Next Monday, I'll be in Palawan!

Letter to Mom....

I can't send pictures that easy because I'm on all clean computers now, but my camera might have a virus from using it outside a lot, but I'll try one day... but thanks for all your pictures! hahaha.

Keep Jesse healthy and alive, that's your job.  (I told him how our dog Jesse has gone a little senile and is super annoying!) 

Here is a cool story for you.  President told us to choose something to present to the mission this Monday for zone conference and we've been trying to use Family Home Evenings as a finding tool.  We just knock and then walk in and have one and boom! We have a new family to teach!  It has been working awesome, but one of them was extra special.

It was the first day that we were trying it and we knocked on a random door.  A young mom answered and before we could say anything, her two year old son ran outside, got behind us and pushed us in the house.  Her husband arrived a few minutes later and we taught them.  It was good but the real miracle happened in our next visit.  This time only the wife was there and we taught her the restoration.  As we got to the apostacy, she started crying and told us how she has searched and searched in all the churches that she knew about for the truth, but she never has seemed to find it.  She told us of how one night she was asking Heavenly Father where she should be and which church she should join and she felt a really warm feeling in her heart.  She said that she has been searching to feel that again and hadn't felt it until we did the family home evening at her house.  We extended baptism and she was like "YES!!!"  haha it was cool.  Keep praying for the area, I love you mom sorry my email is at weird times now haha.

Elder Zesiger

Letter to Dad...

Yesterday I drove around the mission for 6.5 hours getting mattresses (I'm assuming for the missionaries that are coming over from the island Palawan.) from all the houses before Elder Bednar comes.  It is pretty crazy to drive in the Philippines.  The rules are a lot different, I actually got pulled over but they let me go haha.

There was another pretty cool experience that happened with the Priesthood this last week.  We found this little old lady that lives with her husband and her son in their broken down tricycle on the side of the street.  She is blind and her leg had some crazy arthritis thing that made it impossible for her to walk with out a cane.  We taught her a little bit and found out that her faith in Christ was super strong and that if she could go to church, she would.  So, we gave her a blessing and told her that if she would promise to go to church, then her leg would be healed.  After the blessing, we told her that in the morning, before we came to get her, she would have to walk down to a post, without her cane to practice and she said she would.  

That night apparently she had a dream, she was watching herself like third person and she saw herself coming out of our church building with no cane.  Her leg didn't hurt in the dream, so she walked all the way home.  That morning, her leg didn't hurt as much, but it was really sad because when we went to go get her, she wouldn't come because her son's wife who was supposed to come with her didn't show up, so she said that she will come next week, but she is really cool.

I don't think that I will get to spend any time with Elder Bednar, it sounds like he will have pretty strong security around him all the time, but I'm still super excited.  Next Monday, I'll be in Palawan!  

I've got another cool miracle for mom that I'll send, the Lord is really blessing our area with a lot of new investigators, thanks for you prayers.  I love you!

Elder Zesiger

The lesson was pretty regular until we got to the part about Joseph Smith...

Letter to Dad...

Thanks for the awesome email today dad.  I'm super lucky that I have you two as parents, I always hear about other missionaries with family problems and teach people with broken families and that has caused me to think many times how lucky I am that you are such great parents and that I have such awesome siblings, no wonder I was so homesick at the beginning haha.  

I wish I would have understood how awesome Elder Craven was back when I was at home, I didn't know anything about the quorum of the 70's or mission presidents and I remember that every time that we went to that temple class, I would just watch the clock until we could go home haha.  I am super grateful that they took the time to teach me though.

As for being an assistant, I've taught a few classes now and I've driven a couple of times.  I usually don't know what I'm doing and then I just get up there haha, but I taught the mission a couple times as a zone leader.  Look up on your phone the underground river in Puerto Princessa, it's one of the 7 wonders of the world and we are going to go there in March!  We're going to Palawan to teach at zone conferences in the end of February too!  It's awesome!

Our area hasn't baptized anyone in a year and the assistants haven't baptized anyone in about 8 months, so we've been praying pretty hard for miracles since we get about half the working time of a regular missionary.  Our prayer was answered last night.

Two nights ago, no one wanted to hear us, they were all just telling us they were busy, so we stopped what we were doing and said a prayer that Heavenly Father would lead us to someone who was ready.  We all split up on the street and each knocked on a door (there are 3 of us)  The door I knocked on had a small family in it watching tv.  They didn't want to talk to me, so I switched to speaking to Ilokano, (a province language) to get their attention haha and the mom, came over and talked to me.  They said that they were busy as well, but that we could come back the next day. 

Yesterday, we returned and they let us in to teach.  The kids weren't there, so we taught the mom and her husband.  Before we could say anything, Gemma told us that she was a "devoted Catholic" and that she would listen but that we better not try to convert her.  We said we wouldn't (but we were lying haha) and we started the lesson.  As we talked to them, we found out that Billy and Gemma both have family that are members and that when Gemma was a teenager, she attended church a couple of times.  The lesson was pretty regular until we got to the part about Joseph Smith.  The atmosphere in the room changed as the Spirit entered and as we handed sister Gemma a Book of Mormon, she began to cry.  When we asked why, we heard the story about why she opened the door the night before, it had nothing to do with my Ilokano skills haha.  A couple days before, she was talking to her friend about how the word of God should be free and how they shouldn't charge people for the Bible and that she wished that someone would give her one.  Then, a couple nights ago when I knocked on her door, she said she wanted to just ignore me, because missionaries for all religions apparently, including ours drop by there all the time and they annoy her, but she said that she felt something whisper to her to open the door, so she did.

At the end of the lesson, we extended baptism and they accepted.  I know that Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers and I know that He will help us set this area on fire so we can be a better example for the mission.

Follow up:

How is the trans am?  You don't have much longer and if its not done, then I'm just not going to come home. Haha

Letter to Mom...

I just sent dad the best email in the world, so you can read that too, but yes we have a microwave!  And my first p day in the mtc I bought some popcorn and saved it, just in case I ever got a microwave.  I ate the whole box this week and it was awesome!  

I love you mom, thanks for that awesome quote!

I am super lucky that I have you two as my parents, pray that we can have some great stuff happen in our area and also that dad will start working on the trans am.  

Heavenly Father is really preparing people for us!

I got transferred!  I will be in the Makati 1st ward now and I have two companions, one American, Elder Zeyer and one Filipino, Elder Billariña.  I still had a cool spiritual experience a couple days ago tho, even though I won't be in Las Pinas anymore.

We were sitting in a house of one of our investigators and we were looking for a third lalaki (man) so that we could teach.  There was this guy who kept passing back and forth by the doorway looking at us, so finally we told him to come in.  He was like "OK, Elder's"  and we were confused because people are usually like "father" or "pastor" or "apostle" or sometimes even "prophet",so we asked him if he had met any missionaries before.  He said that he was supposed to be baptized a couple of years ago, in fact all of his friends were Mormons, but as they all turned about 19, they all left on missions and since he didn't have any friends anymore, he stopped going, but he said that he knows that the church was restored through Joseph Smith and he knows that it is true.  He accepted a date for baptism and it was awesome!  And then I got the news that I'm transferring haha.

But it was just another testimony to me that this work is true, that we are not just walking around everyday, but that Heavenly Father really is preparing people for us and leading them to us and leading us to them.

Oh yeah, and with my new calling I get to go to Palawan! ( He hasn't been able to serve there because it's not near a hospital for his eye condition.)

OK, here is a miracle where I learned to trust Heavenly Father more.

From letters to Dad....

January 15, 2017

This week was kind of confusing, we didn't get to work that much because of zone stuff, so only one person went to church when we were expecting like 20, but we saw so many miracles it was crazy.  Here is just one then I'll spread the other ones around the family and you can have mom spy on my account and you can read them all.

We were walking in this part of our area called green revolution and our appointment fell through.  All of the sudden we felt that we needed to go to Saging St., which is like a 30 min walk away.  So we went and when we got there, we just talked to the first guy we saw.  He was this old guy named Ben, he's 75.  He said that he was taught 7 years ago and was about to get baptized but his house burnt down and they moved before it could happen.  But he still has a Book of Mormon and reads it consistently.  While we were teaching him, he said that he knows that we knew each other in the life before this one.  It was crazy but cool!

I have been talking to my kabahay (roommate), Elder McCauley, and he and his dad go hunting all over the world and mount all the cool stuff in their basement, we need to do that.  I decided that is going to one of my hobbies now.

I love you dad, start preparing our trips, or I guess I can just learn in the mountains, but we are starting right when I get back, and I need a 30 ot 6.

January 22, 2017

This week was pretty awesome.  We had the last zone meeting before they turn into all zone conferences, and we also had interviews with President.  Last night was really fun though.  We met this guy on a tricycle and he invited us to come and share.  When we got there, it was him, his 4 daughters and his like uncle I think.  Right after we said the prayer, we found out that he was a Jehovah's Witness guy and they started to throw tons of Bible verses and questions at us.  We wrecked them and then we able to share our message about Joseph Smith and the Restoration.  You could see it in the guy's face that he was feeling the Spirit, but trying to reject it, I felt it.  It was awesome.  At the end, the uncle admitted that he has been searching for the true God his whole life, and he hasn't been able to find Him and he hopes this is it.  They invited us over on Tuesday as well and he is going to bring his pastor friends who "want to listen".  We are going to show them the Restoration movie so they don't just fight us the whole time, and watch the Spirit do His job.

It was really funny to me that a 19 and a 20 year old from another country can make a 45 and a 60 year old who study the Bible a lot, listen.  Our priesthood authority is real haha.  

Nikki looks cool, could she come hunting?

Letters to Mom....

January 15,2017

There's still a lot of stuff we have to fix haha, we had like 4 days when we only worked like 1-2 hrs this week because of zone stuff, but it is fun.  I'm going to send you a miracle OK?

OK, here is a miracle where I learned to trust Heavenly Father more.  We had 1 and a half hours to work so I planned out this awesome day and I thought everything would go perfect.  Then, all of my plans fell through and we had 30 mins left, so we said a prayer and talked to the first person we saw.  We ended up getting into a house with 7 families in it and 32 people.  The two leaders of the compound (the old grandpa and grandma)  had been taught by missionaries before.  They said that the grandpa has a disease and we are going to heal him once his faith is strong.  It was cool.

I love you mom!

January 22,2017

haha that's way cool!  I love you, thanks for the picture!  That's an awesome thing to be chosen for!  I wish we would have read before my mission hahahaha.  I love the Book of Mormon.  I'm almost through the Old Testament, but it's kind of hard sometimes haha.

I would love that food now (I made Korean spicy pork).  I'm actually learning how to cook Filipino food right now, I'm making sinigang later.  Elder Erwin is super good at cooking from what he learned in college and he actually convinced me that it's cool, so I'm going to get good.  

We found a guy from Oakland, CA the other day.  He's Filipino, but he grew up there so he likes English better, so I said the First Vision in English for the first time in my mission haha.  He actually lived near the temple and really wants to learn what it's about it was cool!

This is the last Monday before the new schedule drops so next Monday and until the end of my mission, we are going to do awesome stuff and visit awesome places instead of just sleep (on their Pday) !  I'm excited!

Well I love you mom!

Catching up...

Letters to Dad....

12/25/16

Here's a cool thing that happened this week.  We went far away from our area to teach our last appointment which is an investigator right next to our house.  She wasn't there and it was 9:01 which meant that we were late unless we could teach one more lesson.  There was no one around, so we just taught our member worker, Henry.  We asked him how his Book of Mormon reading was and he said that he hadn't read in 2 years.  We got him a new book and started with verse one.  "I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents"  He told us that his dad died a couple of years ago and his life has been hard ever since because he is the only member in his family.  Elder Cortez and I started to cry.  We talked about baptisms for the dead and the truth of the restoration, how he actually could see his father again, and be with him.  As we ended the lesson, and Henry went home, I realized how grateful I am, to be born in a family of faith, in a time where the gospel has been restored, just like my patriarchal blessing states.  I know that it's all true.  

1/1/17

It was a ton better than last one (New Year's) !  We had to be more obedient this year so we didn't stay up until 12, but we ate special spaghetti on the roof with jelly bellys.  I heard you fell off the ski lift haha.  That's a great talk thanks!  

Everything is super crazy in the zone right now.  Since all the crap that happened last week, 15 out of the 20 missionaries in the zone were transferred, including my comp and all the district leaders, so I am the only leader that's not new to the zone.  Tomorrow we will hold a special meeting to help everyone out and get on their feet cuz there are a lot of fresh starts too.  My new companion is awesome and believes in miracles like me so we are going to accomplish great things.  

One cool thing that happened this week was with an oym named Oscar.  He is 75 and we oymed him on Thursday and left him a Book of Mormon.  He's kind of hilarious, he said that for the last 20 yrs he has been searching for what happened to the lineage of Joseph of Egypt.  It is really important to him for some reason.  We told him that the people in the Book of Mormon are that lineage and when we returned the next day, he had read 153 pages and was in 2 nephi 28! He's probably done by now, we'll go back tomorrow.

I kind of hate all the changes cuz there is a lot to do, but I also love it cuz I feel like I'm growing.

1/8/17

Thanks dad, this email is awesome!  I will remember that, for this week, I pretty much just wrote funny things (in his journal).  Elder Erwin and I have a plan to try to rent a pedicab every day so we can save money, and it'll be cool with us driving.  It's like a tricycle but with a bicycle instead of a motorcycle.  We are meeting a ton of new families to teach but crazy things are happening so they can't go to church.  One of them had both of their parents stabbed in the head with knives so she couldn't go.  

I love our church, I love that it doesn't just make sense spiritually, but also logically.  Other preachers and stuff always try to "confound us in our words" but nothing they say makes sense and they always contradict themselves haha.  We just got back from St. Lukes for my eye and our taxi driver was a born again minister.  He was quoting all of these scriptures and yelling and trying to prove his points by force, even though all he was trying to prove was doctrine from the Nicene Creed which he thinks is in the Bible.  We just bore our testimonies of the Book of Mormon and he stopped yelling.  He still wouldn't take one though.  I often think of how lucky I am that I was born in the church.

I also think about the warnings in my patriarchal blessing about listening to those voices and how they could break my faith.  One of our recent converts baptized on Christmas apparently just came across some anti Mormon stuff on the computer and is super confused.  We'll try to fix it later tonight.

That's awesome about Wyatt haha!  

But then sometimes the Spirit does speak to the pastors like this one we are teaching his family and he is the head of this other born again church.  He started bashing a little bit and then by the end of the lesson he was reading the Book of Mormon and asking us to come back.  I think if he gets baptized, his whole church would follow cuz he's like their prophet haha.

Well that's all random stuff, but it's kind of has the same theme haha.  I love being a missionary right now and this is probably the funnest part of my mission so far.  I love you guys.

Our "White Christmas"

Letters to Mom....

1/1/17

haha mom you are the best!  that wall is amazing!  I love you.  Thanks for the money haha, but I'm just gonna try to save it, if I can.  My new companion is awesome!  It's fun having two Americans.  I bet you were a great YW president, Thanks for always being the best mom in the world, I don't feel like you take any less care of me now than you did when I was at home haha

My stomach is fine now.  We are teaching a lot of new people, it's kind of hard to keep track of anything, so today we are going to make a huge study room with cool stuff all over the walls.  I had a funny thing happen.  One of our newer investigators gave me a gift cuz she said that I was the only nice American she had ever met.  It was a bar of special whitening soap.  Tell Shelby that we always are in one ward, here it's different, there are 6 missionaries in like 1 ward haha, but we have 3 wards under our stewardship.

That's all I can think of mom cuz my brain is kind of busy thinking of ways we can fix the zone, but please send me the way the Hill family found the church, salamat.

Mahal ko po kayo nay

Elder Zesiger

1/8/17

We found a cool new family that lives right across the street from us.  The husband is a less active member and really wants to go back to church and get his wife and his kid baptized.  We can help with that!  The wife actually oymed us and payed for our trike coming home.  They've lived across the street from missionaries for many years now and they are just now being taught.

Christmas Plans

Letter to Mom....

On Christmas, we are going to open my packages and maybe if we have enough money, we will buy a roast chicken and make some rice! We'll eat it next to the tree  and I'll read " The Night Before Christmas" and it'll be 665626262000 times better than last year.  I love Tongans, I have a ton of Tongan friends now haha. ( I told him about the missionaries who lead my pathway class who are Tongan.)

Here is a story.  Remember the OYM from Buendia in the truck?  Well, yesterday, we went to teach them and they weren't there, so we followed this little kid who said that his family used to be taught.  We talked to his aunt and apparently they were taught last December and they even were going to church, but then both of the missionaries got pulled out of the area and they got forgotten about.  But before the sisters left, they promised her that missionaries would return and made her promise that when they did to listen to them.  We will teach her later, it was cool.  

Letter to Dad...

We had a cool experience teaching about repentance.  There is a family that we are teaching that all of the sudden started to avoid us and we didn't know why.   They have to get married before they get baptized, and they really want to but they didn't believe that it was possible since the brother doesn't have a birthday or birth certificate.  Because of this discouragement, the sister gave in to the temptation by her friends to drink at a party and because of this combination, they had decided that there was no hope for them.  We shared and testified to them about what Jesus Christ did and that no matter how many times they fall, they can get up and that Heavenly Father will prepare a way for them for them to get married and baptized.  The Spirit was strong.  We still don't know how they will get married, but we know they will, I'll let you know when they get baptized.

 My story I'm gonna tell mom is cool too, but just so you know, I am still up to date on my journal from Oct 22 2015 until now.  And it's fun to read haha because I have changed a lot.

2 Weeks in Manila

Letters to Dad...

We had a lot of cool experiences following promptings this week.  One time, we were really in a hurry, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw a lady and felt very strongly that I needed to talk to her.  Since we were in a hurry we kept walking, but as the feeling got stronger, I turned around and went back the 20 yards to talk to her.  We didn't have time to do trust building so I just asked if she had met any missionaries before, I didn't even say hi now that I think about it haha.  She said that her mom is a member and that missionaries used to teach her all the time in the province, we'll try to teach her this week.

Elder Haini is going to be in our mission leader conference on Wednesday and he might interview us, so that'll be awesome!  He's our area authority, but he grew up in Bountiful and even went to Bountiful High haha.

I love you guys a ton and thank you for always taking the time to email me every week, I always feel lucky.

That's cool about Bishop.  The Haynies came and some awesome stuff happened.  First, he knows Harold haha.  He was like, "Zesiger, one of the finest men I've ever known owned a shop called Zesiger Automotive in Bountiful"  haha.  I guess Harold used to buy car parts from Elder Haynie's dad.  Then at the MLC he closed his testimony with something that he had heard Elder Cook say about Jesus Christ " I know His face, I know His voice, I know He lives."  Crazy huh?!

I sent him the little Christmas tree.

We are at war with Satan right now in our area, we had 9 people looking sure to be baptized on Christmas, but yesterday it got knocked down to 4 because of tons of crazy reasons, it was so stressful that I got sick haha and I have a little bit of a cold right now, but we'll win.  One crazy thing was with an investigator, they weren't at church, so we dropped by their house and apparently a representative from Saudi Arabia had come to their house to offer them jobs abroad.  They decided that they were going to go, so we taught them and told them to pray about it since that is like a 100 % chance of becoming less active if that happens! I'm excited to hear your email, send me a story if you can, I love you Dad!

Elder Zesiger

Letters to Mom....

The Olangga family is doing awesome and all went to church on Sunday!  We are trying to organize two weddings so we can have a giant baptism of 2 families on the 24th so we need your prayers.

Coby's grown up a ton haha, when I left his head was a lot more round.  We see miracles everyday, your packages were some haha I love you.  We set up the tree and I'll send a picture. Elder Fawson does know how, (to make jello) haha but we haven't made it yet.  I'll just bring the turkey to the AP's house next time we go haha.  Here is one miracle...

We were at Buendia, after the mission tour with Elder and Sister Haynie, and it's about 2 or 3 hours from our house, so no taxis ever want to take us haha.  We waited for like 3 hours and then I felt like we had to cross the street.  We did, and then I saw a guy sitting in his car at a red light and the window was down and I felt like I needed to talk to him, so I did.  He turned out to be from our area and the next day we went and taught his family and they all have baptismal dates now.  Cool huh?  Right after we talked to him, a taxi came, so Heavenly Father just made us wait for him haha.

Story sent to Shelby....

One funny thing that happened was this:  I was eating a burger at this food place called minute burger and all of these kids came up to me asking for money since I am American.  Also, all of the adults were looking at me cuz I was talking to them and showing off my Tagalog, Cebuano, and Ilocano.  It's bawal (against the rules) to give the kids money so I told them to leave, but then one asked for water, so I gave him a waterfall.  It was funny, but then he asked for another one and this time he laughed and spit the water and a little food all over me.  Haha it was funny cuz all the adults around freaked at him, so I said it was ok and the kid ran away.

I need to marry an American girl that speaks Tagalog so I can have a secret language like the Packs!

Jeff sent his this tie but it is too wild to wear as a missionary haha.

I sent packages on different dates but he got them all at once. One there from Grandma Z too.

He says this Christmas is going to be much happier then last Christmas.