OCTOBER

This week was hectic. We had a super awesome turnout at church. We had 9 Investigators attend! 5 of them have solid baptism dates, 6 of them are progressing and 2 are completely new investigators which we haven't taught yet.

So we have 3 bap dates given out! So one is Jhessa who is a 15 year old girl (they spell names here weirdly for some reason), Dado who is a 50yr old father of another RC and the last is the Bajen Family (pronounced bahen). So the first 2 have bap dates on the 24th of October and the Bajen family has theirs for the 31st.

So we're like 90% that they'll be baptised :)

Anyway other funny thing this week we taught two lessons we didn't plan for. So we were walking and this old lady kinda came out and said good morning (in english) so me and Bermoy. So we said hey can we give you a card? And she was like yeah sure, come back to my house. Super weird cause all we asked was to give a card hahaha. So we go to her house teach the lesson 1 in 8min and we also left a bom. Anyway yesterday we were walking in the same area and she saw us, the first thing she says was like, "elder's come back to my house, teach me again." super weird again hahaha cause we weren't actually in the area for her hahaha so legit we got 2 lessons from replying to someone saying good morning hahaha. so yeah weird haha.

Week 35, Novaliches, Philippines

Hey Family,

So yesterday we found out about transfers and yeah.. I'm staying hahah which isn't much of a surprise hahaha My comp however is transferring which means I have a new companion, Elder Bermoy. All I know about him is that he's from Cebu which means he speaks Cebuano! yeah I don't know much else but yeah :)

Oh, another thing. So I left a redskin in my bag and it kinda melted and made my entire bag sticky and stuff. So like the redskin had been in there for a month plus it wrecked my bag so much I need to buy a new one. The other thing is that it wrecked my photo album :( So if you could, could you send some pictures through email so i can make a new one?

Also there is a photo attached from a Fhe too.

Anyway, so on Saturday, Sister Fe was baptised!!!!!!!!! :)

Our Rc Jay performed the baptism which was super cool too.

Only problem is that the ward didn't organise the baptism like they said they would :( We got to the chapel at 6:30 for a 7pm start. The font wasn't filled, there was no talks organised and our ward mission leader wasn't even there :( So we were kinda freaked out, so we started to fill the font and organise speakers and some other stuff. Next problem, the baptismal jumpsuit thingy's were still wet from the last baptism :(

Anyway, we managed to get the service underway and as the first speaker was talking, we could hear rushing water outside. We ran outside and saw that the valve for the font wasn't shut! And then we checked the font and it was almost empty! So yeah, we had to restart all over again :( 

Anyway, she got baptised eventually and she had a really good spiritual experience in the end so I guess all went alright hahaha

This Saturday we have another baptism for Rolence who is 11, his mother is a Member who was La when I first came into the ward. So yeah we have that which is cool!

Actually in the Baptism photo, Rolence is the kid wearing the Orange shirt!

Also, Yesterday, I killed 30 cockroaches. Yes 30, I counted them one by one. It started off when I found like 2 when we got home, then as soon as a killed one, another popped out. I went and shut our front door and like 3 more came in. This repeated until we had 30..... We have no clue were they came from, it was super weird and super annoying too but yeah like this happened in like 10min too. Like a mini battle hahaha

Anyway I have anew comp that I'm looking forward to serve with and hopefully all goes well! I hope I don't get lost in our area either, I've only been here 6 weeks hahaha.

Have a great week all!

Love Elder Holzworth

Week 34, Novaliches, Philippines

Hey Family,

So this week was quite uneventful and eventful i guess, I'm not really sure hahaha

anyway, next week we are having a baptism!! Her name is Sister Fe and she is a 35ish year old mother :) She had her baptismal interview yesterday and for sure I thought she would not pass it, so here's the story.

So on Friday, we were teaching her about eternal marriage and obliviously, she has the desire to be sealed with family. We explained that in order for that to happen, her husband would have to be baptised as well and then she gave us the most unexpected answer ever. She was like, "oh we're not married yet". I just looked at my comp and I was like "Please tell me I understood that wrong, I thought they were married." and Ng was like, "I thought they were married" Freak, we did not see that coming.

So the situation with baptism (at least what my district leader told me) is that they have to be living the Law of Chasity for at least 4 weeks before their baptism. So that means if your living together you must be married first before baptism. So we were super nervous because now we were completely unsure about her situation. We knew that her "husband" goes away for work for like months at a time and he was away at this time which meant that for the last couple of weeks she had been living LoC but we still were unsure. Anyway, in the interview, she passed! She's been living the LoC but the only problem is that if she was able to live the LoC after her baptism. So now instead of having a baptism this transfer, were going to have a marriage too! hahaha

Anyway, turns out that the elders who taught lesson 4 (which was not me!! hahaha) didn't teach the full doctrine. I guess some elders get to awkward about the topic and teach too simply. In fact, that's a blessing of speaking another language, even though you know the words you are speaking, they don't have that full impact on you if you were to say it in english. Like it's more offensive if someone calls me ugly in english rather than tagalog. It's the same phrase yet one will kinda hit me harder than the other. So yeah, teaching LoC is a ton less awkward because of that, so that helps I guess.

So yeah, Her baptism is set for next Saturday and we're hoping to to the marriage through the church too at the same time but I guess we'll have to plan things out a bit.

Other than that, I'm still trying to get through all the chocolate from the birthday package, I showed Elder Ng a Tim Tam Slam, he enjoyed it hahaha. 

Also Last week I watched the video's on that Usb, Thanksssssss It was so awesome. It was really good to hear your voices :)

Other than that, this week "The Great September Batch" goes home, which is like half of the learship positions, So it means that next transfer something like 12 missionaries will step up to either DL, ZL or STL. Which is a ton. My batch has like 10 missionaries which is average, theirs had like 24, so like half of the mission goes home in like 8 days hahaha.

Anyway, that was some cool stuff from this week :)

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love Elder Holzworth

Week 33, Novaliches, Philippines

Hey Family,

So I'm 19 now! :D

So Saturday was pretty cool hahaha Thanks so much for the presents!! The ties are awesome!! that and I also received the usb with the video's which I'm about to watch after I finish this email!! It's really quite weird waking up and then opening presents followed by an hour of studying the scriptures. hahaha It was like wow so cool, ties and stuff then it was like well, time to study hahaha. Btw the aussie shorts are so sweet hahaha And thanks Jess for the Lee Sin figure!! That guy is legit my favorite champ in League of Ledgends!! 

Funny thing, when I blew up the Ballons, Emma wrote something like "Maligayang bati, I think that says happy birthday in tagalog"... Elder Ng thought it was hilarious. just the whole "I think that says happy birthday" thing. Btw, that is correct, maligayang bati is happy birthday, maligayang pasko is merry chirstmas too!!

So for my actual birthday, as the in the entire day, I didn't do anything extra ordinary but at night time we went to an active family's house for an FHE which was super super fun. The family is hilarious, it's crazy, they were like my substitue family 

Also I attached some photo's of the cake making. I wrote Ng's name on it for some reason, I don't know. I'm just surprised that I got it made!! It tasted soooo goooddddd..... mannnnn...!! Thanks mum!! 

Other than that, today we're at the Mall where I legit saw every missionary. I saw about 8 elders who are either serving or have served in Sapang Palay, which was super insane!! Also I saw Elder Waltz, who I havn't seen for ageesss (like 3 transfers) which was super awesome.

This transfer is coming to a close soon, President called our ZL today and asked if there was room in our ward to fit an extra Elder. And out of the 3 small apartments in this area, we have the biggest (which is still really small, it's just one room). So we might get an extra companion? who knows. hahaha

Anyway, hope you all have an amazing week!!

Love Elder Holzworth 

Week 32, Novaliches, Philippines

Hey Family,

Thanks for the Birthday wishes!!

And also a Happy Birthday to Emma and Dad too!! I hope you both have an amazing day!

This week was cool :) I've attached photos of me and my comp, Elder Ng. This week I got sick from food which was terrible. The funny part is that it was food provided by the mission..... hahaha

Other than that we had mail run again somehow so I received 2 packages from the Green’s which was super awesome. In one of the packages was one of those magnetic drawing boards (the pen has a magnetic tip and the drawing board has all those hexagon shapes.). Anyway, the board would be fun for kids to use and too keep them quiet during lessons but to be honest I use it more in the apartment when I try to explain things to my comp hahaha.

This week we had zone interviews which were fun and very interesting We had a whole bunch of workshops about teaching and finding and I learnt from it. 

This week Elder NG and I are buying singlets for basketball except we're getting something printed on them for companionship unity haha

I'm not sure if you guys will get the reference but I guess you'll have to wait and see next week when we get them printed.

Love Elder Holzworth!

Weel 31, Novaliches, Philippines

Hey Family,

The birthday package did arrive last tuesday which was super unexpected. So thank you! The only problem is that it has food inside it... So On thursday after coming home from work I look at the package and I see a line of ants going into the package. Normally with the other packages that you send I put them in the fridge straight away to keep them safe from ants but the package was a little too big for our tiny fridge. So I had two choices... To leave it until my birthday to open and leave the package vulnerable to ants or 2 weeks, or open it and put all of the food in the fridge. So yeah, unfortunately I had to open it and get rid of all the ants :( But I haven't opened/read anything yet! I wanted to open it the least that I could so all i've done is put all the food in our fridge. Yeah :( Although thanks for the socks, I saw them, and man i really do need them hahaha

On another note, yesterday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting! The funny part is that they told me the night before just as I was going to sleep. so yeah, that was fun. My topic was tithing, which is a little tricky to teach cause no is really rich, but it went pretty well, well at least I think it went well hahaha.

Our area is pretty cool, Elder Ng will probs transfer so I'm trying to learn the area super well in case he does. Our area is pretty cool although the poeple here arn't as nice as my old area so Oym'ing is a little harder. We have a wholse bunch of la's which is great (yay). One thing that's different is that we don't have members to work with us. The reason is, most of them are female, which means that we need a male for them to work with us. So yeah most of our lessons are just us alone. There are 2 foods that apparently I'm going to eat and that's Komodo dragon and Cat. There are 2 members that want to cook it for us 4 missionaries so yeah, I'm not sure if I'm totally down for it but I might give it a shot hahaha. 

Hopefully I don't get sick but we should be goods :) as long as we bless it first hahaha :)

This upcoming week is looking pretty normal with nothing special except zone interviews which were everyone gets a super short 10min interview with president, so it should be pretty fun.

Anyway, hope you all have a super awesome week!

Love Elder Holzworth!

Week 30, Novaliches, Philippines

Hey Family,

So this is like the end of my first week in Nova (new zone ko) and I just realised today that I didn't tell you how to pronounce my comp's name. So in tagalog "Ng" is pronounced "Nung". So Elder Ng (nung) :)

Elder Ng is the man!!  I was told before I was about to transfer that he was on the List to be an AP (Assistant to President) and also before that he was a Zone Leader in Caloocan. He is a super down to earth guy from General Santos City (Philippines). His native language is Visaya, which is pretty much the same as Cebuano. The area I'm in is smaller than Sapang Palay and pretty flat too. The next part is that our area labeled as a dangerous area.... So it means that that Sister missionaries can't serve here, only elder's.... yeah.... there is also a "red area" (do go into this place area) that's kinda near us. It's labeled red because it's dominated by Muslims. So yeah :) fun times :D 

Last night we had an appointment on the other side of our area and as we're walking Elder Ng just stops, I'm like "what?" and he just kinda points at where we're walking and says, "This place might be a bit too dangerous for you..." hahaha so we walked super quick through that area :) so yeah, don't be too worried :) The area's totally fine haha

Good news, so in our ward (Bagong Silang 1st Ward which translates to "New Birth 1st Ward") we have 2 set's of missionaries :) We live in 2 different apartments, so Me and Elder Ng and then Elder Bahr and Elder Aue in the other! So yeah Elder Aue is in the same ward as me (who was my first companion out here in the field)! The next cool part is that Elder Aue's Companion is the District leader which means he'll so companionship exchanges every so other. So that means that me and Aue will be able to go on exchanges together! 

Other that that, Our apartment is a single room, So the Study desk's, Beds and Kitchen are all in the one room then there is the bathroom/shower as well. I'd say our flat is about the size of our under cover area in the backyard. And btw our flat gets super hot. So hot. Man. Like I kid you not, if you don't have a fan on, you're dead. I came out of the shower yesterday sweating..... and we don't even have hot showers! So yeah, our Fridge is like our bestfriend here :) 

Out here the ward is pretty cool, I don't really know them yet as last sunday was stake conference, so this Sunday I'll introduce myself in sacrament meeting. We don't have a lot of members working with us so we're definitely going to try and get something organised soon!!

Other than that, this week I ate some new food :) Dinuguan!! which translates to "Stewed with blood". So basically I ate the dish twice, once yesterday and once in sapang palay last monday. So the first time I ate it, we had the version using pork intestines and blood. It's super weird and somehow tastes kinda starchy? Yesterday when we ate at the members we had I think "pork" I'm not really sure... One rule with food in the Philippines is that If you don't know what it is, it's best not to ask.... Like when I first ate Dinuguan, I asked after I ate it hahaha. but the one I had yesterday was kinda spicy which was nice.

Also on a food note aswell, today at a Super Mall I ate a "Deep Fried Burger" :) The Bun's are deep fried and it tastes so good :D 

Hey, I also want to share something that Elder Adren shared with us on our mission tour. So basically, he got the Assistants (AP's) to teach in 2min the 1st principle of lesson 1, God is our loving Heavenly Father, in a fake investigator situation. Now the Assistants did super well. They taught really simply and everyone thought that they smashed it. Then Elder Arden got a random elder to read the paragraph in PMG. And Everyone realised that they missed like 35% of the Doctrine!!! Last week in my personal study I counted the Doctrinal points in principle 1. And there are 10 points for principle 1. So basically what Elder Arden was getting at was that if we teach the full doctrine to people they will be more likley to return back as this is the fullness of the doctrine that we're teaching, it's desirable to every person on earth. So yeah, it's really crazy at how many points there are in one single principle :) 

But yeah, know that things are going super sweet out here in Nova Zone :D 

Have a great week!

Love, Elder Holzworth

Week 29, Sapung Palay, Philippines

Hey Family,

So crazy Week!

So the Baptism was awesome! So Lurraine and Elias were baptised last saturday (you guys already know) and then Confirmed the day after during Church. It was crazy baptising someone in tagalog, and it was even harder when Elias wouldn't bend his legs hahah so I had to redo his baptism after trying to explain to him that he needed to bend his legs hahaha Binyag na!!!

Also this week we had our Mission Tour, so Elder and Sister Arden came to our mission and gave us an awesome bunch of workshops about increasing our effectiv

eness as missionaries. After the workshops were all over And everyone was taking photo's I got told that there was a package for me in the Office. I was like sweet! And so I walk into the office I can see all the mail packages on the floor kinda sorted by zones and I ask my ZL if there was one for me and he just grabbed four of them and handed them to me and I was like "oh did you want me to hand them out" and he just goes, no there all for you....... WOW! So 4 packages! 2 from Grandma and 2 from you guys! It was an insane blessing hahaha. I've opened only 3 as one of the packages from grandma says it's for my birthday so I'm going to wait :) And so that other packages had the Aero Chocolates :D, also that cabury Vegemite one too, I freaked out when I saw that hahah I thought It was caramel flavlour at first as I saw it was like yellow trimming on it and then I look and see Vegemite on the packet! It's probably the weirdest combination that Cadbury could think of but it tastes pretty good! Tastes like Australia! Also I got the package from grandma that had the Slingshot Koala hahaha It makes this kinda screaming noise, so we've been using it to wake up the other Elder's hahaha

Also this week was had transfer announcements! And yes, I am transfering!

So my new Zone is Novaliches (Elder Aue is over there now, so I'll see him). My Area is Bagong Silang 1B.

My new Companion will be Elder Ng (his name literally translates to Elder of) (Filippino too, he speaks Visaya)

So I'm super Excited as I'll be in a Zone with Temple P-days! So the zone leaders played a game with us all in order to find out where we would go. And they wrote up on the board 6 zones. 3 of those zones don't have temple p-days (temple is too far away) and I was hoping that I'd be sent to one with a temple p-day (So I can possibly see Emma in the MTC) and if I had the choice I would have chosen Nova! A lot of the missionaries that were in SJDM (my zone now) transferred to Nova!

So transferring is super annoying too, I have way too much stuff to pack. I have so many books. Too many hahaha so it's going to be a pain packing later on today! (Don't worry I already started last night hahaha)

So Elder Ng is going to his 4th transfer now in Bagong Silang 1B which means he may transfer after this next transfer! Which would be insane hahaha 

Oh and I think I forgot to mention this last email, I bought Heinz Tomato Sause! It tastes like home!

Also there is a  half RM in our ward at the moment, Ryan Babalcon. He got sent home on medical leave but will head back to his mission in Tacloban this November. Ryan (soon the be Elder Babalcon again) said that his Mission President is President Maurer, who is from Australia. I'm not sure how related he is to the Maurer's in our ward but I'm sure they're related somehow hahaha. Anyway me and him went on splits last week and he was super cool! Also a super great teacher as well! We also got rejected like crazy that day too, we got punted or rejected from 7 investigators/less actives in 25min. It was insane hahaha so we had a lot of time to spare that day hahaha.

So the first photo is a some of my zone. The second is the Depilar Family and the Last is a bunch of YSA's from our ward.

Anyway, hope you all have a great day and a great week. This time next week I'll be in my new area and all that stuff. 

So, have a great week!!

Love Elder Holzworth

Some photos Elder Holzworth sent home on his SD card!

Some photos Elder Holzworth sent home on his SD card!

Week 28, Sapung Palay, Philippines

Hey family! 

So first up, I apologize for any typo's in this email, the Keyboard's space bar isn't working too great hahaha.

So today is temple P-day! So because our house is the furthest away from the temple in our zone we slept over in another apartment. So 8 Elder's slept in one apartment hahaha but it was so worth it because we got to the temple so quick! which meant that we got there on time for once :D Temple was great, we went to the distribution center and I bought a whole bunch of tagalog material, so now I can sing hymns in tagalog :)

So last week was crazy as I was sick for 3 days :( I had the flu and my fever went super hot, it was not even funny haha

I also attached some photo's one is the me and the elders from Sapang Palay :) and the next two are photo's from my District Leader's area from when I went on exchange with him :) Their are is a lot different to some of ours, really spread out and the buildings are a bit bigger too :)

Also last week, to increase our companionship unity, me and Elder Balili bought matching ties, (I don't have a photo of us both wearing it but it's the Purple one in the photo with the temple)

This transfer is coming to a close so soon (12th)!!! There is a big chance that I transfer but this ward is just too good hahaha We have some of the coolest member's I've met.

As for our investigators, Elias didn't come to church as he was sick :( but were able to teach him and give him a priesthood blessing. We've had to push his bap date back a week becauseof the amount of lessons we need to teach and the remaining time haha but so far we've finished Law of Chasity and Word of Wisdom which he accepted really,really well :) Especially WoW, as coffee is a huge addiction for Filipino's also Smoking too but thankfully he doesn't smoke :) His new BapDate is the 8th :)

Our other investigator is a 10yr old girl named Loraine. Her bap date is the 8th too but right now we've only finished lesson 2 so it'll be hard to teach her so much in such a short little time, but she's committed so we're gonna try to get the 8th!!

So hopefully this week we'll get some progress with them and get a whole lot closer to baptism!!

Anyway,

Hope you all have an incredible week!

Love Elder Holzworth!!

Week 27, Sapung Palay, Philippines

Hey Family,

So this week on the 16th marked my 6 month mark on the mission! Crazy that time has gone so by so quick!

This week I learnt a cool thing about my companion, he can speak 5 languages! He's not fluent in all but hes pretty good in all of them. So his languages are (in order of fluency) Ilonggo, Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilokano and then English. So technically his least fluent language is English which is insane!

So right now I'm actually going to try to learn some Cebuano which is another really popular language here in the Philippines. A lot of the people who we come across can actually speak some Cebuano as well as Tagalog as usually their from a Cebuano region. Obviously Tagalog is my primary focus but I want to begin to learn some Cebuano so that I can OYM to those that are from that region in the Philippines. Some of our investigators are actually fluent in both Tagalog and Cebuano so I hope to be able to learn some off them. That and once I learn a little I should be able to teach a little bit as well maybe hahaha. Also Elder Mabala who just moved in to our house is fluent in Cebuano as that's his Native tongue.

So also this week I ate Chicken Heads! hahaha It was pretty good but really hard to eat cause of the bones but other than that it tasted pretty good :) 

Also Sorry, I haven't been able to send the SD card yet I've been super busy. But it's in my hand right now so I'm going to try to send it home today!! Sorry again!!

Other than that we had our Zone conference this week which was really great. We had a couple of workshops on the Atonement, another on teaching the Lesson 1 in 8min and 2min. Also some on weekly and nightly planning. Also we have a thing called "Last missionary standing" which is a game they do each zone conference based around obedience. Basically everyone stands up and Sister Bertin asks us questions, if we answer no, we have to sit down and stay sitting down. Last zone conference the questions was really easy, but this conference the questions we so much harder. The first question was "did you finish your last P-day at 6pm and start working?". Like half of us sat down (not me and Balili though). I got through some of the tough ones until she asked the Question, "Did you teach the restoration in under 8min  this week?" I had to sit down :( I can teach the restoration in english in under 8min but everytime me and Balili planned to teach the 8min restoration to our investigators either one of 2 things happened. The first is that we go over 8 minutes, (it's super hard to explain your unique message clearly in a different language haha) or the other is that they had questions that lead us to make it a full lesson. So yeah, I was doing really good until that question hahaha.

This August we have a Zone Tour which is exciting, not only to hear from Elder Bowen and Elder Hainey but also because the mission will be split into 2 days so i think it'll be like 4 zones at each day!

Anyway, hope you guys all have an epic week!

Stay Safe,

Love Elder Holzworth

Week 26, Sapung Palay, Philippines

Hi all!

It's great to hear that QLD won State of Origin! :D I have in my study room some QLD carboard cutout things that Grandma sent me a little while a go! So the Maroons had my support from here in the Philippines!

On the scriptual note, Helaman 5:12 is a scripture I use a lot during lessons. I often us Helaman 5:12 with DC 6:34&36. Both Scriptures come together to help those establish a sure foundation. With the culture and people here, it's very hard to land commitments. Although if we help them establish a foundation upon Christ we can help them make commitments more easily.

The investigator who answered the door last week for us (holding the pamphlets already) was Elias.  He came to church this week as well which was awesome! The next crazy thing with him is his reading!So last sunday we gave him a copy of "Principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ" (in tagalog of course). Now this book is pretty big and he read up to chapter 35! We gave it to him on sunday and met with him on Thursday. So he had 33 full days to read plus sunday and a little of thursday! Crazy right? So on Thursday we finished Lesson 1 and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and when we met him at church he had read up to 2nd Nephi chapter 4!! This guy is like 60yrs old and also reading in tagalog takes a lot more time than it does in english! It's crazy with his dedication already! at this rate he will be Baptised and Confirmed on the 1st and 2nd of August :D

Our Less activies are going really well this week, we had 3 families and 2 individuals attend church this week which was awesome!

The biggest Lesson I've learnt this week was dedication. As a missionary you are partly responsible for the salvation of the people in your area. If you aren't working hard, they won't come unto Christ it will be partially your fault. It's kind of an intense thing to say but from what I've learnt from it is if we love the people in our area and care about them. Then we will try our best and work hard so that they and their families can be sealed and live with each other in eternity.

I'm glad it's cold in Australia haha. Over here at night it's gotten slighty colder haha It's Tag-Ulan right now or rain season, so everything is now wet hahaha. It rains really hard sometimes last week 2 typhoons passed near the Philipines which gave us some pretty intense storms and a little flooding in our area. My shoes got so soaked hahaha When we got to one of our investigators houses instead of taking just off our shoes we took of our socks as well hahaha.

The other down side to rain is that people are inside like 90% of the time which makes Oym'ing really hard (Oym=open your mouth, or just taking to poeple and trying to get lessons/new investigators). That and power and water stop working more often which sucks hahaha.

Hope you have a lovely week.

Love Elder Holzworth

Week 25, Sapung Palay, Philippines

Hey Family!

So this week I got 6 or so of my white collared shirts fitted (me being really skinny), I paid a tailor to fit them for me :) They cost 40 peso's each (that's about $1 AUD), so good :D

So this coming week might be a little crazy as it's now getting rainy and stuff yayyy :)

Jokes, rain is terrible, because it's really dirty here and flood water carries all these cool and different types of diseases, fun :D So hopefully I don't get anything too bad hahaha :/

We had 1 investigator come with us to church. It was so surprising. So we found him this week and taught him twice, so far we've taught Lesson 1 Principle's 1-4 (Heavenly Father until Christ's Ministry) So anyway, we turn up to his house and we yell out "tao po" (common saying in Tagalog) which is literately translated to "People" (It's what you say when want to let people know that you're here, in fact what the phrase actually means is that we are people and not evil Spirits, The whole thing started off a myth haha)

Anyway, I kid you not after we yell it out, he walks straight out of his front door ready and has our pamphlet is his hand as well. That never happens hahaha Especially for someone who wasn't super super interested in the gospel haha So we took him to church and yeah all is well :)

So Sapang Palay is a great area, except the previous elders from 2014 didn't reteach their investigators. So we have a total of 13 Recent Converts that we need to teach. Some are from this year but there are 5 from early 2014 that no one knows.... and they don't have records in our area book really either.... So YAY :) Finding time :) So now we have the wonderful task of finding these Inactive RC's and re-teaching and reactivating them too :D fun fun fun hahahaha

This week I meet this super old Australian guy and his Filipina Wife who has just moved here. He only speaks english and somehow we started talking to him. I kid you not, I talked to him immediately in an American accent......      -.-       So annoying hahaha    

The only time I can actually speak English is to americans, and there is only one in our house so I only really get to talk to him in the morning, lunch or at night. Also if I do talk to him I usually have to put on an american accent anyway in order for the other fillipino's to understand. I'm fearing that I'm losing my accent :(((((     So hopefully I'll meet an Aussie Elder soon to help me keep my accent hahaha.

Have a wonderful week, look out in the post in 3ish weeks time for my Letter thingy :D  :D

Love Elder Holzworth

Week 24, Sapung Palay, Philippines

Hey Family,

So firstly I may have lost some photo's :( So I lost about a week worth of photo's but don't worry most of them were selfies that the members took hahaha So I lost around 1.5gb worth of photo's which is nothing compared to the photo's that I already have!! So I still have like 98% of my photo's still hahaha What happened was last week when I gave my sd card to my companion during emails and when he opened it up the files where all gone and yeah :/ but I'm not worring to much as they weren't really great anyway hahaha.

So This week I backed up my SD card to another SD card ready to send home!!! Except before I sent it I'll need to make a backup incase anything get's lost :)

Anyway this week was slightly nerve racking with the transfer's coming up, but I'm staying here with Balili in Sapang Palay for another 6 weeks!! Infact only 3 elder's transfered from our zone which is super low hahaha

This week it was super crazy with one of our lesson's, so we found a unkown LA in one of our area's, that day we had Bro. Elmer working with us (37yrs old). So we ran into this la and we went into her home and began to teach her lesson 1. So Elmer, Balli and I are seated on one couch and the La and her friend on the other one.  And on our counch Elmer is sitting between me and Balili. AS we're teaching out of nowhere this giant rat comes out from outside and runs inside, now this rat was huge and super fat. I thought I saw it run and crawl up onto our couch between balili and elmer. So I stood up and asked "Nasaan ang Daga?" Or where's the Rat? and then I kid you not Elmer, who is still sitting down, points to behind his bottom and says, dito elder... or here elder hahaha I look and there is this giant lump at the back of his pants... The rat had actually crawled up and inside his trousers into his pants.... It was so funnyyyyyy, Elmer then tried to push this rat out of his pants and when the rat was out it ran off. Oh my, it was hilarious... I swear that that stuff only happens in cartoons hahaha.

So yeah and the photo's I attached are of me and balili at church and one of Me and Elder Baylosis in a tricicle carriage. hahah hope you enjoy.

P.S Next week after I back up I'll seed the SD card, but before I'm going to send it I'll probable make a couple of vids to you guys but is there anything you'd like me to talk about specifically? To do with life in the mission? or maybe something for mission prep? Just ask and I'll film something :)

Anyway have an awesome week!!!

Love, Elder Holzworth

Week 23 - Sapung Palay, Philippines

Hey Family,

Just a quick email this week as there is poor internet access in our area. This week was slightly nerve racking with the transfer's coming up, but I'm staying here with Balili in Sapang Palay for another 6 weeks!! Infact only 3 elder's transfered from our zone which is super low hahaha

This week it was super crazy with one of our lesson's, so we found a unknown Less Active (LA)in one of our area's, that day we had Bro. Elmer working with us (37yrs old). So we ran into this LA and we went into her home and began to teach her lesson 1. So Elmer, Balli and I are seated on one couch and the LA and her friend on the other one.  And on our counch Elmer is sitting between me and Balili. As we're teaching out of nowhere this giant rat comes out from outside and runs inside, now this rat was huge and super fat. I thought I saw it run and crawl up onto our couch between balili and elmer. So I stood up and asked "Nasaan ang Daga?" Or where's the Rat? and then I kid you not Elmer, who is still sitting down, points to behind his bottom and says, dito elder... or here elder hahaha I look and there is this giant lump at the back of his pants... The rat had actually crawled up and inside his trousers into his pants.... It was so funnyyyyyy, Elmer then tried to push this rat out of his pants and when the rat was out it ran off. Oh my, it was hilarious... I swear that that stuff only happens in cartoons hahaha.

So yeah and the photo's I attached are of me and balili at church and one of Me and Elder Baylosis in a tricicle carriage. hahah hope you enjoy.

Anyway have an awesome week!!!

Love, Elder Holzworth

Week 22 - Sapung Palay, Philippines

So this week was quite interesting!

So this week I went on companion exchanges with Elder Adra for a day. We went out to a member's house and they run a stall were they sell some typical filipino foods, like chicken intestines and liver and ect..

So naturally they tried to pressure me to eat it as I'm a foreigner hahaha I ate both hahaha and to be honest it actually wasn't too bad, the taste was pretty good actually, they barbecue  the meat with some random sauce hahah :) they also cook chicken heads and feet but I didn't try that, well not yet :)

This week is the last full week of this transfer, so July 1st is transfer day! and on next Monday we'll find out about transfers (tuesday will be p-day). So there is a good chance that this will be my last transfer here but it is possible that I stay too, so who knows hahaha

I've attached some photo's too :) and I'll probs send another email with more photo's :)

Also in tagalog there are some crazy senteces that can me made by using two syllables haha

kakaba-kaba ka ba? 

Which translates to "Are a little bit nervous?"

so yeah it's a tad confusing if someone asks you that hahaha 

Anyway have a great week all :)

Week 21- Sapung Palay, Philippines

Hey everyone :) 

So tagalog is going great! I find it a lot harder now to teach in english hahaha The other day I couldn't remember the word "restoration" when talking to other elder's in english hahaha except I knew it in tagalog and could even explain it in tagalog too hahaha

Then we also got mail run! So I think 1 week ago I received all the letters from you guys as our zone leaders received the letters early and passed them onto us early too xD But this week I recieved the package with the Pink Ties! Thanks so much :D They're really nice ties, I love them. one is the Pink stripped one and the other is the pink checked one :)

Then the package had a "block" of Pods hahaha they all melted together hahaha plus a ton of sherbet hahaha

So for this week Email time is really low, so we've had an issue with internet places so right now I have 4min left to type hahaha so I'm going to be quick.

That and I'm using a pc that you can't plug in  devices to so mayble later we'll try and stop by a pc shop and upload some photo's

Today we also had a simple Zone activity were we played a bunch of games, In Capture the Flag i was my usual best (lol) and won our team the game :P hahaha 

Not too much time left so I'll finish up :)

Have a great week guys!

<3

Elder Holzworth

Week 20- Sapung Palay, Philippines

Hey Family

So this week was crazy for both me and you guys!

So obviously with Emma receiving her call to Manila mission!!!! and the crazy stuff for me I'll explain in a sec haha

So with the call (yes I got to watch the vid!!) it was awesome to hear that emma is serving so close to me! And like Mum, I called it too that she'd serve near me and speak tagalog :) To prove it I actually took photo's of my tagalog book for emma before I actually knew she was serving here and then sent them to her today hahaha :) I anticipated  it :D

So because Emma is serving in manila it means one, that we might have the same temple P-Day once every while but when I was in the MTC as Zone Leader, president said to us (elder perkins too) that If I was every near by on a p-day or whatever that we were always welcomed back to visit missionaries, teachers and him. So I'll try to visit Emma when she's in the MTC :D

Also Emma will learn Tagalog which is insane cause that means we'll have our own secret language!! Astig diba??

First off, We need to come on a mission with the DESIRE to serve and the TESTIMONY to back it up. With both of those things we can become useful to the Lord and become efficient Missionaries.

Secondly, to not waste our time. A mission is the Lord's time, not his. It's a time when we give up our will to do the Father's Will. When we waste time we waste our years of service that we cannot get back.We waste the Lord's time and that means

that people won't come unto Chirst.

I wrote down in my PMG while i was in the MTC something that I said to my

district one day that is evidence of this.

I said  (concerning missionary work) " The Work is really hard, but it doesn't feel like hard work."

Anyway this week was insane last night we had 2 dinner appointments which was insane. Thing was that I was told we had one so if I had known there was a 2nd I would have eaten much less at the first appointment hahaha

The other thing is that for the past month there have been mice in our apartment except we can never catch them hahaha but on saturday he found one and managed to kill it and then out of no where a second one appeared! so we killed that one 2. There was a lot of cheering too hahaha there were so annoying!!

Other than that, out of our 4 investigators, only one came to church, so that means that the 3 that didn't come have to have a new bap date as they need to attend 4/5. So yeah :/ but we're doing fine :D

Anyway, hope you all have a great week!!

Love, Elder Holzworth!