June 2012

From June 11, 2012:

Sorry it took so long for me to get back today. I was on earlier today, shot off a quick email to the sister, and then the power went out so we had to leave and come back later. I had a whole bunch written, but it was lost. sorry! haha.

Time is flying by way too fast. I feel like I am in the crunch time here, trying to do all I can! haha. Sounds like you guys are pretty busy back at home. Good luck keeping up with it all! and don't forget to do the most important, little things every day! (read, pray, taker time to meditate and ponder, etc.) It will really give you the strength to make it through it all. :)

 

This has been a good week for me. I got transferred again, so I said goodbye to all my new friends in stop aguinaldo, said goodbye to escalante zone, and headed straight to.... Bacolod City. :/ hahaha. I feel just like I did when I was assigned in the office! I am in Alijis Ward, which is in a Barangay (neighborhood) called Alijis. If you look it up on google earth you might see it. We live in regent pearl subdivision. haha. I really miss Cebuano and the bukid (rural area), but I am slowly adjusting again. I basically went from absolutely no luxuries, showering out of a well, cooking my own food, beautiful views, and having to hitch rides on the back of motorbikes to our appointments, to the city where everyone is moving 24/7 and all the ward members are rich and speaking a ton of English. It also smells pretty bad. hahaha. But like I said, I'll get used to it.

 

At the moment I am just getting the hang of everything and figuring out what to do. The ward seems pretty well off compared to all the branches in Escalante, so I don't really know where we fit in just yet as missionaries. I might just end up my mission here, so I really want to give it my all and set up a good plan to lift where I stand.

 

Well time is short, because we are about to go to a family home evening with some investigators. Next week I will have a more complete report. I love you guys a ton! Have a good week and remember to always do what's right! You are all in my prayers. Halong guid, kag palangga ta kamo!

 

-Elder Lee

From June 18, 2012:

One thing I've noticed my whole mission is that everything is affected by that small time we have every day to study and pray.
 

This week has been a pretty hectic one for us, but looking back on it we got a LOT done. Elder C and I really have a good time together. It's important that we are on the same page as a companionship because we had a ton of crazy things happen this week and we were able to work it all out. We had a problem with one of our missionaries, but the emergency was all taken care of. That is what has taken most of our focus this week. We have also been taking the time to meet all our missionaries this week and do apartment checks, so we're off to a good start this transfer. We really do have a great group of elders and sisters here. I have been way impressed with the work here in Bacolod South Stake. The leaders actually know what their callings are and are doing them! Last Sunday we were asked to come give a training to all the ward mission leaders and ward clerks on their responsibilities and duties, and it went really well. I was excited, because it's something that I've wanted to do for a while. It's a pretty established stake, quite a big difference from the Escalante District in the mountains. haha. But actually, just last week I found out that Escalante was the only District on Negros (there are 4) that technically qualifies for a stake. In fact, most of the STAKES here don't even technically qualify to be a stake (#of priesthood holders, full-tithe payers, temple recommends, etc.) so I feel really good about the work that we did there.

 

Anyways, in the Alijis ("Ah-lee-heese") Ward, things have been very good this week. We had a big success on Sunday with the less actives that came back. Almost all the less actives we visited rocked up to church. :) The only problem is now trying to help them be consistent. haha. Kyle and Kryzhia C., two part member kids, are preparing to be baptized this week. They were interviewed on Sunday and passed, along with a long time member (14 yrs. old) that realized his baptism was invalid because he was baptized 6 months before he turned 8. haha. So he will join them this Saturday. kinda funny. We have been working with one brother (Brother B) who has been coming back to church with his wife, and trying to help prepare him to be our new ward mission leader (we don't have one). He is really smart and has memorized a TON of scriptures in English and is always quoting them. He was really progressing and was about to be called, but we just found out that he will be moving to kabankalan for work and will only be able to come back here every weekend. So he won't be able to be our ward mission leader probably. So now we have to start the search again. haha. oh well. We've also been teaching a Preach My Gospel class, trying to help the young men and young women preparing to serve missions. That's been going really well.

 

Elder C and I also realized this these past few weeks that we really like cooking. For some reason, everything we have been cooking lately has been turning out awesome! haha. Most of it is just experimental, too. we've done peanut butter cookies in our toaster oven, no bake cookies, stir fry, sinigang (a filipino dish made from tamarinds), marinated pork strips, teriyaki chicken with homemade sauce, puso burgers (burgers made from the hearts of banana trees), and a few other awesome concoctions.

 

Well I think that's about it for this week. hopefully this next week things will calm down a bit. We'll see what the Lord has in store for us! :) I hope you all have a great next week also. You are always in my prayers! Choose the right! haha.

 

-Elder Lee

From June 25, 2012:

We had a whole lot of crazy things thrown at us again this week, and we really had to look for the small miracles to keep us going.
For instance, we had a baptism this week! (woot woot!) Like I said last week, this was 2 part member kids (Kyle and Kryzhia) who are living with their grandparents now (who are very strong members) because their mother died. We also baptized an active youth that realized his baptism was invalid when he was a kid because he wasn't 8 years old yet. haha. So we talked about it with the leaders of the ward in PEC (by the way, our bishop has been in Manila for the last 5 months and hasn't come back yet) and we had it all planned out who would be speaking, fill up the font, clean the chapel, etc. and on Saturday, Elder C. and I had the impression to go early to the baptism to check it out and help out if we needed to. Well, we showed up an hour before, and no one was at the church and nothing had been done, so we went to get a key and started cleaning and preparing the chapel. The only problem was that we had no water coming out of the faucet in the baptismal font. Everywhere else was fine, but for some reason the baptsim font wasn't working. By this time it was 10 minutes before the baptism, no one was there yet, and we had no signal on our phone, so we decided to start filling up buckets of water and dumping them into the font. (I don't recommend that to anyone) well, everyone showed up and we were way tired and wet and the leaders were all embarrassed that they didn't have good communication with each other, and then they decided to get hoses to fill it up so it wouldn't be so tiring. The hoses went way slow and about an hour and a half AFTER the baptism was supposed to start, we were still only to the 1st or 2nd step on the font. Then the water all of a sudden turned on, but the pipes were rusty or muddy or something, so it all turned into mud in the font. hahaha. go figure, right? Everyone just wanted to get through with the baptism, so we went out and bought 5 pesos of chlorine (didn't make much of a difference) and proceeded with the baptism. Everyone was stressed and tired, but despite all the problems, everything was put into perspective when kyle, the baptismal candidate, gave his testimony. The spirit filled the room and almost everyone forgot what the problems were. It became clear that the really important thing was that they were making a covenant with God and following Jesus Christ and becoming members of His true church, and they knew it was true. :)

We also had a whole bunch of other problems come up this week. I will spare you the details, but I'll just say that this week really built my patience and we sure learned a LOT of lessons. We are ready to put it all behind us and start a new week with a new perspective on things. haha.

We also had a cool leadership training meeting, with all the zone leaders, district leaders, and trainers. It was president Tobias' last training (he leaves the beginning of July) and it was amazing. The only hard part about it was that it went from 8am to 6pm with a one hour break for lunch. Phew! hahaha. Like I said though, it was way worth it. Kono (word on the street is) that this August we might be having "a very important guest coming to tour Bacolod mission". As in, more important than our area 70 they said. Who knows! That could be cool! haha.

Well I think that's about it for my report this week.

I hope you know that you are all in my prayers. remember that as we do God's will and follow his commandments with a broken heart and contrite spirit, he will bless us with the inspiration that we need. :) Halong guid, kag palangga ta kamo!!
-Elder Lee