Week 56...Lasam Philippines

 This week was pretty low key.  We are back to work full time.  We have been teaching our progressing investigators about Word of Wisdom because they have some vices, but I am SO proud of them because they are really doing everything in their power to overcome their addictions and its so awesome! I am still trying get back int Super Sayan status, but I think I am almost fully charged, we will see what happens this week. 

We had only 5 of our investigators at church because it rained on Sunday morning, and rain means... lets not keep the commandments and go to church... for a lot of people haha. Especially here in Lasam, because when it rains it is super muddy and most of Lasam is dirt roads....BUT "if ye love me, keep my commandments."  

I finished 'The Miracle of Forgiveness' and it opened my eyes. I AM SUCH A SINNER AND I HAVE SO MUCH TO REPENT OF!  Straight and narrow is the way that leads to Eternal Life, and no unclean thing can enter into the kingdom of God, and we cannot procrastinate the day of our repentance, and if we don't repent and endure to the end we cannot obtain eternal life.  There are a lot of members in Lasam, active and less active, that are not repenting and enduring to the end. I realized yesterday that I haven't been working with members enough and helping them repent and endure to the end. I have been working with investigators 24/7. But I realized that if I don't help the members repent and keep the commandments, their blood might come upon my head. So we are gonna have to rework our crazy busy schedule and make time to reach out to the members in Lasam.  

Elder Salazar is a humble and kind person and super loving and serviceable and he always wants to serve me and look out for me even though I am fine, and I tell him all the time that I am good, and I give him a hard time because I like to just mind my own business and let other people mind theirs, haha, so I will have to work on that and be nicer this week and let him serve me, and maybe I will try to be more serviceable as well.

I love you all. I want all of you to remember to that we cannot be saved if we don't repent. Even our little sins, the ones that seem innocent and harmless and that we ignore need to be washed in the blood of the Lamb, because no unclean thing may enter the celestial kingdom.  Sometimes we think to  ourselves that,"God understands me, He knows I mean well, He will forgive me and save me at the last day." But in reality, we are only procrastinating the day of our repentance and misinterpreting what the grace of Christ is, and when it is applicable. Mercy CANNOT rob justice. We must repent to be forgiven, and to obtain an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom. There are no freebees. Don't let Satan lull us away into a sense of carnal security and pacify us while he leads us down to hell.  Pray that we may endure temptation and come off conqueror, and repent so that we may be forgiven and have joy.

I love and pray for you all.

Next week I will have a better email I promise!

Love,

Elder Andersen

 

 

Week 55...Lasam Philippines

 More Pigsa's...

This week was supposed to be another super sayan week, but it turned out to be lame, but then actually ended up pretty successful.

I waited for  my new companion on Tuesday for 6 hours in the hot sun.  I already had some brand new little pigsa forming on my thigh and other places where the sun don't shine, but I guess the sitting in the heat for 6 hours really accelerated their growth and swelling and they hurt so flippin bad.  I had about 5 or 6, and one nasty pig one that is perfectly placed on my sit bones making it very painful to sit and lay down.  Me and my new companion Elder Salazar got home around 5:30 pm and then we went right out the door and worked becuz I am a wild man and I love God more than i love resting because of pigsas. Then the next morning we worked for 4 hours in the hot sun and my pigsas kept hurting worse and worse, so when we got home around noon, I told Sister Andrada about my sitch and she told me to go the hospital ASAP and get checked up.  The doctor made me pull my pants down and show her my pigsas hahaha. It was awk. But she said that I am getting pigsas from being out in the heat all day and so she says that I shouldn't to missionary work  during the day time and should stay in side all day because my body cant handle it apparently. HAHA that definitely wont happen. But anyways, I had to by these heavy antibiotics and some pain killers. Afterward I called Sister Andrada and she said that I should rest until they are healed but also to use my own judgment about when to go out and work because I know my body better than she does.  So I decided to rest a lot this week and work when the Sun goes down to allow my stuff to heal.

SOOOO the work was not the best this week for obvious reasons. And since I have been resting so much, I am kinda thrown out of my wild man missionary mode and fear and laziness are creeping back in, so this week I am gonna have to get into crazy wild man mode again and FEED THE LORD'S SHEEP.

But this week still turned out to be a success thanks to God and God alone. We had district conference this week, and it is a 2 hour drive from Lasam and the fare is expensive, so we weren't expecting a lot of investigators to be able to come, but we were surprised to see 8 investigators at the district conference and 3 of them have never even met with us yet and came because they were invited by members and other investigators! SO nuts. The talks were great and President Andrada totally killed it and the Spirit was strong so I was glad that my investigators go to here him speak. 

My pigsas are healing and they don't hurt so I think I am good to go now for this week. I am taking the medicine and drinking my super juice every morning to boost up my immune system so I don't get any more cursed pigsas. Seriously I am turning into Job.

My new companion is Elder Salazar, anotha filipino. He is older than me in the mission by 3 months, but is younger than me in years and I am still the senior companion.  He has a lot of love for the work and for the people and for me....maybe a little too much love for me, but I pray the Lord will help us to a mighty work here in the next 5 weeks. Elder Salazar is a good teacher and can carry his own weight and do his own part in the work so I am gonna have to re-adjust so we can be a unified companionship, which is a very good thing!

Right now I am reading the Miracle of Forgiveness by Prez Kimball and it rocks.

What else? Idk. I love you all!  I here America is going bananas right now with Donald vs Hillary and crazy protestors and all sorts of scary stuff so y'all please be careful!  The Lord is always in control no matter how crazy the world gets!

-Elder Andersen

Week 54...Lasam Philippines

Hello friends. I will be another 6 weeks in Lasam HAHAHA. Which will add up to 7 and 1/2 months total. HAHAHA.That is more than a quarter of my mission, HAHAHA. Elder Roberto is transferring before me, HAHAHA.  

It rained and I slid down the hill on my puwit (on accident)

But this week was really good cuz we had 9 Investigators at church!!! FINDING WORKS! All you other missionaries should give it a try haha.  I am kinda annoyed I am still in Lasam but happy at the same time cuz our work is exploding and I am crazy stressed and tons of people are interested and tons of people want to be baptized and its crazy. I think that is why President hasn't transferred me yet, so I can keep doing what I am doing. My area is the top finder and also has the most baptismal dates.  All you other missionaries JUST FIND. IF YOU GET REJECTED SO WHAT. This transfer or in the last 6 weeks, I have found 199 investigators total, and we only have 20 baptismal dates. Not everyone will accept the message. Find and filter. Walk down a street and CRY REPENTANCE TO YOUR AREA! PRETEND LIKE YOU ARE ENOCH! Enoch was such a ferocious missionary that the people in his area called him " A wild man," and "all men were offended by him." 

32 And the Lord said unto Enoch: Go forth and do as I have commanded thee, and no man shall pierce thee. Open thy mouth, and it shall be filled, and I will give thee utterance, for all flesh is in my hands, and I will do as seemeth me good.

 33 Say unto this people: Choose ye this day, to serve theLord God who made you.

 34 Behold my Spirit is upon you, wherefore all thy words will I justify; and the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course; and thou shalt abide in me, and I in you; therefore walk with me.

37 And it came to pass that Enoch went forth in the land,among the people, standing upon the hills and the highplaces, and cried with a loud voice, testifying against their works; and all men were   offended because of him.

 38 And they came forth to hear him, upon the high places,saying unto the tent-keepers: Tarry ye here and keep the tents, while we go yonder to behold the seer, for he prophesieth,  and there is a strange thing in the land; a wildman hath come among us.

 39 And it came to pass when they heard him, no man laid hands on him; for fear came on all them that heard him;for he walked with God.

I promise you will have success if you LOVE GOD more than you fear men, and open your mouth and invite all to come unto Christ. FEAR NO MAN. That is what Enoch did and he got a whole entire city translated and taken to Heaven because of it. The Lord will put words in your mouth like He has for me. I carry around a Book of Mormon while finding and I just open it up and read any verse that pops into my head while I talk to people. I talked to a newly wed girl that was sitting on a curb the other day and she told us that her first child died after birth last month. She is Catholic so of course they have their beliefs about baptism. I asked her if she wanted to know what happened to her child even though she wasn't baptized and she said yes, so I opened right up to Moroni chapter 8 which talks about how children are alive in Christ and go straight to Heaven. I watched tears come to her eyes and she said we could definitely come back and teach more to her and her husband. That is all it takes. Just walk up to people without even knowing what to say, with a blank mind. Say hi and introduce yourself, and have faith that the Spirit will put words in your mouth as you open it. Get to know them and listen to them and just wait and see what the Lord gives you to say. If you have faith that He will fill your mouth, He will. I experience it everyday.

But anyways this was a good week, and we had 3 baptisms in Lasam. It was awesome and the water was super warm even though it was raining. It was super muddy and we had to walk way far to get to the river, so everyone including me fell and got all muddy haha. Our investigator who I baptized is Sister Roselyn Latawan, she is 11 years old and from a part member family. She was so happy and she couldn't stop smiling after she got baptized and even on Sunday when she got confirmed.

Tomorrow i will meet my new companion so we will see how that goes. I hope he is ready to work until he can't stand because that is what I will be doing and NO ONE will stop me. I fear no men, including other missionaries haha.

SO I am having some serious technical difficulties right now and my computer just wiped 1200 pictures from the entire first year of my mission from my camera card. :,( Plus my camera is broken. I bought a flash drive and copied pictures from Elder Sivo so I could show you guys the pics. I guess it is just the one year mark thing. Brand new year, brand new missionary, brand new everything, starting from scratch haha. LAME!

I love you all!

-Elder Andersen

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Week 53...Lasam Philippines

So yah... I just hit 1 year. :0

This week was another Super Sayan week. We lead the zone in number of lessons taught and in new investigators found, and in baptismal dates given  BUT SO WHAT because we don't lead in sacrament attendance and in baptisms and Lasam still doesn't have a chapel and there are thousands of people perishing in unbelief... so there is SO MUCH WORK LEFT TO BE DONE.  That's one thing about missionary...it's never over, it's never a job well done, because there is always more people to find and more to teach and more to baptize and all that. There is always more to be done. The Lord is never done either. 

This work is so important, and it is so hard.

I don't have a lot to say, or maybe I should have a lot to say, but I don't know what to say.  Maybe I will share one of my many experiences I had this week.

I want to talk about tithing. Tithing is a massive problem for the members of the Philippines.  We tract down a long lost less active family this week.  I entered the home, which for them is a dark shack lit by candle light, and the first thing I saw was nothing. There literally was just about nothing in their home. No chairs, no furniture, no beds, no nothing, other than a fire pit where they cook, and a piece of paper with a checker board drawn on it where the kids play checkers with bottle caps.  We sat down on the floor with this little bitter old lady who was curled up in a ball on the floor and leaning against the wall.  We talked with her a bit and asked her if we could teach her. She said yes and so we prayed with her.  She went on to tell us about how she was 'forced' to be baptized by the branch president, even though she didn't want to, and then how they were 'forced' to pay the tithing for three years.   Elder Roberto was the one leading the lesson so I just listened to them at the beginning. Then I asked this lady if she believed if God loves her. She got quite and started thinking, and then she quietly replied "I don't know if God loves me or not."  I asked her if their life was good during the 3 years that she payed tithing. She said that they had money and life was good. Then I asked her why she stopped paying tithing. She firmly told us that she can't afford it and she is not able to pay tithing. I sorta wanted to tell her that she can't really afford much else either. I asked her if she thought her situation improved after she stopped paying and she said that they have been poor ever since. Of course we immediately opened to 3 Nephi 24 where Jesus quotes Malachi chapter 8, specifically about the law of tithing, and all that about that amazing promise about how God will open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing and there will not be room enough to receive it for those who pay tithing.  I promised her in the name of the Lord that if she would pay tithing again and come to church, that her life would become more prosperous and pleasant than it ever had been in the past. Then I asked her again if she would pay tithing again, and she sat there and thought a while, and said again that she wasn't able. I felt the Spirit so strong during that lesson and Elder Roberto felt it and I know she did, and I can't believe she didn't say yes.

Missionary work is hard haha.  Pay your tithing. The promise in Malachi is true.

It is transfer week next week so we will see what happens.  I love you all, and hopefully I have a better email for you all next week.

Love,

Elder Andersen

P.S. BTW I have another mini pigsa just above my previous one uggghhhhhh... OWE

Sorry also for my crappy pictures, my camera is broken :(