Week 17: Catchin' Varmints, Baptizing Folks

For those of you who looked at my subject and thought, "Hey, last week he said Week 15, and now he's saying Week 17! Where was week 16?" First of all, that's very observant of you, and second of all, I've been informed that I accidentally labeled two emails in a row as Week 13, so this is me fixing that. And for those of you who didn't notice, or just could not care if you tried, here's your regularly scheduled programming:

This week was great! As long as we've been in our apartment, we've noticed a little mouse that thinks what's ours is theirs, and has made a home in our living space. We have tried several times to catch this mouse and throw it out, but this sucker was fast! We tried to trap it in a room, but it slipped right out from under us. We tried to sweep it out, but a broom is nothing to this fool. We didn't know what to do and this mouse was making a fool out of us.

That all changed this Saturday.

It was early in the morning. I had already showered, and I was reading my Bible like a good little elder, when I saw a brown spot dart into our study room.
Not today.
I got up, grabbed a trash can, took the liner out, and closed the door to the study room. It was just me and the mouse. I got him out from under the table where he was hiding, and while he was running along the wall, I scooped him up in the garbage bin. I CAUGHT THE MOUSE! We took that sucker and threw him in the street. We've got another one now though, so it's all good.

Sister Domingo got baptized this week! Funny story though, because the day of the baptism, our branch president informed us the pump to our baptismal font was broken. Sweet. Our branch president then suggested that we just baptize her in the river, which I was totally down with, but sister Domingo, as well as President Hiatt thought it would be better if we did it in a Font. So we made the ride out to Roxas, and sister Domingo got baptized there. It was great though, because there were a ton of people getting baptized there that day, and I got to see a lot of the other missionaries in our zone.

Also, there's another pretty big Typhoon coming! I'm excited! We've got four other elders at our apartment again.

Love,
Elder Menzie

The Tagalog Strikes Back:
Bawal Umihi Dito -- forbidden pee here (this is spray painted on walls that people don't want pee to get on)

Sunshine over a rice field

Water buffalo with bird chillin' on its head 

The Varmint

Elder Leausa and I with the Domingo family

Week 16: Here Comes the Bride!

We had a wedding here in Aurora!

Two of our investigators, Brother and Sister Domingo, got married this week, it was great. Their daughter, Claudine, was baptized by the Elders in this area before us, but when Sister Domingo went to have her baptismal interview, they found out that her and Brother Domingo weren't actually married, and now they are! The youth here helped to decorate the chapel with paper flowers and it looked great!

The chapel all ready for the wedding

On the day of the wedding though, Brother and Sister Domingo were late to their own wedding! That's just Filipino time though. It was all good though, because the Branch President, who was going to marry them wasn't there yet either. That was pretty funny. The wedding was great though. We laughed, we cried, they played that one Christina Perri song from Twilight that everyone plays at weddings.

Other than the wedding though, something pretty crazy happened this week. We were contacting on Friday, and we saw these guys smoking inside this walled off compound with the gate open. My companion told me to contact them so I did. They let us in, and we get to talking, and it turns out, the guy who owns the lot is from Massachusetts! He used to work in a gas station in Shrewsbury! Talk about a small world. He was super cool, and said we could come back on Monday, so that's what we're doing lather today! wish me luck!

Love,
Elder Menzie

A New Tagalog:
Sa ang pangalang ni Jesu Cristo, amen. -- In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Brgy, Bagnos in the rain

Elder Leausa in the rain

Word of Wisdom in a nutshell

Week 15: The Shortcut

This week was pretty great! General Conference was fantastic, even though I had to wait a week to watch it. I loved hearing the Prophets speak to us about our day, and the specific things that we need to do as God's church here on the earth. I loved the emphasis on taking upon ourselves the name of Christ, because I've really been trying to remember him in all my actions, especially as one of his representative here in the Philippines. I really liked Elder Holland's talk on forgiveness as well, and I also liked Elder Bednar's analogy about the rope. We really do need to gather all things in one, in Christ. It reminds me of the story in the Book of Mormon, in 3rd Nephi, where the Nephites are being destroyed by the Gadianton Robbers, but the Nephites gather themselves and all their belongings together, and fight with the power of the Lord, and win. I know that as we gather all things together in Christ, he will lend us his strength.

After the sunday afternoon session of conference, we were going to one of our appointments, and the member that we were with told us to take a shortcut through a rice field that had just been harvested.

Okay, I thought, it seems pretty flat, and probably not to treacherous.

It was not flat. It was treacherous.

Some parts were sound enough to walk on fine, but there were a ton of super muddy bits, and a ton of slipping, and two very muddy shoes.

Love,
Elder Menzie

Revenge of the Tagalog:
Paki Basbasa po ninyo ... -- Please will you bless ...

Elder Leausa and Brother John-Mark navigating the rice field

Me in the rice field with a cow in the background

My shoes after the rice field

Week 14: The Right Stuff

So This week's been pretty great, but it's also been one of the harder weeks for me here in the 'Pines. Let's start with the good first, because it was a really good week.

On Wednesday, everyone in my batch went to Cauayan for our four weeks training meeting. It was so great to see all my friends from the MTC again, and to see how they're doing with their trainers. We're all doing a whole lot of work here, and we're having tons of fun while we're doing it. Sorry I don't have any pictures from that, my companion and I had to meet with President right after, so I had to leave pretty quick.

On Thursday, there was Mission Leadership Conference, which all the zone leaders have to go to, and as it happens, Elder Finau, who was one of my roommates at the Provo MTC, is in a trio with the zone leaders in our area, so he came here to Aurora to work with us for the day! it was awesome to work with him, the guy is hilarious.

Not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, just something I thought was funny was on Sunday, when the second counselor in the branch presidency got up to conduct, and then to bear his testimony, he was wearing his sunglasses the whole time.

So there's this book (and also a movie) called the Right Stuff, and I've been thinking about it lately. It's about the first astronauts, and the point of the book was that basically it takes a special kind of crazy to sit on top of a rocket ship and hope that it explodes in just the right way to get you exactly where you need to be. I think missionary work is pretty similar, except, it's not quite crazy I'd say, I think it's faith, which, kind of is crazy, when you think of it from a worldly perspective.

Elder Leausa and I had this investigator, and his name is John-Christian. I've mentioned him in these emails before, but I haven't said much about him. We met John-Christian on my first day in Aurora. He had a recycling bin full of empty booze bottles right by his gate. We taught him, and he was interested. He ate up everything we taught. Gave up drinking the day we taught him Word of Wisdom. It was great. Every day we would teach him. He was only too busy once, and he apologized a lot the next day. We finished teaching him all the lessons, and we knew he was going to have to be interviewed by President Hiatt because of his past, and when we were practicing the baptismal  interview questions, sufficeth to say he answered some of the questions pretty differently from most people. We told President Hiatt everything we knew abiut his past, and he informed us that John-Christian would have to wait at least a year to be baptized.

We were devastated, and we didn't really know how to tell John-Christian. We went for our appointment with him, and we just told him that this was God's plan for him, and that he needed faith in Jesus Christ we shared Alma 36: 27-28 with him, which says:

27 And I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind, yea, and in all manner of afflictions; yea, God has delivered me from prison, and from bonds, and from death; yea, and I do put my trust in him, and he will still deliver me.

28 And I know that he will raise me up at the last day, to dwell with him in glory; yea, and I will praise him forever, for he has brought our fathers out of Egypt, and he has swallowed up the Egyptians in the Red Sea; and he led them by his power into the promised land; yea, and he has delivered them out of bondage and captivity from time to time.

Sometimes we forget that the God who we love so much is the same God who "has brought forth our fathers out of Egypt," in this chapter, Alma calls  this sort of remembrance remembering the captivity of our fathers. This means that we have to remember what god did for them, and have faith that he can deliver us too.

John-Christian didn't come to church this week. I don't know if he will ever again, but he has a Book of Mormon, and I hope that he reads it, and remembers what God can do.

I love this message that I have the opportunity to share with people, and I wish that I could give them a perfect knowledge of what God's capable of. I'm grateful that I have this time to share what I believe with those who are looking, and I hope that you all will remember what God has done for you and remember the captivity of your fathers. It makes life a whole lot easier to know that the Lord is on our side.

Love,
Elder Menzie

Attack of the Tagalog:
Nagpapasalamat po kami para sa ... -- We thank thee for ...

Zone Conference with President and Sister Hiatt

A cute lil pup I found

My bacon-wrapped burger

A very nice cow I found