Tuesday, December 18, 2012
December 15, 2012 - Christmas season is here!
Dear Mom, Dad, Ryan, and all others who think that
hotdogs and hotdog buns should stop being sold in
packets of 8 and 12,
What is on my mind today, nothing much. In fact, life
is just quite satisfying. The Christmas season is here and all of the hustle
and bustle of Christmas time is slowly approaching us in the office. We have a
lot of Zone conferences, Christmas conference, and much preparation that needs
to be done. Sometimes, I feel that the in-field missionaries have it easier
because all they need to do is work and not worry about these things. But I
worry not, everything works out well. One thing I’ve learned on my mission and
my time here in the office is that, “The Lord knows your timetable and he will
provide for what you need, when you need it.”
Story time! It was around last week and I was
finishing up fixing all of the rent checks for the mission, getting the tax
forms signed and organizing them by zone. About the night before I needed to
hand them out, I found out I was missing a check. 1 check was not where it was
supposed to be and was missing. I started freaking out like it was nobody’s
business. I was looking everywhere for it, moving papers, organizing my entire
workplace and still no check to be found. It’s not a small check either…it’s 3
month’s rent. So I was freaking out and then I decided to pray. Afterwards, I
felt an impression to forget about the check for now and go out and proselyte. So
I followed the prompting. We went out to work and had a good time. Still no
check though. So the morning comes and
we get back to the office and I say, “Okay, we have an hour to find this check
before we go to the meeting. Where do I start?” Sister Harris, one of the office couples, said
to check some of the blue folders. So I
did so, one by one. And finally, with plenty of time to spare, I find the last
check stuck to some papers. Kind of a predictable story line, huh? That’s okay…it’s
the pattern of the Lord’s miracles. You have faith, you act on your faith and
try to find an answer, then just when you think you can’t give anymore, or
time’s running out, you give just a little bit more and that’s when the
blessing come. It’s true!
I guess things have been cooling down this week. Not
as busy as last week but it’s going; it’s going good. Zone conferences started this week. This means
I basically get to see everyone in the mission this month, except Mindoro. Shoot, those are most of the people I want to
see too! Haha! It’s all good though. I’m sending them a letter. Things get a
little bit, well, down sometimes as a missionary. It happens to everyone.
Everyone experiences a little bit of discouragement sometimes. Like last night,
Elder Scanlan and I basically got punted by everyone we were supposed to teach
last night. But you know, the best way to deal with these things is to just
appreciate the little things in life. I can find great joy in the little things
in life. Like, we were driving down the street and I saw some Christmas lights
on the telephone poles all along the C-5. It was nice ^_^. I really do believe in the scripture D&C
123:17; “Lets us do all things cheerfully that lie within our power.”
Since I wrote the part up there things have quickly
started to become crazy at the office once more. I love it! The Assistants and
President are going to Mindoro this weekend so Thursday night they went to President’s
house to sleep for a few hours before their flight leaves at 5 am. At 4 am we
get a call telling us to pick up some sisters in the hospital. O.o Say what?! So we get up and get dressed and rush over to
the hospital. Anyway, about 4:30 we get there and take the sisters home. It’s
so early and we are all tired. And we
find out it was not them that had some medical problem but their housemate and
her companion. Since Sister Delamare is out of the country for a wedding and
President and the APs are in another island, Elder Scanlan and I had to take
the lead in making sure these sisters are taken care of and everything is fine.
Oh, best part about this week besides getting that
package! On Thursday, I had the opportunity to attend a temple wedding and a
temple sealing. ^_^ The Calayo family, a
family in the Cubao Ward finally were able to go through the temple together.
^_^ It was a great experience and I’m
glad I had to opportunity to see it and be invited to it. Don’t worry I have a
lot of pictures! ^_^ The spirit was so
strong and it’s definitely a great builder to my testimony that families are
indeed forever through the ordinances of the temple. It was great! The elders were smiling, the sisters were
crying; it was an overall awesome experience!!! ^_^
And that was my week, I hope you are all doing
great!
Doing you Proud,
Elder Froude ^_^
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| Thank you, Tita Jona and Tita Jackie for the gips! |
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| With sister missionaries at the temple. |
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| Waiting for the sealing... |
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| The Daclan Family sealing with missionaries and friends. |
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| Making sure a sister missionary is getting the treatment she needed. |
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| Sign at the hospital. Funny but true. |
Thursday, December 13, 2012
December 8, 2012 - Hey Guys!
Dear Mom, Dad, Ryan, and of course, you,
I’ve just been having some thoughts lately that I would
like to share with you.
Should I go to
school as soon as I can after my mission? It’s something I’ve been praying about lately
to find an answer for. Well, we got a
notice from President that everyone who are scheduled to go home after the
January 3, 2013 will be extended 2 weeks in order to synchronize with the new
MTC schedule to accommodate for the surge of new missionaries. So, this means my release date which used to
be Jan. 16, 2014 is now going to be move to Jan. 30, 2014. This means I’ll be even farther from when BYU
winter semester starts. So I’m thinking
maybe I should stay home, get a job, and go to community college until Spring
and Summer semester. Most of my friends
are going to be on their missions still anyway like Stacy, Megan, Mariah, Chad,
Morgan. Although most of my mission
friends like Elder Waite, Herr, Barrow, Rhodes, (missionaries going to BYU after
their mission like me…except Elder Waite…he hasn’t decided if he’s going to go
or not. Haha! He should!) are going to be there for winter term because
they are 6 months older than me in the mission and were asking me to room with
them… shoot! That would be the best day ever! Anyway, so it looks like that might be my
answer. I’ll stay home with the
family!!! Yay! I just hope I can find enough things to do or
I’ll go crazy!!! Haha!!!
Spiritual Gifts: I was reading President Eyring’s talk
about how he as a father could see the spiritual gifts that his children had
and he made them all a wooden carving about their spiritual gifts that he saw
in them. So I was wondering, Dad, what
spiritual gift(s) do you see in me?
Small town vs. big
city: To be honest I’ve actually
been thinking of what kind of environment I want to raise my family in. I’ve been in the talagang (real) province of the Philippines
and in the city so it’s a really good experience to see what I like most. The
thing is I’m kind of torn between the big city and a small town. When I was in
Mindoro I loved the fact that after like 4 months when I walk down the street
people know who I am, when I go to the one store in the town I know all the
cash registers and I can say hi to them whenever. I enjoy the closeness that comes
from living in a small community. But then again, I love the city life, like
LOVE! I enjoy having super huge mega
malls nearby, all of the lights, the sounds, the tons and tons of people, the
great secret places to eat! It’s like an
adventure every night. Always something
to do, always something to explore. I’m
going to need a good job cause I love exploring places to eat. I hate traffic though… that’s the only thing
living in the city; maybe a nice suburb outside of the city would be nice. But I love how everything I need is so close.
I’ve seen some “I’m a Mormon” videos and all of the New Yorkers love New York,
love the city kind of a thing. Anyway, just a few thoughts about it.
What I’ve learned
from companions (so far): I am an
extremely lively person, apparently. I love life and I love to show it. For some people, shyer people, it makes them
feel uncomfortable how lively I am, that’s what I learned from some of my
companions. I also learned that my zeal for the gospel makes people who are
somewhat struggling uncomfortable around me too. Most of the time, I get along well with
people. I’ve noticed I get along really
well with my kabahay (housemates) but not so much with some of my past
companions. That’s because my kabahay are usually fireball missionaries (Elder Herr,
Elder Duenas, Elder Hilbert, Elder Waite, Rhodes, Stoddard, the AP’s) and some
companions I’ve had are more like candle-light missionaries. In most cases though, through learning about
them and learning about myself I’ve been able to help them shine brighter which
is good and I enjoy learning about that, even if I don’t see it immediately. I’ve been spoiled having Elder Barrow as a
companion for a transfer, he totally gets what being a missionary is all about
and is a total fireball! Okay, my
companions haven’t been the most pasaway disobedient) missionaries…no that’s not it. They just haven’t given it their all yet. They
haven’t given their whole selves to the Lord and that’s what the difference is.
They’re still holding on to something
temporal and that’s what noticeably impairs the Spirit. Mark well my words,
people can tell if you don’t have the Spirit with you. There is a noticeable
difference between the sincerity/charity in a missionary and just working for
numbers.
Oh, I just remembered, Lauren! What was the name of the song that you
listened to when you were a youth…it goes something like, “my soul like a river
runs deep” or something like that? I don’t remember it too well but I
remembered that we listened to it in Mexico and I liked it. Is it from EFY? We have every single song from every single
EFY in the office computers. Haha? Anyway, I was just wondering because I want to
hear it again. Maybe you can you email
it to me? Thanks! Love you!
Hey Ryan! How come you haven’t written me in a while? I need to know what’s been up with you, bro! All I heard was that you got a job at Target! You should be the one telling me these things >.< and keeping me updated on things
going on!
Spiritual thought: This Sunday I was working with Sam Vibal,
he just got his mission call to Bacolod.
Anyway, it was extremely depressing the first few doors we went to (Okay
that might be a bit of an exaggeration) but we had a few strong no’s or
"go away we don't want to listen to you." So after a while I started
to wonder how all of the great missionaries found the "ripe fruit."
Then I remembered that Jesus Christ is the Lord of this vineyard. He's been working in this area long before we
got here so He knows where all of the ripe fruits are. So I decided to ask Him. We kept walking and I seemed to be led to a
certain neighborhood. It was nothing special on the outside but you know, I
decided to start at the beginning of the street and knock my way until I find
someone.
1st door: Nothing. 2nd door: A resounding NO. 3rd door: A man came out and started to talk
to us. He was fluent in English and decided to let us in after a little bit of
BRT (building relationships through trust). Once inside we started to talk about all of
the interesting decorations he had in his house which eventually led to a
discussion about families. He was really
prepared to listen to the Gospel; he is an intelligent yet humble man who loves
his family and is seeking for the truth and he loves the work we do as
missionaries. This man was so prepared
it shocked me how easy and even natural everything came. One thing led to another and now he wants us
to come back. This is a potential strong
family for the church and I was glad to have been an instrument in the Lord's
hand to find this man and his family. The
work certainly is true; all I needed to do was show a little Faith and Desire. I know the Church is true!
This week, we've spent the last three days doing a ton of
driving for the mission. Wednesday, Zone Leader Council. Elder Herr and Elder Duenas came up to the mainland
and they brought Sister Weller with them. Sister Weller is probably the most astig (tough) sister
missionary I know and was a great blessing to Mindoro but had to come to the
mainland to deal with an ear infection on her last transfer. We took her to Taguig to her new area...she
was heartbroken to leave. Sigh... I
would be too.
Thursday, mail run in Pasig City and then we had to help
move people for an ET (emergency transfer). So we picked up an elder from Taguig, went to Antipolo
for the halfway switch, came back to Taguig, dropped the elder off and picked
up Sister Weller’s replacement and brought her to the mission home. This whole
day we were in the car from 2:30-10:00 pm so we were exhausted! Then, we woke up at 3:00 am to take the Mindoro-bound
missionaries to the airport. Friday, we
spent all day helping sister missionaries in Taytay move to their new apartment
on the 10th floor of a building. All
together we've been in the car for maybe, 20 hours or something this week...it's
a lot of driving! Haha!!!!!! I'm exhausted but it's great. I love the work!
By the way, please tell Bro. Shiels that I say Hi and
that being his home teaching companion has been one of the best trainings for
me as a missionary. I'll write him a
letter but I want to make sure he knows.
YES, I GOT YOUR PACKAGE!!!!!!!!!! It's so big! AHHH!!!!!
I can't even look at it. I keep it in the office so I don't accidentally open
it! Haha! Your Mama Mary stickers make
me laugh every time. Everyone else just
cuts out pictures from the Ensign and tape it to the packages. But don't worry, it's how I can tell it's
mine. Haha!
Thanks, Mom, for staying up with me. It really means a lot to me. I tried to come earlier but this was the
earliest I could make it. I love you so
much! I hope you know that. I really needed to talk to you today too ^_^
so thank you!
Doing you Proud,
Elder Froude ^_^
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| It's only November and we already got tons of Christmas packages! |
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| At the office |
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| Picking up mail with Elder Wilde |
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| Do you see me at the bottom? |
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| With Branch missionaries |
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
November 19-24, 2012 – Crazy Week!
Dear Mom,
Dad, Ryan, and all else who are reading,
Tuesday was also just a catch up day; the biggest thing that happened was that Elder Scanlan and I were assigned to pick up 3 of the 7 exiting missionaries. So we left at 4 pm and got back to the mission home by 9. Haha! Although it was quite a long time, we actually got to the mission home on time. Traffic was horrible. We started from the Office in Quezon City and went to Pasig to pick up Elder Cazimero because it is the farthest away. The distance is about from our house in Sacramento to Costco (about a 12 minute drive) but with intense traffic the whole way. In the end, it took us about an hour and a half. For those of you in Utah, it’s from Provo to Lehi. Haha! I am never going to complain about traffic in the States anymore!!! So, after spending about an hour getting lost and trying to get to the right place, we pick up one of the Elders and then head back to Quezon City to pick up Elder Sims. After spending a few hours in traffic and getting lost, we eventually find his apartment. The next was Sister Macaranas who is in the same zone but on the other side of town. So at around 8:00, we had everyone and went out to get dinner at McDonalds. They serve rice here in the Philippines! It’s so weird! We had a nice time and enjoyed them ending their missions.
Probably the
Craziest week I’ve ever had on the mission so far. Transfer week in the office.
The last one wasn’t so bad because the Millers (Couple missionaries) were with
us training us how to do things so we missed out on most of the craziness.
Anyway, so let me get story telling here…
First off,
this is just a little outline of the week so you can catch a glimpse of the
insanity. Monday: Office meeting,
Tuesday: Prep for transfer day, Wednesday: Exit Thursday: Transfer day/
Thanksgiving, Friday: Organize office, Saturday: Thanksgiving dinner/ P-day.
Monday begins
and we are all scrambling around to get everything ready for transfer day on
Thursday. We had an office meeting where we all met with President and Sister
Delamare, the APs and the office couples to basically strategize how we are
going to tackle everything including rides and such. Coding is a pain,
especially when President is coding on transfer day. Haha!
Anyway, Tuesday
is the day we just did a ton of office work.
The biggest problem was that we were out of money and a lot of people
needed money; you know the small stuff like, new landlords, new phone orders,
medical expenses…there were actually a lot of pesos that we went through the
last week.
Tuesday was also just a catch up day; the biggest thing that happened was that Elder Scanlan and I were assigned to pick up 3 of the 7 exiting missionaries. So we left at 4 pm and got back to the mission home by 9. Haha! Although it was quite a long time, we actually got to the mission home on time. Traffic was horrible. We started from the Office in Quezon City and went to Pasig to pick up Elder Cazimero because it is the farthest away. The distance is about from our house in Sacramento to Costco (about a 12 minute drive) but with intense traffic the whole way. In the end, it took us about an hour and a half. For those of you in Utah, it’s from Provo to Lehi. Haha! I am never going to complain about traffic in the States anymore!!! So, after spending about an hour getting lost and trying to get to the right place, we pick up one of the Elders and then head back to Quezon City to pick up Elder Sims. After spending a few hours in traffic and getting lost, we eventually find his apartment. The next was Sister Macaranas who is in the same zone but on the other side of town. So at around 8:00, we had everyone and went out to get dinner at McDonalds. They serve rice here in the Philippines! It’s so weird! We had a nice time and enjoyed them ending their missions.
Wednesday was
a great day; we didn’t even have enough time to go to the office at all. Haha! Well, let’s start at about 4:00 am when we
took Elder Brown to the Airport to go home. So, by the end of that I was already tired and
the day had just started. Haha! Then we
went to the mission home to have breakfast with all of the exiting missionaries.
We saw a video that had a slideshow of pictures of the missionaries. I was
getting trunky (homesick). Haha! Joke lang! Then after that we were able to go and do a
session in the temple. Wohoo!!! It’s been 6 months but I’ve finally been able
to go! There is no temple in Mindoro,
sadly…yet…haha! I told President
Delamare and afterwards he said, “You know, if you had told me earlier I would
have let you and your companion go.” Sayang! Awww man…my bad! It’s all good though. Life is good. Afterwards, we went to the War Memorial in
Manila with President, the whole office, and all of the exiting missionaries. I
sent a ton of great pictures! I loved
it! Haha! By this time it is about 1:00 pm. Man, what a day! Afterwards, we ran some errands, set up the
chapel, made sure everything is ready and in place for the CHAOS of TRANSFER
DAY!!!! This is also Elder Waite’s last day with us before he goes back out to
the field. He’s so happy! Haha!
Thursday. Transfer Day!
Schedule:
6:45 am - Pick
up the New Missionaries from the MTC (Missionary Training Center)
7:00 am - Breakfast
@ the mission home
7:30 am - Begin
introductions and orientation
*Note, the
Missionaries were actually a surprisingly excited and energetic bunch. They’ll do great things!
9:00 am - Transfer
meeting
I saw Elder
Hilbert again for the first time since I left Mindoro! He just got called to train an American! Haha!
I’m happy for him. It will be great for
his Tagalog. He’s a really good guy. I hear he’s been doing so well in the field
since he left Pasig. It was really nice to see everyone I’ve met since I’ve
gotten to the field. Elder Barrow is
doing great work as a Zone Leader in Cogeo right now. Elder Peralta is still a Zone Leader in
Antipolo. Big News…Elder Olvido is now a
Zone Leader in Marikina! Good for him! I’m so happy that he’s been doing great work
and is in a good leadership position. He’ll grow so much. A few of the sisters I met in Mindoro are now
training new missionaries so that’s awesome! Elder Wilde is training too! Haha! That
lucky duck. He’s the first one of our
batch to train.
According to
president, the wave of new missionaries should hit us around April 11th so a lot of older missionaries are going to
be training. My Zone leaders in Mindoro,
Elder Herr and Elder Duenas are still together in Mindoro for another transfer!
This makes 5 transfers for Elder Herr
and 4 for Elder Duenas. Haha! Man, they’ll have spent 6 months together as
companions. It’s great though; they are
both Fireballs and do such awesome work with the leaders in Mindoro. ^_^ I’m
so happy for them, but kind of sad I won’t be able to see them in the mainland
for another transfer. Actually, they’ll
be coming up for a day in the beginning of December so that’ll be great! I keep telling them that they’ll finish their
mission in Mindoro. Haha! They still have a good 8 months left or
something.
More Pasig
updates: Alice is now married and has
moved to Australia by the time you read this. The Ormunds are also moving back
to Australia because they were reassigned for work. The Pallisigue and Gomez
family are about 4 months away from getting sealed in the temple. WOW! Time
flies by so fast! They had better invite me to their sealing. Haha! I’ll write them again just to be sure ;)! Life is good.
10:00-11:00 am
- Office after transfer meeting
So, this
basically means I was in the office for about an hour trying to reimburse
everyone for rented jeepneys, taxis, lost phones, etc… utter chaos trying to help
a hundred missionaries at the same time. I’m so glad I can at least multi-task
a little bit. Haha! I felt kinda sayang (too bad) though because I couldn’t
go around and say hi to everyone I wanted to. It’s okay. I’ll see them again.
I’m getting
tired writing out the whole schedule. Haha!
I’ll just summarize for now. You probably didn’t need to know all of that anyway.
The thing is, what I write here I’m going to copy and paste onto my journal. XD
The rest of
the day was spent at the orientation/ training meeting for the missionaries
from the Provo MTC. Then we spent the
rest of the night trying to take the new missionaries to their apartments
around the mission. So that took a while. P-day is only 2 days away!!! I need a break! *Transfer Day happens every six weeks, FYI.
Saturday was
a nice relaxed/great Thanksgiving day! We
had a lunch/dinner thing at the Mission home with President and every couple
missionary in the mission. Since we have the PAO in our mission, it’s a lot of
couples. But it was good, the food was
delicious and I ate a little bit more than I should have. Haha! It was so good. But my belly was so full!!! Sakit sa tyan! (My
tummy hurt!) Haha! Man, but
you know it’s all good. ^_^ We had a
great day, nice amount of exercise. We have intense badminton games. Haha!
Sunday was a
great day for the work. We spent 2 and a half hours tracting today. It was a good time. I worked with Sam, a
branch missionary, who is getting his call this week. I taught him a lot of
things I knew about tracting. It felt
like I was training. Haha! It was a good day; we handed out many
pamphlets and made the presence of missionaries known amongst the people. The
only bad thing about this week is that we’ve been so busy we haven’t been able
to teach all but 4 lessons this whole week. Man, that’s crazy!
Wow! 3 pages long for 1 week….That’s pretty
intense! Anyway, that’s all for this
week. I hope you are all doing well! Okay,
I need to go now…it was nice talking to you!!!! ^_^ I love you and miss you all soo much!
Doing you Proud,
Elder Froude ^_^
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| Just a sample of how crazy traffic is in Manila. |
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| Filipino Santa! |
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| Philippine flag at the War Memorial |
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| President DelaMare |
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| Me and the Amercan flag |
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| Good to see these elders again! |
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| Thanksgiving feast at the mission home |
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| 20 years old and still relegated to sit at the kids table! |
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| Couple missionaries |
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| Tracting with Bro. Sam before he goes on his mission. |
November 23, 2012 – Happy Thanksgiving!
How are you all doing this fine afternoon? This week has been the extreme craziest to
the max so I’m so glad it is P-day. It
was transfer week and Thanksgiving so things have been super crazy. I haven’t even had time to write my long
letter this week. Shoot. Just to tell you about my Thanksgiving…it was
super crazy! We had to deal with transfers all morning and afternoon, trainer's
meeting right after that and then we had to take the new Mindoro missionaries
to the airport at 4:00am! Haha!
Great Thanksgiving Day!
Doing hard work for the Lord!
I'll write more details later today but for now we've been invited to
Thanksgiving dinner at the Delamare's (Mission President) and all of the senior
couples at 2:00 pm so I may not have the opportunity to talk to you today. Sayang... pero Happy Thanksgiving!!! (Too bad…anyway, Happy Thanksgiving!) I love you all and appreciate all that you do
for me. ^_^ I wish you all the
best. I fear not because of the Promise
the Lord gave in D&C 100:1, 12, and 15.
^_^ !
My spiritual thought is from a general conference talk by
President Uchtdorf.
Have a great vacation! Kita Kits! (See ya!) BTW,
I want pictures! I have good ones for
you in my next email.
Doing you Proud,
Elder Froude
November 17, 2012 – Email of the week!
Dear Mom, Dad, Ryan, and all other fellow travelers
through life seeking happiness,
Doing you Proud,
Gave out a baptismal invitation to a new
investigator Rick today, he said he would join the church when he knows it’s
true! Wohoo! Now just for a specific date of the baptism.
Rick is a 60 year old man who has been searching for the truth but has only
been kept from it because he knew not where to find it. We have great hopes for
Rick and his family as well. We met a new investigator on Sunday as well. The
niece of Sister Go, Mary-Grace Manangan. She has basically grown up in the
church but she hasn’t been taught about the gospel because her mom is not a
member. So we taught her most of Lesson 1 on Sunday and I felt the Spirit and
gave her a baptismal date for December 22nd. She said yes! It’s close! But I think she can
make it. She’s been going to church for a while now. ^_^ She seems very interested for a
15-year-old. It was a great week for missionary work overall. Right now we have 2 baptism dates and 1
potential baptism date as well. Not bad for the smallest area in the
Philippines and for the shortest allotted time to work. Well, 2nd
shortest…the APs have less time to work than we do. Then again, our work is
different work, but it is
still work for God, nonetheless.
I did receive
some training this week from the Philippines Area Office for my new position.
They did answer a lot of the questions about the work I’m supposed to do and
it’s a lot deeper than I had thought. But it’s okay…Kaya ko! (I can do it!)
Having my camera back is great! I left it in the van
I turned in to the PAO to get fixed. Good thing they kept it for me. It feels
good again to take pictures and save memories. I realized a few months ago that
one of the attributes of the Philippines that I’ve had even in America was the
innate desire to take pictures of everything special to me. Haha! All of my
Filipino friends in school had digital cameras and would always take pictures.
Another thing that people in the Philippines here love is what are called “remembrances.” It’s a little thing that people give each
other here as a remembrance of them. It doesn’t have to be something big or
glorious, just something to remind them of you. For most people I write letters
and give them a picture or a tie. But sometimes you get key chains, t-shirts,
etc., just a little “something-something” of sentimental value. I realized that
I got that from my heritage. Haha. It’s probably something I’ll do when I get
back home.
Spiritual
thought:
My
Spiritual thought for this week comes from a video I found on LDS.org about the
victims of Sandy. It’s a really touching
video about Christ-like love and unconditional service shown by the “yellow
vests.” This video can say more than I
can so enjoy! ^_^
This
video gives me hope for the people in this world. It just goes to show that
when a catastrophe strikes, it can bring out the best in people. It tells me
that when people come together for a similar cause and work together with
nothing but a desire to serve their fellowman and serve God, that is when true
happiness and the true blessings flow. Unity is of God, service to others is of
God, love for one another is of God. I
know that if people can come together and do these things, they can feel whole
and full in heart. Though they may have
lost every earthly possession, they will feel through your own service and
sacrifice the love of our Father in Heaven. In the name of Jesus Christ
Amen.
Doing you Proud,
Elder Froude ^_^
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| Zone Leaders teaching missionaries how to cook "sinigang." |
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| Splurged on pizza. Not a wise decision, I know. |
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| A fish coin purse that Elder and Sis. Harris gave me. |
Thursday, November 15, 2012
November 10, 2012 – Life is Good!
Dear Mom, Dad, Ryan, and all my
readers,
Nothing too amazing happened this week
except for the fact that life is good! Nope no damage, no car accident, just
working in the office and getting everything ready for the new apartment leases
I’m supposed to get money for by Jan 1st . It is a long process as
you can imagine. On the bright side, we have a baptismal date for a part member
family on 24th of November! Yay!!! His name is JR Nietes. He is 10 years old and is quite smart. He
does the reading assignments so we committed him to baptism. We also have another potential baptism from a
house we tracted a few weeks ago. His name is Ricardo Castillo and he has so
many questions about doctrine that can all be answered with the Plan of Salvation.
*Special note to those of you who want to serve a mission* Study the Bible more
than you do now! There are many people that you will meet who will not listen
to you unless you use the Bible, then afterwards you can work your way into
bearing testimony of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and then solidify
what you know with that second witness. Trust me. It will help you so much! But things are going well with Ricardo; he is
taking the lessons well and feels enlightened whenever we come by so, hopefully,
we can work him to baptism as well. ^_^
Missionary
work in Cubao Ward is pretty interesting. Most of the members are RMs (returned
missionaries) and former APs (assistants to the President) and MTC (Missionary
Training Center) teachers that want to live close to the Temple. The bishop is pretty
much amazing at his job and they have like 97% home teaching! As for their less
actives (our area focus), they only have like 40 less actives and they are all
either super offended or moved out. And we have 6 missionaries in our ward.
Therefore, I guess all we can do is do more finding and teaching like all of
the other missionaries. Haha! The ward is super functional. We do not have to
do any workshops or trainings like I used to do on Mindoro and when we met with
bishop and brought up some things he could help us with as missionaries, he
said that they were already talking about it in their meetings and changes
would be made soon. Awesome! It feels good to not have to worry about the ward and focus more on missionary
work, for what little time we have every day to work. Haha!
Just a little update on church worldwide
missionary work:
The Brethren have projected that
because of the new age change we will approximately get 90,000 missionaries by
next year around June or something. That means, with the 310 missions we have
now, each one would get around 267 missionaries per mission. We have 171
missionaries right now and some areas of the Philippines only have like 85. So
in order to compensate for the new amount of missionaries, the First Presidency
has asked each area presidency to request the creation of 3 new missions each!
So with that they project around 234 missionaries per mission for the summer of
next year. Crazy right?!? That’s a lot of missionaries! Our complement (?) has gone up from 180 to 212 missionaries since the
announcement so we’ll be getting in a new wave of missionaries pretty soon. Still Crazy.
Do you know what else is crazy? Well,
we were in zone interviews on Friday with the Quezon City South Zone (the zone
our office is in) and it is a pretty big zone. We’re talking like 18
missionaries. Anyway, so President was making these announcements and such and
was saying how the office Elders will now officially be a part of your zone.
Which is a good thing! I was like, “Okay,
so we have a zone now… that’s good.” (Before we didn’t have a real zone, it was
the zone with all of the senior couples in it and the APs because we work in
the Office. Haha!) Then president says something else…he says,
“And as part of this growth to your Zone we’ll have Elder Froude be a new District
Leader in the new 4th District in the Quezon City South Zone next
transfer. O.o Say what? The most I’ve ever heard of was 3
districts in a zone. Wait? What!?! You’re making me a district leader?!? I was so surprised! And everyone else was too because being in the
office is already a leadership position in itself, now I’m a district leader
too! I’ve never heard of this happening, of course I’m still pretty new. Elder
Waite says it’s happened before but I think he’s just messing with me like he
always does. Of course this will start
next transfer which will be Thanksgiving Day! Haha!
But
yeah, that’s my news for this week. As a
closing part to my blog for this week, I’m giving a birthday Tribute to my Mom
whose birthday is tomorrow. ^_^ Love you Mom!
Doing you Proud,
Elder Froude ^_^
PS. When I said nothing amazing happened this
week, I wrote that part around Wednesday before any of this happened. Haha! Sorry
;)
Dear Mom,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
I just wanted to wish you a special
happy birthday and hope that all is going well for you. Wow! It’s almost been a year now since I left to
serve a mission. Man, does time fly by fast!
How are you doing? Gosh, the hardest
part of writing is choosing what to say, so for right now I’m just going to
write down what’s on my mind. Mom, I love you. I want to thank you sincerely
for all that you have done for me. I still remember all of the things you taught
me in order to be a good man like saying please and thank you palagi (all the time).
I even remember all of the things you struggled to teach me, like washing the
sink after cleaning the dishes. I have found that I tend to do the things that
were harder to learn more often now because it makes me feel closer to home.
Haha! I really do appreciate how much you’ve loved me all of these years and
for everything you have blessed me with. If there’s one thing I’ve learned
being here in the Philippines it is that I have been blessed beyond belief to
be born in this family and to have had an amazing, loving mother like you. A
lot of people say they have the best mom ever, but that’s because they haven’t
had you as their mom ;) luckily I have. And I frequently pray in thanks for
that.
From your famous cooking to helping me edit my
essays…(even in college, haha!) to every weekly letter you’ve sent to me, you
just make me Love you more and define for me that I should strive to find
someone with no less love and no less
greatness than you (of course, after my mission ;) ). You have been there for
me every step of my life and I feel so lucky to have you as my mom. I don’t
know what I would have done without you. I knew I could always go home to a loving
family and a loving mother. That kind of feeling and welcome in a home is
priceless for a person in their journey through life. Many, many families do
not have that and many more do not eat together at dinner, which surprised me
most. Because of you I have learned what it means to raise a family and how
influential I can be in the lives of my family and those around me. Don’t
worry, I’m not planning on getting married for a good while ;P. Many of my
memories of pure happiness always bring me back to the great times we have had
together. Shoot, this is so hard for me
to write without tearing up every 2 sentences. That’s why I started writing
this on Tuesday, Haha! so I can make sure it’s perfect by the time Saturday
rolls around. You know what I’m trying to say, right? ^_^
One of the things that always brings
me home is the sound of your voice in my head, singing a song of 20 years of
compassion and comfort that has constantly brought me peace when I needed it
the most. (Naks naman!) I can always think back when times are hard and say,
okay I’m not just doing this for me, it’s for the people and it’s for my family
as well. That too gives me the strength to press on when times are hard. What
brings me inspiration to do my best for the people here in the Philippines is
the thought that, you know, maybe if I am worthy enough I can help a family
become like us. A missionary converted
you when you were young. I am hoping
that my works, a few decades down the road, will lead many families somewhere
on the same road that we are on and that they will have a love for each other
as we do. The full moon looks beautiful at night…I can just imagine looking at
it for a second and know that you are looking at the same moon. How it kind of
brings us closer together.
What is success? How does one measure
success in life? These are a few questions that I have pondered about lately
being on a mission. I had much time to ponder the things in life and what I
want for after the mission. For me, it always leads back to whether or not you
have true happiness. Many people in this life have happiness and pleasure mixed
up pretty badly. Pleasure is so
temporal, so fleeting, so selfish; it’s great for a moment or two, but when the
dust fades, all you find is yourself alone. Happiness on the other hand, is in
itself eternal. No matter where you are or what you are doing, if you have true
happiness you will always be happy. Like
I am right now. Even though we are
apart, I am happy knowing that we will never be far apart with the Plan of Salvation.
This happiness and peace I have attained in my life is how I measure my success
on the mission. Even greater success in life is if I can bring that to other
people. It truly is a great happiness that comes from helping someone find
their happiness.
Thanks for everything, Mom! I love you so much! Have a great birthday! ^_^
Love, Elder Froude
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