June 4, 2017 - Final Letter

Well everyone this will be my last email to you all as a collective group while I am on my mission and as Elder Webb. I have served a wonderful 100 weeks and I will finish off with about 101 weeks. 

My time here has been amazing. I had no clue what was in store for me about 2 years ago but now looking back it just seems so crazy! I am so so so happy that I served a mission and it really has been the best 2 years of my life (so far) Before my mission all I would do is go to school, hang out, play video games and I thought that that was the life right there. But now that I have been here and I have met some of the most amazing people, felt such an amazing spirit I have realized that God has blessed me so much. I always thought before my mission before I came out was that I wanted to make sure I could come home and say that it was the best 2 years of my life. And now I can proudly say that it really was. Its actually pretty simple all you have to do is be humble, teachable, obedient and hardworking then you will be amazed at what the Lord will do for you. I also experienced some of the hardest times of my life here, but because of those experiences I am who I am now. I have come to know that Gods plan is so amazing. His plan is SO simple but also SO deep. The gospel is amazing really it is on how much you can learn. It never ends. I have seen this gospel change peoples lives right before my eyes. They go from lost to fulfilled, sad to happy. I have laughed harder then I have ever laughed, been happier than ever, I just have been filled up so much. I pray and hope that I will can continue to help others feel the joy. So I am so happy that I have done this and I thank each and everyone who has supported and helped me through this. Especially my parents who have sacrificed a lot for me to be here and also all those who sent motivating letters, emails, care packages, I am very very grateful! Recently I have been thinking a lot about the priesthood and eternal families. How blessed are we to be in the church that holds the true power of God? The power to bind in heaven and in earth. I have been thankful to use this as the main topic of my contacts this week, asking people "Brother or Sister, do you believe that after you die that you will still be married to your husband or wife? Do you believe that you will still be the mother and father of your children?" All of them responded in a way for us to testify that Gods plan is meant for us to be with our families forever, God gave us our families and He wants us to be with them forever. A big joke phrase in the Philippines is "WALANG FOREVER" (meaning there is no forever) But we always love to tell people there IS a forever and we can help you get there. I Have seen a lot of miracles happen in our area with finding new people and also helping those we have found to come unto christ. This upcoming saturday Nathaniel will be baptized! So we have an upcoming baptism and we are so happy for Nathaniel. Then the following week we will also have a potenial baptism if they pass their interview for my favorite investigators Jack and Anna Manalang:)))) So no question that the Lord has blessed so much. I am so grateful for his personal love for each and everyone one of us. 

So I love you all I hope that you have enjoyed my lame letters, I have enjoyed writing them, have a good week. See you all soon:)

May 30, 2017

Hey everyone how goezit? So this week was pretty awesome. We had our first baptism in SJDM! Sister Ging or her real name is Cheryl Arellano (see picture below)

Well the rainy season is officially here!! It has rained everyday so far :/ Its kinda a blessing and a curse cuz when it rains the weather gets a little cooler and it also feels really good when we sleep because the sound, the downside is that we get SOAKED when we work. That is the worst haha. I am fine if my shirt (AND IT JUST STARTED RAINING RIGHT NOW AS I AM TYPING) and pants get wet because that dries up pretty quick but once my shoes get wet then I start to get a lil frustrated... Because then they stay wet the WHOLE day and it is just a mess. So yeah since last wednesday it has rained everyday. Hopefully it doesnt effect our trip that bad here:/ But yeah its pretty fun though walking around in the rain.

But yeah just this last Saturday Ging was baptized. It is actually pretty cool on how we found that family or more on how they found us. So Gings family consists of her and her husband and 7 kids... Her first 4 kids dont live with her so we barely see them but her last 3 kids Fairy, Anna, and Shine and also her husband were all baptized last december 2016 in a different mission. So one day in early April Elder Slade and I were out doing some finding trying to add to our teaching pool. Then we stopped by this cool street vendor thing that sold these cool little souveniers and he is there only once in a blue moon so we stopped to buy something. Then as we were there this teenage girl walked up to us and held out her hand and said "Hello Elder!" So we talked to her and found out that she and her family were members but her mom was not yet (Ging) and she said that they have been living in their house just around the corner from where we were for like about 3 weeks or so and they have been looking for the missionaries. Then we got her address and we went to them a few days later and met all of them. So we were super excited about this new awesome part member family. But as we started teaching her Ging was still a little hesitant and she didint quite want to go to church yet so we taught her for about a 1 week and it still seemed iffy. But then we expected them to come to church the next sunday but we got a text friday night saying that they were going back to their province for the weekend so we were disappointed but that Sunday we went to church and we walked upstairs and we saw all of them sitting down! We were shocked and so happy! Then from then on out she just kept on coming and we finished the lessons and now she is baptized along with her family! So it is a pretty awesome story and we are so happy to have met the Arellano family. 

Jack and Anna Manalang are also doing really well. THey came to Gings baptism and sister Anna cried as she witnessed the baptism and heard the speakers so they are on their way as well to being baptized this upcoming June. THey are probably my favorite investigators ever I love them a lot.

Brother Nathaniel (see picture below) is also doing really well. He has his interview this upcoming Saturday and will be baptized on june 10th which will be my last baptism to be witnessed in the mission. Pretty crazy. But he is also a great guy and the future of the church!

This past week I had a really cool experience as I was pondering about Covenants. Saturday and Sunday were days full of covenants. On Saturday I interviewed 6 people to be baptized in which covenants were brought up and discussed a lot then we had an actual baptism which is a covenant then we partook of the sacrament on sunday which is renewing covenants and then we did a special sacrament for this older man in our ward and then last we taught a lesson to a less active about covenants. So it was a covenant filled weekend. So as it says in True to the Faith a covenant is a sacred agreement between God and a person. So as I was teaching about covenants to our less active I just felt like I had a realization. Maybe a spiritual realization. I kind of thought about why God makes us make covenants to return back to Him. So I realized that God loves us so much that me makes us make a promise to Him that we will do our part to return back to live with him, He loves us so much that he wants us to promise that we will go back to Him. He wants us to go back to Him so badly. But then some people might realize "Well if He loves us so much why doesnt He just save everyone regardless of covenants or not?" Its not that he cant but that he wont because if he just saved everyone regardless of what they did then it wouldnt be possible for us to be happy in His presence then that would make Him not God because everyone is happy in Gods presence. So I just got a deeper understanding on really how important covenants are. I am not sure if that made much sense from what I said but hopefully it did a little bit. Anyways love yous all:) I will write you my LAST letter next week... woah I cant believe it.

May 22, 2017

So this letter will be all about the Manalang family. So we will start off on how we found them. I have mentioned them a few times in my letters but I dont know if I have talked about them that much.

So about 3 or 4 weeks ago I think Elder Slade and I had about 2 hours right off the bat in the afternoon to do some finding. We had been lacking new people to teach and so we just hit it and went to go knock on some doors. So as we were finding we got the usual responses from people "were busy" or "next time" but we kept going and we taught someone but they were not very interested for us to come back, then we knocked more doors. As Elder Slade was talking to this one lady I looked to my left down the alley of many houses I saw this lady walk out and she looked at us and I looked at her and I waved and then she waved. Then she went back inside but then I walked back to her and started to talk to her. After a little bit of small talk she told me that she is really familiar with us because missionaries taught them about 2 years ago. So she let us come in and teach her. They really liked the lesson and she told us that we had to come back so we can meet her husband because he really loved the lessons before as well. So we came back and that is where me met Annas husband Jack. THen they invited us back to have lunch at their house and Jack fixed my watch and we were just so amazed at how nice they were. I mean most all Filipinos are so nice but Jack and Anna were just so nice. So now as the weeks have gone by they have been to church 3 weeks in a row and they are our favorite investigators. They were very very prepared to be taught. We went over to their house last saturday for Annas birthday and we showed them the Joseph Smith video (picture below) They loved it. THey were very touched about and they both agreed to baptism on the 10th of June. So we are so excited for them. I really do love them, they are such amazingly nice people and I am so glad that we have met them. I really hope they will continue to progress and accept the gospel fully in their lives. 

May 17, 2017

Hey everyone! So I dont have a ton to say this week, we just got back from a session at the temple which was awesome but we dont have a ton of time left in our pday. I have 3 more emails left in the mission so I am curious if I should continually send weekly ones or just wait 3 weeks and send out a big one of everything that has happened. But lemme know what you think. This week was good, we had a good turn out at church and had some good experiences this week. After Elder Slade and I did so much finding a few weeks ago we kinda fell of the finding train for a couple weeks which isnt good. We have been trying to hop back on it this week so we can keep finding those new people that need the truth. But one family in particular that I would like to talk about is the Manalang family. They are so awesome. So the family is The dad Jack, the mom Anna, and they have a few kids but the only one that came to church and listens continuously is Jackilyn. But they are so great especially jack. So last Saturday we went over to their house to teach them and we taught about our life before earth and why it is important for us to know where we came from to help us to make the right decisions while we are here in this life. So Jack really loves the lessons and loves church but he feels held back because he really needs to feed his family of 5 kids with a small 4 year old child with a disability. One of the jobs he does is watch repair and on sundays he sets up his station in a place where he makes good money for that day. So sunday is a great day for him to make money. So we committed him to come to church but he said he really wasnt sure if he would go because he really needs the money but then Elder Slade and I shared with the whole family 3rd Nephi Chapter 13 Verses 31-34 Seek ye first the kingdom of God. We promised and told Jack that if he would not work on sunday and do his best to keep the commandments and read the scriptures and pray. We promised that God would help them obtain their needs for their family, it felt good to promise that because it was from the scriptures it was truth, we can always rely on the promises from the scriptures. The next day at church Jack and his family came to church. So it felt really good to see him make that sacrifice. 

Well that is my short story for this week. I love you all and will talk to ya next week!

May 7, 2017

Hey so this letter isnt going to be as long and detailed as the last one but I hope you enjoyed the last one. I just am not into the whole writing thing... I guess that rules out one major for when I get back and go to college. But yeah this week has been pretty good, got our goal of having 12 investigators at church. There were so many people at church yesterday 174 people in our small meeting house, it was so crowded. But so awesome. My favorite family that we are teaching is the Manalang family they are the NICEST people I have ever met forsure... I can believe how nice they are. They want us to eat every saturday at their house and teach them. The mother and father of the family are the heart of that family, Jack and Anna. THey are the best. They have so much care and love for other people. They are a great example of christ like love even though they are not members, yet... Jack and Anna came to church yesterday and seemed to enjoy it which was awesome and we will head back to them on Wednesday. I sure love them.

So one thing I have seen through out my mission is change. Such an amazing thing. I have seen change all over the place and in so many people. The Gospel changes many people. One particular that I have seen this week is our investigator Bro. Nathaniel. He is 21 years old and has not made a lot of good decisions in his past. He has a 1 year old daughter that his mom (who is a member) takes care of. I first met Nathaniel in about the beginning of March and when I first met this guys I thought to myself this guy is kind of a screw up (bad on my part, I repented) but yeah I just thought man this guy is something. So we taught him a couple times but it was almost impossible because he literally did not listen or understand anything. He wouldnt look at us, he wouldnt read, he wouldnt do too much. Basically we thought, well maybe he will be ready in the future but he isnt ready now. So we stopped going to him for a couple of weeks but his mom who is a returning less active kept coming to church so we decided to go back and give Nathaniel another try. So in the beginning of April we started teaching Nathaniel again, we took things very very slow with him, and he seemed to open up a bit. Then as we continued to go to him and do our best to help him he started learning and listening. And now after a month of teaching and him going to church 2 times he is soooo much different then he was when I met him 2 months ago. He is now keeping all of his commitments, he is understanding, and he told us that because of our message he wants to stop smoking, and drinking, and fighting. It is just very cool to see the great change that happens.

Hope all is good back in the woodhood. Miss you all and will see you soon

May 2, 2017

Yeah so I dont really know what happened but all of a sudden our area just got super awesome. Well I guess I do know what happened, we worked super hard the past 2 weeks. So this week we worked very hard to help our investigators feel the spirit of the lessons and give them the best chance to be able to choose the right and come to church. Right now we have 21 baptismal dates extended to our investigators with more coming this week. Some of my favorite investigators that we are teaching is the Buenaflor Family, Brother Alfredo (he is the guy with the tattoo and all the cigarette boxes) The Fernin Family. Well honestly I love all of them and we have quite a few so I will just talk about some of them. So Brother Alfredo has to have one of the hardest lives ever. His wife has stage 4 colon cancer, and she is not doing well, and he he is constantly up all night on the computer trying to make money to keep them a float. That doesnt sound that bad when I type it but just seeing him and his family its pretty hard. BUT they are still super happy and it is pretty inspiring. He really wants to be baptized but he has like all of the obstacles in his life right now to keep him from being baptized such as the law of chastity and the word of wisdom.  But this past week we taught him both of those lessons and we made sure we had members present to provide him support. He has been to church 3 times now and he is doing his best. He actually is not married to his "wife" but they have been together for 17 years. So we really want to help them get married so they can have a chance of being sealed but honestly his wife is in very, very bad condition. One night we went over to share and she was just on the couch crying from the pain she was experiencing so we gave her a priesthood blessing. But Alfredo just keeps pushing forward and is doing his best to learn and get rid of his smoking problem. Look at all those cartons that is just from 1 month... so it is a pretty big problem but he is determined to get rid of it.

Elder Slade and I found this family about 2 weeks ago. The Fernin Family. They consist of a mother and a father 2 daughters and one daughter in law. We just walked up to their gate and they let us in to teach so we have been teaching them the past 2 weeks and they have been making some good progress. They are like most normal Filipinos. They are Catholic but dont really read the bible, and go to church sometimes. So they are learning a lot and are starting to kind of realize that maybe their really is a better way that God has prepared for His children, the restored church. We had a pretty intense lesson last saturday night. We had planned to continue our lesson in the Plan of Salvation but upon following up their reading of the Book of Mormon and asking god if it is true we kind of saw that they didint quite understand the whole point of us being there and our church. So we very clearly taught them again about the restoration and focused on the Priesthood. Then finally it hit them on what they really had to do. They had to read the BoM, pray and ask God, then go to church. So we strongly committed them to attend church the next day.

We also have this part member family that we are teaching the Arellano family. They are all members recently baptized in another mission except for the mom. SO we miraculously ran into them a few weeks ago and we had been teaching them and they are awesome but we were sad to hear that they went back to their home town for a few days and they wouldnt be able to come to church here.

We were pretty disappointed about how last week turned out at church so we worked really hard this last week and knelt in prayer as a companionship on Saturday night and prayed that God would help prepare the way and help our investigators make the right choice. Then the next day we just went forward with faith that things would work out. So we got to the meeting house (picture below) at about 8:30 and waited for our investigators. None were there yet so we went around the corner to see if our investigator Elsa was going to come and she said she would run a little late so we went upstairs and we saw that the Buenaflor Family was there (yes!) We were happy, then we were so shocked to look to the left and see the whole Arellano family!!! We were so happy to see them there, they came home early. Then we had another part member come in brother Rey. And then a little late Alfredo came! But the most exciting was when we were about half way through sacrament meeting we got a text from the Fernin family saying that they were coming!!! WOHOO! They texted us saying they were downstairs and we went down there brought them up and they attended gospel essentials class and our combined relief society and EQ. Jack pot. Heavenly father really helped us out. It was so great. We ended up with 11 investigators at church. So God really does care about each and everyone one of his children. He works miracles daily.

More miracles:

Remember the lady we met last week that had the dream of two men visiting her home with a message? Well yeah we have been teaching her Gina and her son Lance. They are so fun to teach. Sister Gina is on chapter 11 now of 1nephi and she is really loving it. We taught them about where we come from last night and we we taught about Adam and Eve they were so surprised about how clear the BoM describes their story. It helped me to remember that we really need the BoM to fully get what God really means about things. I feel blessed.

So last Saturday we had a few hours to find in the heat of the afternoon, we knocked a lot of doors and didint seem to find too much success but we know how it goes so we just kept going. Then I saw this lady come out of her house while Elder Slade and I were talking to this lady and I just waved at her and she waved back. So Elder Slade kept talking to this lady but it wasnt really going anywhere so I walked over to the other lady I saw and we started talking and she is like "Wanna come in?" So Elder Slade went in to teach. Her name was Anna and she mentioned that her mom died last year so we taught about the PoS and it was a great lesson. We actually found out that whe was taught by missionaries two years ago and they had not gone back to her. So we set a return date and we went back yesterday, then her whole family was there! Her, her husband, and her 3 daughters. The husband was so thrilled to see us because he didint know where the other missionaries had gone, but they were soooo dang nice! Anna and her husband have been reading the BoM and they are already on page 160, then they invited us over again on saturday to have have lunch and teach again. They are sooo prepared. The Manalang family.

So there you have my week, it was awesome. I am officially in my last transfer of my misison, 6 weeks left. Time to kick it into gear. Love you all:)

April 24, 2017

Yo yo yo yo yo yo yo yo whhhaaattt upppp. Thank you all for your awesome emails, I love them. Especially the pictures they are great. Things are starting to heat up here, literally and in our area. The weather is super hot now. I am pretty used to it by now but still summer is here! We live right next to a swimming pool and Elder Slade and I just walk by that thing in envy on those hot afternoons when we walk out of our apartment haha. 

This week was one of the busiest weeks of my mission it was pretty dang awesome. Last week our zone leaders set up a weekly goal for the whole zone. It was called the Armor of God. This contained a different piece of armor for each day of the week. So the goal was to obtain those different pieces of armor by accomplishing a finding activity each day. For example, get 2 new investigators and give out 3 book of mormons. So each and everyday each companionship had to try and accomplish the different finding activities. I wasnt to gun hoe about it at first because I have seen stuff like this done before but when Elder Slade and I found out that their was a prize to who ever won, we were all over it. (we work pretty hard anyway but a prize sounded pretty cool) So we hit the pavement hard that monday to get things going. Then every other day we accomplished the challenge. So Elder Slade and I beat the whole zone :) (not saying that that is important at all but we won) We ended the week with 21 new investigators and 17 baptismal dates extended. So it was an awesome week. BUT it ended out pretty bad... We didint have anyone at church which totally blew but that is okay. I wasnt too upset because I know that next week will go a lot better. But the week was really fullfilling, we came home at the end of the day with no regrets. 

This one day we had to find 2 investigators and give them baptismal dates but it was getting late and we said to eachother "How are we going to find people to let us in and give them a date at this time?" But we kept going and we turned down this street and it was empty except for this one guy who was hanging up some clothes so we approached and talked to him and we saw that his wife was just inside their front porch washing clothes and they were a little bit more on the Elderly side so we figured it wouldnt really go anywhere but we said "Can we have a short amount of your time to share with you a message about Christs church?" And the lady said yes and STOPPED WASHING HER CLOTHES... You guys dont understand how big a deal that is but when a Filipino is washing their clothes nothing is going to stop them even if their house catches on fire but she stopped and told us to come in so I knew something good was lying ahead of us. Then we sat down and she said "This is so weird because last night I had a dream the 2 men were going to come to visit me to share something" THen I just froze and was like wwwwhhhaaaattttt. Then the pressure hit haha I was nervous because I felt like God completely set up this lesson and I didint want to let him down. So we proceeded and taught them and got a return date and we should be going back this Tuesday.

Elder Slade has a cool saying that his grandpa told him before he left. "There are two kinds of people in this world, the one that drains you and the one that lifts and fills you up" So I was thinking about how true this statement is and I really like it. I want to strive everyday to be the the person that fills and lifts. Even though it is super hard this is exactly what Christ did. He was a lifter and a filler. Anyone that was around him just felt happier and more alive. We should do our best to contemplate our behavior around others. Are we the type that drains or fills? God is the lifter and filler, satan is the drainer. IF we turn to him and do what we need we will be filled and we can help fill others. 

I hope you all have a dope week this week and do some filling/ I love yous :)))))

April 17, 2017

Hello... No body wrote this week so I feel like I might of offended you all...??? Hopefully not hahah. This past week was very very hot. Summer is now here again so I am going through it my second time. Hahah Elder Slade always gets sweat in his eyes and he says it hurts so bad, but I have never had that happen to me in my whole life because I dont really sweat that bad actually. So I guess that is a blessing. This week was also what the Catholic people celebrate "Holy Week" It was suupper busy everywhere this week. There is a main road between our area and the stake center that was closed on Thursday due to the people that literally get nailed to the cross here in remembrance of Jesus I guess. I think it is extremely sacrilegious but I guess its a tradition here so yeah. So we had to take the long way around to get down to the stake center to practice for our Easter Concert that the stake through yesterday. IT was pretty cool. THey had a bunch of people do acts on different days of the week leading up to Jesus death. My zone did a song about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane because our day was Thursday. It was a great concert and a ton of people came and the acts were awesome and it was a fun way to celebrate Easter. I found my new favorite hymn, page 112. IT is aweeessome. We have been teaching this part member family here for almost 3 months now. The Buenaflor family. They are really cool and we love teaching them and they are making good progress they have been to church twice now since I have been here. They always always say that they will come to church but something always gets in there way we dont really get it. So they didint come yesterday which was super disappointing. We were hoping to have their Baptism on May 6 but now we will have to move it to May 13. Which is okay because we want them to be ready but we just dont know why its so hard for them to go to church. We just need to keep strengthening their faith. But we had one of our other part member come to church for the first time and we were very happy with that. His name is Nathaniel he is 21 years old. But he has a super hard time listening but we try to make things really simple for him so he can understand it better. The goal this week is to work really hard. I need to get focused and finish up my last 2 months the strongest I have ever worked. Ill let you know how it goes next week:)

So yeah my wallet got stolen. We were on our way to withdraw our support so I brought my card we went to the ATM and I withdrew my 4000 pesos. Then I put 500 in my wallet and the rest in a secret pocket in my bag. Then I put my wallet in my bag and we walked off to 711 to get some change. Then as I was about to buy my drink I reached for my wallet and it was gone...... Along with my support card... So I will have to buy a new one. I am pretty sure this cross dresser stole it.. I was in 711 and she/he was right behind me and she bumped into my bag so I blame it on him/her but whatevs life goes on I guess.

Have a great week everyone! I hope you all enjoyed Easter. Love you all:)

Enjoy the pictures of the creepiest bathroom that we used one night.

April 10, 2017

So this week was pretty sweet, and busy. So yeah we watch conference a week later than you guys, so we just watched it the last couple days and it was great. I had a some great questions and they were answered. Not directly but I have some talks to go back and study that will more expand the answer I am looking for. One talk that stood out to me the most out of all that I absolutely loved was by Russell M. Nelson. It is titled "Drawing the Power of Jesus Christ into Our Lives" I loved it. It was answer to most of my problems as I was listening and searching for my answers to my issues I just thought "Duh, get to know more Jesus more, he is the answer to ALL our problems" So that one really touched me. A lot of others hit me that I liked a lot that I cant wait to study. Of course our Prophets messages were so short but SO powerful. It just showed that all we need to do is just be obedient to those small things and we will be GOOD! Which led to Whitney L Claytons which was all about doing the small things. It is so cool how conference just ties up together soooo well. So inspired. Sunday morning session was just so great, Elder Rasbands talk im sure hit all missionaries around the world to act on that first prompting. So many times I have ignored the first prompting and so many times I have followed it but it is so true what he said about questioning if the prompting is from God, or just our own thoughts, stop rationalizing just do it if it is good! So I am trying to really do that now. Yesterday we came home from conference and started our weekly planning and studies and we were going to be home for the rest of the night. Then as we were planning this name popped into my head and I remembered that we were supposed to go teach them that night at 7, but it was already 6:10 and we were not even sure if they would be there. But I remembered the talk and we just dropped what we did and left to go teach, but I said to God, "You know, I really dont know if this is from you but I am just gunna do it because I feel its right, and if they arent home I wont be upset." Turns out they were not there haha and we didint teach, so I am not sure why I felt like I needed to go but I am sure it was for some reason and I showed my obedience. So who knows, but it was good. We are teaching some pretty sweet investigators right now, especially sister Mayeth and her husband, they are super interested and have lots of questions and went to church the first time we invited them which doesnt happen often at all. It was cool to see these last 2 weeks Elder Slade and I just ended up in the right places a lot. We definitely felt led a lot. One in particular is we were exploring this neighborhood called Pabahay 2000 and in that place they have 7000 houses, which is a TON for how small it is. THere are so many people. So we were walking around trying to find needles in haystacks. Old members that stopped coming to church and in the process we found a house of a member that I had been to once before but had no idea where it was. Then we went and the member was there, Sister Failan, she is really old and sick but she told us that she had been praying for the Elders to show up and spontaneously we did. It felt good to be an answer to another persons prayer. I am really enjoying my time with Elder Slade though. He is a cool guy and we have a lot of fun, we laugh 24/7 and it makes the work way more awesome. I now can solve a rubiks cube in 2 minutes and 12 seconds. So yeah, boom. Anywho I love yous all. I will now write a message in Tagalog.

Dapat magingat ang mga aso pagbalik ko doon sa Amerika. Habang tumatagal ang panahon ko dito, nakapagtanto ako na ayaw na ayaw ko so mga aso... Sobrang pangit sila dito sa Pilipinas. Gusto ko silang patayin dahil ang ingay nila. Gusto namin hanapin ang mga magpapaturo sa amin kaso yung mga aso ay sumisira ang lahat! Susunugin ko lahat ang mga aso!!!!!!! 

BYe:)

April 2, 2017

March 26, 2017

Well this week was great. Loved it. Love you. We had a lot of fun being in a trio with Elder Miranda and Elder Slade. But now my beloved companion Elder Miranda headed out today to go to his real mission in the Gilbert, Arizona mission. He will be missed. I learned a lot from him and had an awesome time with him. This last sunday was the coolest day in my mission. We woke up and just had a good sabbath morning, had some church music playing, we took our time getting ready and we headed out the door at 8am to pick up our investigator Brother Alfredo. So we took a tricycle down to his house and picked him up. Then we got a text from our other investigator to go pick them up so good thing they are neighbors with Brother Alfredo so we just stopped by there and got them. This is where the interesting part comes in. There was us 3 Elders, 4 investigators, and the trike driver. Now a trike should really only take 6 people including the driver but there was 8 of us hahaha. So we put all of us on the trike like a puzzle and Elder Miranda and I hung on the back of the trike as we drove to church haha it was pretty awesome. That is what one of those pictures I sent. Then we arrived to the meeting house and we were all so happy because we had 3 investigators at church which is pretty low but good for this area. Then I was a part member family that we teach popped into my head that lives right next to the church, so us 3 walked down to her house to remind her about church and she was out planting something and she looked at us and said "Oh dang it I forgot! Then she ran into her house to get ready but she ended coming with her investigator daughter. Then 2 members brought their friends so there was 6, what a blessing. Then as we were sitting in sacrament meeting we got a text from this young mother we found tracting yesterday, she said she was on her way with her kids! We were shocked haha so she came a lil late but still made it! So we ended up with 8 investigators at church:) It was so awesome I was so happy. The only thing that upset me was that there are always a lot of members that come in late and sit in the back and are SO loud and we like cant even hear the speakers, so I was just praying that our investigators would at least feel something, I was pretty upset. But we made up for it in our Gospel Principles class. I taught the lesson. It was about Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 18. It was okay I thought considering I had no preparation. I enjoy teaching. I hope I can do some teaching in church when I get back, that is something I really love to do. Faith is the principle of action and power. Everything we do has to do with faith. Would we turn on the computer if we didint believe it would turn on and work? Would I type these keys if I didint believe that they would make letters appear on the screen? But church was good, very rewarding. Goodness gracious time is coming to an end. I gotta make the best of it. I seriously love the people here haha they are so awesome. I might cry my eyes out when I leave. I seriously have made the bestest friends here and I wont forget them, even though I might forget their names because I have learned I absolutely suck with names but life goes on. Hopefully Elder Slade and I can do somethin with this area and leave it awesome before I head out. Anyways love yous have a great week:)

March 20, 2017

Today has been a full day so far it has been a lot of fun. We woke up at 6 and went to a members house to play volley ball and they fed us breakfast, it was delicious. Then we headed straight to the church to play basketball. Since having a basketball court right outside our house we play basketball a lot and I am starting to really like it haha, I kind of wished I played in highschool then I would actually be good right now. But the members here in the Philippines love basketball and so does the whole Philippines. Its like their favorite. But a lot of them dont have running or basketball shoes so you will see very very often people playing in flip flops or just bare feet, I have tried it and its hard haha but the people here are dang good even with flip flops.

So transfers are tomorrow. I will not be leaving this area I will be staying. My companion got his visa so he will be heading to Arizona at any given moment. So tomorrow we will gain one more companion and we will become a 3 sum as they call it here. His name is Elder Slade, he is from St George Utah. He is pretty new as well. He is batch mates with Elder Feiloaki. He will most likely be my last companion. So it will be fun and we will do some good work.

Since I only have 12 weeks does anyone have any ideas on some things I can do to work on to accomplish, like something different I could do everyweek, goal type of things. I have a few things in mind but let me know if you got anything.

Oh yeah I turn 20 tomorrow which is the weirdest thing in the world to me. I always thought growing up when I was 10 14 17 I always thought, "I wonder what kind of person I will be and how different I will be when I am 20?" It seemed so weird and far away but now its here... Weird. My next birthday will be in the states.

This last week I had a realization. I noticed that we have been teaching lesson 1 pretty poorly and not the way it should be. I fell into what preach my gospel says, "a rote presentation" Almost like me and Elder Miranda were actors memorizing lines. Obviously we didint memorize what to say but it felt the same always. So I really took a good study in chapter 10 of PMG and my eyes were opened. I found out ways on how a first visit should be, and how we can capture the attention. After that study our lesson ones are totally different now and so much better.

It is really cool now to see the difference and how receptive the people are, I hope to really help people come along this week and do some good.

We have an investigator, we knocked on his door last week. His name is Alfredo, he is awesome. He has been Catholic, Muslim, and Born Again. But he is very receptive and he is loving our lessons. His wife has cancer and is kind of on the edge so he is really enjoying the truth with him. 

I love you all! Have a good week:)

March 12, 2017

Sorry I dont know what much to say... I kind of drew a blank from this last week... It wasnt super duper awesome and it wasnt super duper bad... Okay ill just try and write some stuff.

So this past week not a ton happened in the area which is not a good thing. We taught some good lessons but we had some stuff to do. My companion went to Manila for a couple days to get his interview for his visa. He passed! So he could leave any minute to Arizona Gilbert mission. Then I went up to Manila is well to talk to someone from the Area then we had a meeting at the office so not too much time in the area. But the time we did spend in the area I thought was good we had some good lessons. Shared lessons and love to a lot of less actives and investigators and had a lot of promises that they would come to church!! We expected to have about 7 and we were excited! Butttt when sunday came around, we waited and waited ANDDD no one that we taught or invited came. So we have been discussing about what we need to do more to get these people to come to church. 

Its actually kinda sad because you seem them and there families active and happy you can see it happening but hey just wont do it. Especially this one less active family that we teach sometimes the Salagan family. They were sealed in the temple and the father used to be a branch president then he got called to the district presidency back in the day but now they are inactive, the mother and the daughters dont really want to listen. They are never together and I just think about how much of a difference it would make if there family was just active. They have a 16 year old son Lawrence and we teach him often. He tells he wants to go to church but we wants his family to go. So we taught him about Nephi and how Nephi was basically the foundation of that family. Even Lehi murmured at times. But Nephi was always strong and I thought about how if Nephi kinda was just lazy and didint do much then they never would have gotten to the promised land, they never would of made it through hardships, I mean look at what happened to the Lamanites. We never would of had the book of mormon. Even though Nephi was the youngest in the family he was the strongest. So we taught lawernce about how he needed to become like Nephi and set the example for his family. He seemed to really feel the spirit of the lesson but when sunday came around, we waited for him to meet up with us to come to church but he didint come. So its disappointing when you want a lot for someone but they just dont seem to make the right choice.  Im sure my parents felt that a lot with me when I just wouldnt do what I should haha. But I am here now and I am glad that I have learned.

Sorry it was a short letter, but I love you all have a good week!

March 5, 2017

So this week was the first week of living our new missionary schedule. We had a zone conference last tuesday and we watched the world wide missionary broadcast. It was really good, the church is really changing the way they run things, it proves modern day revelation is real and necessary. Instead of the missionary department just holding a day of talks from the department in front of an audience of missionaries they just filmed 7 of them in a conference room going over some awesome topics about missionary work, nothing scripted just 3 apostles and some 70 and Bonnie Oscarson talking about missionary work and being guided by the spirit it was really cool. We got to hear David A Bednar pray and that was just really cool to hear an apostle pray. So our new schedule just gives us some more time and some more freedom. We can schedule our working and studying hours whenever we want now and we do planning in the morning instead of at night. Ill just go through our regular daily schedule. So 6:30 wake up, pray, exercise, eat, shower and that is until 8;30 which is new and very nice because we actually have sufficient time to exercise and get ready in the morning. Then from 8;30 until 9 we plan for the day then 9-10 we do personal study. So when 10 comes we can either just head out to work or finish out studies because we still have to fit in 1 hour of companionship study and 1 hour of language study. But basically it says 10am-9pm we work but we have 2 hours of study and 1 hour for lunch and 30 mins for dinner. So a couple times last week we headed out at 10 and then came home at 12 to eat and study and we went out at 3 again to work. WHich I personally love because the hours from 12-3 are very difficult to work in. It is hot, everyone is sleeping, families are not together so its just better to study and then head out in the afternoon around 3 when people are more active. So that was a cool change. THen when 9pmcomes we are free do as we want at the house, we can go to sleep right away, write in our journals, extra study and then we head to bed at about 10:30. So thats the new schedule, I like it. It is way more effective. 

I had a few baptism interviews to do last saturday and I love doing those. It is always a time where I feel inspired and lifted up by the strong by simple testimonies of these investigators. The first one that I did was going okay until I found out that he was not living the Word of Wisdom so I couldnt let him pass the interview, but I will interview him again in a couple weeks.  But the two that I had after were awesome! They are so prepared. It was a mother and her son. The mom is very strong and has a strong testimony and knowledge of the gospel. It was great to interview her and hear her awesome testimony. What was even more inspiring to me was her 9 year old son who has awesome knowledge of the gospel! I was blown away by the things he knew and only being 9 years old. I can most definitely see him being a missionary one day and helping a lot of people. 

Yeah so this last week we were knocking on doors and we knocked on this door/gate and there was this guy laying on a couch and he looked young about teenage years. So we asked if his parents were home and he said "Uhh what do you need them for?" In perfect english haha I was pretty surprised so I just started talking to him in English. He let us in but I guess the other people in his house didint wanna come out so he said we could just teach him. He is 19 years old and his name is Clement. I asked him why he was so dang good at english and he explained that back in his province at his school he was friends with Americans. I could tell this guy was really smart and went to a good school especially because he was so good at english. He told us that his dad was still back in the province and his mom is working in Russia. So we taught him a good first lesson and he said we could come back. So we called him and texted him and stopped by his house but we could not get a hold of him. We thought that he might of blocked our number haha. So we used another companionships number to call him and he answered! AHA! GOT HIM! I said "Hey, its Elder Webb!" He said oh hey! and was pretty surprised but he told us to come back on sunday at 1 so we did and we got to teach him again! We taught him about the Book of Mormon and it was a great lesson! He testified and promised him that the Book of Mormon will really help him in his life. He felt the spirit and agreed to read and pray about the book so we will hopefully be meeting up with him again tomorrow afternoon. 

So my companion ELder Miranda is super awesome, he is waiting for his visa here right now because his real mission is in Arizona. So he finally got his interview at the US Embassies here tomorrow. So he will leave tomorrow morning and get going on that. He might be leaving pretty soon which is great but sad because he is cool and I dont want to get another companion haha. 

Anyways that was the week, hopefully it was a little interesting. I love you have a great week!!

February 26, 2017

This last week was amazing. Very spiritually uplifting and just inspiring. For the past month I would say we have been studying from 4 talks from David A Bednar in preparation for his visit that happened last thursday. We studying about conversion, asking in faith, learning by faith, retaining a remission of our sins. So Elder Bednar specifically chose these talks for us to read. We had a great experience with Russell M Nelson last year and I was expecting kind of the same thing with Elder Bednar that we would just show up and that he would talk to us for about 45 minutes. But what our whole mission got was much better. Our whole mission showed up the chapel and we all got to take a photo with Elder Bednar as a whole mission then we went into the sacrament hall to have the meeting. To start off of course we had a prayer and a hymn then a member of the 70 and his wife got up and spoke for like 5 minutes each then Elder Bednars wife for like 3 minutes and then Elder Bednar got up and I was surprised because we still had about 2 and a half hours of the meeting left and I thought to myself "is he really going to speak for like 2 hours??" But as he got up he looked at all of us and said "Elders and Sisters are you ready to get to work?" I thought we were gunna break up into groups or something and do practice teaching but he explained to us that he was not just going to stand up there and pick one topic and talk to us but he explained that he would talk WITH us. He completely changed the way of learning in a class room setting. I had always thought Elder Bednar was so serious and strict but he is the opposite, he is way funny and energetic. He said "Elders and Sisters our church is the true church and it is amazing but we talk way too much, we try to solve things but just making talks and lessons about things but nothing seems to happen. Then he said " We might as well be called the Church of Jesus Christ of Too Many Talkers" Hahah it was funny. He explained to us very clearly that we would all learn by the Holy Ghost. His whole theme was based on 3 things. 1- Prepare to learn 2- Interact and Edify 3- Invite to act. Elder Bednar just stood at the pulpit and invited us to interact with him to help make a great meeting. So he said "Okay, I gave you all 4 talks to read so right now raise your hands and tell me things that you learned." So people began to raise their hands and they would share then he would ask some amazing follow up questions and in just created an amazing learning experience for the whole mission. Then after about an hour of that (an awesome hour) he said that anyone could ask him questions (good questions he said not stupid ones) So he would look in the audience and he wouldnt just call on the first person he saw you could tell he would choose them by the Holy Ghost. Then after a while I raised my hand to ask a question, and he called on me. I started to get kinda nervous haha, but I stood up and I asked him a question about forgiveness and repentance and he said it was an excellent question and he told everyone to listen because it was very important then for about 5 to 10 minutes Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the 12 apostles looked directly at me and talked to me about my question and he made sure that everything was said to satisfy my question. It is hard to explain over typing but it was so cool to have that type of an experience with an Apostle of the Lord. Then the meeting continued and it was just amazing, completley run by the holy ghost, something that I had never seen. I am so grateful to have experienced that with Elder Bednar.

At the conclusion of the meeting he invited everyone of us to act and find something that we were going to do to change in our lives. After some thought and prayer I have decided that I am going to work more on understanding the Holy Ghost more in my life and how I can better serve others and help them in their lives. My mission is quickly coming to an end and I have a lot I need to accomplish. I have a lot of good I need to do for others. I have to continue to strengthen my testimony so I cannot mistake when trying to strengthen others testimony. 

I learned something great about faith this past week. Faith is the principal of POWER and ACTION. Faith is much, much, much more than just believing something. Faith is the opposite of fear. Faith is the principal of action and power in all intelligent beings. We are agents, not objects. We are to act and not to be acted upon. That truth has helped me this week. Is that, nothing will happen unless we act. We have to act in all that we do.

I love you all! Thanks for all the awesome love and support:)

Stay steeeeezzzin