Elder Davis and I always walk through floods and like apocalypse-like rain and sing hymns, it's fun!

Mom asked if I had a fever, I kind of always have a cold cuz it's rainy season and the rain is acid rain cuz the air is really dirty so it makes everyone sick. haha But I'm ok it's a funny memory, Elder Davis and I always walk through floods and like apocalypse-like rain and sing hymns, it's fun!  

Here's a cool spiritual story with this guy named Roberto.  He is homeless and he lives in his tricycle.  Yesterday, he just came to church for the second time by himself, even though it is very hard for him to pay (maybe for transportation?).  One time, it started raining really bad, so I put my arm around him and helped him through the rain with my umbrella.  I have a really small umbrella so I think that's why I'm sick, cuz I got wet haha.  When my arm was around him, and I felt his little tiny bony shoulders, I felt the Spirit and how Heavenly Father was proud that we were helping him:) 

This week was really fun!  Elder Gibson got transferred to Narra, Palawan, so that was sad, but on the bright side, I am now a Godfather, by Filipino law hahahaha.  We helped the Maglaque family get married before their baptism and they didn't have enough people there, so I was one of the witnesses hahaha.  The priest was like "sa mata ng diyos, Cole Craig Zesiger and espiritual na magulang ninyo"  which means, "in the eyes of God, Cole Craig Zesiger is your spiritual father."  hahaha it was hilarious!  Their baptism was fun, Brother Maglaque will be baptized this September 10th, but May and Trina were also baptized.  Do you remember Kyla Gamido?  We baptized her in June and now we finally baptized her sisters, now we just need to baptize their parents hahaha.

Short post for my 10 month mark!

My experience for you this week is about L*.  After Elder Magno got transferred, I kinda forgot where her house was, but last Thursday, I felt a prompting that we needed to visit her and I immediately remembered where her house was, not immediately , but as I walked, everything became clear the closer we got, until we arrived.  She is never there on weekdays because she goes to work at 6pm, until morning, and she just sleeps at home until then, but this day, her dog woke her up an hour early, right as we arrived.  She was super happy to see us, she told us that she has been diagnosed with cancer and that the doctors only gave her 2 years to live.  She's only 32 years old. We shared with her a message, then gave her a blessing.  I tried to pray really hard before, so I wouldn't just try to heal her if it was not Heavenly Father's will.  But as I was blessing her, I told her that she would be healed, that she would be able to have kids and raise them in the church like she has always wanted to.  As I was blessing her, I felt the spirit tingling through me super strong.  Please pray for her.  She is less active, but she has stronger faith than most members, she just made some mistakes earlier in her life.

Also, I saw the scariest thing that I have ever seen in my life this week.  Over the last 2 weeks, every night before I go to bed, I have seen at least 2 cockroaches on my bed, but I've just been too tired to care, so I have just swept them off and went to sleep.  A couple of days ago, we were spraying the house with poison to kill our enemies.  I lifted up my mattress and was horrified to see a nest of at least 50 to 60 cockroaches on my bed.  I have been sleeping with them for I don't even know how long haha, it's terrifying.  But it's still fun and I love it here haha!

Sometimes the Lord with let us fail to teach us lessons

Letter to Dad....

I had my interview with President and while we were talking, he shared something awesome.  I told him about the baptism and then the wedding and then the district activity and how for 3 days nothing went right haha and this is what he said.  "Sometimes the Lord with let us fail to teach us lessons."  He said that he sees it all the time as a mission president, how the Lord sometimes will put two missionaries in an area together and it just destroys the area, over time, President has learned that the Lord does this to teach the individual missionaries.  

Elder Zesiger's birthday party!

I saw an example of this at church yesterday.  For the last couple weeks we have done really good with having investigators at church and we were expecting it to double.  Saturday night, we taught this less active named Brother Fernando and he hasn't been to church in about 3 months but he has really strong faith.  His whole family also depends on him as they will not go to church without him.  But because it rained so much earlier in the week, he wasn't going to hit his delivery quota and he was going to have to work on Sunday as a result, unless it rained.  It did rain and he came to church.  Because it rained, some of our investigators were not able to come, but only the ones that are already sure and missing one Sunday won't really hurt them.  It was just interesting to see Heavenly Father sacrifice something, for something more important.

Not the best picture but he wanted to show that he made his cake!

Other than that, I had a hot shower cuz I boiled some water, I also played a lot of yu gi oh this week. Oh ya and president said something cool.  He said I will probably never serve in Palawan, so that was sad but he told me that there are no such things as once in a life time experiences.  After 20 years he was able to visit his mission again with his whole family.  They had a lot of fun, but at the end he was sad cuz he knew that they were too poor to ever return.  He has now been back over 20 times.  He said that I have the capacity to do anything in this life, and that I will.

Being a missionary is fun haha I love you!

Letter to Mom...

  We had a super rainy week, 3 of the days had floods up to our shins haha.  And then our water got shut off in our house so we have been showering and drinking with the 72 hour kit water haha which doesn't work that well.  But I did have the best shower of my mission 2 days ago.  I boiled 2 pots of water and then poured them on myself and had my first hot shower in 9 months, it was amazing!

I also got back into YU-GI-OH and I've been playing with Elder Gibson after planning and stuff haha, it's still sick!

We've had a lot of people to church for the last 3 weeks and the end of August and the first of September will have a lot of baptisms.  It's pretty cool to see cuz since me and my companion are both trying to be obedient now, there are a ton of miracles in the area every day.

Thanks for the socks!

I love you mom, I also had an interview with President but I'll say more of that to dad, but thank you for being the best mom ever!

Letter to Mom...

No the days have been good, it is pretty stressful a lot of the time now cuz I have to do everything, but its kinda fun.  I just need socks, but only black and grey and blue cuz all the crazy ones you send are bawal (against the rules) haha!  Mac and cheese is good, I still have my spaghetti sauce cuz beef is hard to get, but protein bars and cereal are amazing!  I haven't gotten the birthday one yet, but I'm going to the office on Wednesday  so hopefully its there!  (I asked him for package requests.)

Here's a story for Coby:  Our house is always full of cockroaches so last Monday, we decided to see how many we could kill.  We destroyed their hiding places and made a big pool of fire in the middle of the room (sounds safe?!!), then we got a broom and when they would run, we swept them in, we probably killed about 250 haha, but now they are all back again.:( hahahaha

Here's a story for you:  We have an investigator named Eunice and she has been reading the Book of Mormon but didn't know that it was true, she said that she would have to finish the whole book first.  I'm not that patient so I told her that we were going to pray right there, she prayed and asked if it was and then when she was done, we asked how she felt.  She said she felt like she needed to share it with all her friends.  We shared 1 Nephi 8:12 and how Lehi felt the same way.  Then we asked "so is it true?"  she said "yes"  it was kinda simple, but it was cool.

Here's a stressful story.  On Saturday morning at 6 am we woke up to help Wendel and Shane get married, we got all ready and then called Sister Joy for help, the only problem was that she thought it was on Wednesday, but she said to go to the city hall anyway and ask, so we did.  The only problem was that there were 3 city halls and it wasn't until the 3rd one that we actually found it.  When we finally got to the lawyers house, he wasn't there, he was out playing tennis. Keep in mind that Shane and Wendel's whole families were following us around , all depending on me to make it happen.  Some had come from far away.  They were like murmuring in the back too like wondering if the wedding would start.  I called the lawyer and he came and it was awesome though, it was such a good feeling when it was over, and they were all very happy:)

Letter to Dad....

 My week was really fun too, but I am realizing the stress of being the leader.  For the baptism and the wedding, it like all depends on me and everyone just looks to me for everything, it's hard!  In sacrament they announced the baptism for 4pm, but Elder Davis didn't understand so he told Shane to be there at 5pm.  It was very stressful when they were an hour late and the bishop and the ward mission leader were freaking out at me haha.  

We are seeing a lot of miracles.  We just got a referral of a family that is ready to be baptized on Aug 20, we just have to get them married, so that's sick!  The language is easy now, but what are some things you think I could do to lead better?  I've been studying leaders in the scriptures a lot too.

I got to interview someone and then baptize them yesterday that has over come a lot of sins, it was really, really awesome!