August 12, 2013 - Blessings of Prayer

Dear Mom, Dad, and Ryan,

Man, this was probably the most stressful week of the entire transfer!!!  We had so many meetings this week and so many changes and so many announcements for changes to the changes being made and to top it all off, it's transfer week and Elder Acera is leaving me.

So, let's start off with the beginning of this week when Elder Acera and I went to visit with the District President to coordinate our missionary effort with the District Presidency.  Then, the next day we had our mission leadership council.  Many things are changing now that President Revillo is getting used to being a mission president and we've had some very heated but successful discussions as a council to what we should do to better the mission.  Most of the details of them aren't really important but one major thing is that our district meeting is now changing to Tuesdays so it is not on P-day anymore.  Anyway, the meeting lasted most of the day and then President let me drive him from Aurora Chapel to Antipolo to help him get to a meeting on time.  Antipolo is about 3/4 of the way from Cubao to Teresa so we gladly took the free ride and were able to get home by about 8 o’clock that night.  Man, it was pretty long day!

The next day, we had exchanges and I had the opportunity to work with Elder Coe again, my 4th companion.  He's gotten a lot better at Tagalog and he looks pretty happy.  He seems to have mellowed down a little bit and is a lot more reverent to sacred things and noticeably more humble too.  It's cool cause we were companions almost a year ago and too see each other again and how the mission has changed both of us.  It was kind of a wake-up call.  Haha! He's doing really good.

Friday, we went to Binangonan to interview an investigator to be baptized.  It’s about a 45-minute jeepney ride so you can guess it was pretty exhausting.  And that was the day before our baptism day.  So, after we got back we had to make sure everything was ready for the baptism.

So Saturday, we had 5 people getting baptized; 3 of the kids of Brother Rodel and 2 from Elder Bagonbon's area.  It was a great service except they didn't have any baptismal suits for kids in our chapel so we had to go all the way to Morong to see if they had any over there, which they did, luckily, and we were able to get it to them.  Unfortunately, there wasn't a good coordination going on.  We had everyone there at 5 pm but we had to wait for the Branch President to come and he didn't get there until 6:30 so we all were watching church videos until he came.  It was super stressful naman especially since Sister Janet was there with her kids Jay R, Jay M, and Rose Ann since like 1:30 pm to make sure they got all the kids there ready and on time.  It was so funny though, cause we visited them Friday night and Elder Acera said that they need to go to the church early.  How early?  He said..."tutulog kayo dito (sa bahay nila) tapos gigising kayo doon sa simbahan."  (“you’re going to sleep here at home but wake up already at church.”)  So, the kids thought he was serious when he was just joking and Nicole, one of the youngest, woke up the entire family around 6:00am already dressed trying to get them to go to the church.  Haha! It was cute... she was really upset though when she found out she wasn't getting baptized yet because she was only 7 years old.  I felt so bad.  But ganun pa man (nevertheless), Brother Rodel was able to baptize all 3 of his kids.  So it was a great day!  We even taught him how to recite the baptismal prayer in Tagalog because he can't read. 

 We have a recent convert family, the Heve family, and they have been a really great blessing to me here in Teresa.  Sister Heve was the only member in her family until we were able to teach and baptize her daughter Julie Ann.  Since her baptism their family has been progressing so well in the gospel.  We committed them to have family prayer every night and they have actually been keeping that commitment.  The difference in the Spirit in their home is almost unbelievable.  All 4 of them have been participating in that family prayer and there is just such a strong love and happiness that is in their home.  They have 2 non-members, the dad and the Ate, Sister Joann.  She has been progressing very well, though.  Since she started listening to us she has now gained the desire to be baptized when before she wasn't sure.  The spiritual change that has occurred since they started family prayers has influenced the entire family.  Tatay Heve has become more accepting to us and will even listen to our lessons now and when we have family home evening, he used to be shy to give any comments or remarks about things but now he presides family home evenings well and confidently.  Sometimes, Julie Ann says that she'll get home from school and go to bed and her dad would wake her up and remind her about family prayer.  It's amazing!  I love missionary work!  By small and simple things are great things brought to pass, no?  We also got a text from them earlier this morning that their neighbors were wondering what they were doing last night that made them sound like they were having such a good time.  They shared about family home evening and the church and now their neighbors want to go to church with them!  Best Day Ever!!!

Doing you Proud,

Elder Froude ^_^

The Heve Family

August 4, 2013 – I Know That My Redeemer Lives

Dear Mom, Dad, Ryan (the soon to be elder), and everyone who considers laughing an abdominal exercise,

Okay so first of all the shift key on this keyboard sticks so it will be hard to capitalize things that I want to capitalize.... English majors, please forgive me.  (Elder Froude’s mother naturally fixed them before posting this.)

Awesome news!   Brother Rodel's kids are going to be baptized this Saturday, which makes 3 coming up! Since he has the Aaronic priesthood now he can baptize his kids. The other elders also have 3 baptisms coming up so we'll have 6 baptisms in Teresa Branch this Saturday!!!  WoHOHOO!!!  Their names are Jay-R, Jay-M, and Rose Ann Venadas.  It's been a really tender moment thing teaching those kids because none of them have school education and it takes them a while to understand things.  But recently we've been teaching them about the commandments and they have been able to absorb information a lot faster now and even remember things we’ve taught since the beginning.  They are excited when we come by and even try to yell out answers before we even say anything.  Haha!  Anyway, we were teaching them about tithing and I was kind of hesitant about it at first because they don't know how to read let alone calculate 10% of your paycheck and such. Anyway, we went into the lesson and tried to have them say “sampung porciento” correctly.  Haha!  It took a while but they got it.  I got this brilliant idea on how to teach tithing.  I told them that if you get 10 pesos, you pay 1 peso for tithing.  Then I took out a 50 peso bill.  Then I said, if you have 50 pesos, how much is your tithing?  1 peso!  No…what you have to do is take out the 0 and then you can figure out how to pay tithing.  I then covered the 0 on the 50 and said... what number you see.  5!  So then how much is the tithing... 5 pesos! And that worked!  They understood it.  So I pulled out a 20 and did the same thing.  They caught on so quickly it amazed me!  The Spirit was really working with them and we've been seeing a steady increase in their ability to retain knowledge.  It's been really sweet and now they are getting baptized.  That will be sweeter!

Last Thursday, we worked with a branch missionary named Jeff.  We surprisingly got 5 lessons that day and had a great last lesson. We taught Brother Joseph's family (he is 15 years old).  At first when we got there, no one was home.  But we waited and we saw him and his girlfriend walking up the street towards us.  Next his Mom also came from the other direction.  So we invited them to listen to us and we all went inside their house.  Now Joseph acts like a kid sometimes and my companion wanted me to lead because he didn't like Joseph's nonchalant attitude towards us.  So I started the lesson about prayer.  Brother Jeff shared a scripture and I kind of more focused the lesson on his mom.  After that the Spirit was able to come into the room even though I could feel Joseph didn't want to be there.  But then halfway through the lesson he began to participate and so did his girlfriend and it ended up being a nice lesson.  We ended with a thought about how important it is to communicate with our Father in heaven. Everyone felt good afterwards.

The next best thing was when I interviewed Elder Bagonbon’s and Elder Robertson’s potential baptism, Nanay Merci.  Elder Robertson always talked about how ready she is to be baptized and such and so I was excited to meet her.  This would be the 2nd time I would meet her.  Anyway, so we did the baptismal interview at her house because she is handicapped from the waist down and can't come to the church too often.  Well, when I interviewed her I felt her sincere desire to repent and the Spirit that radiated from that room was super strong.  There were many things she wished to be forgiven of and so when I bore my testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the power of repentance, it made things even more indescribable… there was so much joy and hope.  Elder Robertson and I then sang “I Know That My Redeemer Lives.”  While were singing, Nanay Merci started crying and then Elder Robertson started crying as well.  It made me start to choke up but I knew I needed to keep singing till the song was over.  The love in the room was super strong!  And at the end of the song there was not a dry eye in the room.  It was a sweet moment that I'll never forget.

How about you?  How was your week?  I wish you all the best and I can't wait to see you all soon!  I miss you too and love you all soo much!  Talk to you next week!

Doing you Proud,

Elder Froude ^_^

July 29, 2013 - Congratulations, Ryan!

Dear Mom, Dad, and the newly ordained  elder, Ryan Froude, who is now 18 years old...and everyone else who is as shocked as I am that my little brother now has the Melchizedek Priesthood,

I am sitting in a computer shop; I am all sweaty and tired from our zone activity. We went to Daranak Falls in Tanay, Rizal and it was gorgeous!  I just wanted to take pictures all day but, unfortunately, other people know I’m a good photographer so I felt like I was taking pictures for everyone so they'll have good pictures to send home, including my companion, haha!  The sad part about my talent as a photographer means I can't use this talent to photograph myself so I had to give my camera to someone else and hope they know how to zoom in or place people correctly with objects so that the waterfall is the focus of the picture and not me.  Anyway, I have a few good pictures I’ll send out and I hope you'll enjoy them.  We had a potluck (boodle fight) up in the mountain a short distance from the waterfall.  We also had a tour guide take us through the caves.  They were pretty awesome.  In any case, all the coordinating worked out and we all had a lot of fun (20 missionaries).

The zone has been great this week, half of the companionships hit the goals we’ve set so we wanted to do something special for them, all for the cost of a little under 200 pesos. :)

But now about my week.

I made my first attempt at Bicol Express (a spicy dish) today and boy was it great!  You just sauté some pork until it's cooked, then add some coconut milk (fresh from the palengke (market)), and chili (or Sili sa Tagalog) and you have yourself a good tasting Bicol Express.  It was delicious! I hope I can make it for you when I get back.  Elder Lim taught me how to make it in Taguig but I never tried it until this week.

Anyway, I want to start off by first talking about my wonderful kabahay (housemates).  In our house in Teresa, there are 4 missionaries; Elder Acera, ako (me), Elder Bagonbon, and Elder Robertson.  You know about Elder Acera already.  He's probably one of the most hardworking missionaries I’ve been assigned with; we've been hitting all of our goals and seeing miracles like crazy. He's from Isabella and doesn't speak much English but he's a very charitable missionary.  And he's great! Elder Bagonbon has been out for about a year now.  He's training Elder Robertson and he's great at the guitar and singing.  He also cooks good Filipino food for us all of the time.  He's about comparable to a cartoon character cause he reacts very loudly to things and is super energetic.  He's a real funny guy; we are currently working to write an EFY song.

Elder Robertson is an 18 year old missionary from Utah.  He's a greenie and every day is an adventure to him.  The energy he brings to the house is awesome and we all just laugh cause he talks about the first time he had Balut and his jeepney rides and he just loves life.  I went on exchanges with him on Tuesday and he slipped in the mud and concrete when it was raining. When he got up he just yelled,”Tthat is SO going in the journal!”  Haha!!  He spends hours updating his journal every day.  I have like 3 types of journals so I’m not too worried.  I have my regular journal, my long emails, and my camera; all of these things basically cover every second of my mission.  Haha!

I also had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Elder Watters from Canada in Malaya.  It's a very province area as well where it's between a mountain range and Laguna Lake.  So that was fun.  What I learned from all of these exchanges is that there are so many great people in the world, member or not a member.  We meet and teach so many people and so many of them are really cool people, like there are a lot of people here I would totally be good friends with after the mission.

Like for example, yesterday, Elder Acera and I decided to do some finding to hit a goal we had set in the zone.  We just walked in front of the church and there are two people there nakatambay (loitering) in front of the church grounds and Elder Acera said, “Let's go talk to them.” so I said okay.  And we talked to them.  One of them was a 21 year old with only one leg but this guy could freestyle rap in Tagalog like I’ve never seen before.  Just without thinking he raps about us as missionaries, how we don't drink and smoke and we help people with the Love of Christ and all this stuff.  I could only catch like half of what he said cause he was rapping so fast, but Elder Acrea daw was really touched by this guy’s rap so we set an appointment to go teach them.  It was a great natural missionary experience.  We just talked about music for the first 5 minutes and we shared a little bit and got their contact information.  You bet we're going to go visit them this week!

Other than that, the best adventurous moment this week was going with President Revillo to visit Tanay Branch and Sampaloc Branch on Sunday.  We went to go visit those branches and attended their meetings and then checked out a potential place to open a branch in a place called Gabihan.  Anyway, we toured the place, tried to find a meeting house and a place for a missionary apartment and such.  It was fun!  President Revillo is so funny!  I can't really describe how it is but he just laughs about everything; the traffic, the unpaved roads, and other such things. It made it more comfortable, really, driving around with him. We related a lot through my experience in the office and I actually was telling them a lot about how the finances of the mission worked and such.  It was kind of like I was giving them a tutorial about the mission, with roads, and finances and such.  So it was cool.  Anyway, the place is so green and so nice looking.  I love every part of this zone!  Haha! I hope I stay for a long time.  Elder Acera has been here 5 transfers now so I have a good chance of staying next transfer.

Well, I wish you all a good week, trust in the lord and remember to do CPR if you have any trials you can't face.  Church, Prayer, Reading... if you do those you'll revive your Spiritual life like CPR does to physical life.  I know this to be true in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Doing you Proud,

Elder Froude ^_^

July 21, 2013 - JesuCristo

Dear Mom, Dad, Ryan, and people who think that broccoli isn't as bad as TV make it seem,

What a wonderful week really!  More hard work, more miracles, and another baptism!  Sister Julie Ann Heve was baptized on Saturday by Elder Acera.  We've been working really hard to get her baptized.  Her mother has been a less-active for a while but is active now.  She wants her family to be baptized as well so we started with her daughter, Sister Julie Ann.  She was really accepting to the message and was feeling the Spirit quite quickly. They both really want their family to be all members so we'll be working with her Ate Joan Lyn and Tatay Heve next.  Although they are available pag-Sunday lang (only on Sundays).   In any case, it's a good start for them and they are seeing changes in their family accepting the missionaries.  Many of my baptisms so far have been from part-member families.

We are also teaching Brother Rodel's children now.  He has 3 of them close to baptism; Jay-R, 12, Jay-M, 11, and Rose Ann.  They are very nice and very sweet children but they are slow at learning.  We've taught them 3 times this week and we've spent most of the time trying to help them pronounce Jesus Christ's name correctly and remember who Thomas S. Monson is.  Like, one day we asked them who came to earth to atone for our sins and they said, “Jesus Krast” or “Jesess Kreses.”  One time, I decided to try it in Tagalog instead, JesuCristo.  So I said, copy me… "JE"..."je"... "SU"... "su"... "CRIS"... "cris"... "TO"... "to"....”JesuCristo”...”Jose Ristal!”   Ahh!!!!  It’s definitely like one of those movie scenes where they still say it wrong no matter how hard you try.  But it's fine, they eventually got it.  We just need to work with them enough so that they can get baptized as well.  They really haven't had any education in that family so it's a little difficult for them but with love and patience, it'll work out.

Elder Acera and I, for the first time in my whole mission, have been able to achieve all of the mission standard for key indicators!!!!  Note: there are a set number by the mission president for the key indicators (or where we should focus our efforts for the week) in order to help us balance our focus from recent converts, investigators, finding new investigators, and so forth.  It’s a various amount of work and we were able to hit the number for all of them this week!  I'm so excited!  That includes the Baptism and Confirmation goal as well!  Anyway, for those of you who don't really know what I’m talking about, we were able to focus and plan our work in order to be the most productive and effective missionaries we can be and we hit the goals we set to attain this effectiveness.

In my personal study, I found a great spiritual thought this week in John 17:20-22 about the oneness of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost in purpose, in power, and in authority, and but how they are still separate and distinct beings in the Lord's intercessory prayer.

20 Neither pray I for these (meaning the apostles) alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word ;(everyone else)

 21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

 22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

The last verse emphasizes that the sacred oneness that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost have achieved is not exclusive to only them.  It shows that we too can become one with them through our exceeding faithfulness and obedience to the laws and commandments they have set, that if we follow the path that they have set for us through their prophets, we can also with them enjoy eternal glory in the life to come.  Isn't that great to think about?

Oh my gosh!  I’m getting a headache just thinking about all the coordinating that had to happen to make Youth Conference a success!   I feel that way too, sometimes, where we set goals and make plans with other missionaries.  Or with the branch members we expect to attend a baptism and everyone arrives like 30 minutes late and such like that.  Where we are in charge of the food and drinks and decorating and basically everything and then the leaders don't even get there on time.  Sometimes it's really embarrassing and super stressful.  Thank goodness I learned how to deal with stress in the office!

Ryan said he really loved Youth Conference and the temple baptism was one of his favorite parts. Things are working so well for Ryan these last few months and I'm glad.  He's having many great experiences before his mission.  You too!  You are having so many great experiences as well.  Are you and dad planning on serving a mission?  You should!  It's the best!  Do you think that your calling is preparing you for something else in the future?

Oh, I might not be online on time next week because we have a zone activity in Daranak Falls. So, we'll be there on the other side of the province most of the day.  Don't stay up late waiting for me.  I might not get back until late.  I pray you have a great week.  Until next week!  Take care of yourselves!  I love you and can't wait to see you again in 5 months!

Doing you Proud,

Elder Froude ^_^

P.S.

Thank you for spending the time to reading this blog.  Your support and prayers mean a lot to me and they give me strength constantly.   ^_^

July 15, 2013 - Life is awesome!

Dear Mom, Dad, Ryan, and all those who love life,

How are you doing my wonderful familia? Life is awesome :)  Yet another amazing week!  It started off with working hard the first few days, getting sick on Wednesday but bouncing right back and having a wonderful baptism on Saturday.  We had 5 baptisms in our zone this week!  That's right, I had the honor of baptizing Brother Rodel Luna Vinadas just a few days ago and actually that comes with a funny story.

We went in the morning to fill up the baptismal font and get the room prepared for the baptism.  Then 5 o’ clock comes around (the baptism is at 6) and his neighbors, who are members, tell us that he wasn’t going to be able to make it to the baptism until late because of some emergency.  So, Elder Acera and I went to his house to find him but his wife said he was in Cainta (a city far away) because their landlord was evicting them or something to that effect.  So, we asked how she knew and she said her friend's husband is with him right now and her friend showed her the text.  Anyway, we tried to get the number for the guy but she didn't have it so instead, we walked for 45 minutes to the cement plant at the closest mountain to find her friend to get the number of her husband to get Brother Rodel to the baptism or find out if we need to postpone it.  So we walk for ages in anxiety trying to figure out what's going on with our investigator and we find out that he is back and went further down the mountain.  So we went further down the road and got a call from the Relief Society President asking where we were.  We said we were looking for Brother Rodel.  She then replies with, “He just walked through the door of the chapel and is looking for you.”  So then we miraculously got a tricycle to take us back to the chapel from the other side of the area and were able to baptize Brother Rodel at 6:30 that night.  It was quite an adventure right before the baptism but everything seemed to work out!  I then came to the realization that "something will go wrong" whenever you have something planned, therefore, you just need to be flexible enough to do whatever needs to be done to make things work out.  That is one characteristic of a good leader.  Incidentally, Brother Rodel has 3 children we'll be focusing on next to get baptized in early August. :)

On a brighter and less stressed note, Sister Julie Anne Heve is getting baptized this Saturday!  Yay!  Back-to-back baptisms!  We've been teaching her a lot lately.  Her mom is a less active member and the rest of her family is non-members.  Since she started the lessons she's been really progressing.  Her sister Joan Lynn is also progressing but has a busier schedule than Julie Anne so she'll be our next focus.  But we're really excited because we had a great lesson in which we watched the TESTAMENTS with them and the entire family cried.  They didn't want us to leave because the Spirit was so strong even though the lesson lasted about an hour and a half.  Missionary life is great!

Things to look forward to: our zone activity will be at the waterfalls this transfer and it will be great!

Zone interviews are this week so we'll see how things go with the new mission president.

I'm really grateful for this week because we’ve been really focused on accomplishing the goals we've set and setting effective plans to accomplish them.  We have seen many miracles in our week when it comes to our plans as if the Lord has been guiding us to the people that are really prepared.  The field here is white all ready to harvest and I'm happy to be a part of it.

About my new companion, Elder Acera is  Ilocano and from the same area as Elder Peralta.  He comes also from a broken family but have 10 brothers and sisters and a dad that is strong in the gospel. His dad teaches his ex-wife and her new husband about the gospel too.  Haha!  Elder Acera is a very matibay “strong” missionary, always seeking to improve and do better, very friendly and loving.  He's a good listener and asks me about you guys all of the time.

Elder Lim and Elder Coe my past companions are also in the Zone.  There are 19 missionaries in total and maybe I’ll be able to talk about them eventually but they are all good missionaries.

Sorry, I’m overtime now so I have to go.  I don't get to email much so I’ve been losing my time management in that area.  Schmuki, Stacy, Mariah (who is now at the MTC) and a ward missionary from Cubao, Tita Lennet and Ben Dela Mare all emailed me this week!  Next time, I’ll write my email first so we can talk about the letter.  And then I can dag-dag sa mga (add on to my) experiences ko dito that I forgot to write down, okay?  Goodnight!  Have a great week!  I'm glad you had a fun vacation!!!  I love you and thanks for staying up with me :)  Did you get my post card?

Darn, this computer is so slow! It's killing me....

Doing you Proud,

Elder Froude ^_

Elder Acera, my companion, and I

An example of the roads we walk on

All green!  Yay!!!

July 8, 2013 - Love my new area!

Dear Mom, Dad, Ryan, and everyone who can use chopsticks but chooses not to on a daily basis,

                Life is so good right now.  Life is great.  I am enjoying every moment right now.  I’m in Teresa in Rizal province and it’s so gorgeous out here!  There are trees and all kinds or plant life out here.  Life is really swell, though we’ve been travelling like crazy for most of this week.  On Wednesday, our transfer day, it ended off well with me shaking hands with Elder Basalo and his last words were, “You’re a good missionary.”  I wished him the best of luck and we parted ways as I took a taxi to Antipolo.  From there I met Elder Lim again who will be in the Zone and Elder Duenas for his last transfer.  I met my new companion, Elder Acera.  I actually had been on exchanges with him in Pasig for a day and he is a great strong missionary.  We work quite well together.  His desire to serve God matches my energy and enthusiasm for the work.  He was really excited to see me as his companion because in the last couple of transfers, he’s been having problems with his companion which has shown evidence in their work.  They had many great investigators that have fallen through because of the lack of unity.  The work of the whole zone seemed to have been affected too because of lack of goals and coordination.  Now we have this transfer to bring them back and let me tell you, I’ve been meeting new people like crazy!  It’s probably the opposite of Bagong Bantay because there are so many fruits here that we just have to re-contact and teach again.  There are many wonderful people that I’ve met here that are so receptive to the Spirit and to revelation.

My new house, it's big!

                Like Sister Juli-ann Heve… she is getting baptized in a couple of weeks and she hasn’t been visited in a while.  She said she noticed that something was missing in her life.  When we went to teach her she said she had a dream that I came to visit her and introduced myself by name to her as Elder Froude.  So she had apparently already met me.  We had a great lesson about baptism and enduring to the end and she accepted to be baptized on July 20th.  There was another man I had met only the other day who is getting baptized this Saturday.  Rodel Vinadas is a very humble man who has a family of 7 but none of them know how to read or write.  He was able to pass his baptismal interview Sunday morning and will be baptized this Saturday.  I don’t know why because I only just met him but he requested that I should baptize him this Saturday.  Sure thing!  Haha!  I would love to have the privilege to baptize him! Many miracles like this have been happening all week!

The Austria family is a very special family to me in the 5 days I’ve been here.  Brother Austria is a long time less active but his wife is endowed and active.  It’s also a part member family and they are all great people that live on the top of the mountain.  He had been less active for a long time because he was offended by some members of the church.  He had high expectations but was disappointed by the conduct of some of the members and hadn’t been to church in a year.  Elder Acera and I went to visit them and by some miracle he was there.  Elder Acera has been here for 6 months but only taught him twice.  We were able to teach him and share a spiritual message.  From our message we learned about his concern and Elder Acrea was able to explain to him how the church is not a resting home for the perfect, but  a place filled with imperfect people seeking to become clean from their sins.  The way he explained it was perfect and Brother Austria was enlightened by the Spirit of the Lord.  He said, that “In all of my time as a member I have never heard of the church explained in that way before.”  This man and all of his family went to church yesterday and one of the leaders came up to him and said, “Brother Austria, it’s good to see you again! What brings you to church?”  He replied, “ I’m here to repent of my imperfections.”  The brother then replied, “Really?  Me too! “ Haha!  It was really a joke but to Brother Austria it helped him realize that even as members we are not perfect and we all need to rely on the same God that gave us life.

                We went back to that house last night and had a few branch missionaries give the lesson.  At the end I bore my testimony of the truthfulness of the church and said, “At alam ko po na na yung kamatayan, hindi yan yung katapusan ng buhay. ” Death is not the end of life, which struck another cord with the brother.  He then asked, “Elder, what do you mean that death is not the end of life?  Where does our spirit go?”  It brought up the Plan of Salvation which we quickly taught but will get into at the next lesson.  It helped me realize that I am speaking for God to these people and that there are so many that are prepared.

Be an instrument of the Lord this week!

Spiritual thought: John 16:33

Doing you Proud,

Elder Froude ^_^

Moo!

My very first adobo!  Yum!

The Harris' go my branch!  Awesome!

Just relaxing

The Austria Famiy

July 2, 2013 - Transferring again!

It's been an interesting week so far.

We've been in a tripanionship (Elder Vuna, Elder Basalo and I) most of this week since Elder Petersen finished his mission and it's been fun. We've been getting punted in both areas but we've been having fun doing it. I think we've had a super exhausting week because every day we just wake up tired and things start slowly and such but we've been able to accomplish much even if the numbers seem low. I think we've had a dinner appointment every day this week.  As far as investigators and less actives are going, there is not much progression. The closest to baptism is Sister Beth Javier (the one that made the lumpia), but she is having trouble deciding to get baptized because her parents are of a different religion.  But she comes to church every week and reads her scriptures. I hope she'll be able to find her answer and find her testimony of the church soon.

Yeah, anyway, I just taught someone the other day who got 5000 US dollars from an American one time which is almost half a million pesos. And they blew it all in one month! I looked at their house and it was a bamboo house which was super cluttered and there was no evidence of their former wealth. So it really woke me up like... are you serious? They didn't get a nicer house, they didn't get a nicer job or a TV or a car or anything, and now they are back to what they used to do before, living pay check by pay check.  And it freaked me out that that could happen! So definitely, money is not just the solution to poverty. That was an interesting experience.

I had the privilege of baptizing Macoy Apolisok this week! He is a 10 year old in a part-member family and Elder Vuna and Elder Petersen have been teaching him for the last few weeks. I had the opportunity to teach him a few times too on exchanges. Since Elder Petersen has gone home Elder Vuna was going to baptize him, but he didn't have any baptismal pants so we went to the Philippines Distribution Center but they didn't have any in his size. So he texted another elder in the other zone to borrow pants but he forgot to bring it. So then, I offered to have him use my pants but it didn't fit, obviously, and then he asked me if I ever used them. I said I haven't had the opportunity to baptize someone in the water, but I’ve taught many converts to baptism. So then he asked me if I wanted to have the chance to baptize Macoy (who also consented) and I was able to baptize him on June 28, 2013. ^_^

My Spiritual Thought comes from the World Wide Training I was finally able to watch 2 days ago. From what Pres. Thomas S. Monson says, “If you are on the Lord's errand, you are entitled to his help!” So, I know that if I do my best, I cannot fail.

Wish me luck in my next assignment (zone leader) in Rizal province!

Doing you Proude,

Elder Froude ^_^

PS. Sorry, I kinda rushed this letter!

P-day!

Sis. Juanita Garcia, a 96 yr. old member of the church

Classic Filipino dining room decor!