Last week of my first transfer!

Kumusta:)

So this week was super crazy haha I'm excited to tell you about it!
But first of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAPRI!! I hope you have the best day
ever! Dad better have set up the spook alley for you without me! Also
shout out to Benode for his bday:)

So this week we had a lot going on. We had zone exchanges, zone
interviews, 6 week training with all my batch, and a baptism! We had
so much going on because this week is the end of my first transfer!
Haha it has gone by sooo fast it's crazy!

So earlier in the week we had President interview one of our
investigators for baptism, and while he was with us he told Elder
Barth he was going to be transferred! I thought I was going to have to
lead the area when he leaves! But then we got to Zone interviews and
he told us Elder Barth was going to stay here in Lagro after all:) So
I was happy that I wasn't going to lose my tatay! (Dad/Trainer lol)
But... then I got into my interview and President said I am
transferring! Haha so yeah I leave tomorrow morning for Caloocan
because there have been some problems with companionships and
president thinks I can help. From what I've heard, Caloocan is the
Tondo of my mission! Haha it is really really poor and dirty, but I
think I am going to learn so much there. My companion will be Elder De
Guzman, he is a Filipino so that will be different for me. I think it
will be helpful to learn Tagalog faster though.

I am going to miss Lagro so much though!! This ward has been sooo
good, I hope I get to finish my mission here or something. It was sad
saying goodbye to some of our investigators for sure, 3 of them will
be baptized within the next 2 weeks so that's sad I'm missing it. But
I got pictures with them this week, their names are Paul Lopez,
Elizabeth Aquinu, and Kenneth. They were all super sad that I am
leaving before they get baptized too.

So this week we actually had one of the missionaries from my batch
come work with us in a trio for the last couple days. His name is
Elder Snow, it has been super fun. Elder Barth is going to finish
training him here after I leave.
I went on zone exchanges this week with Elder Cadayong. He was super
fun and I learned a ton from him! It is fun to see how different
missionaries teach lessons. I have been learning a lot about what kind
of teacher I want to become. He was super impressed with me though and
made me come home and write down what my process was for studying so
he could share it with the next batch:) It made me think hard about
what I have done this last transfer, how can I improve myself more,
what did I do that worked good, what do I want to accomplish in my
next transfer? I have constantly been asking these questions to become
the best I can be:)

We baptized Nanay Depaz this week! She is a pretty old lady that we
found the first week I got here! She has grown so much and loves
coming to church! Her baptism was super cool because we had a district
baptism. Every companionship brought an investigator that was ready to
be baptized and we did it together!! It was super fun to see that our
entire district has been working so hard this transfer:)

Well, hope you guys have an amazing Halloween! Haha it's kind of weird
having holidays here because they're just normal days pretty much.
Send me pics though! Love you guys:)

-Elder Reber

Grateful for a wonderful trainer, Elder Barth

Loving the palm addition Gray!

Solid Week :)

Heyyo:)

This week was sick! We found a lot of new investigators that might
have some good potential I think. There was one lesson we had that we
were just chilling in a little alleyway and people kept walking
outside their houses to see what we were doing in the Philippines.
Haha it was sweet though because we taught them all about the
Restoration and as while we were teaching it more people kept
joining:) By the end we had 7 new investigators plus like 6 kids that
were listening too. Hopefully we can go back and teach them each
individually now though because it is harder to invite the spirit when
there are a bunch of people. It was fun though teaching that many
people at once!

The real highlight of the week was yesterday at church though. So last
week we had 3 investigators show up for church, but yesterday 9 came!
It was awesome! There were 5 at the beginning of sacrament and we were
pretty excited, and then after the opening prayer 4 more walked in
haha! So yeah it was super fun to see our hard work pay off a little
bit and to see that some of our investigators are starting to
progress:)

We taught the young women's lesson yesterday too. There was like 14 of
them in there and we taught them about missionary work. We basically
just taught them what our purpose as missionaries is, and how we
introduce the gospel to people we meet. We demonstrated to them how to
teach lesson one, and then had them all practice teach it to each
other. They thought it was pretty fun, but they were hesitant when we
invited them to share it with a non-member friend this week haha. I
just bore my testimony that the spirit really is the real teacher. I
explained that I have been in so many lessons where I try to explain
the gospel in Tagalog, and somehow they actually understand it! They
thought it was pretty funny lol, but I know that is because the spirit
is with us when we are willing to share the gospel with others. I
challenge you guys back home to try to share our gospel with someone
this week! If they don't want to agree with what you are telling them,
just bare your simply testimony that you know God is our loving father
in heaven, Christ is our savior, and Joseph Smith was a true prophet
that restored the gospel to the earth. Those are 3 simple things I
like to emphasize in my lessons because once you know those three
things, everything else in our church makes sense. IDK just go share
your testimony!

I'm loving my mission:) The people in my house are so fun haha. Elder
Caya-os leaves in 8 days which kinda sucks because he has taught me so
much about how to teach effectively. I've been trying to talk to him
as much as possible bc he's finishing up his mission now and has a lot
of cool tips:) My ward is amazing! There are so many amazing members
that are willing to introduce us to their friends and feed us dinners
haha. Overall just couldn't be happier right now!

Love you guys!
-Elder Reber

I got a sick ball from an old tatay tho! It is like a
woven ball that I juggle at night haha he gave it to us for free bc it
is close to Christmas he said! It was cool we shared about the
restoration and gave him a book of mormon in return. Little does he
know our gift to him was way better... or was it. Idk my ball is
pretty sick! jk the bom can be a little better i guess lol.

General Conference :)

Kumusta Fam,
This week was super super good! Why was it super good? Bc we finally
got to watch Conference haha! Not going to lie this was the first time
I have watched every talk. It was soooo good! Conference is 100x
better when your a missionary though I think because I was hearing so
many things that I want to share with our investigators. Usually I
would just think about myself and how the things the prophet was
saying would effect me, but this time I had the missionary mindset
lol. I took notes on every talk and thought I would share a few things
I liked:)

First off, 2 hour sacrament meetings! That will be super nice for us
to get investigators to church haha! But make sure when we start that
you actually take advantage of the extra family study time! I love the
idea of having spiritual moments in your house to make your home a
gospel centered place. So I'd like to invite the man of our house to
make sure you have some sort of scripture study on Sundays, yep that's
you Cannon:) I guess you can prepare a little pearl for the fam too
Dad haha.

Ok now for a couple quotes I liked though:
"Stand out, be different from the world."
"If we are actively engaged with the Lord, worldly influences will not
scare us, temptations will not overpower us, and we will overcome
trials easier."
-Elder Bednar's talk relating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a rope,
all the small strands make it a strong tool.
-Dallin H Oaks talk about the Plan of Salvation was straight fire,
just re read that one:)
"Don't let God be part of your life, let Him and his Gospel be the
primary focus of your life."
"There will come the day when we see Him, we'll be with him, and find
that we have become like him."
"Hope is found in the transformation power of Christ's atonement."
"Draw nearer to God and he will draw nearer to you."
"Sacrifice your pride and make things right" don't hold grudges
"Become peacemakers, love peace, seek peace, create peace, and become
more like the king of peace, Jesus Christ."
"Repentance is powerful spiritual medicine."
"We did not choose our church's name, we were given it from God."
"The sacrifices we make are not even close to the eternal blessings we
have in store for us in Heaven."
"We are not mortal beings having spiritual experiences, we are
spiritual beings having mortal experiences."
"Our need to be in the temple has never been greater."
"Revelation is continuing to come, seek it for yourselves."

So yeah haha those are some of the one liners I wrote in my journal.
But there were a lot of other thoughts I got while I watched it that
made me think they were talking right at me! So I encourage you all to
go listen to them again, or for the first time and seek personal
revelation that President Nelson promised us we can receive.

Sorry that was a lot of spiritual stuff so here is a funny story for
you:) So everywhere we go lately people are blasting their karaoke
machines. It's like something all Filipinos love to do haha. But this
week we were talking to a member next to one of the kareoke party
things. A drunk guy came up to me and asked me if I liked to sing, I
just told him that I wanted to hear him sing bc I didn't want to haha.
So he starts singing super loud into the mic and was just staring at
me haha it was super awkward. So I turned around to keep talking with
the member and then I felt a tap on my back and the drunk guy wanted
me to keep watching him sing. Lol it was pretty funny idk you had to
be there though I think haha.

Oh one other thing is that if you say sardines are gross then you
haven't actually tried them! I thought they were just what people had
to eat when they had absolutely nothing else and that they were nasty,
but I love them now! Just spicy sardines mixed with two eggs is like
my favorite Ulam for my rice now! Also have loved eating some super
good corned beef lately. 

But yeah that's about all from this week! Hope you guys are doing good too!

-Elder Reber

No pics were sent this week so I found a few of my favorite out takes from this summer. Getting a normal pic of Graden seemed to be challenging yet so entertaining! This is the fun kid we are missing around here, so glad he is enjoying mission life and his two new favorites, corned beef and sardines...Yum!

Pia Gargallo Binyag/Baptism!

Kumusta Fam:)

So this was another solid week of ups and downs! It has been kinda hard in lessons and walking around town not knowing what is going on 24/7 haha but I've seen some pretty amazing things happen this week! First of all... BINYAG:):) We baptized Pia Gargallo on Saturday! She is 21 years old and has gotten a super solid testimony over the last few weeks. She was actually my very first lesson I went to the night I got here in the field! I've been here to teach her lessons 2-5 now! So all but the first one I helped teach her which is pretty fun:) From here on out any baptisms I get will be people that I have helped teach all the lessons to! Anyway it was fun to hear her bare her testimony bc she thanked us for helping her come closer to Christ which was super cool to hear her say bc that is our mission purpose:)

Alright now for a funny story:) So there is a family we are teaching right now named the Lagrimas family. The mom is progressing pretty well right now, but were still trying to help her stop drinking coffee. Anyway, she has a bunch of little kids that all love it when we are over teaching her. I usually talk with the kids because it's fun to play with kids when I don't understand the lessons 100% yet haha. So Andrew is kinda my little buddy, he is like 3 years old and loves saying Reeeba. So yesterday we were walking down the road and I just heard Andrew yelling at me from way down the street, "REEEBBBAAAA, REEBBAAA" and I looked over at him and he's just chilling outside butt naked haha! It was pretty funny haha that type of stuff is pretty common here in the Philippines.

Another thing about the Philippines is that there are dogs and roosters EVERYWHERE. The dogs are just annoying bc they bark all the time and look like they all have rabies haha. The roosters just make their classic cockle-doodle-doo noises all day. But usually we don't have any problems with them. Except for one rooster... it is in the middle of an alley way that leads to one of our investigators houses and it always attacks us haha. I took a pic of it this week I'll send because  it'll probs end up killing one of us this week lol:)

     We didn't end up getting any rooster pictures :(

We met a golden investigator named Pol Lopez this week! He was a JIFFY from one of the members we got last week. He was super super nice and has actually been reading the BOM a little bit already. He really wants to know how he can become a better person and seems super sincere. His family has been having some problems growing up and he really felt the spirit when we taught him about the plan of salvation. Honestly I love the Plan of Salvation, it is something that so many people don't know about and it really does make them want to change there lives around! He came to church yesterday and hopefully he keeps progressing!

I love this area! Our ward is the best haha they are all so nice:) I kinda wish I could have come to this area later in my mission when I can actually speak Tagalog with them all, but I'm just super blessed to be here! We're going to have to start finding some more people to teach bc some of our investigators aren't progressing very much, but we'll work super hard this week!

Hope you guys are all doing good back in the ole 801:) Miss you guys!
-Elder Reber

First Baptism and JIFFY

Heyyoooo!

Wow what a week!

 Well first of all, I had my first baptism this week! It was for a little 9 year old girl named Euko:) Her dad used to be a member when we found them and he said he had been thinking he should get her baptized, but he hadn't been to church for so long. It was cool to teach him and Euko together and watch them grow! The best part was that he got to baptize her so that was fun to see that we had helped him come back to the church, and taught Euko too!

We started up a program called Jiffy in our mission. It stands for "Jesus Invites Friends, Find Yours!" Basically we gave every member a piece of paper and asked them to pray about 10 people they know that don't have the gospel that they think could use it in their lives. Then we have them circle 2 names, or families, that they think would be most likely to listen to the missionaries. We ended up getting like 94 names of potential investigators! So now over the next few weeks we are going to be going to meet these people with the members that referred them to us. The goal is to have the members at the lessons to help us get in the door, and then if/when the investigators start coming to church they will have a friend right from the start! It is super smart and has already been making our mission a lot more successful! So to all my friends that are on missions or about to leave,  maybe introduce that idea in your mission:)

I had my first zone conference yesterday! I learned a ton about how to become a better learner, and a better teacher. I LOVE PRESIDENT HUGHES! Like wow, he is the smartest most motivating guy I've ever met haha! He talked for a long time about the learners mindset vs  Judgers mindset. Basically we talked about how we need to look at every time we "fail" as just a learning opportunity. When we do this we eliminate thoughts of failure from our lives and we learn to improve a lot faster than if we beat ourselves up. We just have to ask ourselves questions that allow us to figure out how we messed up, what we can learn from it, and apply it. He gave a bunch of examples of when he was starting businesses and that made me super happy haha I know I'm going to learn so much from President! He started his workshop off yesterday by saying "I can teach you principles that will put your life on a rocket ride of growth and success, but you have to act on them. I'm not here to babysit you guys along the way." He taught us some of his life principles to success and I can't wait to try applying them!

We also talked a lot about habits. It is important to do good things, but even more important to develop those into habits. We have to do them over and over until we don't even have to think about them. We learned more about how the things we learn here shouldn't be temporary. We should always be planning, setting goals, evaluating, and adjusting our plans in order to accomplish them. I know goals are super important for us if we want to accomplish anything. That is one skill I hope to develop more on my mission and take it home with me so I don't procrastinate as much in school lol.

On Tuesday night we got to go do a JIFFY with the stake president. He invited his friends that he wanted us to teach over for dinner, and we had such a good dinner! They live in the rich part of my area that we aren't really allowed in to proselyte so it was cool to see some houses that kinda looked like America! First off, the meal we ate was a full on pig!! I took a pic by it that I'll send, but right after the picture President Cilantro took a huge knife and just cut a chunk out of the pigs neck and gave it to me to try. It basically tasted like a chip (skin) with a bunch of fat on it haha. It was a little gross but not too bad. Then the inside of the pig tasted pretty good! After dinner we taught that family a lesson about the restoration and we got a return appointment with them for this Friday:) They were super nice! Hopefully we can keep the lessons going with them!

On Sunday we had the primary program. It was soooo sick! Haha all the little kids were singing solos and like harmonizing! It was so funny at some spots because they would get way off tune and just keep singing as loud as they could. I loved it haha! My ward is super fun!

I'm loving it out in the field so far!  Do some family scripture study bc the scriptures are so sick! I wish I read them a lot more before haha but now I'm gaining such a stronger testimony that they really can help us through anything! Bc let me tell you, learning a new language isn't very easy and I've been beating myself up some days. But  I'm going to try to have a learners mindset now! Hope you guys are doing amazing back home!

Love ya!

-Elder Reber

So fun to hear about Graden's first baptism!

1st Zone Conference- Love hearing about how much he already loves President Hughes.

Gradens house- and yes I am still at the stage that I have to add every last pic that comes my way. Love them all!

His favorite purchase so far

A few pics from MTC days finally came through

MTC President and his wife

Yes, I have already sent him a sketch pad. Love that he is working on this talent.