Week 14, Sapang Palay, Philippines

Hey Family,

So to start off this email, I saw the Southern Cross in the night sky last

night!! Which is cool cause you can only see it in the northern hemisphere

only at certain times during the year. See the photo, it's in the middle

but it's kinda hard to see.

Also there is a pic of a bunch of people from our ward and stuff, so front

row left to right there is Danillo, one of our new investigators (13) then

Kimpee another one of our investigators (18) then Shela (member), Elder

Aue. Back row left to right, Darwin (ward mission leader), two random

members who i don't know the names of :) then Elder Hartfield (just

transfered to our area this transfer) then Gretchen (member) then Rolson

(member).

Then on Saturday we had a service project stake wide! and to get the entire

ward there the ward got some trucks to take us hahaha (classic

Philippines).

So Danillo and Kimpee as you saw in the photo are our 2 most progressing

investigators, there are set to be baptised on the 18th if they come to

church every single sunday, so yeah the 20th is transfer day so we kinda

want Aue to be here for their baptisms, as he'll  probs transfer on the 20th.

Keempee did attend church yesterday which was awesome but it turns out they

need to attend church 4/5 Sundays which is pretty hard :( And yeah my next

companion will probs be Filipino which will be great for my Tagalog! And

my Tagalog isn't too big as in how many words/phrases but what i'm

always trying to work on is my accent in Tagalog, so even though my Tagalog

might be correct in what i say, i want it to sound more like a Filipino.

Which will take time but what a lot of Americans do is that they speak

Tagalog with a very distinct american accent which sounds really bad to a

Filipino so i'm trying to get myself in the habit of saying things

correctly now, so i don't have to fix it later!

So this was a really cool blessing that happened this week, so being out

the the field you get to see your zone once a week at district meetings

(every district in your zone goes to the same chapel) but in my zone there

is only one sister from my MTC Batch all the other 3 are in another zone

together. Anyway I was really wanting to meet up with all my batch again

and anyway I remember praying one night or morning, if it could be made

possible sometime in the future that i could see my batch mates again.

Anyway the next day I realised we had Zone Conference which is my zone +

another one. And there you have it, the other zone was the one with all my

batch mates in it!! So yeah really cool blessing that I didn't expect would

happen really at all that soon so yeah :)

PS  Our  District got shirts made and on the back is 3 John 1:4 (even though

the shirt says 1:9) which is a scripture that I'd thought you'd like :)

" I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."

Have a lovely day,

Love Elder Holzworth

Week 13, Sapang Palay, Philippines

Hey Family!

So I thought I lost my charger cable thingy this week and  my camera was out of battery so i didn't get to find it until sunday :( but i took some photo's of our apartment but I'll try to remember to take more!

So in the photo with numbers on it is like our living room I guess, that's ELder Baylosis and Hartfield playing pokemon on the floor and to the right are their study desks. Number 1 is our study room, number 2 is our bedroom (there's  only a bunk bed and suit cases there), number 3 is their bedroom and number 4 is our front door! We live right near a Basketball Court so probably 4 nights every week they play and  have comps and really loud music playing there hahaha.

Then the next photo is our desks! The left one is mine! So You can probable see what most of the stuff is but on the wall is cpt Moroni, mum's scripture quote of 1n3:7 that i got in the mail a bit back and then there's random pokemon cards on my wall (They just look cool haha) and then a Sprite bottle because why not haha and my study stuff. And yes i did have to clean my desk before taking this photo haha :D 

Emma asked for some random photo's so I'll post some random ones here. get ready :P

So the next one is us in the chapel, there is Gretchen (member) in the background and me playing the Piano :D

 Next one is me, Elder Aue and Elder's Aue's Trainer, Elder Elm. Or in Missionary terms, My father and my grandfather (your trainer is your father if you didn't realise) That was in SM Fariview (supermall) So it's pretty much Carindale except  we have to travel like 40min to get there everything is really expensive there btw cause all the brands are actually real hahaha.

Next one is some Chickens eating a dead cat (I did say random photo's)

Next one is some the boys of the Rossana Family. They took my camera and took that hahaha

About our flat....

We have cold water that you cannot drink :) Electricity, A bathroom with a Toilet minus the toilet seat, that doesn't flush and has a bucket with water instead :) We have a stove, a fridge with a freezer that doesn't actually freeze hahaha and that's pretty much it hahaha

Our Investigator Kimpee is going really well except we've had to push his bap dat back a bit because he was unable to come to church 2 weeks in a row (you have to attend 3/4 sundays to be able to be baptised) so yeah that's not good but he's still really strong :) He can speak a little english but not really too much, one problem with english here is that they can only understand an american accent, so yeah it almost makes my english useless hahaha, so pretty much all my english i say is with an american accent except when it's to my companion :)

Keith and Annalaya are doing great except on sunday when they we're both supposed to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, only Keith showed up :( so annalaya has to wait a bit but that's okay :) Their Uncle is in the 1st counselor to the bishop so they have a lot of support!

A really cool thing we had this week was with this family we just met, we had oym'd this 17yr old girl and then went to her house and she wasn't there but still her older sister let us around to meet her grandparents and stuff. Anyway we ended up meeting the grandparents and there were super cool! They we super interested and were really, really spiritual! They accepted  the Book of Mormon really well and she even offered to say the closing prayer! In the prayer she thanked God for sending 2 missionaries to her and then she asked God  to bless us wherever we go which i thought was super awesome for a 1st time visit! so yeah :D

Today we get to celebrate Elder Aue's 1 year mark, and then I was like I wonder how long i've been out and it's been 4months which honestly feels like nothing hahaha like time has literally  flown, after next transfer I'll be at my 6month mark which i think is crazy! I guess the blessing is that your time flies but at the same time it's kinda sad that it flies because  the work is just so good, you kinda want it to feel like 2years not something quicker!

Anyway I'l talk to you guys soon! (mothers day is so soon!)

Love Elder Holzworth

Week 12, Sapang Palay, Philippines

Hey Family!

So this week was awesome! I had a baptism, General Conference and finished my 1st transfer!

So we had 2 Baptisms,  Keith and Annalaya! So they were baptised yesterday by their cousin who's leaving for his mission in like 1 month! And Kimpee is doing really great. He's kept all of our commitments, we're just waiting until the 3rd comes round for his baptism! He's also come out with us and helped us teach other investigators which is really cool/unique!! That's how strong his knowledge is!!

Dad's Questions...

How has being a missionary changed your life?

Well for one fact I can't do half of the things I could do at home hahaha but to be honest it gives you a better perspective on life, like our purpose, the nature of the Godhead and a better understanding of the gospel and it's principles.

How has the Lord blessed you this week?

Well, he gave us 2 baptisms which was incredible!!! It's a lot different witnessing the baptism of someone you've taught the gospel personally than it is of someone from your ward! The first photo i sent was us and the immediate family of Kieth and Annalaya and the second was Ray (the brother baptising) and his family. Sorry about the photo's, they somehow seem a bit blurry and weird :( Oh yeah and the baptism was inside our chapel, not sure if you guys assumed if it was in the ocean or something hahahaha.

This week we had General Conference (you guys did too haha) and it was awesome to listen to something in English as well as it being the words of a living day prophet. I read in one of the church magazines of the importance of a living day prophet compared to one in the Bible or Book of Mormon. They asked the question, did Noah receive he revelation to build the ark from a previous prophet, like Adam, they answered no, he received  the revelation from God. Likewise, even though it's still important to study the stories in the Book of Mormon/bible, the revelation given to a living day prophet is so much more important as it is directly for us in this present day :)

Some of the talks i really enjoyed was Elder Hollands talk about the two boys rock climbing, titled, "Where Justice, Love, and Mercy Meet". I also liked the one by Elder Nielson called "Waiting for the Prodigal" and also "The Music of the Gospel" by Elder Anderson.

Also the two talks in Spanish were kinda cool, no one knew what they were saying cause we had no subtitles but we could kinda understand their testimonies as some Tagalog is taken from Spanish but other than that everyone was clueless hahaha.

Thanks for the packages! It was really awesome to recieve them, I really liked the key chain thingy which i now put our house keys on everyday!! I also got the letter you sent with the Tagalog scripture of 1nep 3:7 which was really cool cause i could actually read the entire thing and understand it!!

It really means a lot getting packages and letters! I also received the letters from the greens (Joel's family and the one from Aunty Rebekah and Trinity) this week too!!!! So yeah, THANKS SO MUCH

Have an Awesome week!

Week 11, Sapang Palay, Philippines

Hey everyone!

So this week was exciting! We're supposed to have a typhoon but that ended up not happening which was both good and bad, good cause there was no typhoon... but bad cause i really wanted to see how cool a typhoon would be :) 

On Saturday night I ate Balut! ( I think that's how it's spelt)

So Elder Aue and I got back home and the other companionship were outside with some members that they worked with for the day. Elder Aue and I then closed our day and then the American, Elder Waltz told me they had a surprise for me. I walk outside and he's like, hey man we're gonna eat Balut together for the first time!

So yeah, it was kinda fun, i guess :/ Google an image of it, it's like an egg with a 1 month old duck in it! They're boiled for 1 day and then steamed for another and then you can eat it. To be honest, it wasn't too bad, like the taste wasn't that bad but you eat an entire duck and yeah, it's got the beak and all that on it so it's kinda crazy! It's mostly a mental challenge rather than a taste thing for me at least.

Anyway, so first transfer is pretty much up, this week is my 6th week so my first transfer out in the field! 

It's also Easter! So Easter is kinda different in the Philippines, like it's way depressing cause they only focus on the death of Christ. A lot of Catholics inflict pain on themselves as part of some random rituals that they do so it's kinda weird. But as missionaries we got given dvd's with a bunch of really cool Easter videos that we got to show to our investigators and members which was really awesome.

So we have 16 baptismal dates but only 3, maybe 4 are realistic haha A lot of people will accept baptism dates but most of the time they aren't 100% committed so they end up falling through :(

However, we have our first baptism this Sunday! So Kieth (10yrs) and his Sister Annalaya (8yrs) are these really awesome kids that are really spiritually smart, like they give really deep answers which is really awesome! Although we've gotten their cousin whose about to go on a mission to baptise them so you won't see me in white but yeah :D still first baptism! We have a guy named Kimpee who's 18 and he's a really awesome investigator who's developed a really strong testimony, he's kept all our commitments so far which has been really awesome :D His baptismal date is later on this month. 

A lot of the times during lessons I won't understand the Tagalog but through the sprirt and specifically the gift of interpretation of tongues you understand what they are saying. Which is really cool just in its self. A lot of the times as a missionary your best won't be enough (e.g. my Tagalog) but the Lord fills that gap to make it enough which is crazy, many times throughout my time in the field this happens not just this week :) So yeah, Awesome stuff!!

Anyway, Hope you all have a great week!

Love Elder Holzworth