FRIED CHICKEN, FRIED STOMACH

Sorry i just typed a full letter and half of it got erased but i hope you still engjoy the email :) Having Elder Olpin with me has been so much fun! I am very excited for this upcoming transfer. This week came with many surprises ones that were awesome and one that did not treat me so kindly.

On Tuesday night my companion left and I was left a lone wolf that night...with my house mates of course because i can never be alone actually but the next morning we went over and picked up Elder Olpin which was really fun! I had a lot of fun getting to know some of the new sisters that came into our zone (as zone leader i take care of transfers and people coming and getting to their new areas). We spent that day at the house, unpacking and talking about the zone and the new things for the transfer and also introducing the zone to Elder Olpin. After a long time of talking we decided to go out and teach and meet with our investigators. Everything was going great until i started feeling so sick! Earlier i had taken a dare on eating this fried chicken from a place that we always eat breakfast and i have never experienced any problems but whatever was in that chicken had completely destroyed me, i spent the rest of the night regretting that chicken and planning to never eat fried chicken again hahaha it was sad. I think the worse part was the next day i was too sick to eat the pizza that President had bought for our meeting! Nothing stopped me from taking home a brownie that Sister Hughes made and saving it for later. This took us out of a work for a bit and of course as I started feeling better Elder Olpin experienced the same thing except he got sick at a members house. It was horrible poor guy he kept trying to work though but we ended up taking a rest at 7-Eleven for a half an hour. We were really bummed about being held up from being able to work because we had so many people we wanted to visit and teach. God really did provide a way though we saw so many miracles this week.

We visited Grace again and she still had some questions about the Restoration so we went over that again and answered her questions. She is so very nice and she is really trying to find something for her family. we testified to her about the importance of a prophet and focusing on her coming to know if Joseph Smith was called as a prophet.

We visited the Esterninos family and really focused on the basics, reading, praying and going to church. I love that family and i want to help them because they struggle with reading and praying together and they rarely go to church. They truly are so nice and i know that they are getting closer to coming back into full activity.

Alright this is where i just about lost of everything else...in a nut shell what i said was...

The Macatol family is in full activity and more and more keep coming to church in their family we taught them and the mom is starting to look toward the temple so to help them stay on the right path we invited them to start holding family prayer.

The Arellano family also is now all going, the father is not yet a member and has not gone to church for a year, since his wife and kids got baptized but now finally went as we have been teaching his sister and she is now going to church! After going to church he loved and accepted a baptismal date! We were so happy!

Jelyn (an investigator we had been teaching since november) finally went to church and we wer so excited about that and she is now ready to get baptized with her daughters and we are so excited! it took so much patience but were are so happy and we feel that now is the time!

So many other miracles happened but I cant list them all because one...i lost everything and two there were so MANY miracles! Serving God is a work of miracles. You cannot serve successfully without Him because this is His work. With all of these people i have seen that God has placed them before us. Every week we go out and find people but when we teach them and listen to them we realize that WE didn't find them, but God brought them to us. I am so grateful for the family I have and as now i am celebrating 18 months of being out, today and i love the work and being able to leave my family for a bit which has been made eternal to help others follow the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ which is His plan that is found only in this church so that their families can be eternal. It is such a great work! I love you all!

Elder Wright

ELDER OLPIN IS COMING BACK

TRANSFERS!

I am going to miss Elder Lougee but i know that things with Elder Olpin will be so very fun! I am really excited to be companions again! it has been almost a year since we were last companions and it is really going to be so much fun! We were in Tungko Mangga together. i sent a little picture of us together at the Christmas party.

This week was miracle filled AS USUAL!!!! Honestly, serving a mission is hard and stressful and can have many disappointing/hard times but there are so many blessings that it is impossible for me to focus on anything bad. I am sorry that all of my emails sound the same hahaha it is just too fun here! I really just love walking down everywhere and smiling and saying hi to people and i have been trying to live by this quote that i found. "[Smiles happen] in a flash, but the memory of [them] sometimes last for forever". When you smile at everyone and show your love you can never not have fun or be negative! Its easy and simple!

i want to share some miracles from this week tuesday was such a great day we had district meeting and Sister Morris came in clutch with the chips and salsa which took our breath away! and then we had our first appointment with Grace the lady i met by the church weeks ago on exchanges. This time we only taught her but we had a really good message becuase whenever we teach i always try to listen and see what the Lord would have me say or ask so i can help people understand our message and its importance to them. Sometimes people just go through and testify and share the message and then after they always wonder why the people they taught never understood. It is because you need to be just as interested in the people's needs and life as you are in the opportunity to share your message. This is the principle of "No one cares how much you know, unless they know how much you care" (Anonymous). As we were teaching and i noticed that ntohing was really impressing upon her i asked her the question..."Grace,  both Elder Lougee and i noticed that you have really strong faith...How did your Faith in Jesus Christ become so strong?" A simple question but it changed the lesson because i wanted to know about her and she then wanted to know what our message was. She told us about how God saved her child and it was great because she said that since she has always tried to do the right and follow Him. This helped us explain our purpose in helping people follow Him and the right path. it was an awesome lesson. Later we were blessed again! We went to find this woman that i talked to on the street and found her house but they were busy so we laughed and talked and then started going the other direction. that was when again i felt the Spirit push me to the next door neighbor we always have passed by and i started asking questions about her and her baby (one of my favorite oym tactics) and next thing you know the mom and sister and we start talking and the mom was so happy to see us. She started to cry! she opened up to us about how she was taught before and wanted to have us teach her. Long story short we went back to her again and we had a great lesson! I could see in her eyes that she accepted our message! it was so wonderful! We had so many other miracles! i wish i could write them all but i have such a little time!

The lesson is we never know who we can help and whose life we could bless. God has a plan and is Spirit and our obedience will guide us! i love you all!!!!!

Elder Wright

elder olpin is my companion again

the moon earlier this morning was so bright it shined right through the open window and lit the room a bit! it was beautiful!

burritos

this dog was basking in the sun right outside the church...all nice and combed ready for church

datinggaling family

cauilan family

SpAgeTTi

This week was such an amazing week! I am so happy to be here hahaha i know i always say that, but it is true! Serving is so much fun!

Monday was really fun and we spent part of our pday at the bowling alley which was really cool! I started off pretty horrible, but i got pretty good after a bit. After that we didnt do much until we went and taught Nita and Bonifacio. FINALLY we were able to move onto a new lesson and topic. We have been spent the last lessons trying to teach but ending trying to answer all of his questions and concerns which was not solving anything but we were able to share about the Plan of Salvation and it turned out really well, but there is still more we need to teach them so we set a return appointment.

Tuesday we had interviews which was really fun but we have so many members in our zone so they took a long time.

Wednesday I had the wonderful opportunity to go on exchanges with Elder Walburger who is just about to finish his training soon and he was so much fun to work with! He had me laughing the whole time! I was cracking up! He had so much confidence in talking to other people even with his broken tagalog that they didnt even care and just liked talking to him and hearing him talk!

We first got punted from our appointment so we decided that we would go finding and try to get into someones house to teach a lesson...i mean who DOESN'T want two Americans storming into their house speaking tagalog with the biggest smiles on their face?!  So we started going around but for some reason, i could just not feel that i was where i should be and i remembered the Rico family so i told him that we go near their house and find. So we trecked on over there and started finding and i started going down one way and just felt the constraining powers of the Spirit telling me to get out of there! So i turned around and at this point he is probably feeling like "will we ever stop walking?!" (E. walburger). Then as we are walking back we stop and see this one family and i get the impression to stop and turn around, so i have Elder Walburger start talking to them. Long story short they are not who we needed to visit BUT we got out of the house and talked to this girl Lyka who walked in on the lesson and the left soon after and she was very interested and we had a great lesson with her about families and the gospel. And she talked about how she wants a strong family because hers is broken. She is 18 and has a kid but no husband and lives alone with her older brother. We shared the message with such happiness and we knew that she felt good too about the message. Truly God inspires us and does guide us when are worthy and seek after His spirit!

Thursday we went back to Cindy and taught a great lesson to her, she is part of the Esterninos family and she seems to be interested and we taught her about the Book of Mormon and invited her to read and pray about it!

Friday we had another great lesson with Nita and Bonifacio with Brother Sarabia and we introduced the Book of Mormon to them which made Bonifacio have even more questions but Brother Sarabia really helped us out and helped him understand the importance of both the Book of Mormon and the Bible to teach the true doctrine of Christ in a world that is so confusing!

Another highlight of the week was finding a less active who had not been visited in a while and he was so happy to see us and to read from the Book of Mormon with us, it was incredible! He got so excited and wanted to come back to church!

Really this week the spirit guided us! there are countless wonderful experiences and i know that God wants to use us to bless the lives of others and if we will pray for the spirit he will give it to us! love you!

WHO LIVES IN A [SALTY PINAPPLE] UNDER THE SEA??

Why does it seem like that every letter references spongebob? I dont know i guess that is what happens when you are born in 1999 and the only thing on TV all of the time is either spongebob or...spongebob. I will proceed to tell you the marvelous story to how my appetite was ruined for sadly NOT the last time!

So over my course here in the Philippines i have had some very disgusting food...mostly delicious but there have been times where i have wanted to just give up the ghost, therefore allowing me to avoid any pain of eating whatever was given. You are all also aware that to even avoid eating i have discretely shoved food into my pockets in order to get rid of the evidence that i could not finish what was given to me. Yes again in all the letters of missionaries you have read i am the Elder who even slid a slice of the cardboard pizza they serve on the streets here into his pocket. This week had in store for me a double whammy. On New Year's Day we went over to this families house to eat some desserts and i dont know how someone could ruin desserts but that is exactly what happened...actually now that i think about it they just happened to have made some of the worst filipino desserts hahahah. i am laughing as i am saying this because i dont want to be so negative but they were horrible. We all wanted to give up the ghost. After having eaten dessert and just being served a plate of the infamous macaroni salad that i could not choke down at this point I knew i would be finished if i endured any more. Thankfully i had a ziplock bag in my bag and as soon as i pulled it out without saying any words, everyone knew what i was going to do. So Elder Auseuga got up and started talking to the family to distract them. Elder Morris moved across the room to me and i hid him as he carefully slid the macaroni into the bag. Success was mine, but I was still severely wounded. my stomach was left with battle scars. We got out though and i proudly showed the evidence of a battle one and then my companion pulled out of his bag the food that he had secretly thrown in. the rice cake and sticky rice we were all dead both in laughing and in not feeling good. Mercy did not come because there is a second time. Elder Lougee and i were sitting in a lesson and we were served pineapple which was one, a first and two, a dream come true. Against what we expected, as soon as the pineapple touched my tongue my body shriveled up and i probably turned green! The pineapple was covered in salt! It was horrible! hahaha! I did not think pineapple could be ruined but it tasted like it was soaked in the ocean and thrown on a plate. That is one thing i dont miss about the beach, swallowing the ocean water hahaha.

I never will forget those memories i am so fond of hahaaha.

This week we I had some great experiences though that did not involve me being pained.

I worked with and Elder who is doing rough, we went on exchanges the other day and he was struggling the a lot. He doesnt have the best tagalog and was not confident in his ability to teach. the whole day he was pretty stressed. So I sat down with him and listened and talked gave some simple advice and told him to not worry about teaching and think of it more as testifying and sharing what you love because who is opposed to sharing what you love?! He really liked the idea and i also gave him somethings to read that would help him. One was a poem and the other was a letter that my uncle sent to my brother when he was struggling and it goes over different things we struggle in the mission and solutions. I really like ministering unto him, he is a good guy and I know God has such strong love for him and desires for him to be happy.

We also had great opportunities in teaching.

We taught this really old and sweet lady named Juana but the lesson we had was not really effective because she was so old that she could not reall understand. She is the mom of one of our members and she speaks Ilocano but still knows some tagalog however as we were teaching her, her mom wasnt there to help so she would zone out during the lesson. we will try again this next week to teach her again haha.

Do you all remember Melvin? he went to church last week right after we had just met and taught him. We taught him again and brought a member with us named RJ, it was awesome! Melvin seems that he is really interested and wanting to change his life! I love seeing how important religion is in his family, he always gets excited to have his 6 year old daughter say the opening prayer and it is really cute!

We met Melvin at brother Chavez's house and that is the next person i want to talk about. He has not yet gone to church but he has a lot of questions about Joseph Smith and prophets. I really felt the spirit guide me as i focused on what Heavenly Father would have me say to him. the lesson was really good and i could tell the Restoration made more sense but he really needs to go to church and pray for the truth if he will really understand.

I have written about Carlito in a while but he is the firend of Sister Arellano and is suffering from really bad arthritis and we visited him again and he was so happy to see us and he believes in everything we share to him and has so much faith. he is so great but cannot walk yet. but he told us that he believes that he is getting stronger since he has been listening to our messages and surprisingly he has been. he is started to get more muscle on his bones and seems to be able to move around more. I loved seeing him and seeing how happy he was. he is such a great person!

Sharing the gospel is the best! it is such a joy! i love you all and hope you all are doing good!

Elder Wright