June 15-17, 2017 - Post Mission Visiting

After Elder Webb was released, we were able to visit some of the people that he taught, and to enjoy some of the finer things of Manila (not including the terrible traffic)!

June 14, 2017 - Mission Accomplished!

Elder Mckinley Webb's mission is complete. Brad and Harmony flew to the Manila airport to greet him. He was sitting in the local Burger King - waiting.
That next day, we had the chance to visit the Manila temple on a very warm day.

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