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 :)