Editor's Note: I'm trying to catch up. For those of you who may have lost track, Michael is now serving in the Mission Office as the financial secretary. It's a very busy hectic responsibility which leaves him with much less time for "real" missionary work. He still seems to be loving what he is doing. Enjoy...
Hey Everyone!
Oh geez, here come the questions...haha
Have you been able to get out more to teach?
Not really unfortunately!! =( Because with transfers coming up we have a lotttt of things to get prepared so we haven't gotten to do nearly as much area work as we would like. We had a few successes though. On Tuesday we went to a members house and were able to share a message with her and her less-active son that she really wants to get active again and get on a mission. The thing with the son is that he started dating this girl and it turns out she's a member. So now they're going to church and it's good stuff! But it better not stay too good cuzzz he kinda needs to serve a mission....haha But for the rest of the week when we were out workin, it wasn't so successful. There were a couple nights where it was like, "ugh. we woulda been more productive if we woulda just stayed at the office." Which is quite the annoying thing to think/realize. But at the same time of course there's absolutely no success in the area if we just stay at the office. But it's all good, we'll tear it up next week of course!
So had your license for 2 weeks and pulled over 2 times...is that a mission record?
Nope! =D I guess Elder Soules (Supplies elder before Elder Spencer) managed to get like three or four times in a day...haha It's not my fault! I am a good driver! The cops here are just picky/werid. But it's all good! I haven't hit anything! Elder Spencer has though....haha but it was before I came in.
Have you totally given up eating like a Philippino?
NO! I love Filipino! It's good stuff! Just when you don't have a whole lot of time to cook and you don't have a too many members in your area to feed you, you just gotta go to McDo (the Filipino for Mickey Ds; pronounced Mac-Doe). I'm actually quite surprised how much I like this food! That's one of the things I was kinda worried about before coming out here (if you guys know me, you know that I was pickyyyyyy) but I actually prayed about it a little and haven't thought about it since. I really consider it a small but awesome blessing from the Lord.
Maybe with your P-Day on Sat. you'll be able to see the sites in the city?
Maybe. But we'll see. We're still pretty busy with office stuff even when it's p-day. But as always, it's all good! =D
I actually asked my dad a question this week. Kinda about all that he learned when he was Financial Secretary because I really don't want to just use this time as FS (Finance Secretary; for typing purposes) as just a time to learn about management, business, money, and that kinda stuff. But I wanna learn alllll that I can. So he gave me some awesome counsel. One of the things that he said that I've really noticed too is the great blessing of getting to work close to the Mission President. It's a ridiculously uplifting experience to do that. He's such an inspired man, and pretty much like Superman with a million and five things on his plate and able to accomplish all of it with such inspiration and correctness.
He also mentioned about he much his language grew even though he wasn't out proselyting as much as other missionaries. And just recently actually I've had a realization about my language skills. A lot of missionaries kind of describe becoming fluent as a process but just one day you wake up and you get it, like it clicks. Well, I wouldn't say that happened to me, but I'll try to describe how I feel/what I experienced. So I was thinking about the language (I do that alottttt hahaha =D) and I kinda realized like "you know what? I get it now." It's like I don't worry anymore about not knowing, I just talk. But it's not that I know everything, it's just that over the past transfer I've come to not be afraid of speaking. The people here are always complimenting your Tagalog cuz one, you're white and two, white people don't speak Tagalog. So I've always kinda considered that an empty compliment. But I realized that maybe I should listen to it more, accept it, and grow off of it. Because for me "becoming fluent" is a process of "becoming confident." Maybe I've "gotten it" a lot longer than I think but I've really seen myself grow. Just the other day I realized, "hey! I'm not scared to talk to anyone anymore." And that's really been the thing holding me back the most, I think. But it's all good! I'm lovin it!
So now it's time to for....MATHBMA! Or in other words..Mentioning of All the Things that Haven't Been Mentioned Above! Personally, I prefer the acronym.
So let's start with Sunday! Sunday was great cuz Albert Ponce, our in-active member we're teaching. Made it to church again! Which means he's fully active again! Which now in our mission, is pretty much a baptism! President wants us to send in pictures and stories of all people we've been able to re-activate. Our mission has a goal to re-activate I think 3800 people this year. We're going big-time! Also, for lunch we made AMU! Or in other words American Mix-Up! Again, I prefer the acronym. So what we did, is we boiled a bunch of little potatoes, threw in some pork n beans, AND chopped up Moby Chick(en) (the leftover of my huge Chili's chicken) and mixed it all together and ate it! It was great! It actually tasted pretty good, you should try it. In other news, I could like barely walk cuz I decided to start the jump program that Coach Reed always made us do for basketball Saturday morning for exercise. Yeah, I was sore....for like two days. hahaha
Monday was grand! One of the things I've had to realize here is that sometimes you learn a lot more from making mistakes (one of the reasons I didn't like speaking Tagalog to people is because I hate making mistakes and saying something wrong, but it's all good now! =) ) but here in the office I've made soooo many mistakes! On Friday, I had to get Elder and Sister Spencer a couple apartment rent checks and the documents that go with it and it took me like 10 tries, seriously. I even managed to print a Withholding Tax Form onto an envelope! haha Which pretty much summed up my frustration..haha But I've definitely learned that most of the time, as long as the mistake isn't too bad, it's a great opportunity to learn. Ugh. That means my philosophy, was wrong. Oh well I was wrong. I guess there's a first time for everything....haha =D juuuust kidding! Okay so our companionship is pretty much awesome. Elder Stirland and I love to joke around and entertain and especially compliment Elder Spencer. Elder Spencer is awesome! Just sometimes he doesn't believe it. So pretty much daily Elder Stirland and I get the uke out and start singing about how awesome he is and how we love him. The chorus is the same but we improv the verses and it usually goes quite terribly but it's fun. So Monday night we wanted to put to entertain Elder Spencer, so we're like we're going to do some Whose Line is it Anyways? We did a few scenes before bed and the last one was Batman (me) and Superman (Elder Stirland) sitting down for some lunch. We got Elder Spencer to laugh super hard and it was indeed hilarious. I love these guys!
Oh geeeez. Tuesday was Valentines Day! Sister Dietrich is definitely my Valentine cuz she got me Hershey Kisses and that's like all I need...haha But for District Meeting we, mostly Elder Stirland, bought this huuuge 36 inch pizza for Valentines Day/because Elder Stirland is leaving. It was actually pretty good. Also, my companions are ridiculous. They love throwing all the attention on me especially if someone says something about my eyelashes (it may seem ridiculous but literally everyone does... =/ ) so as soon as someone says something or as soon as the attention gets put on me they just go to town cuz they know the more attention they put on me, the redder I get. It's quite annoying. hahaha But in some cases, I have been dubbed Elder Strawberry because of it. Oh geez.
Wednesday was kinda cool from the start! In Companionship study we were trying to figure out what we should teach to the Capitli family. It was not going good. There were some many directions we could take and I wanted to share this scripture, Elder Stirland liked another one, and it was just hard to get the lesson plan together. So we stopped, and prayed. Immediately I felt that the other scriptures were better, we became more united in the direction to take, and were able to put together a seemingly great lesson plan! (Which we still haven't been able to teach...but still! haha) It was a pretty cool experience. Later I got the experience to call an apartment owner and tell them that we're moving out and we need our money back....Yeah not exactly the call I wanted to make...but I did it. And it went surprisingly well! Like to the point I'm not entirely sure they understood everything cuz they essentially just said "that's fine when will you be out?" So yeah. Hopefully it did go well! After that, we had an office meeting with everyone in the office and President. I was given the responsibility to cover the finance part of that meeting and to explain how we're doing on our budget after January, and why some things are over budget and other things are under. I was kinda nervous, but it went great! I'm enjoying this stuff.
Thursday was the test! Elder Stirland, as the District Leader, went on exchanges with two of the elders in our district. So I was all alone in the FS (financial secretary) position that day! I was feeling like a star, they couldn't stop my shine; I was lovin' cloud nine, my head's in the sky. I was solo, I was ridin' solo. (get the reference? haha) But I was ridin' solo. And It went well! My planner is completely full of stuff I wrote down throughout the day, but I got a lot done, solved some problems on my own, and it was a good confidence boost for this upcoming week! Oh geez...Elder Stirland is almost gone... When Elder Spencer and I went out to the area, we had no success. Except we talked to this one guy. Now before you get to thinkin it was some great experience, stop. haha This is one of the stranger people I've talked to. This guy, without a forehead and a cigarette in his hand, stops us and was like Mormons?? We were like yes, how's it going. He goes on to tell us he wants us to teach him, he wants to learn about the Bible, and even wants to go to church! Alright, it's going great; and it's even better cuz I'm ninety percent sure he's not drunk. score! We continue talking to him. We find out he doesn't have a forehead because he tried to committ suicide by shooting himself up through the mouth, it didn't work and cost 1.3 million pesos to fix. Okay, that's a little weird, but maybe, just maybe, he was saved for a reason, realizes it and wants to learn more about the church. So we tell him where and when church is, give him a pamphlet and tell him we'll come visit sometime.
Oh yesterday was fun too. I got to pick up my checks from the bank! ....There were 62 of them. Not fun. We had to request all the rents for all the apartments for the next quarter of payment. And for each check, I had to print my name and then sign over it. You might think other missionaries get a good work out walking around everyday, but hey my hand got a pretty good one signing all those checks! haha That night in our area, we tried to visit one of the Less-Active families that we actually really like. We got there and Tatay (Tagalog for father; it's not uncommon to call someone Tatay even if he's not your father) is really kinda heavily drunk...He saw us and was like Elders! Come here! I love you! I'm drunk! He reached out to shake our hands and then went all out and kissed them, too. haha We told him we'd come back another time. And he was like okay! When?? We said maybe tomorrow or the next day. And he was like okay! Sorry I'm drunk, I love you! So then we continued on to our next appointment. Successful right? haha At our next appointment, we had a pretty good lesson with Palma our investigator. We talked about lots of things, and he lovesss reading the Book of Mormon. He's studying it like hardcore. He asked us who Ameliki's brother was that it talks about in Omni 1:30, and a few other kinda weird but good questions from which you can really tell he's studying the Book of Mormon. He's great!
Today was good. Had a pre-birthday lunch for Elder Spencer. Went shopping. And got our hair cuts. Be tee dubs, hair cuts still kinda freak me out. I always just sit there waiting and pondering like what I'm going to say to the guy so he'll cut it how I want it. But I was even like that in the States...haha So hopefully it looks good!
Well that was super long, sorry! Hope all is well with all of you!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
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