So I just wrote a nice email and right as I was about to send it the
crappy computer shut down and it didn’t save anything! SO I’ll try to
write this all up again.. it won’t be as good this time around tho
haha.
We had a great week here in our area! Probably a top five funniest and
surprising thing of my mission happened on Tuesday. We were walking to
one of our main investigators Sister Go when we decided we’d do a
little finding before seeing her. We walked up a new path and I looked
over and saw something I definitely wasn’t expecting. Just some white
guy sitting at the side of his nice house cooking steak! WHAT? haha It
was literally out of nowhere! But it gets better. The second I see him
he looks over, sees us, and to our surprise gets this huge smile on
his face and yells “ELDERS!! How our you two doing?? Come in come in!”
Haha I was so shocked! He came over to the gate and let us in and
asked me “are you from Utah? What part of Utah? Ahh so in between
Provo and Salt Lake right?” Sure enough this man, David, is from
Sequoia California and he was in Utah a few months ago to visit Bryce
Canyon and Zions! He’s now around 60 and retired just living a simple
life on Palawan. He got married to a filipina 10 years ago whose
husband had passed away so she was left with two babies. Basically
he’s the only dad they’ve ever known and he’s so happy to be their dad
now! He loves national parks and has been to almost every single one
in the US. Haha he started telling me how much he loves Utah and how
he’s skied at most of the resorts. Super crazy! We have lots in common
haha! The cool part is he has had really good experiences with Mormons
in the past. He once lived in Arizona by a mine and all of the workers
were laid off. Most of them were LDS and he said as they kept faithful
in paying their tithing the church was able to help support them all
during the time of need as they continued to look for new jobs. He
thought it was awesome! We as members never know when people are
watching our examples. He also has visited some Pioneer historic
sights and knows lots about them. Basically he said “come back
ANYTIME! I’ll give you guys some soda, we can talk some religion, and
you can tell me why you guys are all so nice!” Haha he’s honestly one
of the nicest guys I’ve met. David is the mannn! We will probably go
visit him tomorrow again. I’m nervous to teach in English though! It will
be so different.
We contacted tons of referrals this week. Like I said in my last
emails my companion and I have practiced a lot in companion study how
we are going to try to help members when we go to visit them for Family
home evening and stuff. We’ve had lots of super spiritual experiences
with different members in the ward. Lots of them want to help with
missionary work, they often just don’t really know where to start and
just need a little push. We went and contacted the Dequina family
which was referred to us by the Nunez family (elders quorum pres
family). The Dequina fam has 9 KIDS!! We haven’t met all of them yet
though but we had 2 good lessons with those who were at the house.
It’s hard to plan a good time to teach them when they’re all there as
a family but we’re doing our best haha. They’ve got lots of potential,
kinda like Jimmer after his years at BYU and before the NBA. Hopefully
they don’ t turn out like him though. haha.
We also went to a new area called Iwahig with a member named Mario to
contact a referral of his. It’s super pretty over there. There are
tons of farms and you have to walk quite a distance to get to each
house. But we went and taught a 19 yr old named Jason. He wanted to
know why there are so many churches that teach about Christ. We were
able to explain that to him and how Christ just established one, not
many. It was a cool lesson and bro Mario had a super cool testimony.
Friday we were heading home for lunch and studies and we helped this
Palawan State University student put her bike on the top of the
multicab. Just a simple act of service and we didn’t really think
twice about it. But on the ride she asked us all about our religion
and what it’s like bein a missionary. It was cool and we were able to
give Tuesday (her name ha) a pamphlet with our number. She texted us
later that night and said thanks again and that she had already read the
pamphlet. She told us she would be at church too but she accidentally
slept in Sunday haha. Next week though. Anyways she’s not in our area
though and the Sister missionaries will be going to her this week!
We had nobody at church Sunday which was a bummer, we had lots of hope
for lots of people and were a little surprised when nobody came! I
told my companion that we just keep working and trust in God. He can
help them have a change of heart. We just have to be patient and not
worry about it. We are his instruments and just need to do our part to
find all those who He has prepared for us at this time.
That’ about all I have time for to write! Today we had the sweetest
Pday in history. We went island hopping! Elder and Sister Walcott came
with us and we even had a buffet on one of the islands. Got lots of
solid pics but won’t be able to send any haha! Anyways, definitely
grateful for that, not often you get to island hop in Honda Bay during
your mission!
Love you all! Elder Reber
 |
| Palawan is just not picture sending friendly. So... todays pic is in honor of the snow finally melting around here! |
| Sister Ostler posted this video on the Philippines Missionary Moms website. She said... After Elder Bednar's visit, we recorded the mission song. Everyone was exhausted after getting up at 4 am or so to arrive on time, then waiting and having a three hour meeting with him, which they loved and were very involved in. So it was amazing they still had some spiritual power left. They are AMAZING Elders and Sisters Parker is the first elder in the middle section on the first row of Elders- Love seeing these great missionaries!!! |
I am working on getting this video to work on a cell phone:)
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