It's time for everyone's favorite time of the week!
It's time to pick-apart my parents salutation of their email to me! haha So this week they put "Our Dearest, Most Wonderful Elder." Now in my so very humble opinion....that's a bit much. And do I detect a hint of sarcasm?? ....I think so! hahaha Okay maybe I should stop dissecting their emails like that and just accept them for who they are....pretty much the most awesome parents ever! (Yes, I did write that, that is not an edit from my parents. I'd initial beside the statement to prove its validity but unfortunately G-Mail hasn't invented that feature. . . . .yet. haha).
So it's been another great week! As Elder Pugmire astutely pointed out earlier today, we haven't really been in the office that much this week..haha So it's been a kinda weird, not terribly busy but kinda busy but awesome week all in all. Let's open the floor for questions, shall we?
Q: Have you been able to extend the invitation to be baptized to Brother Palma?
A: No, =(. He's working more often (good), but because of that we don't really get to visit him too often (bad). We had the best idea to take Ponce with us to visit Palma. Considering Ponce used to be a missionary, needs to get out of the house, needs to re-strengthen his testimony, and has a life story pretty similar to Palma's. So last night we took him with us to visit Palma, but it turns out that he had to work, so we'll probably try to visit him again Sunday or early next week, we'll see.
Q: So did you have the mission conference with Elder Nelson?
A: Sure did! Did you know that guy's eighty-eight! #crazy! But it was awesome! And now I'm sure you're all dyinggg to hear all about it! Good! Cuz I took, four pages of notes on it! (cut me some slack, my notebook is only like a third of a regular notebook) But it was a great conference! Elder and Sister Ardern were there as well and spoke to us to, so it was great! Sister Ardern gave us the suggestion to personalize Moses 1:39 and switch out "men" for our own name, and that really brings more personal meaning to the already awesome verse! #GiveItAShot.
Elder Ardern encouraged us to reflect and ponder often on why we are here. And he even said each night we should evaluate ourselves and ask ourselves, "How have I done today at doing what I've been called to do?" I generally try to do that, and it's always been a great experience to recognize both the successes and shortcomings I experience each and every day. Elder Nelson's part of it was really cool as well. He got up and said (essentially), "Now I've been trying to figure out what I can do to best help you guys. You guys don't need to hear another speech..." So essentially what we did was he had volunteers come up and he'd ask them a question, ask them to do something, or ask them to explain a doctrine or anything like that and he'd evaluate and teach us how he thinks we should teach and address certain situations. It was awesome! Can't get any better than practice teaching with an apostle! haha Overall it was just an awesome conference! On a side note: Both Elder Ardern and Elder Nelson gave us marriage advice...hahaha #EyeSingleToTheGloryOfGod haha
Q: "we were suppose to have this crazy baby a week from today...Saturday night (i.e. tomorrow) we'll go to the Cardinal game (my last in a while!) it is suppose to be 95 degrees, yuck!
A: I love that! I told the Dietrich's and I was like that is SO Gadberry right there...hahahaha =D Gotta get Michael Jr. lovin the Redbirds even while in the womb ready to come out. My bet is he'll get so pumped for the Cardinals that he'll just pop on out cuz he wants to see his first Cardinal game! haha Okay that'd be just kinda a little weird so let's hope that doesn't happen. I also, heard that your baby shower consisted of the vast majority of clothes being baseball oriented and then the majority of those, Cardinals..haha I love it! #GreatToBeAGadberry #CardinalFansForever
So now let's go on and talk about everyone's favorite person....ME! haha Oh no, the fame and fortune that comes from being an American guy that walks around the streets of the Philippines is finally getting to my head! haha Just kidding, I'm not everyone's favorite. You're just reading this 1. Because you're related to me and are thereby forced to love me. 2. Because reading this is just a notch up from slamming your head against a wall repeatedly. 3. You've already slammed your head against the wall repeatedly and now you have absolutely nothing else to do. 4. Some reason completely unbeknownst to me. If you chose 4, I consider you to ponder the question, "Why am I reading this?" and upon pondering that question, I wouldn't blame you if you stopped right now and did something at least half-way productive. Well, if you so choose to continue, consider yourself warned. =D
So Sunday was good and bad. It was kinda sad cuz "no one" came to church.. =( Well of course there were a ton of people there but like Ponce, Palma, the Advincula's, the Locanlale's, and whoever else. But it was still kinda cool. We were sittin in our row when a family walked in and they didn't all fit on the row that they sat in so the kids came and sat with me, and it reminded me of Coron..haha I <3 Coron. But church was all good. We had dinner with the Dietrich's, and that was awesome! They even raved a little bit about The Avenger's which is supposedly "awesome!". haha It was hilarious. They would tell Elder Pugmire and I about it and we would like fill-in the story for them when they paused. We had no idea how it went so we would just say something heavily in favor or Capt. America or Iron Man. My favorite is gotta be Capt. America cuz what's not to like about him?? He's just awesome! And Elder Pugmire loves Iron Man, which is joke...he's not even a super hero! So obviously we don't get along very well...haha It was entertaining. That night we were able to follow up a little bit with Palma.. We weren't able to share with him much cuz he was heading out the door. But he talked to us for a little while, and it seems he's been facing some challenges in life and whatnot. But it'll work out, don't worry. haha
So Monday came around and the week began! Like the first thing I had to do was contact a potential lessor of an apartment.. In case any of you were wondering, I'm still not a big fan of talking on the phone and doing that and all that jazz. But for what it's worth, I've gotten better! I will now more willingly do it if I really haaaaave to. haha The event of the day was our "survival lunch" with President and the Dietrich's and the Assistants and us! We had to pick up President and everyone cuz they're all coding on Mondays. So we were driving to Chili's where we were eating, and President was like "Elder Gadberry, how long have you been in the office?" I was like, "I'm pretty sure this is going to be my fourth transfer." And President was like, "Is that so? I saw that on the transfer board but I thought for sure that that was wrong...This is really your fourth transfer...It's gone so fast! Maybe we should just make Finance a full year kind of a assignment..haha"
Thankfully he was just kidding. . . .I think. haha And then we ate lunch. I still say that eatin lunch in public with President is like the hardest thing ever! haha We get to Chili's and the Playoffs were on! Ah come on! How am I supposed to be #EyeSingleToTheGloryOfGod with the NBA Playoffs on?! hahaha And it was the Pacers! What the heck are the Pacers doing in the Playoffs?! I didn't even know! But after the initial shock of the NBA Playoffs going on right in front of my eyes, I was able to settle it, order my awesome country fried chicken with mashed potatoes AND french fries WITHOUT gravy. And then everything was okay. haha
Tuesday was the day we were all waitin for! Elder Nelson was comin to visit the Manila Mission! So we all got all dressed up. Us and the Assistants even rocked the long-sleeves. Elder Baltazar and Elder Monk both bought ties for the occasion, I rocked my new tie my parents sent me, and Elder Pugmire rocked one of my ties too! I don't know if I ever told ya'll, but I decided to start naming all my ties. It's great! So the one that I held in special reserve for Elder Nelson was entitled "Thanks Be to God" in honor of his last general conference address. The morning was pretty calm before he came. Then we went to lunch and wouldn't you know it. . .I spilt on "Thanks Be to God!" Way to go Elder Gadberry....but luckily it wasn't too bad BUT STILL! haha And then like right before it started (by right before I mean right before we all went in and waited which was actually an hour before) I got like a billion things put on my plate! I was like whatev I'll just do it after the conference. So we went in and had an AWESOME Conference (see notes of my notes above). And then we came out and I got another billion things to do! I was like ughh! haha One downside of being in the office is that right after somethin like that you have to go straight to work and get everything going. You can't just kinda relax and enjoy and linger in the awesome-ness of the conference =(.
Wednesday was like kinda monumental..haha It was exactly one-year to the day of the week that we entered the MTC! On that fourth Wednesday in May, exactly a year ago, we entered the MTC! CRAZY! Wednesday was kinda funny too. We left the office early cuz we had like errands to run. We were able to pay three bills, buy a new cell phone for a companionship in Palawan, ate some dinner via coupons earned in the phone purchase, and then still made it out to the area! Now that's skill..haha Running errands was fun, Elder Pugmire and I learned that here in the Philippines you can make someones day just by being friendly . . . and American. haha
That night we got to meet back up and share with Brother Ponce and it was awesome! We read Ether 12 with him cuz he said he hadn't had the chance to read it yet. We taught and shared insights and what not leading up to Ether 12:27 where we really focused our lesson. I tried to help him apply that verse to himself and also realize that God gives us weaknesses for a reason. He seemed to really get it and understand it by the end, and it was really cool when in the closing prayer he thanked Heavenly Father for the weaknesses he has and also for the help that he gives him. Woo! We also told him about Palma and about how we hope that he'd be able to go with us to teach him on Friday, and he was excited and said he'd be able to! Double woo! That night we went back to the house and had jump rope contests..haha Us four would time each other and see who could go the longest without stopping. It was actually pretty fun/funny..haha And we've enjoyed it so much that we've pretty much done it all week..haha
Thursday wasn't anything too exciting. I didn't have too much noted there. I just had a lotttt to do.. I had to enter in all the receipts that I've used for the month of May, I had a few bills left to pay and the Forinashs (FYI - they're the new couple over apartments) are trying to move into like 6 different houses by June 1st, and that's like a process! And I've got working funds to do. It's just kinda hectic..haha But hey, it's not so bad, at least I got mail that day! Woo! #SilverLining. In our area we weren't able to visit anyone that we usually would, but we stopped by and talked to this family a little bit, and they seemed kinda interested. At least its got some potential, but we're going to go back to them next week and follow up.
Now Friday was cool. Like it was legit. Boom. Well first of all it wasn't good at first cuz Elder Pugmire was havin some stomach issues and wasn't feeling good at all. He took some medicine and we headed out to the office to try and get some work done before the awesomeness started. Oh on a side note, I've been reading Our Search for Happiness, and it's like awesome! You should read it! Well the awesomeness that I referenced earlier was that Elder Pugmire and I got to go to the temple wiht Brother Velasco! I don't know Brother Velasco too much aside from the one time he stopped by the office and I assisted Elder Pugmire in giving him a blessing. But I'm in all the pics like I actually played a major role or actually did anything..haha But it was sooo cool! Really powerful. And their little daughter got sealed to them for time and all eternity...soooo cute! After their sealing there were some other couples doing proxy sealings and they needed us to stay for one of them so they had enough priesthood.
We left the temple finally about 4 and made it back to the office at 5. And I still had a ton of stuff I literally had to get done before today. But hey, wouldn't you know it, I was able to get it done in less than and hour which was good cuz we were supposed to go to Palma with Ponce that night.
So we go out to the area and we go to pick up Ponce. As we were leaving Ponce's this one guy stopped us. He's like I saw you guys walking by and I thought I should talk to you and I wanna learn more about your church. We were like wow! He also told us that he was Catholic and at one point Christian and he feels he's missing something. He also said that his life is kinda a mess right now so he's turning everything over to the Lord. I thought to myself "Well, that's why we're here, this very night, talking to you! The Lord's sent you help and now its just up to us not to blow it and up to him to accept the message of the restored gospel of Christ." He continued and was like is there a time that you guys can come over and we can maybe talk about your church? We were like Yeah! How does Sunday evening sound? He said, "Oh no, no, not on Sunday. . .that's family day." (In my head, "YES! Family oriented! This'll be great!) "Okay we'll come by Monday night." "Yeah, sure that sounds great!" So that was awesome and then we went to Palma's andddd he wasn't there.
And then once we figured out he wasn't there it was too late to bother anyone else unannounced. But it was a successful evening! We found our best potential investigator ever! Oh and guess what! He has a lot of family in the states, and most of them are in Illinois! But its Chicago...but still it's Illinois! And guess what more! He's a baseball fan!! He said he just got a new Mets hat but he's actually a Yankees fan. I, of course, had to tell him where my loyalty lies. He asked me if I thought that the Cardinals would be able to win it again. So I think he's a legit fan. So I'm pumped for him and his family. But it was also really good to have Ponce come and work with us even if we didn't get to teach. Cuz he's just stuck at his home all by himself so its definitely nice to get out and work with missionaries like "the good 'ol days". Oh and on a side note, I HIT MY ONE YEAR ON FRIDAY! CRAZYYYYYY! Holy cow....that's so weird! ONE YEAR! ONLY ONE LEFT?! WEIRDDDD! But its been soooooooo great so far! I love it!
Well, that's my week in an over-sized nutshell in the form of an email. How's everyone else doin?? Hope you all have a great week! Keep up the whole being awesome dealy-o! It's all downhill from here! SO WEIRD! But hey, such is life. =) I'mma keep pumpin along doin my thang here in the Philippines. Ya'll keep Effingham and Provo and where ever else awesome for me for when I get back. Love you all!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
0029-0032 -- The best-looking office staff eagerly awaiting the arrival of the real life form of picture number 0033
0034 -- Balty even did the jump rope contest naka-proselyting clothes
0035 -- Umm..not too sure.. I left my camera on the table and then later found this on it. But because he took it on my camera, I feel obliged to share with the world the wonderful Elder Baltazar.
0036-0038 -- The Velasco family! After their sealing!
0039 -- The whole group! The Velasco's, their escorts, and me and Elder Pugmire. That's the temple clothing in the Philippines! We don't have to wear ties! It's legit! haha
0040/0041 -- "The guys" Please don't notice my black shoes. It like literally hurt me to walk out there in the all white with black shoes! Elder Pugmire, "I've never heard anyone complain so much about shoes!" hahaha
0042 -- "The girls"
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