My prayers were answered and I didn't get transferred!

Letter to Mom...

The baptism went perfectly.  I love their family, they are all kind of shy but amazing, the husband even missed that day of work so that he could attend!  We also have 3 looking good for the middle of March.  Great job on your talk!  You guys prepared me well just by being awesome parents.  I tell stories about you all the time, every single companion that I've ever had worships dad because of all the stories I tell haha.  My comps name right now is Elder Mangaoang.  My prayers were answered and I didn't get transferred!  Something kind of cool happened though, Sister Barton is in my district now, but I never see here.  She is on Coron, Palawan, which is awesome by the way, but not as good as Boni 6 hahaha, but because there are no Elders there, she is in my district!  We are doing really well lately, all of our numbers are above the standard of excellence for the mission.  The average OYM is 126 and we average about 200 a week.  I love it because I just go up to people and I'm like Puwede po ako magpractice ang tagalog ko sa inyo? (can I practice my Tagalog on you) but I say it slow like I can't talk.  And then they say yes and then I eventually invite them to hear the gospel haha it works every time.  I love you mom.  It was kind of sad a couple of days ago because I lost my SD card with all my pictures on it..... most importantly my recording of our Skype, but its ok, but still sad.

 

 

Letter to Dad.....

 



Did you read the Ricciardi letter, I've been waiting all week for you thoughts on it haha.  This week was great for me too.  We got 2 more baptisms and it was fun.  There is this investigator we have that shows the power of the Book of Mormon.  Her name is S****.  Our first visit with her, she could care less that we were there.  Our second one she didn't read the Book of Mormon so we postponed the lesson and read the intro with her.  We asked her to pray and she said no, so I did.  Then the change was crazy!  When we returned for the 3rd visit she was on chapter 21!  She says she knows it's true and wants to be baptized.  I wish we could just baptize her now like in the challenging and testifying missionary, but the soonest date with the rules is March 26.  Its awesome though!  She came to the baptism to watch and to church too.  It's getting pretty fun haha.  Tell mom pansit is one of my favorites.  Im going to this cool store right after this that has a lot of sick fake stuff like sick Nikes that usually cost 300$ and here they cost like 20 also I'll look for some rolexs haha.  The crystal on my Seiko broke so I can't wear it anymore.  I accidently oymed a bakla a couple of days ago.  A bakla is a transgender.  But they are everywhere here!  I wasn't wearing my glasses and I just saw the body and the hair and it was dark so I said "kumusta po kayo?" how are you,  and he responded in a deep voice "ayos lang:)" which means just ok.  I speed walked away without responding hahaha they always stare at me and try to talk to me and its freakin scary lol.  In the Ricciardi Letter it says fear no man, and I say it every day in the mirror, that's why we average 200 contacts a week now while the rest of the mission gets 126.  But I do fear them hahahaha!!

I used to take The Book of Mormon for granted

For your talk (I'm speaking in church so I asked him what I should talk about), tell them to spend as much time as they can with their families and make memories, and read the Book of Mormon and take the challenge in the second to last paragraph of the introduction.  It's amazing how powerful that book is.  90% of the missionaries here are recent converts to the church, I never realized how much I took the Book of Mormon for granted until I came here.  Promise them, that if they prayerfully read it, then they will discover things, and gain knowledge, faster and in greater quantity than anything else.  I have been studying this thing called the "Ricciardi Letter" recently, you should read it to prepare for your talk, it talks about why the heck would the Lord send 18-21 year old kids to share such a critically important message.  Think about your life in segments of ten beginning at 8, 8-18, 18-28 , 28-38 and so on.  He said that the one that the most stuff happens in is the 18-28, and Heavenly Father knows that.  So he gives us the opportunity to serve him and gain more knowledge than we could anywhere else.  I remember before I left, I asked you if this would help me in life more than reading and studying success would, you said yes and I didn't believe you, but because of peer pressure mainly, I left anyway.  I can now say that I have learned more in these four months than I think I did in all of high school and in all my reading.  The letter says that you get 10 years + of wisdom packed into 24 months that you could not get at any university in the world, I testify that that is true.  If people in our ward are debating whether they should go to school first, tell them no, it is a waste of their time and money, they will be far more ready for it and get a lot more from it, after their missions.

I have a cool story,  about a month ago, this guy from California came on a vacation here for a week.  Some other elders found him and brought him to church, they were trying to teach him the first lesson, but he couldn't understand their broken English and they couldn't understand his lisp.  So they found me, I taught him the first lesson by myself, invited him to be baptized, gave him a Book of Mormon and then he left back to Cali.  I hadn't heard about him since until yesterday.  They found me and told me that he just got baptized in Cali on Saturday!  Its amazing how the Lord works right!

 

 

Following the mission rules

 I had my interview with President and it was awesome.  Right when I walked in he said, "Elder Zesiger!  I've been really looking forward to talking to you, you are always so open in your emails to me and I know that this interview in going to be great!"  I ended up going way overtime and it kind of messed up the schedule for the rest of the missionaries but it was awesome!  I prepared a lot for the interview so I had a lot of stuff to talk about.  I talked about my email problem with him (he would "chat" back and forth with us during his hour email time and it's against his mission rules) , and how I love you guys more than anything and that this email time is my very favorite thing in my life right now.  He told me that I am very lucky.  He said that most missionaries here don't get any emails from their families and he told me to pray about whether or not I should follow the rule.  I did, and I am going to.  I hate it and I have no idea why, but I know that in order to be the best missionary I can be I need to give up all disobedience to the Lord, even if it feels like it's killing me! :'(   I also told him about my experience with Elder Bednar and he was amazed.  He told me that I have no idea how much the Lord loves me to begin my mission by sending an apostle to help me:) it was cool.  I can't stop crying right now.  Umm I don't know if I will get transferred, I will find out next Tuesday.  I'm stressed sometimes, but I had a cool experience with that too. As I was sitting in sacrament meeting, I was looking at the deacons, running around super stressed and trying their best not to fail, I remember that when I was a deacon, it was scary.  And then I thought of my life right now, its kind of the same thing, and I know that soon I will be looking back at it like I am now looking back at my time as a deacon. 

Rose didn't go get her marriage papers so her baptism is next week.  She promised us that she would go and get them today so I am praying that she does!

Marilyn's baptism was awesome, we found her about a month ago with Elder Arnejo and I got to baptize her!  It was awesome, she thanked me by name in her testimony:)  I had a cool experience with testimony too.  We were teaching this family and the dad has a smoking problem.  He asked if Heavenly Father could help him quit and I promised him that if he had faith in Jesus Christ, he could help him do anything.  The room went silent for like 2 mins.  It was amazing!

 

You can email Elder Zesiger @ cole.zesiger@myldsmail.net  and he won't chat back with you! :(

But I am so proud of him for following the mission rule and I know he will be blessed.

I'm trying to not have 80's rock playing in my head all the time!

So, this week I've been working more on patience and humility, and not singing worldlyl songs.  I've been doing pretty good, it's really hard not to sing the songs cuz my brain has been trained my whole life to be a radio that is constantly tuned in the 80's rock and eminem.  I had one moment of weakness last night.  We were teaching this lady on the street because if we don't have a pangatlong lalaki or third male, we can't enter the home, for safety reasons.  As we were teaching, a huge party started about 10 feet away and they were blasting eminem!  It took all of my will power and relying on Christ to focus hahaha.  I did good except for a couple lines of rap slipped out, but it is ok because I don't think the lady heard me lol.  My mission is really fun!  We have the baptism of Marlyn and the marriage and baptism of Rose finally scheduled for this Saturday!  I'm so excited!  We also have a family scheduled to be baptized on the 27th and they are looking good too!

Something really cool happened yesterday at church.  We teach a less active named Chit.  I love her and care a lot about her.  When I first met here, she did not care about the missionaries even though she has a daughter on a mission too.  But one day, four weeks ago , with Elder Arnejo, we taught her about families, and how if her family sees her example then I promised her that they would eventually return to church too.  Since then, she has attended church every single week.  She was less active for 20 years before this.  And, on Sunday, she bore her testimony, about missionary work.  It made me cry haha, it made me feel like all of my efforts here aren't for nothing and I am super happy to help, in my little way, to bring sister Chit back to Christ:)  So, this week was good haha!

 

 

We did not get a very long email this week! :(

 It's good here, we have two baptisms on the 13th, Rose and Marlyn.  A lot of people who had dates for the 27 didn't come to church but Jenny and Lady did so they are still shooting for that.  I'm getting zits on my face and its scaring the crap out of me so I bought some medicine and I've been washing my face like four times a day haha.  No I haven't gone to the office yet so I haven't gotten anything since Christmas.  But its ok, time is going a lot faster now so it doesn't seem like that long.  Jonas had a cool dream haha.  He dreamed that he, Elder Arnejo and I were all eating dinner at our house, and Jonas had a missionary nametag too.  But we were all speaking Tagalog haha.

 I asked him about the food..."The food is the same, I ate squid and it was gross.  I tried balut last month, it just tastes like a hard boiled egg, but it looks like an alien and it has bones and feathers haha.  I dont know why people like it lol."

 I asked him to tell us a good experience this week...."I don't know its hard to find cool experiences now because the time just goes so fast and it just feels like we are always running around."

 I asked him if he is washing his garments. earlier he said he wasn't that often because he had to wash them by hand.  They send all their other clothes out to be washed....."I found a washing machine place so I wash them every week now."  (I am happy about this!)