Umm...hello.
=)
And so passes another week in the life of Elder Michael Gadberry, as my dad mentioned, the life of Elder Michael Gadberry is flying by! It really is! Stop! But hey such is life as an Elder, and I'm lovin it. It's always cool to think about that the only other people in this church that receive such an honorary title are the Apostles and Seventy, and I, little Mikey Gadberry from the even smaller Effingham Branch of Effingham, Illinois, have been found worthy to wear such a title for two years. Cool stuff!
Here's a couple questions
Do you have ideas for your replacement?
- Okay mom...don't get crazy! Like the shortest I'll be in here is four transfers...and I'm kinda on my second...Whoa that's actually kinda weird. I'm like more than half way done with my second! It's flown by. Kinda mostly cuz office life is crazy! This week was crazy too...You'll see! But if I am only going to be in here four transfers then I'll be gettin my replacement right after next transfer. That seems kinda far but super close, so weird! Well...I've had a pretty weird/unique mission thus far...haha I'll probably hit my year mark here in the office and I'll have only had two areas..haha But I'm super grateful for my mission! How many people get to have an AP train them, on a beautiful island, that had yet to be touched my missionary work? And then! I come straight to the office and get to work pretty closely with President Stucki and the other awesome missionaries here, and I get to learn how to do some finance stuff on top of that! So ridiculously, incredibly blessed. =D
Does being there help you realize that when you're back out "in the field" you'll not bother the office over silly stuff and appreciate them more?
It does make me appreciate them more, but I never really bugged them before. I never really had any contact with them before. You know me! I'm very highly unconfrontational, therefore I don't like bringing up problems to them that don't need to be brought up.
What did you mean that your p-day has gone crazy?
Oh you'll see! It was a fun 'un! <---Rockin' the hick! =D
So let's get down to business shall we?
So last Sunday was super exciting! So we had a inactive father (Tatay Advincula!) come to church for the first! He came with two of his daughters that are pretty regular at church. Two of his other daughters kinda slept in...(I could sympathize with them...haha =) ) We loveee their family! We visited that family a while back and from the first visit Tatay said that he would come to church and there was just somethin touched him (the Spirit, duh! haha) but all three of us at the time felt he had a sincere commitment to come back to church. That's why we weren't terribly worried when he didn't go to church that week, or the week after, or the week after that...hahaha But he made this past week and was immediately fellow-shipped by none other than the Stake Patriarch, so it's going good so far! After church, we got to go out and work! Woo! If you look at our "Key Indicators," we got no work done that day. But the thing was, we only had time for a couple lessons (cuz of CIS reports (missionary thing)) but our first one was with our less-active guy that we haven't seen for a couple weeks cuz he had been out of town. We helped him talk his way through a concern he had and helped him realize the importance of coming to church a little more. But because he's now considered active, it doesn't count as any sort of lesson. After that, we tried to go to our other less-active families to see how they were doing cuz for the most part they didn't make it to church. Well, they were all gone or busy. So we didn't have anywhere to go. Elder Spencer was like well we can go to the Bata family. I was like well yeah...but why? They're completely active (Dad's like the first counselor in YM and Mom's the RS President and their four kids are 8-14 and active) and we don't have an appointment, and I don't wanna bother them. He's like well we got no where to go. I was like fine, but you're in charge (curse my grudging attitude...).
So we go over there, and are immediately welcomed in (they're like super nice..but I was still scared cuz I didn't know them that well). So we shared a message with them, well it was like her and one of her kids the rest were kinda out and about (that's just how the Philippines is) but it was awesome! She was feeling super stressed and busy and just everything was crazy in her life/mind cuz she's only been a member of the church for three years and has been called to be the RS President probably a few months before I got here. I remember specifically telling her that we were there to tell her that she can do it. We know she can, and more importantly, the Lord knows he can. That's why he's called you to be the Relief Society President. You could see her whole demeanor just change over the course of the lesson. Towards the end she was like "Elders, you know, right before you guys come over I was just sitting down at the table thinking about everythinggg that's going on with Relief Society, my job, and all my kids...but then you guys came over and I just really needed that, thank you so much!" So that was an awesome experience! My bad on my umm..unwillingness to go.
So that was our work, that night I thought about the habits I've installed into my life and am still trying to install. Two of things that are so simple but I've begun to make a habit in my life and am definitely going to continue is praying and scripture study. Before my mission, yeah...I wasn't very good at the habit of praying. Well I'd do really good for a while but then I'd slack off or just forgot and it would kinda lose priority. But since being out here I've managed to get myself totally in the habit of praying it's cool! I remember one night, just coming home and passing out. But I could not sleep! It was so weird! So then I remembered I hadn't prayed before I went to bed, so then of course, I prayed, went to bed, and didn't wake up again 'till morning! Score! And then with scriptures, sometimes in the mornings we have surprise stuff that we need to do so sometimes our studies get cut short or completely out. But I'm at least remembering to read one verse a day, so that way I don't miss any days. Like yesterday was kinda like that, so late last night I just flipped open my scriptures and read one verse, Mosiah 3:19. It was legit, read it. It's my Tatay sa mission's favorite scripture, it's scripture mastery.
So then we go to monday. So we're feelin bad about last week not getting like any work done in our area so we're like we are going to our area everyday this week! We have an FHE planned with a family in another ward but we were invited by the missionaries there, but since we're like dedicated to getting work done in our area, we left the office a little early to try to get at least one lesson in before the FHE. We get out there and the person we hope to teach, is next door playing bingo (it's a popular thing here cuz it's small gambling) so yeah she thinks we didn't see her and her daughter says thats she's left and doesn't know where she ran off to. So we're like ugh. And so after talking with her daughter, there's not enough time to get a lesson in so we just have to go to FHE. Well we went to FHE and it was AWESOME! The family was awesome and I don't know I just really liked it! And it made me miss like Coron/real missionary work so much! I won't in my planner. "I miss....sitting on the floor, weird Filipino spaghetti, tiny houses with happy families who are happy regardless of how much money they have, and Coron!" haha I've really grown to love the life here, the simpleness, but always happy, especially those with the gospel in their lives. Their always happy no matter how simple their circumstances may be and I love it! After FHE, Elder Spencer got pulled over....for going the wrong way on a one-way...haha I advise you not to do that...But there was like no signage and we'd gone that way down that road before thinking it's totally okay. But the cop was not being nice! Elder Spencer was pretty flustered so I tried my best to talk to the cop, I managed to get him to loosen up a little but it still took us forever to get him to let us go...haha But right as he was walking away I yelled at him and gave him a Book of Mormon, so I'm a good missionary, right?? haha
Tuesday I was requested to create another kinda "fake" baptism program cuz Sister Terano and Sister Lopez loved the first one. So this one they requested that we created a program in which our District Leader, Elder Koochin, would be baptized and it would have like pictures of our district all over it kinda for like a district remembrance kinda thing. Everyone in the district was in on it but Elder Koochin, it was pretty funny and everyone loved it. I'll take a picture of it sometime. I had kinda a first time problem in the finance area. We had a ward missionary that was filling in for Elder Pascual since he's now in Provo (shout-out to him!). So we gave him support, and then his wallet got stolen! So I was like um...Elder Stirland! What should I do? His response, "Hm. That's a goood question." Ah gee, thanks! Cuz really we can't do anything about lost/stolen money. So yeah, that was kinda scary but I got it covered. So it's all good. Oh it was the worst! Later that afternoon, the Forinashes came in and visited the office (come to think of it I had a lot of interaction with them this week). But they walked into the office and Sister Forinash stops..and kinda looks at me for a second. I didn't really think anything about it cuz I figured she was just thinking or somethin. But then next thing she says..."They were right....those eyelashes are totally wasted on you." Aghhh! I'm tellin you it's so bad! And then Sister Dietrich chimes in somethin about my nice, thick hair. I'm like I swear I left my grandma in St. Louis...hahaha Miss you Grandma!
Wedneday, kinda started the craziness! We got a new senior couple in our mission, Elder and Sister Paddock from Florida! So we got the assignment to take them to get their drivers licenses. Well the closest one isn't even in our mission, it's Quezon City Mission but it's not too far. But I'm still learning all these places and Elder Spencer isn't the best at directions, but does pretty well. So from the beginning I was sure it was going to be an adventure. Sure enough it was! We left the office at like 11 and got to the exit around like 12:30. And then took a wrong turn....We drove around for 2 hours before we corrected ourselves and made it back on the right course...hahaha But the Paddocks got an awesome view of Philippine life and I enjoyed seeing everything, Elder Spencer was a little stressed about being lost, but it's whatev, enjoy it! hahaha So that process took forever! Then we had to pick up Sister Bhitrokoti from the Missionary Recovery Center by the temple on our way home. She's pretty legit, super quiet but mostly cuz she doesn't even know english very well. But she's from Nepal! Legit, huh?? So we picked them up, one of the sisters at the MRC was actually in the same zone as Elder Altig (one of my good friends in my district in the MTC) and so that was cool to here about him a little bit. And the senior couple that runs the MRC kinda raved about President Stucki for a little. They were like "we love 'em all (the mission presidents), but he's just like head and shoulders above the rest. He really is on top of his game." I was like, "I know. He's pretty awesome!" Of course, I only thought it, but it's cool to see other people notice that of him. As soon as we got back to the office we dropped the Paddocks off with the Dietrich's, dropped Sister Bhitrakoti off with the Assistants to take her back to her companion, and then we went around and went straight to our area. We got no office work in that day...haha So we get out there and it's not so good. We had three appointments scheduled and like a couple hours to work. Tatay Advincula's daughter, Arianne, who's super legit and wants to serve mission here in like a year, was meeting us at our first appointment cuz we wanted to have a fellow-shipper there for that family. Well...we got there and talked for a while...and guess what! Nanay (more or less - "Mom") is next door playing bingo again! She kinda hides herself and thinks we don't see her but yeah. So strike one. The other appointment was a no go cuz Nanay there doesn't really like us for whatever reason and so we saw her walking down the road the other way as we were driving up...haha ugh. So we're like umm Arianne, when's your dad gettin home so we can share with you guys? And it actually happened to be a little earlier than expected so we kinda just hung out with them for a little until Tatay got there, and we had an awesome lesson about the Restoration! And they love having us over! Arianne if I wan't on my mission would totes like by my best friend haha We totes talked about Twilight while we were waiting...she's team Edward in case you were wondering...haha Their family is so cool! Mom is working over in Saudi Arabia (fairly common here, there's money there) but is hopefully coming back later this year, and their oldest son is currently serving in the Iloilo mission. As we were leaving Tatay insisted on giving us each two oranges and a bottle of water after they had already fed us to an extent. They're too nice!
Thursday continued the craziness cuz it was specialized training. This specialized training was for all the District and Zone Leaders in the mission. So we had 50 some odd missionaries to deal with both Thursday and Friday. And I had to order 24 pizzas for lunch on Thursday! That's a lot! But training was so cool! We weren't part of most of it, but we consequently had a ton of stuff to do because of it. Mostly getting missionaries from place to place, doing reimbursements, and getting supplies to them for all their zones. Most importantly I get to see Elder Smith! My MTC companion! I haven't seen him since the second day we got here, it was so good to see him again. He's just doing awesome out there in Quezon, Palawan in the middle of nowhere...haha I did get to help with this one leadership game/activity (see pictures) and it was so fun. But definitely an activity that you could learn from. Everyone on your team was given roles (like leader, robot, optimist, pessimist, etc) and they had to perform those and your team had to work together to complete all of the tasks. Well in my group Elder Stirland (old finance guy) and Elder Gillette got the roles of pessimist by chance and it was just hilarious cuz they're two very optimistic people and I was just dying the whole time. It was so fun!
Let's see on Friday, I wrote "CRAZY!" and like underlined it seven times...haha My morning was consumed with things that had to be done in a timely manner, but it all got done! Then around lunch, we had this father dressed very poorly, to be honest, and his maybe 12 year-old daughter, who wasn't looking any better, came into our office and asked if we had any oil. They had just walked to the church from Pateros. Which is at least a few hours...cuz he was taking his daughter to the hospital and wanted her to have a blessing before they went. What faith! They went out of their way to come a receive a blessing that things would be okay. We gladly gave them one, and it was such a great experience! Afterwards, we had them sit down and rest and I asked them if they had eaten and he said they hadn't, so I made them sandwiches (that's all we had in the office!) and gave them a couple oranges (seriously, office resources are limited...haha). And then they were off. I'm sure we'll never find out what will happen to them, but I'm sure things will work out for the best. Not too long after that, Elder and Sister Forinash give me a visit. They're not terribly happy cuz they have been more or less "emergency transferred" to a new house that literally has no furnishings. So they're leaving where they had been for the past while to a brand new place, they're not too excited and kinda stressed. Let me just tell you, it is not fun dealing with stressed people! Augh! I'm not a fan...but yeah I kinda understand where their comin from. So to make things work I have to cancel our appointments that night so we can go shopping to get them some of those essentials. At the same time, we have to take Sister Bhitrakoti to her companion again (she spends the day studying english at the office and then goes back to her companion at night). We're driving maybe 5 miles...and it took as 2 hours to make that trip! Traffic was soooo bad! That kinda drove me half way insane, but I coped by getting super sarcastic at the traffic and Elder Spencer was lovin it. So cuz of that trip that totally made it so I didn't have time to buy stuff for the Forinashs...But sittin in all that traffic wasn't too bad. Elder Spencer and I were kinda feelin bad about not getting out to our area like we had hoped. But I had a thought that came into my mind, and I believe it was from the Spirit cuz I felt it whenever I shared it with Elder Spencer. But I thought about President Monson and about how he's known for "going about doing good." So I kinda thought to myself, as a missionary I should definitely always be "going about doing good." So am I doing that? And I actually could say that I was. I was doing all I could to serve those around me, and get all the things done so that things could function. I think I'm going to try to keep that in mind for the rest of my mission/life, to try to always go about doing good. Also, Elder Spencer was like "you know...you've been great. You've done a really good job." I was like huh? He said with everything thing thats happened and popped up and everyone stressing around you, you've just done really good. Thanks cuz I know I definitely stress out too much. So I was definitely grateful to hear that but it didn't solve any problems...haha So eventually I had to call the Forinash's and tell them I didn't get their stuff, but did actually have a solution. And they said that it was fine! And they even thanked me for "doing double back-flips for them trying to get everything done." So that was nice =). Oh and for lunch, I had Wendys. =D
Today was crazy as well! Okay...we were supposed to get up at 4:30 to take missionaries to the airport after specialized training of Thursday and Friday. Yeah....we both slept through our alarms but luckily Elder Baltazar woke us up at 5:30 right about the time we were supposed to leave...haha But we made it to the Mission Home in time and even got them to the airport early! Next step, drive back home, wait a while, trade the Dietrich's cars, and then go pick-up Elder Anderson, who's going to my beloved Coron. Well on the way home, I get a call from the Forinashs that says that they really need to be able to meet us or someone at the office at 8:30 rather than like noon as we had planned. So the Dietrich's weren't able to get here that early and that's who I had left the Forinash's stuff with cuz we would be taking Elder Anderson to the airport. So 1. luckily, the Dietrich's and us live in the same apartment building. And 2. I had to run upstairs and get all that stuff, and then hurryyy and get to the office before the Forinashs. Well of course, it needed to get done, and we were doing it just to try and serve the Lord and his missionaries, so it worked out like perfectly. The Forinashs were super grateful and Sister Forinash even snuck in a hug while I was distracted talking to Elder Forinash. So I'm just grateful that everything worked out. After that we got Elder Anderson to the airport and then came back to office to find out that the Dietrich's are having a bit of a family crisis/emergency. So they asked us to join them in prayer and also even asked for mine and Elder Spencer's council on the matter or advice. And Sister Dietrich liked it so much that she sent it to her son. So one of the life lessons I've definitely learned this week is always being worthy to do those things like give a blessing or pray for guidance from heaven. We had at least two (maybe more that I didn't notice or can't think of) experiences this week where it was just completely out of the blue but we were called upon to exercise faith and our priesthood as bearers of the Holy Priesthood of God. Also, like my new favorite song is called Believe by Cherie Call. Lovin it!
Okay, I'm sorry. This was ridiculously long. If it's lame just tell me....I'll try to make them shorter. But all in all, I'm doing great out here! I'm learnin. I'm livin. I'm servin. And I'm just lovin it! Hope all is well with all of you!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
0007 - Sister Lopez and Sister Terano's baptism. They accidently took it on a funky setting on my camera but it kinda almost looks cool maybe...but I'm over there on the far right with Elder Victorio and Elder Pascual
0019 - Again, super bad picture. But I'm on a jeepney! With my batch!
0021-0026 - FHE on Monday!
0027 - I found the GMA tower! Here in the Philippines there's two major stations GMA and ABS-CBN and all the actors/actresses have a contract with one or the other and the people here generally have a preference whether they like GMA or ABS-CBN. So I'm goin have to pick a side sometime just for fun...haha
0028 - Sister Paddock gettin her license
0029 - Cool little jeepney
0031 - 0036 -- That leadership game/activity I told you about
0037/0038 -- Elder Smith!
0040/0042 -- Umm..yeah. I'm the cool guy that wears the glasses to work in the office. "Like I always told my daughters, 'I'm glad you have high enough self-esteem to wear something like that.'" -- Sister Dietrich hahaha
0045 -- Hey look it's me! Just kidding...we don't look the same, right??
0046 -- Not the prettiest morning but hey look! a pigeon! haha
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