It is so HOT!!

Magandang hapon kayong lahat! Kamusta kayo!?

Grabe... sobrang maiinit dito sa Pilipinas! lalo na sa Mindora ang island kasi... malapit so dagat, pero sa appartment namin, mayroon kaming masarap ang hangin! 

Hey everybody! Just sweatin my days away!

I can not believe how hot it has been these past few weeks! We are just ending the Hot season here in the Philippines and I have never experience so much heat! Some days it gets up to 90 degrees! and how ever high the humidity is, which is especially high because I am on an island, and am close to the ocean! phew! its so flippin hot! You just sweet all the time, all day everyday! even if you have a flan blowing on you! It is crazy, and I am not enjoying it hahah, I have always said I like the heat but this is to much. I will take a shower and minutes after the shower I will be sweating again like I am working out! If I do anything recreational its like I am taking a shower in my sweat, all the Filipinos make fun of me saying I shower in my own sweat haha. I am going to die, when I have to experience the winter in Utah! bleh... Not looking forward to it, now we are starting to get into the other season of the Philippines, raining season... I don't like rain haha! It has rained every single night for the last 4 days! Remember in my first area were there was always floods!? because it rained so much!? There is no floods here because there is so much vegetation, but it just rains so much during rainy season! There is two seasons here; Rainy season, and Hot season. ha, I don't know which one I like more. 

Work has been good, a little frustrating, and discouraging this last week. President Peterson is just throwing down the Spiritual bomb on the mission, and just trying to refine it into perfect shape before he leaves! He is going crazy! We had another Zone Training this month, but this one was different. This time, we just came, and President spoke for 4 hours! It went a little something like this... He chastised us first, big time.. told us how to fix it... and then inspired us to act! It was crazy, we all had headaches after and none of us could think, because there was just so much that needed to change ha! President Peterson for me is like the Latter-Day Moroni! He ain't afraid to chop some heads off if someone doesn't comply, or needs to improve, but somehow you can just feel the love behind it. He is the Man. Us missionaries say that he is going to become a General Authority. That will be cool! So after that Zone Training everything has just been a lot more stressful and a increase of haste in our work! After the meeting one of our Zone Leaders was banging his head on the wall saying, "I've been doing it wrong for two years!" hahah.. I laughed so hard, he goes home next transfer. 

What President has said has been true, and is working, Elder Bituen and I are applying what we learned, and we are seeing the results from that as well! Though we don't have many investigators at this time, and the ones that we do have aren't progressing very well, there has been a ton of improvement in the Branch. I have felt that our purpose in being in this area at this time is to Fix this area, to set it straight, and set the example of missionary work. We have been working with members, and teaching members like crazy, it has been most of our lessons. We are seeing member starting to fulfill their callings, and more less actives coming to church! Its awesome! So I am just keep fixing and keep planting those seeds in my areas haha, but its okay I know I am here for some purpose, for some reason, and I might never know why until I go to heaven, but Ill just trust in the Lord that he is putting me where I need to be.

Thats it folks, I hope you all had a good week! I look forward to speaking to you all next week! 

-Elder Kikel

Guest of Honor

Hey!

Well Today is going to be a bit shorter cause I don't have too much time but I will still try and get some good stuff in! 

This last week was the best numbers wise since I have been in Mindoro! Woo! Our prayers are being answered! We are finding more people to teach, and all those people are coming through referrals, and we are also started to work with our members more closely and focusing how we can help them exercise there faith, and grow stronger in the Church. We have been a lot busier now because after our Branch President showed us where all the Less-Actives live and the super far areas, we have been just working our butts off trying to bring these people back, and find new investigators in those far areas. I will tell you one thing I don't not want to be a door to door salesman! We try to stay away from tracting as much as possible, because it is the least effective way to find new investigators. How many of you when as soon as you open your door and see a salesman there automatically think that you don't want anything to do with it! hahah... I did...

We are teaching 2 families right now, and hopefully a third, and it is pretty difficult! to make sure everyone of the family members is there, and are paying attention, that they all understand the message, and all that good stuff, its been rough. Plus, we have discovered a few deep concerns with the main family that we are teaching (Lapara) that have cause us to move their baptismal goal date... but Tatay still came to church again! Which is great, we just need to help them have a spiritual experience! Also our recent convert Brother Maur! He is awesome! He still hasn't missed a day of church since we started teaching him! He is so faithful! He won't eat pork because it says in the Bible that we can't eat pork or something, but he is just so diligent in studying, and he comes with us and works with us, teaches, and testifies, and he is really good at it because he actually studies the Gospel. The Branch all ready has him participating in activities, and have responsibilities! He doesn't have a calling yet, but I think he will have one soon! It is so awesome to see that my First baptism is doing so great! It brings so much peace to my soul know that he is going to stay active, and help this branch grow! I see a potential leader here! 

So one funny thing that happened to Elder Bituen and I this last week was that we were invited to a wedding reception of one the members relatives, so we went for just a little bit to support them even though we were super busy that day! They had this huge ritual that the Filipinos do, its hard to describe, but at one point they gather the groom and bride and stand them in front of these tents with tables and stuff with all this food, and the call in all the relatives, and guest of honors. well towards the end, the member that invited us to come kept ushering us to go in the tents! We were to shy we didn't want to because everyone would see us go in , and we aren't part of the family! hahah.. She forced us... and we went in,, it was super awkward, so we were guest of honor at a wedding reception that we didn't even know hahhah and we sat down by all the young ladies and men, and we all ate while everyone else watched... it was funny, but the funniest thing is that we gave them a Book of Mormon as a wedding gift! HA! Elders be creepin... 

Also today for Zone-Pday we went to the beach again, and had a lot of fun! Played some Ultimate Frisbee, and some other games, made smores, and got a long! It was a blast and much needed! I love Mindoro it us so much more fun here! I hope I am not transferred, I would really miss this place! All right thats it folks! Till next time

Love ya,

-Elder Kikel

McDonald's. A little piece of home where ever you go.

 

Smores! Even in the Philippines..

 

Part of the Zone

 

Wait... Whats that!? Yep... its Sister Bennion again!

 

We smash 20 missionaries in the Truck! Filipino style!

 

Little miss short stuff! 5 footer!

 

 

 

The 40th Email!

Dear Diary...

Thats how I feel these e-mails are, since I send one every week! This is my 40th e-mail I have sent home since I have been in the Field! That is crazy! 

Well today is going to be a bit shorter of an e-mail there is not much to say. 

One really cool thing that we have going on right now is that we are teaching a family (Lapara Family) that is a part member, and they are a family of 7, so we have a goal set for them all to be baptized on June 14th! We are super excited for them! Nanay (Mother) has a few concerns, and is pretty much a die hard catholic, but she is starting to recognized how the Gospel will bless her family, and the cool part is that she said that she prayed to know the truth and feels that everything that we have been teaching her and her family is true! Whoo! Tatay (Father) is the one who is most interested in our message, he gets so into it! Its funny because if you were to take one look at him you wouldn't thing he would be the kind of guy to be interested in religion. Its awesome, we are really hoping everything will go well with them, and we will be able to help them resolves their concerns. For some reason baptizing entire families is a hard thing to do here in the Philippines so there is tons of Part-Member families the need to be completed, and so this is like Gold to us and we are trying everything that we can do to help them progress, and feel God's love for them. The scary thing is that once again those baptisms are right after a transfer which is on June 5th. So... hopefully I don't get transferred again hahah that wouldn't be to fun! 

Skype was awesome! I am sure you are all hearing about it anyways from my mother.... hahaha It was nice and yes I was little bit homesick after but how can you  not be? I was able to get over it pretty quickly though and we ended up getting 4 lessons that day! So that was great! Our area is starting to progress, and we are seeing the fruits of our labors, even if they are small fruits ;) ha. Elder Bituen and I are really excited for the rest of the transfer because things are finally starting to get better. Its just weird to think that I still have more then a year left, and I might have 2 or 3 more areas! There is so much more to experience! 

While i was skyping I was asked how the language was coming along since I haven't really said anything about for a while. It's getting a lot better now. I wouldn't say I am fluent because I still have a hard time really understand what people are saying to me, but I can basically talk and listen to everyone I talk to, and get around town and stuff like that, its just a little bit of a struggle thats all. It's cool that I can even speak a different language! I was told that Tagalog is one of the hardest languages in the World! Whoa! ha it gave me more confidence and feel better about my efforts in trying to learn this language, its definitely a challenge. 

Well attached is a picture of a Van. These Vans are the fastest way around the island and they are crazy! You can ask my Mom the story I told about them over skype about them, but basically they just smash 20+ people in that thing and they drive like they are nascar drivers! Overpassing people driving on the wrong side of the road, and just making close calls. They drive all day everyday, so they are pretty good! It keeps life a little spicy sometimes! 

Wells thats about it nothing too exciting this week, so stay cool, stay fresh, and stay there until I get back! 

-Elder Kikel

No matter what job you have, you better be the best at it.

Hello everyone! 10 months down! grabe sobrang mabalis! 

Anyways lots to type today so Ill get typin'

This week was another usual week in Mindoro! ha Mindoro is crazy there is so many things different here on the Island instead of the Mainland. First off we were not able to pull out our support last wednesday, and so we waited some more and it never came. We were completly out of money I had 100 pesos left, and my companion had nothing haha and it was Friday! We made the call to travel to a different area in our Zone where we can pull out money but the thing was, the travel fee was 100 pesos! So if we wern't able to get our support there was no way back! We risked it for the biscuit! We went up to pinamalayan which is about an hour and half ride down south of Mindoro the farthest area in our Zone. We got there met up with the missionaries and found the bank they usually use, the ATM was offline.... and they wouldn't let us withdraw from inside because the mission uses Bank of America. So we wen't to another bank, oflline... so we went to another bank! Offline... and we were stuck in Pinamalayan! We had no money and nowhere to go! hahah we just wondered around, and looked at souviners and stuff like that until our leaders got out of their meetings that day, finally after 3 hours one of the ATMs was working and we were able to pull out our money, phew! that was a close one! We bought ourselves some mango shakes to celebrate haha they were sooo goood!

Also this last weekend we had District Conference was really cool, it was different then I expected and President and Sister Peterson spoke at both sessions which was cool, it was funny because President Peterson's talk was more like a workshop, and all the missionaries were to laughing and giggling. He is awesome and its going to be crazy when he leaves but we will won't worry about the right now. The main thing I want to talk about is my thoughts I was having on the way home after the Sunday session of District Conference, its about an hour ride. 

Most of you probably don't know this, but for some reason since I have been on my mission I have found myself constantly thinking about, dreaming about, and pondering about joining the Military when I come home. Once again I was doing this as we were riding home late at night, and just wishing I was in the Military, and imagining some of the things I would do as a soldier, wether I would join the Marines, or go army, and stuff like that. I was pondering if I was in the Military what kind of soldier I would be. I thought to myself I would want to be the person who everyone can count on, works hard, gets things done, and takes charge when everything seems to be going wrong, I am always imagining situations and stuff like that. After a while spending time pondering about these things wishing I was in the Army, a thought came to me. I am in the Army, the Lord's Army.

It hit me pretty hard too! and I suddenly realized the comparison! I am in the Lord's Army as we speak! The Spirit is my weapon. the Book of Mormon, and Preach My Gospel, are my tools to accomplish this work. The Vehicle of the Spirit takes me from place to place, house to house, person to person. My Testimony is my defense against Satan's constant attacks. I have been trained, called, and assigned by someone with more experience, that knows where I should be. My Battalion is the San Pablo Mission, my squad is the Mindoro Zone, and my Unit is my District. We go out in pairs of two trying to win the fight against the non-believers. Instead of establishing peace, I am establishing the Gospel in this land. I am in unknown territory, speaking a different language, striving everyday to survive and do what I have been asked to do. The comparisons can go on, and on. I then realized everything that I want to be as American Soldier should be everything I want to be as Representative of Jesus Christ, serving in His army. Whether I will join the Military when I return home I don't know, but I do know, that once again I need to give every ounce of my soul to this work to bring to pass the purposes of heaven here in this area, or wherever else I am needed. It doesn't matter how hard it gets, or how much success that I will have, as long as I am concentrated in the work, and doing what I have been trusted to do. Thats what matters to me, and there is more the i can do to improve, and really start getting this done, right! 

Ever since those thoughts I have just had an added strength and courage to take responsibility, and charge of what needs to be done, to work harder, longer, and by the Lords way everyday. It has been great, and once again, another learning experience, day by day, inviting others to come unto Christ and follow Him through Baptism. Its hard work, but very rewarding! I would like to quote Elder Murray fromt he Preach My Gospel DVD. " Those who are worthy to serve a mission, and choose not to go, are making the biggest mistake of their life." Its true, and its to hard to explain why. I hope all of you can ponder about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ has blessed your life, and the testimony that you have of it. 

Work wise... umm... still the same hahah... we are still struggling but we are working more closly with the Branch President and hopefully there is going to be some progress soon! Thank you all for you Prayers, and your Love, and Support in me I truly appreciate it! I love you all!

-Elder Kikel

-Or should I say Lt. Kikel.... hahahah joke...

The Redemption!

Okay lets get to business...

So... as I reported about my challenges with Elder Oliva and how we worked things out... well there was a relapse, for some reason he just was sick of me I guess and just went back to silence and no work... again... Such a waste of precious time... but this time I wasn't so patient, I have done my best to help him, and to resolve everything, and honestly I had a little resentment about everything that happen so I left it up to him to choose how he wanted to leave each other, and unfortunately we ended up leaving each other with out even saying good bye... In all reality I actually felt sad. sad that maybe I could have done things differently to change the situation but we all have agency, and some of us are just hard headed soo... yeah... haha 

Good news is the my new companion is great! Phew! It is exactly what I needed and this area also! His name is Elder Bituen and he is a Filipino, and in English his name is Elder Star, haha He is awesome he knows how take take charge, take responsibility, and lead, and guess what!? He just finished his training!! What the freak! He is so good! I was so surprised when he told me he just finished training, which means he has only been in the mission field 3 months! Just in the last few days we have all ready set a ton of goals, and visions for what we want to accomplish, and what we want to see different by the end of this transfer which is in June I think. We decided that we should focus on the Branch, because after looking over everything, we realized we are pretty much re-opening this area. We have almost no investigators, some potential new investigators, and not much help from the branch in finding new investigators. Grabi naman! This area just got even harder! but in a good way cause Elder Bituen and I are looking forward to working hard and trying our best to change this branch for the good. We have started to work with our Branch President and apparently he had something he wanted to say to the missionaries for a long time. He pretty much chastised me about me and the previous missionaries that have been assigned in this area have been lazy! hahah I took no offense because it was true, not much work got done while I was with Elder Oliva, and the same with the previous missionaries that I heard about. After that we began to share suggestions and ideas and now we are on page with the Branch President and he is going to start working with us to really help us know the area and all the less actives in our Branch, because there is a lot! 

This area is now i would say my hardest but now I got a companion who is willing to go through it with me, and we are excited for the challenge. I was reading Elder Wood's email today and he talked about how they were only managed to pull out 25 lessons! I don't know if thats just a joke or not but wow! hahahah... we got 4 last week... and 2 the week before... so... hahah that will explain my area. I understand all missions, and areas are different and have different standards, and visions of success. I have also learned never to compare yourself to another missionary or else your just going to tear yourself down! I am proud of Elder Wood, and it sounds like he is having blast! 

Well thats pretty much it for this week. Elder Bituen and I are praying everyday that the Lord will bless the minds and hearts of these people at this time in Victoria to prepare them for our hard work, and diligence we are about to bring forth. Hopefully next week, or in the next weeks to come I will be able to share some cool stories. I trust in the Lord that this is the very thing he will do for us, because this is the desires of our hearts and we have faith that its going to happen, and we are willing to do what ever it takes to be able to even find at least one person to help accept the gospel in there lives, and join the fold of God. I ask everyone to always remember the importance of the gospel in our lives, with out it, all life is eating, sleeping, and working, and that has no meaning. Try to help others know that there is more to life then that, and much more after! 

Okay... lets brighten things up a bit! Last week after District Meeting I was sitting with my District Leader, Elder Hammer who is also my batch! I was eating a desert that is called Halo-Halo (Mix-Mix) It just a bunch of random stuff with ice, milk, and icecream, I really like it but because its got a bunch of weird things in it he doesn't like them at all, I told him to try once again because its really good! So he took a big spoonful and put it in his mouth and was pretty much gagging hahahaha! The funny part is a few minutes later while we were talking he pulls something out of his teeth.... can you guess what it was? It was a fingernail hahahahhahaha! He was so mad! hhahah I couldn't stop laughing... I got a six pack that day, and now I lost it because of all the rice I am eating. But, because of me he will probably never eat a Halo-Halo again... but I made sure to thank him for removing the fingernail for me! 

Thanks everyone! Till next week!

Love,

-Elder Kikel

Me and Elder Bituen on our date... 

 

The Longest Week of my Life

Phew! Things just keep getting crazier and crazier! Okay where to start...

So first off Zone Interviews was awesome! President chastised us to work harder in our areas, and I also got chastised in my Interview hahah soo I guess that means I need to work harder! President is just whipping me into shape! Here is when things got crazy... In my companion's interview he thought I rated him out for everything that he is doing that is pasaway so he was really mad with me, I could obviously tell he had a problem with me so I asked him if he had a problem with me, and Indeed he did. Thankfully we were able to discuss those things instead of fighting, or arguing. Man.. oh... man... I took everything I had not to get angry with him because he was just assuming a whole bunch of things and I just wanted to set him straight, but I remembered what I have been learning for the last 9 months and applied the love of Jesus Christ haha I killed him with kindness! It didn't work though he just brushed it off like it meant nothing. I expressed with him how much I care about him and how much I want to help have a good mission, and to be able to work together, and also asked him how I can help. It was tough to do, cause you know we are macho Elders, but it just doesn't work that way in the Mission Field, or in life for that matter. I tried my best but he didn't really care so for a couple of days it was just pure silence, no work, and a lot of time to study! Imagine being with someone who hates your guts 24/7! It's not fun... I knew this time would come in my mission and now that it is here its not fun to deal with, but I have learned a lot from this experience, that I can definitely apply in life later on. Its all about love, service, and patience, and everything will work out. Which it did, after a couple days and a few phone calls with the Mission President, Elder Oliva sat me down and we talked again for a long time and finally worked everything out, so now we are back to normal, and I am glad we won't leave each other on a bad note.... Yup... I am transferred again!!

Ha jokelang... Elder Oliva is transferred, So this next transfer I will have new companion and I will stay here in Mindoro. I think I would be happy to stay here in Mindoro for 6 months (4 transfers) Even the the work is hard it is just happier over here, ya know.. cause we got beaches! Anyways you probably all want to know about the baptism! Jeez la weez! Talk about stress! Our Branch President was out of town, so we had to organize the whole thing ourselves! Also, this is the first time I have done this so I had no idea how to make sure everything was done right haha, Elder Oliva did most of the organizing is much more experienced. A lot of the members were really helpful also which was awesome! Through all the choas and stress the baptism went smoothly and I got my first baptism! It was awesome! We wern't able to baptize in the ocean because it was  a holiday and there was a ton of people at the beach so that was a bummer but we organized for everyone to go to Calapan which is the Zone Leaders area and have our investigator baptized in their baptismal font, so it al worked out great and it was a really happy day, everybody was so excited, and all the members know who are investigator is so it was nice to know that the members will take care of him after we get done teaching him the rest of the lessons after baptism. Brother Crisostomo was so happy and he bore a pretty powerful testimony, it was great. It brought a lot of peace to me and I am grateful for this experience to finally see the full conversion process, and the happiness that it brings!  Phew! so its all done and taken care of now which a relief so I am ready to get my new companion and hit the pavement running and start finding these people in my area that are just praying for answers, and searching for that something in life that they can't find. 

I am grateful for all the experiences in my mission, good or bad, they help me to improve to become the person that I need to be by the time I return! I still got 15months! Whoo yeah baby I can't imagine what else I am going to experience in the next year! It is just going by so fast! 

Also just help you all feel better about yourselves I washed my clothes by hand today, and it took me 3 hours... bleh... my knuckles are bleeding! Only... in the Philippines!

Love you all! Thanks for the Support! 

-Elder Kikel

 

 

Conference Weekend

Hey everybody! How are things going!?

There isn't much to report on this last week it has been a really quick one with a bunch of meetings that we had as a Zone and stuff! Then we also had General Conference! which was great I will talk about that later!

So first off I had exchanges on Monday with another area here in Mindoro and their area was like a resort! It was so Maganda! (Beautiful) it was crazy cool, we did a lot of walking in the mountains to do some tracting and it was almost like we were hiking, I sure do miss hiking!

Wednesday we had Zone Training meeting, and this where the Zone Leaders travel to the Mission home and receive council from President and then they come back and have a meeting with us to share President's council to the whole zone. It is really fun because you do receive a lot of spiritual insight and you get to see your entire Zone! My Zone is so awesome here in Mindoro its one of the smallest Zones so its more like a family and we all get to know each other personally, I got a funny story for you all... So there is only 3 sisters in the entire Zone and there is 17 total, so I was talking to the sisters at one point when we were all chit chatting and I was just being my goofy self and making them laugh and stuff, I forgot what we were talking about but this one sister her name is Sister Beninon in front of everyone yells out laughing " Elder Kikel is my favorite Elder in the entire Mission!" umm.... what? hahahahah it was so awkward! Everybody was like " ooooo..." so great, now everybody thinks we are going to hook up after the mission! anyways... We had two days of work then off to General Conference weekend! General Conference was great! We watched it in the District Center in the Zone Leaders area it was really nice, and I loved all the messages that were given and during the whole things I just thought about what kind of person I wanted to be, what kind of priesthood holder I am going to be, and what I am going to do, It was really weird! General Conference goes by so fast now when you actually look forward to listen and watching all sessions, it was something I really needed lately and it put me back onto my feet! 

with General Conference and P day its almost a 4 day weekend! Because tomorrow we have what we call Zone Interviews. Thats when President Peterson will come out to Mindoro and personally interview all of the missionaries in the zone, and we also have a workshop by the Ap's and Zone Leaders so thats going to take a good chunk of the day! but It will be super exciting and I look forward to it!

Also today we had a Zone P day and we went to the Beach! It was awesome nice white sand beach! I will try and send some pictures! It was really fun we played a lot of games and even played some rugby which was way fun cause I have never played it before but I think I would of really liked it back in High school, A lot more then Football.  

We are expecting a baptism on the 19th of April and it looks pretty solid, our investigator even traveled to come out and see General Conference also. He said when he saw the Prophet that he just got a feeling the he knew that he was a true prophet of God. Thats so cool! Now he really wants to be excited so hopefully this can finally be my first baptism out here and baptized in the ocean! Oh yeah! 

Thats pretty much it for today folks, I hope you all enjoy your Easter weekend! I am not sure what the Filipinos do for easter but I am sure they do something! 

Love you all thanks for you help and support!

-Elder Kikel