After skype

So right after the skype I just cried a lot and rewatched my 8 min recording for an hour, then I went to the baptism, the zone leaders were sick so I actually got to baptize two people!  Rose and her Boyfriend Romell were having a hard time because they need to get married before she can get baptized, the marriage license costs $40 but Romell only makes $3 a day and they use that for food.  Elder Arnejo and I fasted for them to find a way because I know that Heavenly Father wants her to get baptized and he has the power to gather $40 haha.  The next day, some people in the ward got together and I think they are going to help her pay for it so our prayers were answered!  I love teaching Sister Rose. A is still having a hard time with the word of wisdom especially because from Christmas to New Years here is like party central and everyone is continuously drunk and smoking between those times.  They also have these huge fire cracker sort of things and a lot of the little kids are losing their fingers because they don't know that they have to throw them.  Litterally every single kid here got an airsoft gun for Christmas, so from Christmas until now there has been a continuous airsoft war surrounding us,I'm  surprised we haven't gotten hit yet haha.  On the day we fasted, at 7pm we finally got to eat, we had spaghetti at a members house and I ate two huge plate fulls until I was totally full and felt satisfied, we then visited the Dones family just to say hi and they were having a party.  Sister Dones made us come in and she had a ton of food for us.  I had two plates of chicken alfredo and two plates of Fruit salad.  Whenever I Was finished and thought I would explode because of so much food, she would just yell "you eat more, you eat more!" at me, so I kept eating.  When I finally finished my 4th plate, I was so happy to be done, and then she brought me a huge cake! When I finished that I was praying that she wouldn't have any other food.  And then she brought me more desert!  When I was walking home I felt like I was about to die haha.  It was a fun week I feel like I have gotten my determination back, we will visit the temple after this.

Christmas Hello!

 

 

 

 

Cole's email to us this time wasn't much! haha He is excited to skype with us on Christmas in 4 days...but who's counting!  He has recieved his Christmas packages so he is excited about that.

The Manila Mission had a goal to have a "white" Christmas.  Meaning baptismal white.  On December 26th he will have his first baptism and he is very excited! The man's name is Rueben. 

Cole loves the ward he is assigned to and they have fed him dinner every night this week.  He was able to go to a ward mission Christmas party and a mission Christmas party.  He said they were fun but he felt like they were "wasting time".  He is very into his OYM (open your mouth) goals and doesn't like to stop working.  He told us this quote..."if you want to baptize a few people, then talk to a few people, and if you want to baptize everyone you can, talk to everyone you can." I am so proud of his dedication. 

He has struggled with home sickness and in his journal he writes that he has faith that he will get better but that he prays that it will get better quickly.

Some questions he answered for me....

How many lessons do you teach a day?  3 or 4 a day
How many miles do you walk a day? about 3 miles every day
How is your ward?  They are great at feeding me but they need to give us more referrals.  (our  
    missionaries would say the same about us in Utah too haha)
Spiders ins your apartment?  No but lots of cockroaches
What will you do on Christmas Day?  Open my presents!


Cole also mailed Coby and his Dad each a birthday gift this week.  It was so cute!! He sent Coby a Boy Scouts of the Philippines shirt and Jeff a Ferrari pen.  He wrote them each a nice letter as well.  He mailed the package via DHL and it got here in 3 days!!! I couldn't believe this so I asked him about his money situation! It cost $40 to mail the half pound package.  He gets $160 a month of flexible money.  So he spent a whole weeks worth to ship the package.  Crazy boy.  Luckily people have been nice to give him a little Christmas money in his account!

I had two miracles happen this week.

I had two miracles happen this week.  I experienced the gift of tongues in its fullness on Dec 10.  We went in and taught this guy and his daughter about the sacrament.  It was a short normal lesson and after it was over my comp talked to the daughter and the old guy started talking to me.  He told me that he was 70 and that he feared he would die soon and he didnt know what would happen to him.  Only he said this in all Tagalog and I understood him perfectly!  I was them able to tell him of the plan of salvation in fluent Tagalog for the next 10 mins! The whole room got silent and listened to me.  It wasn't that I used words that I didnt know, but every word I did know came straight to my remembrance and was as readily available as English! It was awesome! Right after I was done, I couldn't understand and speak any more .

I also had a good talk with my comp about how a couple months before I came, someone told him that he wasn't good enough to teach the gospel because he had only finished 10th grade and thats why he was struggling.  He said that when he saw me trying my best to talk to everyone even though I had no idea what they were saying, it changed his mission and that he was super grateful for me.  It was awesome, I will continue to try my best but it is very hard

 

This is from Cole's email to me.  I asked some questions, one being, "Can you buy toilet paper?".

 

haha ya but I dont think I will, its expensive and our toilet doesn't have the power to flush with toilet paper in it lol, but it's ok I'm used to it now.

We usually teach like 4 or 5 lessons and walk a lot.  I led the zone in oym's this week along with my companion so that was awesome! I got 132 my goal for this week is 210!

The food is better than the MTC I eat rice all the time now lol still just rice and chicken, and a lot of spaghetti but its like a sweeter version, but it is still good.

I got the christmas package I think inside the pillow case I haven't opened it yet but that's the only thing I've gotten.  I think you still send them there.

I think I'll skype you on the 26th here so it can be Christmas for you I don't really know the details yet but I will figure it out.\

I love you so much Mom

First Week in the Mission Field

This email was kind of hard for me...he was always so positive at the MTC.  I'm sure we will get more like this though.  If everything was always easy he would not grow and gain experience....

I love my Mission President he knew who dad is before Ieven asked him so that was cool.  His wife is awesome too!  My companions name is Elder Arnejo, he is from Mindinow which is an island.  The most his dad ever made was 9$ a day as a fisherman.  It is really hard to relate to him, he is also super into the rules and its super annoying all he ever says is bawal it seems sometimes haha.  I am living in this little apartment in Makati. No toilet paper I hope the water is clean, cold shower, there isn't enough room for me on the toilet so my head is always jammed up against the wall.  There is no ac so it is always hot, we have a stove, but no microwave so I can't cook my popcorn there is no jerky in the Philippines.  People are nice in my area.   All of the kids are always like "sup bro" or "hey man" cuz they must have seen it on tv or something.  I have had like 20 girls ask me to marry them, one old drunk guy, two gay guys, and like 5 shemales so thats kind of annoying. No one here really speaks english it is really hard I never know whats going on because everyone talks super fast.  I miss Sister Barton and everyone else from the mtc.  I hate it most of the time, but there are some good moments like when I met bro jib.  On Wednesday I am going to a members house and I guess he has an electric guitar ibanez something so I am excited for that.  There were no packages or letters in the mission home:(

It is super hard I miss you guys and love you more than anything.
 

Letter from President Ostler

PHILIPPINES MANILA MISSION

P.O. BOX 1997

Makati Central Post Office

0714 Makati, Metro Manila

Philippines

4 December 2015

Dear Brother and Sister Zesiger,

Great news! Your son arrived in the Philippines Manila Mission last Wednesday! We picked up all the new

missionaries at 6 AM from the Manila MTC. Your missionary looks great! Each of the missionaries expressed

enthusiasm and excitement to begin their work. We fed them well, trained them with all the health, financial,

and mission things they needed to know to get started. We also taught them how much Heavenly Father loves

them and how He expects them to do their best, but that He is also a wise, loving Father. We showed a video of

our one-year-old grandson, Ryan, learning to walk. They saw how Ryan’s parents encouraged and cheered him

on as he was taking his first steps. We discussed how they were never upset with him if he wobbled or fell

because they understood he was learning to do something new and that he would need practice to be able to do it

well. That is the same type of experience your missionary will be having. We hope you will support and

encourage him during this big transition time. Help him realize it is natural to feel “wobbly”, but as he keeps

trying, he will find his abilities growing until his confidence and enjoyment increases. Soon, he will love the

work and the people with all his heart.

We are so very grateful to you and your family for sharing your missionary with us and the wonderful people of

Manila. We hope that you will be able to enjoy the wonderful growth that your missionary will be experiencing

during his mission. We encourage you to email him weekly and share the positive things happening in your

family. If you have serious concerns or worries about your missionary, do not hesitate to email or call us. You

can reach us via email at 2018209@ldschurch.org or by phone at 011632-836-4963. We, or our office staff,

would be glad to help you.

Your missionary has been given one of the best missionaries of our mission, Elder Arnejo, to be his trainer.

They will be serving in the Bonifacio District of the Bonifacio Zone. We expect great things from them. Please

see the enclosed pictures for your enjoyment. We love your missionary, and we again express our appreciation

for your willingness to share him with us. We will do all in our power to help him have a happy and successful

experience here on his mission. May Our Heavenly Father bless you and your family.

With sincere gratitude,

President and Sister Creg D. Ostler

Philippines Manila Mission

 

 

Last Week in the MTC

I asked Cole what he does as District Leader in the MTC...

 As District Leader pretty much am the teacher most of the day, people come and talk to me about problems too and every Sunday I teach a sunday school lesson. I put Shelby and Dad on the prayer role today.

I went procelyting again, this time in Manila! It was awesome! My companion was the Zone Leader so that was cool pero he let me lead which was hard but cool.  At first we did some street contacts and I got us 4 return appointments!  Then we started knocking on some doors in the squatter area,(which means their houses are made out of trash and their doors are really sheets) One family let us come in and we taught them the Restoration.  It was weird when I walked in dahil he had no pants on just really tight small under wear and his like 20 year old daughter had no shirt and was breast feeding a baby lol.  They weren't listening very good at first dahil they belonged to the Iglesia NI Christo so they kept trying to tell us we were wrong, pero when I quoted the First Vision to him in Tagalog and told him the story of Joseph Smith, he was silent and listened, the spirit was super strong and he accepted the Book of Mormon and said that he would read it.  I said the closing panalangin and then we heard people yelling, it started getting really hot so we looked outside.  There was a huge housefire! So we ran away with the family and their house burned down.  Apperantly in that fire over 75 people died and over 100 houses burned down! It was the craziest experience of my life.

I found this story online...http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/world/2015/11/25/76396584/

 

Sister Barton and I had our secret Christmas party. She and Sister Holzworth gathered everyone from their district and I grabbed everyone from mine and once all the teachers had left we went into my district room.  We all brought our gifts and distributed them and opened them one by one and tried to guess who they were from.  It was awesome.  Sister Barton got me one and she bought me two bags of jelly bellys, carmel apple suckers and a gatorade because she had heard me talk about those things every once in awhile during conversations haha.  It was aweosme even though it was against the rules I think it was still good dahil it brought everyone closer together.

 

The fish that stares at you while you eat it.

 

 

If you would like to send Elder Zesiger a Christmas card his address is

Philippines Manila Mission

Elder Cole Zesiger

PO Box 1997

200 Makati City, Metro Manila

Philippines