitar, accordian, drums, and I think a couple other things, I forgot. I was impressed. He let me in on the 'secret' to learning anything like that. He said 'If you want to learn to ride a bike, first get a bike. If you want to learn to play basketball, buy a ball. So if you want to learn guitar, you've gotta get a guitar first; then practice for 20min-1hr a day and you'll learn it.' That wasn't all our conversation, pretty much the highlights. But it was legit. The Lord rocks! This guy originally thought my Tagalog would be minimal and funny/entertaining, then we ended up having a cool conversation! D&C 100:5! It wasn't a gospel conversation, but I was still not confounded before men. That experience gave me confidence for the rest of the day. The Durans had offered to make all 4 of us dinner that night so we get there and they still had a little while until it was ready so we hung outand Robbins and I were having Tagalog conversations, our comps were impressed. And yeah pretty much Tagalog was fun today."
Then Saturday we had 5 baptisms (Edna, JJ, Aurora, Stephanie, and RJ)! Four of them were our investigators (should've been 5 but Keith was sick and couldn't make it with his mom and brother). We now have a font at the church. They constructed it in less than a week, definitely with some help from the Lord. They had to get up at 5 Saturday morning to finish it, and we were still filling it up with water until like 9:30. The service was supposed to start at 9..haha We had to fill it up by dumping bucket after bucket after bucket of water into the font it was pretty classic. The water was like barely past my knees and I was supposed to baptize 2 full grown adults (one of them pregnant!) Yeah that was hard..haha Of our 4 investigators being baptized I got the honor of doing 3 of the baptisms. It was sweet! But later we visted Edna because E-Kay (my "best friend" haha) had a really bad fever. We gave her a blessing but Sunday she ended up going to the hospital, I think she's okay now but I haven't heard anything new. The hospital here is definitely different..haha Ok so unlike E-Kay cuz she was sick she didn't say like anything, but when she was at the hospital and they were putting on IV in her to keep her hydrated she got a little more like E-Kay. She shouted at the nurse and everyone else there "Mamatay kayo lahat!" Keep in mind that she's like 3..haha But that means "You will all die!" hahaha So yeah she wasn't happy with that IV but after that was done she went back to her depressing self. Also, on Sunday I heard the song that we Cha-Chaed to allll the time in Social Dance, and so I, of course, had to cha-cha for Stephanie and Josaphine is was pretty funny.
So yeah that was really long too, sorry! But that was pretty much my week. I would like to give any faithful readers the opportunity to ask me any questions that they might be curious about. So if you read this and have a question for me. Email it to my parents and they'll email me any questions in their next email.
Love you all!
Elder Michael Gadberry
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Coron Island: September 19, 2011
The latest, greatest (and long!) e-mail from Michael! He has a new companion, still on Coron and still loving it. Hopefully there are pictures above this post that are referenced in his e-mail below. Also, as a point of reference, Michael's right eye is pretty weak. That will mean something in a few paragraphs.
Ayos!
Got you all some more pics on the way. My parents asked about the bird in the picture on the last one, and that is a dissected Balut. I bought Elder Hopkins balut the night before he left cuz he said he wanted to try it but hadn't tried it yet. So Elder Osumo and I went on a snack run for everyone and I had to pick up some balut. We bought 2 Hopkins (barely) ate on, he had lots of trouble. And he culdnt do another so smartly, we decided to dissect it and that is what the inside of a balut looks like.
This time I brought my journal with me so I have a better idea of what went down this week. Get pumped! haha So lets start with Tuesday, that night we had a lesson with Dante. My companion followed up and then turned the time over to me. I knew what we planned on sharing but I had no idea like how to do it in Tagalog or where to start and what not. But then I just had an idea of where to go with it and I followed that thought and I was able to teach much of the lesson in
good Tagalog. I know that the Spirit helped me out there cuz well I taught in Tagalog and I dont know Tagalog haha, but also because of how smooth and powerful the lesson was too. Kind of like Nephi being led by the Spirit not knowing before hand what he should do. Or in D&C take no thought before hand what ye shall say but it will be granted you in the very moment that portion that is meted unto every man. Or something close to that. Also on Tuesday, I saw a Filipino squirrel And its like half the size of squirrels in America.
So on Thursday, I got to play Filipino style pool. Its pretty legit! I've got pictures of it that I sent. The cue ball is actually a wooden black puck, and the balls are smaller red, plastic pucks with papers with numbers on them taped on top. Its legit. I actually think its easier than regular style pool. Pool is huge here. Which is kinda cool but not when you're a missionary and you gotta teach people that gambling is bad..haha Also that little crab you see in the pictures....Yeah not a fan. My companion hoped down in the mud when it was low tide and caught him, then proceeded to torture me with him for like ten minutes! Much to the entertainment of him and Aurora Albuera the sister we were teaching at the moment. But it was pretty funny. At some point during the day I did something to mess with Robbins (I've forgotten what now...haha) but then I came back home and I found my desk in the bathroom. It was pretty hilarious. We took
some fun pictures with that.
Alright! Friday was pretty eventful, too. It was an exciting day cuz we got our support for the second half of the month! And the ATM gave us our support in all 100 peso bills...so that was fairly entertaining. By the way "Skater Boi" just came on on the radio here in the internet shop and me Robbins and Osumo just looked at each other and laughed. Classic song. (Osumo is totally American. More fluent in english than some Americans. Knows all the slang. Only listens to American music. And will not watch a movie or show if its not in english). Back to Friday. (cue Rebecca Black) First of all during Weekly Planning, for whatever reason, my comp was getting on my nerves and I have no idea why...So when he went to the bathroom I said a quick prayer, looked back at my scriptures and saw Alma 34:29, it says "If ye do not remember to be charitable, ye are as dross, which the refiners do cast out, (it being of no worth) and is trodden under the foot of men." I read that, chuckled to myself, tried to remember that, and had a great rest of plannning and rest of the day.
Later that night, we were getting in Mark Velasquez's (Jelyn's husband) tricycle. It was dark and I turned to go around to the back and Bam!I ran right into the corner of a really low tin roof thingy. It didnt hurt but of course it bled a fair amount. Luckily, Mark and Bogs were there right away to clean it up. Bogs had alcohol so we got it really clean (SO DON'T WORRY!). I had three thoughts come into my head. First, crap if this is bad, I'm going to get sent back to Manila and not be able to come back here... Second, Since Jesus suffered all out pains and afflictions, I might need to repent of this cuz this is a really dumb thing to make him suffer. And third and mostly overall, I was grateful that it didnt actually get my eye cuz that was my left eye and if it gets damaged we may have issues. And so yeah that was eventful. Whenever someone asks me what happened I tell them "Nagustohan ko maging kagaya ni Pacquio. (I wanted to be like Pacquio)." But that night Mark gave us some bad news. He said that there's been a lot of talk on his side of the family about Jelyn going to our church and being baptized, and his parents are devout Catholics and were not happy about it. So he told us we'd be welcome to still come and share and what not but she probably won't be going to church anymore. So yeah either tonight or tomorrow night we're going over there to sort all of that out. Hopefully it works out.
So I know that the Lord's definitely been helping out my Tagalog cuz Saturday we visited the Lagrosas and when me and Hopkins visited there they pretty much just laughed through the entire lessons, but still went to church on Sunday, much to our surprise...haha They laughed not because our Tagalog was wrong they just thought it was hilarious that a couple Americans were speaking Tagalog I guess...haha But Saturday we stopped by and I was hoping to speak minimally. But Elder Bagahansol told me to teach her about sacrament. So I was like uhh ok I'll try (this isn't going to go well...). Plus this was pretty much the first time I taught it like myself usually I just have a couple inputs. So I tried and she understand and it went good and she didn't laugh at my Tagalog at all! It was awesome!
So yeah that's the highlights of my week pretty much. Yesterday at church we had 56 people there, and Elder Bagahansol and I had 17 investigators at church it was a good Sunday.
The dirt road pics: We went out there with Bro and Sis Duran to meet some lost members and it was pretty tight. The tiny kitten we saw in the streets. To be blunt, it probably won't live very long. There are a ton of dogs and cats in the streets. The snowman was created by Elder Robbins in our little freezer.
So yep, wow that was long. I love everyone that actually reads this whole thing. And if you dont actually read this I still love you, but not as much.
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Ayos!
Got you all some more pics on the way. My parents asked about the bird in the picture on the last one, and that is a dissected Balut. I bought Elder Hopkins balut the night before he left cuz he said he wanted to try it but hadn't tried it yet. So Elder Osumo and I went on a snack run for everyone and I had to pick up some balut. We bought 2 Hopkins (barely) ate on, he had lots of trouble. And he culdnt do another so smartly, we decided to dissect it and that is what the inside of a balut looks like.
This time I brought my journal with me so I have a better idea of what went down this week. Get pumped! haha So lets start with Tuesday, that night we had a lesson with Dante. My companion followed up and then turned the time over to me. I knew what we planned on sharing but I had no idea like how to do it in Tagalog or where to start and what not. But then I just had an idea of where to go with it and I followed that thought and I was able to teach much of the lesson in
good Tagalog. I know that the Spirit helped me out there cuz well I taught in Tagalog and I dont know Tagalog haha, but also because of how smooth and powerful the lesson was too. Kind of like Nephi being led by the Spirit not knowing before hand what he should do. Or in D&C take no thought before hand what ye shall say but it will be granted you in the very moment that portion that is meted unto every man. Or something close to that. Also on Tuesday, I saw a Filipino squirrel And its like half the size of squirrels in America.
So on Thursday, I got to play Filipino style pool. Its pretty legit! I've got pictures of it that I sent. The cue ball is actually a wooden black puck, and the balls are smaller red, plastic pucks with papers with numbers on them taped on top. Its legit. I actually think its easier than regular style pool. Pool is huge here. Which is kinda cool but not when you're a missionary and you gotta teach people that gambling is bad..haha Also that little crab you see in the pictures....Yeah not a fan. My companion hoped down in the mud when it was low tide and caught him, then proceeded to torture me with him for like ten minutes! Much to the entertainment of him and Aurora Albuera the sister we were teaching at the moment. But it was pretty funny. At some point during the day I did something to mess with Robbins (I've forgotten what now...haha) but then I came back home and I found my desk in the bathroom. It was pretty hilarious. We took
some fun pictures with that.
Alright! Friday was pretty eventful, too. It was an exciting day cuz we got our support for the second half of the month! And the ATM gave us our support in all 100 peso bills...so that was fairly entertaining. By the way "Skater Boi" just came on on the radio here in the internet shop and me Robbins and Osumo just looked at each other and laughed. Classic song. (Osumo is totally American. More fluent in english than some Americans. Knows all the slang. Only listens to American music. And will not watch a movie or show if its not in english). Back to Friday. (cue Rebecca Black) First of all during Weekly Planning, for whatever reason, my comp was getting on my nerves and I have no idea why...So when he went to the bathroom I said a quick prayer, looked back at my scriptures and saw Alma 34:29, it says "If ye do not remember to be charitable, ye are as dross, which the refiners do cast out, (it being of no worth) and is trodden under the foot of men." I read that, chuckled to myself, tried to remember that, and had a great rest of plannning and rest of the day.
Later that night, we were getting in Mark Velasquez's (Jelyn's husband) tricycle. It was dark and I turned to go around to the back and Bam!I ran right into the corner of a really low tin roof thingy. It didnt hurt but of course it bled a fair amount. Luckily, Mark and Bogs were there right away to clean it up. Bogs had alcohol so we got it really clean (SO DON'T WORRY!). I had three thoughts come into my head. First, crap if this is bad, I'm going to get sent back to Manila and not be able to come back here... Second, Since Jesus suffered all out pains and afflictions, I might need to repent of this cuz this is a really dumb thing to make him suffer. And third and mostly overall, I was grateful that it didnt actually get my eye cuz that was my left eye and if it gets damaged we may have issues. And so yeah that was eventful. Whenever someone asks me what happened I tell them "Nagustohan ko maging kagaya ni Pacquio. (I wanted to be like Pacquio)." But that night Mark gave us some bad news. He said that there's been a lot of talk on his side of the family about Jelyn going to our church and being baptized, and his parents are devout Catholics and were not happy about it. So he told us we'd be welcome to still come and share and what not but she probably won't be going to church anymore. So yeah either tonight or tomorrow night we're going over there to sort all of that out. Hopefully it works out.
So I know that the Lord's definitely been helping out my Tagalog cuz Saturday we visited the Lagrosas and when me and Hopkins visited there they pretty much just laughed through the entire lessons, but still went to church on Sunday, much to our surprise...haha They laughed not because our Tagalog was wrong they just thought it was hilarious that a couple Americans were speaking Tagalog I guess...haha But Saturday we stopped by and I was hoping to speak minimally. But Elder Bagahansol told me to teach her about sacrament. So I was like uhh ok I'll try (this isn't going to go well...). Plus this was pretty much the first time I taught it like myself usually I just have a couple inputs. So I tried and she understand and it went good and she didn't laugh at my Tagalog at all! It was awesome!
So yeah that's the highlights of my week pretty much. Yesterday at church we had 56 people there, and Elder Bagahansol and I had 17 investigators at church it was a good Sunday.
The dirt road pics: We went out there with Bro and Sis Duran to meet some lost members and it was pretty tight. The tiny kitten we saw in the streets. To be blunt, it probably won't live very long. There are a ton of dogs and cats in the streets. The snowman was created by Elder Robbins in our little freezer.
So yep, wow that was long. I love everyone that actually reads this whole thing. And if you dont actually read this I still love you, but not as much.
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
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