Back to Tondo

HEY
This past week we had zone conference here in Manila! It was a great experience this time around. Elder Mitchell and I normally choose what we want to teach and teach separately but this time President Fermanis gave us a topic and asked us to work together to teach it. We talked about obedience and more specifically reporting disobedience. It’s been an issue that has come up a few times over the past month or so. Missionaries often see others braking rules but don’t have courage to speak up to the missionary and the faith to report that to their leaders and/or President. One part of the message we all read a few passages from a talk by Elder Lynn G. Robbins called “Which Way Do You Face?” Here are a few lines I really love from this talk.
-“Which way do you face?” President Boyd K. Packer surprised me with this puzzling question while we were traveling together on my very first assignment as a new Seventy. Without an explanation to put the question in context, I was baffled. “A Seventy,” he continued, “does not represent the people to the prophet but the prophet to the people. Never forget which way you face!” It was a powerful lesson.
-Trying to please others before pleasing God is inverting the first and second great commandments (see Matthew 22:37–39). It is forgetting which way we face. And yet, we have all made that mistake because of the fear of men. In Isaiah the Lord warns us, “Fear ye not the reproach of men” (Isaiah 51:7; see also 2 Nephi 8:7). In Lehi’s dream, this fear was triggered by the finger of scorn pointed from the great and spacious building, causing many to forget which way they faced and to leave the tree “ashamed” (see 1 Nephi 8:25–28).
-Now listen to some inspiring examples:
•            First, Mormon: “Behold, I speak with boldness, having authority from God; and I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear” (Moroni 8:16; emphasis added).
•            Nephi: “Wherefore, the things which are pleasing unto the world I do not write, but the things which are pleasing unto God and unto those who are not of the world” (1 Nephi 6:5).
•            Captain Moroni: “Behold, I am Moroni, your chief captain. I seek not for power, but to pull it down. I seek not for honor of the world, but for the glory of my God, and the freedom and welfare of my country” (Alma 60:36).
-Between 3 Nephi chapter 11 and 3 Nephi chapter 28, the Savior used the title Father at least 150 times, making it very clear to the Nephites that He was there representing His Father. And from John chapters 14 through 17, the Savior refers to the Father at least 50 times. In every way possible, He was His Father’s perfect disciple. He was so perfect in representing His Father that to know the Savior was also to know the Father. To see the Son was to see the Father (see John 14:9). To hear the Son was to hear the Father (see John 5:36). He had, in essence, become indistinguishable from His Father. His Father and He were one (see John 17:21–22). He flawlessly knew which way He faced.
Coolest thing happened after zone conference! My trainer elder cibuco had flown in from busuanga for conference and he’s in his last transfer right now. We got permission from President to go to Tondo, my first area, that night to see people we had met in our time there since it would be Elder Cibuco’s only chance. I felt like I was walking on clouds that whole night- It was soo awesome!!! We saw our recent converts Danny and Rose Marie Santos first and as we walked in we could see tons of pictures of the two of us at the entrance of their house. When the temple opens Rose Marie will be endowed then they will both be sealed! We found out Danny is now in the Bishopric and Rose Marie is the secretary of the Relief Society. Haha I feel bad the church put them right to work but they seem to be growing a lot with their new callings. Two of their four kids and their spouses/kids have been baptized since- one of those families here in tondo 2nd and the other in pangasinan province. We also got to see Nanay Fransisco, bishop and his family, our recent convert Sister Fattima (just got called this month as Relief Society President), Erica Yambao and her fam, and Mera’s family. Because of shortage on time, we literally ran from house to house so we could fit in as many people as we could in the few hours we had. Throughout our night it was cool being able to fully understand everything and especially being alongside with my trainer again. Elder Cibuco will never be forgotten in our mission- I’m super thankful I was able to work with him. I really know that none of our efforts as members of the church are wasted. At times when I was working there in the past it felt like things weren’t progressing the way I wanted. Now being able to go back and see what the Lord did in His timetable was quite a humbling experience for me. Had to be a highlight night of my mission despite the fact that we forgot our apartment key and the elders were all asleep when we got home. We set up camp in a room in the chapel but luckily one of the elders somehow woke up and unlocked the door for us before we fell asleep down there haha!
This week we were able to continue working with Jun and JR. Jun came to church by himself and for the first time in over 10 years he went a whole day without smoking a cigarette. He’s in his late 20’s and has been trying to fight his way out of his way of living for quite some time but never knew where to start. He never graduated school and he’s just followed what he’s seen his family do since day one- drink, smoke, sleep. So proud of that guy though. He always has the biggest smile on his face. JR passed his baptism interview and will be baptized this upcoming Sunday! He got a new job and started work this past Monday. He leaves his house at 5:30 and doesn’t get home til 8pm I feel bad for him. We were able to meet him each morning before he went to work to drink milo with him so he would continue to avoid coffee. He told us yesterday though that he no longer has any desire to drink coffee which was cool to hear. With his work though he was sad because he’d have to start working Sundays but Wednesday he was able to talk to his boss and get his “rest day” switched to Sunday which was a huge miracle for here in the philippines :) He always has us laughing super hard it’s been sweet working with him.
Sunday Sister May of the Boni 3rd ward was baptized (we share a chapel with them.) She has been an investigator for 1 yr and 7 months and I’ve seen her weekly at the chapel since I’ve been assigned here. She went to President’s fireside and President pulled her aside, talked to her for about a minute, and next thing we knew she was excited to be baptized that next week haha! I’ll send pictures of that service next week- it was fun especially watching people’s reactions when President and Sister Fermanis walked in to attend the service. They all called him “Mr. President” and you would’ve thought the President of the Philippines had walked in by the way the behaved haha!
I read this week in D&C 93 and I liked verses 24-28. In 28 it says “He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things.” I was thinking of the encounters I’ve had with living day apostles throughout my mission and each time I’m shocked by how much they seem to know. This verse helped me realize their knowledge didn’t only come from lots of studying, but also because of their obedience. If we want our minds to open up to better understand God’s truth and light, we must be obedient to His commandments. He will qualify us to know these things if we do so.
Love ya all! Elder Reber :)

Love this companionship

So apparently Park isn't known for eating quickly :)

A boy just enjoying his meal.

Zone conference

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Elder Cibuco, Mera and Parker

Park said the girls started to scream as they walked in :)

The Tondo wards bishop and wife. They were such a help while working in his first area.  

Mission Home Fireside

First off happppy birthday to the man Richard Reber!

WOW this week was a great one. I can’t believe Graden is headin over here. I got a text while in the area one day from President Fermanis telling me I need to face call my family at 10pm after we finished our work to talk to my brother. I can’t believe you’re coming here but at the same time it’s where I guessed and for the past little while I just kinda started assuming you’d come here! Yesterday as I worked I was thinking how you will soon be experiencing all the little things I see and do every day. I know that you’re called here because it’s where it’s where you need to go and it has nothing to do with me being here. You will learn for yourself that where you serve is where the Lord needs you and it may for be for different purposes as to why I’m here. I spoke in sacrament Sunday and mentioned my brother got his call here to the Philippines and they all thought that was pretty cool!

This week Elder Mitchell  and I made the goal to proselyte 100 hours in the week! We woke up at 5, prepared and did personal study til 6:30, then worked til 9:30 each day of the week. We were able to get past our goal and saw many amazing things happen throughout the week. I’m glad to have Elder Mitchell as my companion I continue to learn a ton from him. We also went on exchanges in our area with 3 different companionships and enjoyed being with them as well.

We found 38 new investigators and have lots of referrals now lined up for these next few weeks. We tried to find in many different ways- mainly through less actives, members, washing people’s clothes/dishes, and our basketball activity Thursday night. We had 48 people show up for basketball it was a BLAST! The priests and YSA invite tons of friends and we’ve been able to teach quite a few of them. Friday morning we played again with some of those we’ve been able to teach and after playing we toured the chapel with them. I’ll try to get a picture next week cuz it’s pretty amusing seeing how many Filipinos will come to play some ball. Even outside the gate there were lots of old grandpas and other by-standers watching the games being played since the church is in the middle of a ton of houses. Right outside people also sell different street foods so the church is in a great location with lots of people around.

One kid named Christian we met is a best friend of one of the priests. He is actually a Utah Jazz fan haha! He’s the first Filipino I’ve met who likes the jazz and actually knows a ton about them. He’s a Donovan Mitchell fan and hopes he wins rookie of the year. I thought that was sweet.

Here’s an update on a few people we’ve been working with in the past! Lobo family went to church again and the mom and son Lee actually came and worked with us one night! They now read a chapter of the BOM every day as a fam and welcome join them with that every few days. Miller from Phoenix LOVED conference. We were able to see him a few times this week and will start teaching one of his good friends this week. I’m not sure if you remember Eric but we found him through Nanay Angie when Nanay showed us to a less active house. We taught him a few times then handed him off to the office elders since it was in their area of the ward. He was baptized on Friday morning and it was an awesome service! Bro JR is still a stud and reads lots in the BOM. He drank coffee again but I thought it was cool that he told us as soon as he saw us that he messed up. When he wakes up in the morning he really craves it so we started heading to his house every morning to drink some milo with him. Sunday night we had a fireside at the mission home (first of all time) where we watched Finding Faith in Christ, heard a few testimonies, then ate brownies and ice cream. We were able to go with JR and he had a blast. It was cool to see investigators talk to one another and see that they’re in the same boat as others.

We found some amazing new people and I really see God’s hand in finding them now when I think about it. One guy named Jun showed up to church and we met him just this week. We found him first thing in the morning one day and helped get him some pants to be able to go to church. Another is the Desabille family- someone we found at about 9:10pm after lots of work prior to finding them. The last was a 17 yr old guy named Patrick- someone who had moved here literally the day before and has been an investigator for 2 years in the province. He’s basically a member but is just waiting to turn 18 since his mom won’t give him permission.

To top off the week the very last night we were really tired, got to the car, and realized the keys had fallen out of my pocket sometime throughout the night. Long story short we had a 45 minute walk to get home. Hahaha. I lost 7 pounds this week and I’m sure 6 of those were from that last walk we made.

Love ya all! We saw a guy holding a beer bottle sitting right on the edge of a tin roof. He was literally flailing back and forth with the biggest smile ever. Filipinos have the best smiles and to be honest when they’re drunk they’re always so happy haha. He reassured us that he is alright by saying “I’m drinking responsibility!!” Hope you guys all have a great week full of being “responsibility.”

Elder Reber

April Conference

Hi!!
This week was a solid week. We were able to keep working with Jud. He’s now in 1 Nephi 14 and we’re seeing great growth with him. He came with us to general conference at the stake center and he really enjoyed it despite how cold the air con was haha. He said he’s rarely been in air conditioning his whole life so he was freezing! Funny because I remember complaining of the heat half way through because they turned off the air conditioning to try to satisfy a few of the Filipinos haha.

We had a sweet service project one morning cutting down banana trees and picking up trash at a member’s house. I’m getting pretty good with the machete despite my lack of time on Palawan throughout my mission haha ;)

Thursday night we had a sweet turnout for the basketball! We had more RM’s there as well as priests. They brought some buddies and all in all there were about 40 of us there at the church!! While people were waiting to play we were talking with kids and giving them Book of Mormons. Lots committed to going to church with their member friend and we’re going to try to track down some of them this next week. Gotta admit it’s still nice being the biggest guy on the court- ill keep taking advantage of it while I can.

Elder Mitchell has had some struggles with his toe these past few weeks. He got a nice ingrown toe nail and we got home one night and it was bleeding pretty bad. He ended up at the hospital one morning with the mission nurse and he’ll get surgery in two or three weeks here. We had to go to a Korean store to buy him some toesie socks haha. I liked when the lady told him to “check the woman’s section.” We then got him some sweet flip flops so he now proselytes in one church shoe and one flip flop with those funny socks. We made a bet one night and I told him at least 5 people/groups of people would notice his foot and ask about it. I wasn’t allowed to mention it but I could be creative to try to get others to notice it. Before lessons would start I would drop my pen by his foot and a few times I pointed my flashlight on my little phone towards his foot. Sadly he won the bet and I had to get him a large slurpee on the way to the car haha!

General Conference was amazing. I hope you all got the opportunity to listen. I’m excited now to go back and continue to study the words of our church leaders. The main thing that stands out to me after this conference is the fact that God prepares and calls the people He needs to fulfill His work. I think we can all say with confidence that President Nelson is THE MAN. But to my surprise my testimony and trust in my mission President was strengthened more than I could’ve ever thought. Since he has been here in our mission, he has gotten rid of many walls and rules that used to be implemented here in our mission. We are still expected to fully follow the missionary handbook and expectations are still high, but we have more agency now and opportunity to learn and grow in new ways. In a way, he got rid of the “Law of Moses” in our mission- a law in the past in the scriptures that was used due to the hard hearts of the people. Now instead of being obedient due to the many rules structured around us, many are obedient because that’s our desire.

We also began to “minister” more as a mission just this past month. Instead of leaders calling a structured three times a week like how it’s always been to “follow up” missionaries, we now call whenever we feel we want. At lunch, after a personal study, and instead of asking specific questions about numbers we can now simply just ask how they’re doing and better minister to their needs. Many of the calls now are just a minute or two to simply strengthen them. We have gone way with the phrase “follow up” and now refer to it as “ministering.” District leaders also minister to the companionships in their district now by spending 5 minutes or so before or after district meetings to talk to companionships to see how they’re doing and mainly focused towards how their investigators are doing.


Changes were announced in the church to where now “home teaching” and “visiting teaching” are done away with. Instead of having to visit once a month to share a lesson, it’s now doing whatever you feel is necessary to address the needs of the person. No set structure and not some many reports and numbers. The only thing that is reported is the amount of interviews the Presidents have with the companionships to discuss the members of the ward. The term used to describe these efforts is now referred to as the exact term- “ministering.”


It was quite a miracle in my eyes to think of all the similarities of the large scale of the church as well as the small scale of our mission. It showed me that my mission president is very responsive to the spirit and that the Lord is guiding all of His servants to do His will. I’m thankful for that experience I was able to have at general conference April.

Have a great week!
Elder Reber

Jud!!

Hellooo

Hope everyone had a great week watching General Conference! We will be watching it this Saturday and Sunday and we’re super excited. President pulled the all-nighter Saturday night here watching some of the sessions. Apparently he kept freaking out and went to wake up Sister Fermanis a few times throughout the night to tell her something cool that had happened in the conference. Haha classic President. I’ve been able to hear of some of the big changes coming and am excited to watch it to get the full explanation. Also heard another temple is on it’s way to the Philippines! There are now 2 temples here and 3 that are either under construction or announced. Pretty exciting to be here at this point of time!

This week was Holy Week here in the Philippines. Most people here in the city take the week to head back to their province and visit family. They celebrate Christ throughout the week (usually by chuggin beer haha.) There was no traffic which was super nice and in the mornings Makati was like a ghost town.

Found two new amazing people to teach this week! The first one is Lynn. She was referred to us by Tina Lobo- the less active fam we’ve been working with (they came to church again 😊 ) She lives pretty close to them and she told us she’d go to church before we even taught her a lesson! She got sick and slept in too late on Sunday so she missed church but Friday night we had a family home evening at the Lobo’s house and she came with her 12 year old son Carl. They cooked up rice before we got there and we bought two full chickens from a spot not too far away. I feel they will be at church this week and we’ll hopefully be able to teach them a few times.

Jud is the second guy. He is 24 and is a total stud! We found him sitting in the room of Sister Dole (recent convert that we sometimes do laundry for on pday) and he has just moved here from his province not too long ago. We taught him right there and he explained that where he’s from he’d pass by walking missionaries all the time on his motor. He always thought it was crazy how far the Elders would walk. We gave him a Book of Mormon and returned to him the next day. He read our assignment then went back to the intro and read through that as well as the testimonies. And WHOAAA next time we went back I wish I could explain how good his explanation of what happened to Joseph smith was. Honestly dead serious I couldn’t have explained it as well and in as much detail as he did to us. He had the dates down, names, everything. We were so shocked haha! On Sunday he was the first investigator we got to church in quite some time. He is set for April 28 to be baptized!

I mentioned Miller a few weeks ago- the one from Phoenix. He was actually baptized over in the province while we were in Palawan!! I think I forgot to mention that last week. We taught him again this week and introduced him to bishop one morning. He’s such a cool guy it’s so fun being around him. He is working on learning tagalog and he’s going to work with us a few times each week now. Awesome seeing someone completely change their life in a few months. It’s amazing to see how much they’re willing to give up. It just reminds me that all of God’s children have the light of Christ. They know deep down right from wrong and have the same potential any of us members have.

Thursday we had MLC and that night we had our first Thursday night basketball activity here in this area. Elder Petersen and I did it a few times over in Las Pinas and saw some success so we decided we may as well get it started here. We had lots of priests there and a few investigators but hope next week we’ll get even more at the court. Lots of guys just came from the nearby houses but I’m not sure if any of them were very interested in church haha. On Sunday we coordinated better with the ward so this Thursday we think it will be more successful.

We had some great appointments with members this week- one of them being Bishop Satorre. I always love going to his family’s house because their two little kids speak English. It’s super weird talking to a 7 year old girl about Elsa in English because it’s pretty rare to meet English kids here. It’s super funny though I convinced Carly that Elder Mitchell was a unicorn. She nearly checked his head for the horn haha. P day we got to eat with President’s family and a missionary who was a visa waiter. He’s going to serve in Africa and will be missed here.

One night we knocked on a door and there were four kids about our age inside. We asked them if they knew a steph nearby and they said “no.. what’s his last name?” We then answered saying “steph curry” and all of them started laughing super hard. We then pointed at one of the kids in the back and acted like we thought he was steph curry. We didn’t think it was that clever but hey they laughed even more. So we took that moment to ask if we could come in and introduce ourselves and all at once they all went quiet and the at front simply said “no.” Hahah it was such a change of emotions we were laughing about it the rest of the night!

Love you all! Have a great week.

Elder Reber