Colgate

Hey Fam,
Well first off, I felt a lot better this week than last week! I didn't throw up at all and have been feeling great again:) We had a super good week this week as I have been trying to help prepare Elder Bongalon to probably lead the area next transfer. I have been here in Caloocan for 3 transfers now so I think there is a decent chance I'll get transferred. We have zone interviews this Wednesday though so I will probably find out there. I am excited for zone interviews this week! At zone conference President challenged us to memorize scripture references for every single gospel doctrinal point in PMG. That is 42 points. Last interview we had each point memorized in order, but now we have to pull out a scripture in the BOM that backs them all up. I have them all just about memorized, some of them I have 3 or 4 for too:) It has made lessons a lot better too I think! Whenever somebody doesn't understand a topic, I have the knowledge in the BOM now to help them out. Also when we are just sharing spiritual thoughts with families we can use a lot of the same scriptures that apply to them.

We had a baptism this week for Princess! The baptism went smoothly and all I had to do was the opening prayer haha. Brother Tripz, our ward mission leader was playing the piano and he kept adding random notes at the end of every song, it was pretty funny. He is my favorite! Actually I was thinking about it earlier today, my ward here is soooo awesome. Like I started naming off all the people in my head that I would miss if I left and the list kept going on and on.

This week we had 7 investigators at church. It was super good to see 3 of them there for their first time:) We also had a less active family come that hasn't come once since I have been here, but came bc we taught them a good little lesson on Thursday.

There is a guy in our ward named Leo, he had a stroke a couple years ago and can't walk anymore. He always just sits in his tiny house and has no family there with him. We go and visit him quite often to help him out with stuff and give him blessings when he is sick. Well yesterday we brought him a poster of the manila temple we printed at a shop and hung it on his wall for him. He was so freaking nice about it!! He is super excited to have that be the first thing he sees every morning. He just stared at it for like 40 seconds and was like "dang I really miss that place." (except in Tagalog lol) But he just bore his testimony to us and it was dope.

Haha funny story, today when we were playing b-ball a ton of the young men came too. They were all calling me Colgate because I never stop smiling. Then one of them started calling me Messi because I kept juggling the basketball in between games lol. I megged one of the kids and they lost their minds... again! Haha it is my favorite move to pull on them when we are playing b-ball.

I love my mission! I love the new rule that I will be able to call my fam! Last week was fun even though you couldn't see or hear me haha! We'll get it figured out haha:) Love and miss you guys!

-Elder Reber

Elder Bongalons b-day/ Let it Fly

Hey Fam!

Well this was a pretty solid week. We celebrated elder Bongalons bday  he turned 20 years old. elder wood and i bought some cake and ice cream for us all, he loved it! It was fun though to party as a kabahay. 

This week we continued to teach Francisco and Niki. They are still golden :) We taught them the plan of salvation and talked about the temple at the end. They loved it so much. Their baptism is going to be on march second. 

Well on Friday i got my butt kicked lol. we went to a referral with Enrico and the first question the guy asked us was " why did Joseph Smith have so many wives". I was like "oh craaap this guy isn't going to listen to us." We answered a lot of bible basher questions for like 10 min and then decided it would be better to leave cause he wasn't going to be receptive. After that lesson i was tired cause it was a lot of Tagalog i had never used before and i didn't know i could use. So we decided to find some less active members. We tried to find one of them named Juancho Galang, but when we found him it turns out he left the church completely and wanted to Bible bash us too! I was like oh cmon haha. He had tons of questions and we wanted to help him remember why he was baptized, but he wasn't receptive at all haha.

After that lesson (basically him arguing with us haha) we decided it would be a good time to get a quick bite to eat at the palenke. We ended up running into one of Enrico's friends that wanted to talk to us... and yep he went off about the bible too! Haha it was a weird day bc usually people here just say that all religions are good.

Idk if I am going to be able to call you guys today bc there is only one camera here at the computer shop and I told Elder Wood to use it. I might use it in a little bit, but if not we can just do it next week when you guys are all together. It is a crazy change for missionary work! All the missionaries are pumped for it sure!

Sorry this email is kinda all over the place. I think I got some food poisoning last night bc I was throwing up all night haha! I woke up at 4 am and knew I was going to throw up so I ran down to the bathroom and let it fly!:) Haha I threw up no joke 2 gallons of crap over those couple hours, then I was crawling back into bed when they were all waking up haha. I'm just glad it is pday so we don't have to cancel any appointments. I should be good though! Love you guys!

-Elder Reber 

6 Months:)

Kamusta Fam:)

So this week I went to the hospital! I went to St. Lukes on Thursday, is that the same one you went to park? It was alright we talked to some doctors, did a few labs, and got some medicine.

So on Wednesday night we got to go to Max's with our ward mission leader and relief society presidency. It is a pretty fancy restaurant in our area. We are planning a medical mission for the ward members. Sister Beth is going to get a bunch of 72 hour kit supplies and doctors to come check all the kids. It will hopefully get some of the less actives back to church. We are just going to do that in the church later in the month.

We had another CSP this week. We just raked in Malabon city again. We have been doing that every week for the last 6 weeks or so.

Sunday was probs our best day of the week though. We had 5 investigators at church which was anything amazing, but Francis and Niki are golden investigators!! They love church and all the members are like fighting to come visit their family with us now. Honestly us finding that family is helping all the members get more excited about missionary work. They are seeing our area progress bc we are working super hard haha. They want to help out a little bit which has been clutch. Working with members makes life so much easier.

Saturday afternoon we got to go to Valenzuela to get Elder Bongalon's patriarchal blessing:) It is always fun to get out of our little bubble here in Caloocan. Brother Dexter came with us like usual, I took a pic with him bc he was wearing a hat that I freaking loved! Haha he is so funny.

President told us last week at zone conference that we have to memorize all 42 doctrinal points in PMG, and then have a scripture verse in the bible and BOM to back it up. He is really trying to help us focus on using the scriptures in our lessons and knows this will help us gain the ability to pull one out at any time for any topic. I haven't finished finding scriptures for all of them that I like, but I am excited to keep working at it.

It has been a fun week! Hope you guys had a good week too! Love ya:) Oh yeah we went to the hospital because Elder Bongalon had to have a check up on his stomach. Nothing too bad haha;)

-Elder Reber

Singin' on the Streets

Kamusta pamilya,

I had a few cool experiences this week! So first I'll share the one that was pretty funny. Elder Bongalon and I were talking to this guy named Nelson on the side of the street on Wednesday night. He is like super catholic and kept saying how much he loves Jesus. At one point in our conversation he started asking if we sang songs at our church haha I was like yeah we have hymns that we sing. He said that he loves singing church songs, then out of nowhere he started singing his gospel music super loud haha. We ended up sharing with him a little bit about the Book of Mormon and set a return appointment. But before we left I was like "Sorry we have an appointment right now, but before we leave Elder Bongalon would love to sing one of our hymns to you if that's ok." Elder Bongalon just looked at me like what the crap are you doing haha. Then Nelson was super excited to hear, we ended up singing I am A Child of God to him on the street haha it was pretty funny. He loved it.

This week was super cool at church. It was fast Sunday and I was fasting for a few of our investigators. When we got to church we only had 3 of them there that come every week. They just aren't married so can't get baptized. I was a little bummed that none of the people we taught last week had shown up. But I just prayed and asked God to help us find some new people that he has prepared for us. After sacrament we started talking to some people we didn't know, and turned out we had 4 other investigators there that just showed up! I hadn't even met them before! It was an answer to my fast for sure and helped me realize that the Lord's hand truly is in His missionary work:)

Anyway yesterday we went and taught Francisco and Niki Santiago. They're the couple that showed up to church. Turns out they really want to learn about the gospel. One of their friends worked at the MTC and introduced them to the church. They were sooooo nice to us when we got there. They fed us in their tiny little house and were super excited to learn how to pray! We had an awesome lesson and set 4 bap dates for them! I'm excited to go back and teach them again on Friday:)

I'm super grateful to be serving here in Caloocan. It has humbled me so much and I love all the people here. It definitely has hit me with some trials but I am using them as learning experiences:) Elder Wood and I keep each other sane some days haha Idk if I mention him enough in my emails but he is the best. Miss you guys! Hope life is great back in the ole 801:)

Oh and happy bday this week Pais!! Hope you have the best day ever:) Go get some chick fil a for me! Also happy bday Hynie and Emily last week:)

-Elder Reber