My Tatay is Leaving (Week 18, Venezuela City, Gen. T. de Leon Ward, Elder Belnap)

So tomorrow i get my new companion and i am done with training! but i am sad to leave elder Belnap, however i know i will love my new companion. He just finished his training so we are both new and will have some learning experiences together. I think that me and Elder Pajarin (my new companion) will have some good things going!

So sorry we had preparation day on tuesday because transfers are tomorrow.

Monday- this day was sweet! we spent part of our day doing some yard work which then turned into having fun hahaha. I had the opportunity to take down a coconut in a tree with a spear like thing made of bamboo! I also got to try coconut for the first time fresh right from off the tree! I got to cut it open with machete which was cool and then later proved my native skills by using a rock to bash open the coconut and drink from it...it was awesome! and it tasted so good! it weirdly reminds me of sprite...it is hard to explain. after that we had this thing called a Budal Fight or something like that.it was basically a bunch of food on palm tree leaves and we ate it without plates circling the food. (there was really no fighting happening).

Tuesday- We had zone conference which was really fun and then after that we got back late so we visited Gxx to read the Book of Mormon with him which is something we want to do with him to help him and Jyy [] to receive the blessings and guidance that come from reading the Book of Mormon.

Wednesday- Went to Ayyy and she has been having problems worshiping Mother Mary and doesnt see why it is against the commandments of God. So we were trying to help her with that and then after that they told me about how our investigator Ryyy (the one who calls us her guardian angels) likes me and wants the person to baptize her to marry her...believe me that ain't happening. I was shocked and that has gotten confirmed to me by a fellowshipper in our ward. he had a talk with her about how i am a missionary and stuff but still i just feel so weird around her now so hopefully things get better.

Thursday- I went out with a ward member and taught and then we helped Ward members with being missionaries. We had them go out and give a Book of Mormon to someone it was all a success until the one we tried to give out didnt want the Book of Mormon so that was funny to be the only people who couldnt place it. There is failure and there is success in missionary work.

Friday- Belnap lost is baseball to an angry dog who snatched it as he rolled it at where it was and not past it. We also went to this part member family and the husband who is not baptized wants to change and go to church now which is a miracle because it has been almost a year since his family first took the missionary discussions.

Saturday- We had a blitz that day and all of the missionaries in the zone did work in one ward zone it was good work done for the ward. We later found out that night we had no water which was not fun!

Sunday- we still had no water. A lot of people showed up for church and then later we taught Ayyy.

Monday- We finally were able to get water back and had found out that someone probably turned off our water pressure outside. it is nice to be able to have water again, that was not a good time hahaha. We taught Ayyy again and we tried helping her with how we need to follow the life of Christ and also shared scriptures in the Book of Mormon about how we pray to only the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. She had a miracle from Heavenly Father helping her understand how she needs to worship him only and no one else and it was amazing. she is getting closer to the knowing and understanding the truth.

Love you all! sorry no pictures, the computer i am at wont let me send them!

love,

Elder Wright

Guardian Angels (Week 17, Venezuela City, Gen. T. de Leon Ward, Elder Belnap)

i love it, an investigator, Ryyose, always calls us her guardian angels. it was so funny because she told us that we looked like angels when we first met her. 

Monday- Elder Belnap and i were riding on the back of a truck again, as usual, and as we were going along on the ride i looked down and right in front of me was a HUGE spider. and im not talking about your "HUGE" spider that your little sister will find in the bathroom and then calls for you to kill it and then you refuse and tell her to kill it herself but eventually you go and kill it and then say "that wasnt even that bad! haha" Im talking about a big giant long spider about probably bigger than a baseball and it had its long legs just hanging on the back of the truck right in front of me. i told elder belnap and he was shocked with how big it was! i tried to move away from it the best i could but there wasnt a lot i could do holding onto a moving truck so i eventually lifted my leg up and kicked it off the truck. it was awesome. my companion said he saw it move up the sidewalk in front of a family hahaha sweetest. Also gave myself a haircut, NO MORE BARBERSHOP FOR THIS MISSIONARY! the haircut was a success...sweet! (saying the last sentence in the voice of our beloved Napoleon Dynamite).

Tuesday- Elder Belnap and i might not be together for much longer which was sad to hear. Also, my comp and i planned a whole day to work with members...there was a ward thing going on sooooo our day was...yeah...but we got some members that had been reactivated from being less active to want to help us with less actives. [].

Wednesday- We worked with this ward member named Jxxeff or Jxxeppoy. He was awesome! i mean incredible and like coached our investigators it was sweet! he definitely helped with Ryyose. on a side note- Ryyose owns a door company and is making elder belnap and i miniature sized doors because i asked her too hahah hilarious.

Thurday- Elder belnap and i found new investigators. and i had the gift of tongues flowing through me like crazy i felt like. it was absolutely amazing and it was probably one of the best restoration lessons because they asked a lot of questions and i was just so happy that i was able to communicate and have the Spirit really helping me.

Friday- Trying to help our investigator gxxlen with reading the book of mormon [] we are gonna have to spend some extra time with him to help him

Saturday- missionaries in my zone have told me that my tagalog is pretty good so that makes me happy because sometimes i feel pretty bad. there are a lot of cross dressers in the philippines! thats just a little something random. Went to a stake christmas party...it was not a christmas party...[]. just a bunch of loud music and watching people dance. that was sad cuz it was called Christmas in November or something like that.

Sunday- this day i went on splits with the ward mission leader and this ward member Rxxandy. we taught two less active families and i did most of the teaching. the ward mission leader helped sometimes but i pretty much was taking the lead in my tagalog which was hard but i think it went okay because the Lord was able to help me through.

I love you all! Times here are rough and there are hard times but the Lord's hand is able to be seen if you try to see it. and His hand is also in all of your lives. We just have to choose to see it and we will see the blessings. we could all do more of that and it will help us be closer to him if we do.

Love,

Elder Wright

me drinking water at the church and just so thirsty

our pathetic christmas tree

me with a ward member that wanted to take a picture

someone's garden like place

me holding bananas

White Boys Like Chocolate (Week 16, Venezuela City, Gen. T. de Leon Ward, Elder Belnap and Elder Cuenza)

This was an absolutely crazy week people...

Wednesday- This day was my temple trip day. Preparation day (emailing day) is always monday. i forget to tell you guys when preparation day changes so i will do better at that. but we went to the temple in manila. That took up a lot of our P-Day so by the time we got back we emailed, did laundry and what not. Later that night we went back to our [] investigator Ryyose. We talked about the restoration of the gospel of jesus christ and about joseph smith. She LOVES to talk and always has so many questions. it's awesome. she is definitely a good one and she is hilarious, [] so we always have fun. After that Ryyose fed us Misaw. its a chinese noodle dish that was pretty good. After Ryyose we went home and that was the end of our day...so far the week is normal and good.

Thursday- We have two sellers on our street Txxatay and tyyina, (tyyina is my favorite because she is awesome and makes awesome lugaw) so i dont buy from Txxatay much and he always points it out. so i felt bad and finally gave in to buying txxatay's lugaw...it was a sad day. :( i spent five more pesos then i would have at tina...i shouldve been stronger. But its okay i got over it hahaha. Later i went to tyyinas and bought this one dish of food or ulam (anything that you put over rice) and then i went and also got this other dish that was literally all lungs and some veggies...WHY ON EARTH DID I BUY IT! i had some, a little more and was just like alright im done! so i took it and cheese grated that crap! cheese grating is when we throw out something past this metal gate that covers an opening in our patio and opens out to a bunch of trees. so i dumped out the lungs three stories (where are apartment is). After that we went to the Sxxabado family (they are less actives) but it looks like we got the daughter to come back. she told us she is busy and also she jogs so i told her that our spirit is like our body. it needs to be exercised and then i related it to i think going to church adn then told her i will see her next sunday and she has come since. but anyway we got referrals from them and talked. We finally got Gxxlen's sister, Ayyrlene, a bap date!!!

Friday- We went to Myyarisel but she wasnt there. We then went over to Jxxoelle this guy who owns a junk shop and taught/talked with him as he smoked three cigarettes. He is cool, he gave me a license plate which was a sweet souvenir. Went to ayyrlene's house and Eyylleanor was also there and she just probably wont ever get baptized, [] it's sad. 

Saturday- This day was ABSOLUTELY LOCO! it started off with us going to the place called Tibagan riding on the back of a truck for a bit. we got there this kid [] was calling me mom. we sat adn talked with this crazy old guy and elder belnap sat on this bench and the leg just came out so he fell. it was awesome! the whole time we were sitting there i had kids just talking with me and all over me and what not so i didnt really know what was going on. It then as we were walking around started raining pretty hard so Elder and i had to find shelter. his pants were soaked, even with an umbrella it was awesome. I thought today was gonna be good, i got out and was getting a bunvh of high fives from kids when i first got out and it felt sweet. and everything was still good until []. we headed out away from Santa Monica, we went there r tibagan in the bed of someones truck. it was sweet like everyone was looking at us as we rode through. [] I wish i could write more about it but the whole story would have to be later. [] Glen's sister is really good and she is really doing good things.

Sunday- We wetnt to this luncheon to see our investigator Ryyose. it was sweet the food was good. and we got some new investigators and found someone who really is looking for guidance and help. we think he could be good. Oh and miss otter pops left us...she dropped us because of family problems. that was sad. On better news i gave a talk in church on obedience! it was good Elder Belnap said i did good and the spirit was there and thats what i wanted especially speaking in tagalog. Also the lady who always has a resting frowny face told me it was inspiring so that made me feel happy knowing that my message was able to be received as i spoke tagalog. i know the Lord helped me with that talk to know what to write and to say. and i really hope that we can really help the ward.

so i like to end with saying some things from week or something that i learned and i think i will tie in a little something from my talk. my talk was really simple about obedience. i talked about the Why, what and how of obedience.

The Why's-first: God commanded us to be obedient

second: We made a covenant to keep his commandments when we were baptized and renew them as we take the sacrament

third:

Being obedient is how we show our love to God and in return he will show us love as we show him we love, NEVERTHELESS he always loves us. we just need to do our part so he can bless us.

Fourth: he will bless us as we our obedient. i.e. he will give us his spirit as our constant companion

The "what" of obedience is simple try your very best and keep the commandments. that is obedience. you dont need to be perfect. but you need to try your best.

the "How" or how to be obedient is dont be like Laman and lemuel and complain when God commands something. be as Nephi of old and say to God, "I will go and do the things the Lord commands..."

I'm sure we can all find ways to be more obedient. Especially we need to remember the importance of praying and reading the scriptures as families and doing Family home evening. and dont worry i will strive to be more obedient with you all.

I love you all. you are great people and i hope you all have wonderful weeks!

Love,

Elder Wright

bird house

otter pops

catholic church

before elder english left

HAPPY HALLOW ------- wait hold on.....SCRUB-O-WEEN (Week 15, Venezuela City, Gen. T. de Leon Ward, Elder Belnap and Elder Cuenza)

Sorry i am emailing you all so late! i had my Preparation day today because we had the chance to go to the temple.

Here is the week of Elder Wright!

Monday- I can't remember what we did and i forgot to write down the things we did before hand but this day was p-day. i think we hung out at the chapel with some of our zone..? oo our investigator that i met Ryyose has been doing research about mormons and is really interested to hear our message.

Tuesday- we had zone interviews. they were good! i love talking with President! he gave us this challenge to simply do 30 Invitations to act everyday and he said that as we follow this goal that we will receive blessings, so we have been tracking our invitations to people. we taught investigators and then had to go home because we had power scrub on halloween. so we spent the rest of the night scrubbing away listening to christmas music.

Wednesday- we had curfew again that night and we did more power scrubbing.

Thursday- Before elder belnap and i had decided to make a birdhouse in our apartment because we have had birds fly into our apartment so we made it out of a water jug, an ironing board and our christmas tree to add some flare. not gonna lie it's pretty sweet, i will send a picture. i think this is the day that we went around with the ward mission leader and visited some less actives. (they didnt come to church).

Friday- we visited Lyyope but he wasn't there again! rats! but we taught his daughter and she seemed really interested in the gospel. we are trying to teach his whole family.

Basically we had a rough week with investigators except for Ryyose and Myyarisel our investigator we thought we were gonna have to drop turned around.

Elder Belnap and i created this plan called family first that tracks Family prayer x7, family scripture study x7, FHE, are still paying full Tithing and if they went to church every week to help strength families in our ward because the families in our ward struggles with obedience. it is based on what elder bowen spoke to at a mission conference that faith in christ + obedience = miracles. and its so true. i really have been reaffirmed the importance of created a strong gospel centered family and i invite you all to check these thjings weekly

Love you all!