Elder Josh Holzworth: August 2015

Tuesday 25 August 2015

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!

Monday 17 August 2015

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

Tuesday 11 August 2015

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.