Elder Parker Reber: The Santos Sealing and Green Island

Hello friends and fam!

This week was one to be remembered. It was my last week here in Makati 1^st and it’s been an awesome 6 months full of new experiences and things learnt that I’ll forever be thankful for! Couldn’t have asked for a better final week here!

Miller Shawn is now officially a part of Makati 1^stward! He has been jumping back and forth from Makati and Cabanatuan but now has his records transferred to our ward. He was at church yesterday and it was fun going with him. His papers for the states are starting to make some progress and he’s looking on heading back in February! I’m excited to see him there! One night he surprised us both with sweet new proselyting bags that he ordered in from California! He also took us out to eat one night in the area to eat pasta, nachos and smoothies. He puts aside all the money he used to spend on cigarettes and alcohol to spend for other people’s happiness. He’s the man!

Patrick’s mom is still being tricky. This week President is actually going to their house to meet her haha. I’m pretty sure if they meet Patrick will be baptized real soon. We had something crazy happen one day we went there though!!! He is the oldest and has three other siblings but we had only met the third and fourth of the siblings. In short, they don’t really give one about the gospel haha. We met number two though one night and she is JUST LIKE PATRICK. She shocked us so bad in the lesson and after we were giving Patrick a hard time for not telling us about her haha. All he could do was laugh. Maureen (his sister) will be baptized with him as soon as their mom is good to go.

We spent lots of time with President this week doing transfers and learning new things from him. It’s funny because we get “distracted” and he starts giving us tons of advice, explains doctrines of the church, and shares experiences he’s had in the past. I’m thankful for the time and effort he puts into each missionary. It’s amazing to see how much he cares for the welfare of each of them and is more than willing to “think it out in his mind” to find solutions and better ways to do things.

There was a missionary who had a death in the family so he got to go to the funeral over in his province. We drove him to the airport and picked him up once he got back. It was very humbling spending time with him this week. I can’t believe how much some of these guys give up to get out on missions. We got to go with him to the temple to get some of his family temple work done. It was nice being back in the temple- it’s been a few months since it’s was being renovated for so long.

Friday we tried something new. There’s a part of our area called BGC which is a huge city full of crazy nice buildings that have been built within the last 15 years. We never go there because most people are working there and guards won’t let us into apartments. We “opened it up” earlier this week though haha. We planned to go with some STL’s and the office elders over there to a park/mall place to introduce family history to people for an hour and a half. It was soo fun haha. We carried clipboards around with us so we’d look professional and basically pretended to write down people’s answers of what they know about family history. Most people accepted answering a few questions of our “survey” haha. It’s funny because at first we were scared to talk to some of the wealthier guys so we warmed up by talking to any construction worker we saw. Once we got a feel of how we could effectively get someone pumped for finding their ancestors we began talking to all the other people. Some people shared some really neat things honestly and we got over 30 names and info of people who are interested in missionaries visiting! Following that we had a district blitz in Makati 2^nd so I was able to go to that area again. We went and found Eric if you remember him haha. He’s still not willing to leave his house but at the end of the lesson he got a bit emotional and thanked us for helping him come closer to God. He said he’d never forget the missionaries coming to teach and said he’d be super ready to let in missionaries if they ever have some time to share.

Saturday had to be my favorite day of my mission! Elder Cibuco, my trainer, flew in from Busuanga a few days earlier so we could attend the sealing of Danny and Rosemarie Santos! He goes home Wednesday so it was perfect timing. We got up early and made our way over to the temple. We were there outside for a few minutes then out of nowhere we hear someone scream “Elder Reber! Elder Mitchell! It was our Provo MTC teacher, sister spencer! It was her first time back in the Philippines and of course we run right into her haha! We talked to her for about 10 minutes and Danny asked her to get in the picture in front of the temple haha. The sealing itself was really special for elder cibuco and I. It was super surreal seeing them in there dressed in white and for the two of us to be the witnesses for the sealing. I remember seeing them for the first time way back in my first area and the difference now is tremendous. That was my first sealing I’ve ever seen so it was really cool.

We cruised our way back to our area after the sealing for June Bolando’s baptism. His service was kinda crazy since we didn’t have a key to the church. We ended up having the service at the buendia chapel. We didn’t have access to baptismal clothes so we gave him one of my white shirts and baptismal pants of one of the other elders haha! The font was taking FOREVER to fill up so we had all the speakers/testimony go before the ordinance itself. Even after waiting, Elder Mitchell still couldn’t get him under haha! We ended up dragging a hose from outside through the church into the font to speed the process. All the missionaries were filling up pitchers of water from the sinks. It was kinda nuts but luckily I was just on piano duty throughout that whole time. June was super excited to be baptized and again, it was cool seeing someone who has changed their lives so much following the Savior’s example.

I continue to feel more and more blessed to be out here. Don’t know why someone like me deserves the experiences I’ve been seeing as a missionary. I’m thankful for the church, I know that Christ is at the head of it. I know that God knows us and can do amazing things to each of us if we’re willing to become humble and trust in Him. I know His ways are much higher than ours.

I’m excited to continue to share this with others in my new area! I’ll miss the office and this area, but I’m pumped for the adventures ahead. The Giffords are the best and decorated the office for Elder Burdeos and I before we leave haha. I’ll be picking up a missionary from the mtc Wednesday then we’ll be flying to palawan to be assigned in Roxas. We will be starting sacrament for the first time on an island called Green Island. I hear the boat ride is about 2 hours from roxas but honestly not sure there haha. We hear a member there is willing to rent their house to missionaries but that will be figured out when we get there haha. I’m kinda nervous because I’ve never held a sacrament under palm trees but I know with the strength of the Lord we will do whatever is needed to spread the gospel to this tiny island.

Happy mothers day! I love my mom and am very grateful for all she has done for me throughout the years! :)

Elder Reber