Watch out for falling cats!

Heyyooo:)
This was a great week! Elder DeGuzman and I had so much fun together
this week! We have been joking around a ton and it has made us get a
lot closer. Our lessons were a lot more in sync this week which was
super cool. We had 8 investigators come to church yesterday which was
awesome:) We have a lot of people interested in the church right now,
we gave out 7 baptism dates this week! They all still have to come to
church though so we'll see if they keep their commitments.

So this week was Thanksgiving, but they don't celebrate Thanksgiving
here... but of course we did:) We went to Zarks burgers with the zone
and Elder Wood, and Elder McAllister tried one of the food challenges
there. It is a 8 patty burger, with 450 grams of fries, and a drink.
They had to finish it in under 10 mins. Elder McAllister finished it
and got his meal for free and his picture on the wall! Haha it was so
funny Elder Wood looked like he was going to puke.

Ayyy so this week something super funny happened during one of our
lessons. We were teaching the Barcenas family about the sacrament. It
was going really well, Sister Barcenas has been investigating the
church for a long time now and seems to be getting closer to wanting
to be baptized. It was going super smooth and I was feeling the
spirit, then all of the sudden... a cat fell through the ceiling! Haha
it was so random. Their house is kind of just a little squatter house,
so it just fell right through the tin roof! It was "Meowin" super loud
haha it was so funny! Classic Philippines haha.

So a couple of nights ago Elder DeGuzman watched a talk that Elder
Holland gave to the mission presidents a couple years ago. It was
talking about Christ's atonement and how Christ suffering relates to
missions. I loved it so much. In short it just explains that we all
have to experience trials and struggles in our life in order to become
like Christ. If we want to become anything like him we have to suffer
even just a tiny bit like he did. He suffered 1000x times more than we
ever will. So when times are hard, when things aren't going our way,
when life seems too hard or unfair, just think of how it is helping
you come closer to the savior. I can't really explain it all right now
because of time, but look it up if you can find it:)

Well it was a great week here in the sweaty Philippines! It is so
weird to me that it is almost December now haha it feels like summer
still because it doesn't ever get cold here. Hope life is good back
home! Love you guys:)

-Elder Reber

No pics this week so I pulled one out of the archives. Graden is lucky to have a great group of awesome, supportive friends!

Baptism Numba 4:):)

Kumusta Fam:)

Well it kind of feels like I was just in here so that's a good sign
for my week! So on Tuesday we had zone interviews which are my
absolute favorite. President Hughes always gives the best advice ever!
Every time I talk with him he says exactly what I need to hear. The
last couple weeks has been different with Elder DeGuzman than it was
with Elder Barth. Elder Barth and I were really obedient and always on
time to things and with our studies. But with Elder DeGuzman he is a
little bit more go with the flow. It had been bothering me because we
were always late starting stuff. But president just told me to not
worry about it, it is just part of the culture. As long as I am trying
my best to be obedient, and try to help him be obedient then he is
fine with it. He said to focus more on your companionship this
transfer than the actual investigators themselves! He said that the
goal for him when he put us together was for me to learn how to become
a Filipino and for Elder DeGuzman to learn English well. He really
just wants us to learn as much from we can from each other. So that is
what we have been doing and it has made it really fun.

On Thursday I got to go on exchanges with Elder McAllister!! It was an
absolute blast:) He is brand new this transfer, and is from Lehi Utah.
He is such a cool guy and we worked really hard even though we both
aren't great at the language. I talked more that day than I ever have
and it made me realize that I have progressed a little bit in the last
couple of weeks. Sometimes it feels like I hit a wall and am not
learning fast enough, but that was a super super fun day. We got 8 new
investigators just because we would talk to everyone! Haha it was
funny walking around with another American again, it is honestly funny
how racist they are here! We played some basketball with some kids and
Elder McAllister dunked it and they all went nuts, it was freakin
hilarious!

BINYAG:) On Saturday we baptized a little girl named Wayne. She is
honestly my favorite! She is 9 years old, super outgoing and loves
talking to me:) When we asked her who she wanted to baptize her she
chose me which was pretty cool! It was great, the baptism went well...
and then she didn't make it to church for her confirmation! Haha the
family that always brings her to church couldn't come so she didn't
make it to church until after sacrament! It was kind of a bummer but
bishop said we can just do it next week and it will be fine. I think
bishop wants me to give her the holy ghost too in sacrament meeting so
that will be cool:)

Anyway this was a pretty fun week. Hopefully we can get some of these
new investigators progressing! We found the Cresente Family which
seems like they might come to church soon which would be awesome! I'll
send some pics we took with them:) Love you guys!

Special Bday shoutouts to SHRIMPAYYY, Marco, and also coming up,
Chipper, and Eric Benson:) You guys are the best!

-Elder Reber

The cutest little buddy:)

Cute Wayne looks so excited and happy!

Ghetto Zoo of Caloocan City:)

What uppp:)

Another week down here in Caloocan! This place is crazy haha. This
week was pretty fun, we have been trying really hard to get some new
investigators. I found out that most of our investigators that were at
church last week have been investigating for a really long time but
don't want to act haha. So we have been trying really hard to find
some new families. Our mission was the top baptizing mission in the
Philippines last month, and our mission president has set a goal for
us to be the top baptizing mission in the world for the month of
December! We'll see if we can contribute a few from Caloocan 2nd ward!
I see the potential here, but it is really hard to get people to come
to church, which is kinda a problem if they want to get baptized.

This week we had our semi annual powerscrub. Basically we just take a
full day and deep clean the entire apartment. I was cleaning alllll
day because our apartment was filthy. The missionaries in my house saw
that as a good day to just get rest, so they stopped helping me after
a while. It was frustrating having to do a lot of it alone while Elder
DeGuzman was just napping but it was fine haha I'm not scared of a
little hard work. Now our house doesn't have a bunch of dead
cockroaches everywhere!

We found a family named the Barsenas family this week. They are pretty
fun because there are 5 kids that love us. The parents aren't married
yet, but we are trying to figure that out right now. We taught them 3
times this week and the mom and grandma seem interested. We have
played with their kids a lot and I think the mom loves us now too
because her kids love us. That is one technique Elder Deguzman has
taught me haha.

Well yeah it was a pretty normal week here, we worked with Dexter and
Enrico a lot again this week. I gave Enrico a tie and was teaching him
how to tie it and it took him like 40 mins to finally learn haha. He
kept saying "Low IQ" because he couldn't remember how to do it haha.
I'll send a vid, it wasn't as funny as I thought it would be because
he actually took his time to tie it in the video instead of doing it
as fast as he could. It will show you who he is though haha! Love that
guy:)

Today we went to the Caloocan zoo! It was so ghetto we were dying
haha. It was fun though because we were their with the whole zone. My
zone right now is all Elders! I guess president like sending sisters
to Caloocan because it is kinda a rough area. It has been super fun
though to have a solid brotherhood:) We got to take pics with the
worlds fattest Orangutan ever! It was pretty funny I am pretty sure
the workers just fed it so much that it can't move off the chair haha!
Also one of the tigers peed through the cage with some impressive
range... and half of our zone was in the splash zone! Lol it was
pretty dang funny.

Hope life is good back home! Miss you all a ton. Don't forget to thank
your Heavenly Father for all the blessings you are receiving, because
I am realizing how good our lives are in Utah. People here usually
make about 800 pesos a DAY, which is like $16. That is for minimum
wage at least. It's super sad, but they still are happy. It continues
to amaze me everyday! Love you guys!

-Elder Reber

I love how this orangutan is looking at Graden!

Personal Fav Pic :)

Caloocan Week 1!

Oh hello there:)

Lol so this week was my first week in my new area Caloocan 2nd ward.
It has been alright so far but I definitely miss my old area a little
bit haha. It is really poor here in Caloocan which doesn't bother me
too much, but it is just really dirty and smells bad lol. It has been
alright though! My new companion is Elder DeGuzman. He is Filipino and
doesn't speak very good English so it has been a lot of pretending we
understand each other haha! It has been really good for both for both
of us though! He has been pushing me really hard to always try and
speak Tagalog, and he makes me teach lessons on my own sometimes haha.
He is a super good teacher which has been fun to watch him teach.
(He's been out for one year and 4 months)

The area seems to be progressing pretty good. We had 7 investigators
at church yesterday which was awesome! They also had me bear my
testimony because I'm new in the ward and it was wayyyy easier and
better than my first time in Lagro haha. The ward seems super nice and
I'm excited to get to know them better!

This week we had a sick idea! We went to a huge cemetery called
Eternal Gardens because everyone goes to visit their grandparents
graves on Halloween. We brought a ton of Plan of Salvation pamphlets
and gave a ton of quick lessons to people! We ended up getting 93
ITA's that day!(Invitations to Act) It was super fun and it helped me
learn how to teach lesson 2 in a simple overview really good:)

We have been working with 2 members a lot lately. First is Dexter, he
is 24 years old and was baptized in March. He has been working with
the missionaries like 4 times a week since then! He is such a nice kid
haha he looks like he is 16. His family isn't members and they
verbally abuse him because they don't agree with his choice to join
the church. But he has such a strong testimony and is planning on
serving a mission next year! He's such a cool kid!

The second member I wanna tell you about is Enrico! Haha this guy is
flippin hilarious. I'll try to take a pic with him this week, but he
was baptized last month. He had actually been investigating the church
for 10 years! Like he was active, but he didn't want to get baptized.
After he had been to church over 200 times, he finally decided to get
baptized. He is a little wacko in the brain... but it he is literally
my favorite! He has like 4 teeth, and talks with a thick accent. But
he speaks a little English too so he has been teaching me new Tagalog
words. Idk how to explain him really haha I'll tell you more stories
of him next week probably, but I don't have much time lol.

Life is good, I'm definitely in the heart of the Philippines right now
haha! Lots of ducking in the houses, but the people are great. I love
missionary work! Hope you guys are doing good! Go get Cannon some
Texas Roadhouse for me Dad;)

Love ya!
-Elder Reber