The Horse is Safe

hello everyone

Another great week being a missionary! Definitely the best and most important work in the world. I’m thankful for these experiences every day that have really helped me become a happier person!

Right now I want to talk about my friend Elder Arninio. In our apartment right now we have three Americans and one Filipino. Elder Arninio is one of the funniest people I’ve met.. I’d compare him to Elder Panugao (the one who thought he was Kobe) in my first area. He always just has random funny things to say I love talking with him. He sometimes tries to speak English and it sounds like he’s Nephi because all of his English comes from the Book of Mormon! The other night he received a revelation as he was sleeping. He woke up, wrote it on the whiteboard, then fell back asleep.. Haha we all look at the whiteboard the next morning and it says “Soul to eternal perfection.” None of us knows what it means but now we love saying it all the time haha!

Tuesday we drove President Ostler, Sister Ostler, and Caleb to the airport for their last flight to Palawan. It was really nice to talk with them. They’ve been amazing examples and it’s pretty sad they’re leaving soon. I still don’t even feel like they’re leaving because they’re so focused and things seem the exact same. A funny thing that happened though was on the Skyway (kinda like a freeway.) They have toll stops there where you have to pay and we always try to speak as many dialects to the people in the booths as possible haha. Elder Webster rolled down the window and said something in just normal Tagalog and the girl in there made this weird squeal sound out of surprise and said “ayy tagalog!!” As she handed back a receipt she wouldn’t let go of it! It was sooo funny because the Ostlers were in the back! I made fun of him the whole ride back after dropping them off:)

You know those big umbrellas our mission got that I talked about? I have another story with those haha. It was dumping on us as we were in the area and we saw a huge group of kids walking home from school. We started talking to them and they were super fun haha. 6 of them fit under my umbrella because it’s so big and we just talked as we walked to an appointment. Some relief society members saw us walking with like 20 kids around us and were laughing super hard at us.

Thursday I got a call from a guy from the Provo MTC! He was following up on referrals which I guess is something they’re going to do every two weeks now! The mission department I guess is looking to make the referral database more effective. They had some good ideas for us to do in our mission and it will be kinda exciting here. Referrals are just hard for the missionaries to keep updated here because service is soo bad even in the office and pretty inconvenient out in the areas. It will be fun to see improvements though!

Two other random experiences.. First, I met a 25 year old guy from Taiwan on P day! He is here to teach tech stuff to everyone for free. He wants to help the kids here he was super nice. It was cool to see Elder Cheney’s people they seem really awesome. We could’ve used him for speaking Chinese to this guy haha. Lastly, I’ve decided to randomly roll down Elder Webster’s passenger window and crank up the motab while driving past people haha! They look over at him like he’s crazy and I hold the switch down so he just has to endure!

Eric is continuing to progress and grow. He got super sick last week and ended up relapsing. He’s still trying his best though. He read 2 Nephi 31 which was awesome for him to read. He said it not only hit him in the face left and right, but also up and down haha. He would read a verse he highlighted (2 nephi 31:8 or 2 Nephi 32:4 for example) then say “yeahhh that’s for me!” He said reading the chapter actually made him no longer scared for baptism, but rather happier and more excited for it. I’m glad he continues to read. Right now he’s our only investigator consistent with reading. It’s sooo important even though it’s actually a pretty small thing. My patience has been tested a little more especially this past week. We talked to hundreds of people but didn’t get 1 new investigator!! And it keeps happening for some reason, more than every before in my mission. It’s rough haha! I know though that I’m learning a lot as a result and I trust God will put those who need His help in our path. I’ve learned that even when we don’t understand His way, we can always trust that things will work out for our benefit. What we go through at times as missionaries is nothing compared to those before us, it’s hard to even complain if you have the right perspective.

The more Eric is learning more about how the Atonement of Jesus Christ works, the happier he’s becoming. He is realizing that he can become clean from every mistake he’s ever had. I too am thankful for that. I’m thankful that through Him we may continue to be forgiven, to change, and to become more like Him. I read the other day in Mark and for some reason  stood out to me. It’s cool to think that such a small mustard seed can turn into something so amazing. Through hard work and constantly replenishing the seed it can grow into something completely different than what it was before. That seed is like our hearts. We are so weak but through the Atonement and constant diligence we can change and become strong. Our hearts can be changed and our desires to focus on others rather than ourselves and to follow God’s law will increase. Not only is this amazing for us, but it can also affect others. I’m thankful for those in my life who have continually applied principles of Christ’s gospel to their lives. It has helped me so much and I’m hoping I can continue to grow myself!

Anyways that’s all from me! Hope you have a good one.

 Elder Reber

ps. The horse has made its trip from Des Moines to Makati successfully🤔 Good times await.

Apparently the smolder has to come back out when referring to Parkers friends from home! Parkers friends got this tin horse and sent it with Elder Christensen to San Salvador, he was the first of the boys headed out for a mission. It has since gone to Iowa and now to the Philippines. It has many more stops to make throughout the world and would have quite the story to tell with all it's adventures. So grateful for a group of the best boys for Park to grow up with!