Bagong Kabahay:)

Kamusta Fam,

So we had transfer day this week. Elder Chambers got transferred to Lagro, which  was his first area! Then Elder Wood got a new companion named Elder Castro. He is a Filipino but is really good at English too. It has been nice for Elder Bongalon to have another Filipino in the house and he has been a lot more fun to be around this week haha. I think he is starting to fall into missionary life a little bit more now which is good!

This week was full of a lot of hard work. We set some new goals for this transfer that are going to push both of us a lot. I really like a few quotes President gave us last week at the mission office. He was talking about how we can be successful. 

"The only place where success comes before work is the dictionary." 

"You pay the price for success in advance." 

"All Public victories don't occur until after personal victories."

He explained after that last one that we need to set a lot of small goals throughout our day. After we accomplish many small goals we will see our progress easier, and feel happier about our work. It is easy sometimes to just set huge goals, but if you don't have all the small ones in between you will be overwhelmed and most likely won't achieve your goal. It was a good little talk for sure.

At church yesterday we had 6 investigators there. We were hoping some of our others ones would be there too, but it was still a great day. In Priesthood we talked about Luke 10:30-35. It is just about the Good Samaritan. We all need to strive to love others like the Good Samaritan. That part was obvious, but the part of the lesson I really liked was when we said that we are really all the wounded man on the side of the road. We all have struggles, pains, and faults in our lives. But like that quote I mentioned earlier, the price for success is paid in advance. I'm so grateful that 2000 ago Christ paid the price for us to succeed in our lives. He is our Good Samaritan that we can always turn to for help. Through his Atonement we truly can find happiness no matter how difficult times are.

I'm super grateful to be here sharing this message everyday with people going through trials that lots of you couldn't even imagine. I really see stuff on a daily basis that I didn't ever expect. It brings me some much joy to walk up to these people with a smiling face, and the light of Christ to share what brings us so much joy:) This week was awesome over here! Miss you guys, hope Can Man had a good bday this week! Miss ya bro, hope u didn't try to kiss 16 girls on your big day noodle head;)

-Elder Reber 

Tapos Na Sa Transfer 3:)

What up fam! 

First off Happy Birthday to Cannon!! I can't believe he will be 16 this week and will be driving around, going to dances and all the stuff you do when you are 16. Hope you have a great day! 

This week was super good! We got to go to 6 weeks training at the mission office. We got to hear workshops from the AP's, and Sister and President Hughes. It was awesome to hear some more guidance on how to be a better trainer and how to grow our areas. When President Hughes was talking to us he gave me a little shout out haha. He said he had a package for me from his good friend Ray Goodson. We met Ray Goodson before I left at Willow Creek, but he explained to everyone at the training how he was one of the first 4 missionaries that President Hinkley dropped off here in the Philippines. He talked about how he still works so much with non profit organizations and with the mission presidents. He told us that Ray asked how I was doing. This is in front of all the trainers and trainees lol. President told him that I am doing awesome, I am an amazing missionary and he has been really impressed with my work ethic and ability to train so early on. I was like phewww haha. But Ray Goodson said "Good he better be a good missionary." President asked him why he says that. Then Ray told him that my brother was a phenomenal missionary. So shout out to Dwain haha it was pretty sick:) 

This week we continued to set up our Investigator Sunday and fellow-shipping activities with the ward. We are having all the members bring friends, neighbors, and family to a big activity I have been planning with our ward mission leader. It should be a lot of fun, were going to have games, a church movie, dinner, and a spiritual thought at the end. It is a good way to get the ward involved in missionary work and hopefully we will get a few new solid investigators.

Yesterday I was reading a bunch of old papers I found in the area book trying to find some new investigators. I ended up seeing Arthur Dele Cruz and felt like we should go try to find this guy. I didn't know if he was a member or not, I just saw his name and address jotted down on the back of a small paper. So we went and tried to find this guys house. We started asking a lot of people around the house because we only knew the street and addresses here are messed up sometimes haha. We ended up finding his brother that was like 45 years old. He said to follow him and he would take us to Arthur.

He took us up 3 stories of this apartment building that looked kinda abandoned. I was like crap where are we goin rn haha. We finally got to the 4th floor of this building and just walked into their house. We saw Arthur sitting on the roof of this building just chilling in a little chair. We started talking to him about who we were and found out that he used to be really active. He hasn't been able to go to church for a full year now because he had a stroke and is paralyzed on his right half of his body now. The ward didn't know about this accident and hadn't visited him. We shared a spiritual thought with him in Mosiah 23 about trials which was super powerful. The spirit was awesome. We are going to get the ward to take the sacrament each week now and he was so grateful for us. We gave him a new Book of Mormon because he had given his to a friend a while back. He said he was super excited to start reading again. It was all just so cool to see how the spirit led us to find Arthur at the top of an apartment building!

Anyway I hope all is going well back home! Love you guys!

-Elder Reber

Norbert from the Netherlands

What up fam!

This week was sick! We had a stake broadcast yesterday with Elder Holland. Holy crap he is such a good speaker:) It was cool to hear him speak not in a general conference. Because I realized that his talk wasn't perfectly written out, he was speaking 100% from the heart. He talked all about the second coming and how he doesn't know when it is, but it's one day closer today than it was yesterday. We need to prepare now because when Christ comes back we are going to be responsible for presenting him his church. He said we need to make sure were ready. It was awesome though he said how he prays all the time that the second coming will come because it will be so exciting. We don't need to fear that day at all if we are living the standards of the Church.

Anyway, after the broadcast, Elder Woood and Elder Chambers had 2 different investigators they needed to teach at the same time. So I got to teach a lesson with Elder Wood in pure English to a guy from the Netherlands! Haha his name was Norbert and he knew absolutely nothing about God or praying. It was so different, but so much fun. It was honestly like the ultimate practice teaching for us because we had to explain to him what all the simple christian beliefs were. Like faith, Christ's atonement, repentance, baptism, commandments, prophets, etc. All those things we usually just mention here in the Philippines and they know what we mean, but Norbert knew nothing haha. It was super fun to be able to teach in English haha. I think it gave me a boost of confidence that I do know how to teach alright now:) I think he is moving back to the Netherlands soon, but he told us he would look for the missionaries there... which will be a huge blessing for those missionaries there because I can't imagine trying to teach people in the Netherlands everyday haha.

I started reading the Saints book this week. Holy crap I love it haha! It talks in depth about Joseph Smith and all the people that helped him translate the Book of Mormon. It is cool to read about all the personal revelation he really got! It has strengthen my testimony that he truly is a prophet of God:) I would encourage you guys to read it if you haven't yet. I'm only on page 93 but I started 2 days ago haha.

I had zone interviews this week which are always nice. President gave me some good advice on what things he wants me to teach Elder Bongalon. I had a few questions for him to that he gave me some good answers to.

Other than that it was a pretty normal week though. Taught a bunch of lessons, met some new investigators, messed around with our Kabahay, and had a fun service project with the zone. We went and raked a garden area at the city hall. I'll send some pics. Hope everything is going good at home! Love you guys!

-Elder Reber

Ghetto fireworks

Hey Fam,

Happy New Years! It was super fun being here in the Philippines for New Years haha. Their fireworks here are soooo ghetto. It is like they are just launching bombs in the air! There is very little light, but they are super loud! It was impossible to sleep that night until like 1. We just stayed up listening to the chaos outside and having a good time telling funny stories and stuff with our Kabahay.

This week we had a lot of good lessons actually. We found quite a few potential investigators that we are hoping will progress. Yesterday at church was awesome:) We had 7 investigators come to church and it was the first time ever for 5 of them. It was awesome to see some new investigators come to church:) 

On Thursday we were walking to an appointment and a little kid came cruising passed us on his bike and yelled "Hey Joe" at me, pretty classic haha. But when he tried to ride away as fast as he could and his pedal on his bike fell right off! He has to swing back around and pick it up and was super embarrassed haha.

Elder Wood's knee got really infected this week and kept saying how he's going to lose his leg and just have a stub haha. They couldn't work these last couple of days because he can't walk super well. On Saturday night Elder Chambers asked me to guess how many lessons they taught, and was acting like it was a lot bc I didn't know they had to stay home that day. He's like I'll give you a hint, you wouldn't be able to count it on two hands. I guessed 11 lol but it was just 0. I was like "dang you can't use two hands to count that high but you can count that high with Elder Woods right leg next month." Haha he thought that was pretty funny. 

I have been studying the new Come Follow Me curriculum for personal study these last couple days. It is so good! There are so many good scriptures in the New Testament. I never have really read it before so it has been fun to see how Christ taught people, and how he really was the perfect example. I hope you all use that book when u study at home for Sundays because it really is so good!

I set a lot of goals for this 2019 this week. I'm excited for a full year of missionary work! It is weird to think about where I might be, or how much better I will be at Tagalog in a year! I am excited to work hard and grow a lot! I know this will be one of the most impactful years of my life:)

Love you guys!

           -Elder Reber

No pics from Graden today but in our email he had to throw out some of his usual teasing. He said he was sure that I missed his daily "banter."  He quickly laughed at himself for saying the word "banter." Then he mentioned that he wasn't sure how we were getting along not only without his banter but without all of his friends. Boy was he right. Graden could not be more blessed in the friend department and I will have to say it is hard enough missing my own kid. When you add on missing the interaction with this fun crew all the time, it just made me need a walk down memory lane. So grateful for the friendships we get to enjoy with all of these great boys and their families. We are super lucky to have one another and I am grateful to feel their love and support on a daily basis.