Transfer Day Pics

Transfer Day! There are three different transfer points (Cauayan, Tuguegarao, Solano) in the mission and Cauayan is the central one so that's where most zones meet at, so it is some nice down time to hang out with other friends in the mission and grab a meal at the SM Mall. It was nice to just chill with the homies without having to worry about getting a new companion.

As for the rest of the week, still not too much exciting news but one bright point is that we extended a baptismal date to Kathlyn for the end of May. We still have to keep things pretty simple while we're teaching to make sure she understands everything but she keeps coming to church (although still only sacrament) and has nice fellowshipping support (her boyfriend's family) so hopefully she will continue to progress as we prepare for her goal date.

Everything else is going good. Priesthood class in this branch is hilarious because all the elders quorum get in extravagant discussions about the most random things like gay marriage and stuff haha. But yeah, that's about it for now. Have a good one everyone!

Elders Glassie, Lavelua, Iuli, Larson 

Solano Zone reunited

CSP from last week

Tbt to Transfer Day - August 2014

Elders Hall, Heumann, Larson, Merza, Manabo

As of this week, my tatay Elder Merza is now an RM

End of Another Cycle

Another week gone by and another cycle down. The transfer lists are in and Elder Lavelua and I will be doing another six weeks together so I'm pretty excited for that. I feel like this is the first week in a while that I really don't have anything to report on, but we are staying busy in the work and everything is going pretty good for the most part; The only thing that has been a little difficult for us is that there seems to have been some misunderstandings with some of the members and so they have been a little critical of us regarding a few things but I won't really go into that because we are trying to fix that and I think it is getting better.

Anyways, we had a few investigators at church again but we still haven't extended any baptismal dates yet. Kathlyn attended again but she usually only comes for sacrament so hopefully we can get her coming to the classes as well. We had another weeding CSP this week but this time it was at a less active family in our branch. No pics though ha, sorry!

The zone is doing good. There are only two people transferring-Elder Frank (one of the DLs is going home) and Sister Hamblin (One of the four sisters in Roxas 1st Branch) and everything else is staying the same but I guess it will be interesting to see who the two new missionaries in our zone will be. Elder Lavelua and I still get to go to Cauayan though for Transfer Day so I'm excited to see some friends around the mission I haven't seen in a while--I guess that's one of the perks about being a ZL haha. But yup, everything is going well and I'm excited for this upcoming cycle. Have a good week everyone and by the way Mom, hope you had a great birthday! 

What the ducks?

Final zone pic

Conference!

The first time I watched Conference as a missionary was when I was still at the MTC. The next time I watch it, I will be back home with my family...I can hardly believe that! But as for my last Conference in the field, it was awesome! I love General Conference so much and like I think I've said before, I'm pretty sure I've enjoyed it even more since being a missionary. Those ten hours felt like they were over in just a blink of an eye!

All the messages were inspired but the two main themes that stuck out for me was first on the importance of families and second on staying firm in our testimonies by making Jesus Christ our foundation. Many speakers mentioned the reality of Satan's efforts to make us question our testimonies or destroy the family but the solution is this: 'Don't let things we don't understand affect the things that we do know' (Kevin W. Pearson)

As missionaries, those are also two of the main points that we teach: One-That the gospel focuses on families and as part of God's plan, families can be together forever. Two-We invite all we teach to keep commitments that will help them come closer to Jesus Christ and help to strengthen their testimonies by becoming 'spiritually rooted' in Him and not look at the gospel through a 'keyhole view' (Dallin H. Oaks).....One of my favorite talks was by Elder Wilford W. Andersen about the old medicine man and the young doctor and dancing. For almost all of us, we have been taught the dance steps but it is up to us if we will listen to the music!

Everything else is going good as well! We are keeping busy in the area and enjoying the work. No investigators with a baptismal date yet but there is one we are hoping to extend to soon--Kathlyn (22 years old I think) is the girlfriend of a member in our branch. She has been coming to church for quite a while now and we have taught her quite a few times (at the house of the member. He has three brothers who are RMs so the fellowshipping for her is really really good). She is great and I think she has a desire to be baptized but the only thing right now is she sometimes has a hard time understanding some of the things we teach so we have to focus on teaching everything in very simple terms and then constantly review just to make sure she understands.

I got my pictures to work but these are all from last last week. I forgot to mention that last P Day we went to Santiago so we could play basketball and hang out with some of the other missionaries because everybody goes to this big mall called Robinson's to e-mail for P Day. My tatay Elder Merza goes home next week so that was probably the last time that I will get to see him. I'm so thankful he was my trainer and I'm gonna miss him!! He also trained again for his last two cycles so I finally got to meet my 'younger brother' in the mission-Elder Dialino-haha but yup, that's that. Have a good week everyone!

Elder Cruzit - Funniest 26 year old on the block

Weeding CSP - Laborers in the vineyard

Roxas elders (minus two)

Father/son reunion on the basketball court

Family pic with my kapatid and tatay

Splits, MLC, etc.

It's been a pretty busy week for us! We are trying to work more with each companionship in our zone so this week we went on splits twice--For the first one I was with Elder Palas. This is his first cycle in the mission but he is doing pretty good! Then I was with Elder Cruzit--I think I have mentioned him before but we were in the same ward back in Tuguegarao and he is the funniest 26-year-old I have ever met. Just listening to him makes me laugh. Both of the splits were good though.

MLC was good as well. President & Sister Rahlf as well as the APs all have a topic and that is basically the outline of what we are to teach for zone meeting (which will be tomorrow). The topics they shared to us were on planning, diving companionships, and using time wisely. There was a nice lunch and it's also fun to just kind of hang out with some of my other friends there. It's too bad that a lot of my friends who were zone leaders have either gone home or been released as ZL recently but it's all good, I still enjoyed it. During the announcements, President Rahlf also told us that effective July 1, part of our mission would be split into a newly created Philippines Tuguegarao Mission. It was set up well, complete with geographical charts and a picture of the new mission president and wife but it just turned out to be an April Fools Day joke. We all bought it though so it was pretty funny!

We also had a CSP in the sisters area pulling weeds at this one member families bukid. But yeah, everything is going good still! We are continuing to find and teach a ton of new investigators. Nobody super progressing yet but a few people who have shown potential. The only hard thing is managing our time so that we are able to see all of them throughout the week. 

Easter was good--If anyone hasn't seen the video at helives.mormon.org I would encourage everyone to check it out because it's awesome! Hope everyone had a good Easter and also Conference weekend. I'm looking forward to watching that this week! I've got some good pictures but my card isn't working right now so hopefully I'll be able to send those next week.