KASH

Kamusta,
Well another solid week here in Navotas has come and gone. It feels like I was just writing you guys like yesterday haha. So this week we had zone conference, and it was awesome! President Hughes always has the absolute best workshops:) So this workshop he talked a lot about discipline and honor to ourselves. He always uses a formula that he shares with businesses all around the world to explain the worth of people. It is called KASH. Basically it just is an acronym for Knowledge, Attitude, Skill, and Habit. You give yourself a number from 1 to 10 for each one of these attributes for the job you are trying to accomplish, and then you multiply them together to get the overall number. His big point with it is that if you have a 0 in any of these categories, your worth goes to 0 as well. (Because it is multiplication) He has shared this and applied it to missionaries a few times now in Zone Conferences, but this time he focused mainly on habit.

Here are some of the attributes we considered for each letter in KASH though: Knowledge- Tagalog skills, Knowing the 42 doctrinal points in PMG, having a scripture for each point in the BOM, Lesson plans, white handbook, etc.
Attitude- Enjoying hard work, commitment to excellence, how to you look at the mission rules, health and hygiene, enjoying studies and companions, etc.
Skill- Planning, teaching for understanding, commitments, follow up.
Habit-Honesty, can you trust yourself enough to honor your word?

So he said you can't give yourself a number 1 through 10 for habit, it is either 1 OR 10. His reasoning behind that was this, if you have one person that tells the truth 100% of the time, one that is honest 80% of the time, and one guy is just 20% honest. What is the difference between the 2nd and 3rd guys? Absolutely nothing. They are both liars. We all have our own "personal brands" of who we are, what are morals are, and how people perceive us. We have to make sure we are honest 100% of the time so we can trust ourselves, and so others can trust us. Elder D. Todd Christofferson said "You have to consistently choose the right, because it is right, even though it may be hard." The most important part of that quote that I think most people forget is the word consistently. If we aren't consistent with our decisions in life, there is no way people can trust us to get things done. That is why your KASH value can drop to 0 so quick if you aren't trustworthy. You could be the best missionary ever, or the best business man, or the best anything, but if you aren't able to gain trust of others then what is the point? You are just nothing.

Idk it was a cool workshop he gave. I am grateful for the opportunity to be out here serving a mission trying to develop good habits. It doesn't necessarily come fast, or easy, but I know I am slowly changing into a better person. One other aspect President Hughes talked about it that "some problems in life can't be solved. They have to be outgrown." We are all born into different situations, and some of the stuff we go through we can't change. But we do have the ability to grow ourselves so strong that they no longer affect us.

Anyway, we also had a big ward activity this week. We had a Boodle fight which was dope. It is when you get big palm leaves and put a ton of rice and ulam on them. Then everyone just eats with their hands haha it is my fav.

The work is going good still. We had the Deanofrata family all come to church this week:) That was 6 of them that we are trying really hard to focus on. We found a few new less active members... some a lot less active than others haha. It has been a lot of fun though!

I made some poppy seed chicken this week and it was the best meal ever! Haha oh and good news! We got a microwave this week! It has been nice for leftovers haha. We also found out at zone conference that our mission has been selected by the Area Presidency, along with other mission in the Philippines to test out smart phones! Haha it will be super cool to see how much more effective we can be with a little bit of technology here haha! We will get them on May 1st and have them until August 1st. Then depending on how it goes they might start getting more for other missions. It will be a cool opportunity.

That's about all haha. Love you guy! Go get some panda express for me this week:)

-Elder Reber

Elder Reber and Elder Holman together again :)

Elder Findlay likes his peanut butter!

Fun ward activity

Boodle fight

This little cutie reminds Graden of his little sister, Capri :)

1st Baptism Interview

What upppp,
Well this week we didn't really have anything too crazy happen haha. I would say the high light would probably be the Congje family. They are a less active family that we found on the CMIS list and felt like we should go visit them. Turns out Sister Maricar (the mom) is the only member in their family, but she hasn't been to church in over a year! We didn't know where her house was exactly bc the addresses here are garbage haha. So we were asking around and happened to ask her if she had met herself. Anyway she was super excited to listen to us, and said she has been missing the church. She asked us a bunch of questions like if the members would ask why she hadn't been in over a year, or if the bishop would be mad. We just promised that they would be super happy to see her again. I said they might ask where you have been, but that is just because they miss you a lot and they want you to come back. We don't go to church to make the other members happy, we go to make God and ourselves happy. She loved our lesson and ended up coming to church with 2 of her little kids! Her fam isn't baptized yet, so we are going to try to teach them as a family this week.

Let's see we had exchanges this week with Elder Blad and Elder Berkheimer. I went to elder Blad's area. It was fun, we went to some of the Barangay buildings and asked them to look up names we have unmapped in their ward. We managed to find a few addresses from them.

I interviewed my first baptism candidate yesterday. He was just an 11 year old named Cederick. He was super smart and knew all the answers.

Sorry this email is kinda fast haha. Our week was great, just cruising along haha. Hope you guys are doing great back home:) Love ya!
-Elder Reber

He said this was the smallest cat he had ever seen.

Elder Reber's house

Year round Christmas? Why not?

Looking out from his front door. 

I'm on an Island :)

Fam,
This week was so freaking good:) We had transfer day on Wednesday so I am here in Navotas now. I had to say bye to all my members in Caloocan second which was kinda sad, but we will see each other at stake activities anyway haha. So the last night I was there we went to Zarks Burgers and got some good food. The burgers there taste somewhat American! It's one of the missionaries fav restaurants, but that isn't the best part. We walked in and the Jazz game was on!! HAHAHA I was so freaking high on happiness! I knew it was bawal to watch, which was kinda sad... so we asked the waiter to turn it off. Lol jk I repented instead, I had to see my boy Donavan go off!! Hahah that was my first time seeing Korver in a Jazz uniform again:)

Anyway on to the real good mission stuff. I got to meet sooo many dope members this week! This ward is close to my old one, but super different. I am technically serving on an island right now so that is dope:) I mean the water isn't crystal clear... but it is surrounded completely by water. Nakita ko ang dagat which was sick.

Oh yeah, my comps name is Elder Findlay. He is from Murray, Utah and I am his follow up trainer. It is my first time having a companion that doesn't speak any Tagalog better than me. So even though this is a new area for me, I have been leading in a lot of the conversations and lessons. Elder Findlay is super spiritual and I have already learned a lot from him. It is fun to have studies in English again because we can talk about deeper things we are learning. We are getting along great.

I had a few high lights of my week. Number 1 was going back to my old ward and watching Brother Francisco and Nekkie Salvador get baptized! It was so awesome hearing their testimonies again about the church. They gave us missionaries a big shout out too which always makes us feel good about the work.

Then yesterday we had another baptism for Sister April. We actually woke up at 5 am to go prepare for it because we had it before sacrament meeting. It was successful though, and a lot of members showed up to support her because it was right before sacrament. She started crying in her testimony which was kinda a Jen Reber type thing to do;) she was super super cool, we taught her about temples and family history work after church and got her excited for her next goal.

Our Bishop here is the most humble man I have ever met in my life. He didn't serve a mission bc he is a convert, so he doesn't know as much about the gospel as he wishes he did as a bishop. Sometimes he doesn't know how he should teach lessons at church, give talks on the spot, or teach less actives. He asks us questions all the time. We have a ministering activity every Saturday with the bishopric where we eat lunch at the church, then we give them a missionary workshop, practice teach with them, and then go out and teach investigators and less actives with them. We taught a workshop about finding concerns. We taught them how to BRT, ask questions, and overall just told them to be friends with them before they even mention the church. Bishop was taking notes the whole time and they LOVED our practice teaching. Haha I am excited to give them a workshop each week. It is good practice for me now that I am a DL haha.

We had a meeting with the bishopric and set some goals to finish mapping the 220 unmapped houses in our area to find investigators and clean up their CMIS lists. It will be a good opportunity for us to find part members and re-activate less actives. This ward has some of the coolest members ever, and there is a ton of opportunity for growth I think. I am excited to work super hard this transfer! Anyway that's about all from me. Hope you guys are doing aight back home:)

-Elder Reber

Elder Findlay from Murray, Utah :)

                                                          Man, was he happy!! :)

Coffee spill

What up Fam:)
Well this week was awesome! It is the last week of the transfer so I was working really hard to help set Elder Bongalon up for success when he leads the area. We had some pretty cool lessons this week that I want to tell you about, but first Transfer Calls. Yep Elder Reber is leaving Caloocan 2nd ward after 18 weeks of hard work in the city! I have grown so close to the members here it is actually way sad I am leaving. I am getting transferred all the way to Navotas Ward!! Yep that is still in our zone! Haha I am going to be companions with Elder Lungren's trainee Elder Findlay. He is from Murray, Utah so it will be fun to get close with another Elder I can see back home. So I am going to follow up train him, and I am also the new District Leader! Haha the AP's called, (My Lolo Elder Lougee) and said that I am still young in the mission to be a DL, but president called them earlier that day and told them he has complete confidence in me:) I am going to just continue working hard and hopefully be a decent leader haha I have lots to learn!

So as for our lessons, we taught this 16 year old kid named Hanes right by the church like a week and a half ago. It has been hard to find him again because he has work and school, but we decided to swing by his house before church on Sunday to see if he would come. Turns out he was willing! He woke up and got dressed really fast and enjoyed it at church even though he was super shy. We went back to teach him Sunday night and his whole family was there, we taught all 10 of them and they seemed pretty interested! Elder Bongalon will have to go back and teach them with Elder Holman!! Haha yep Elder Holman is replacing me here which is the perfect person for Elder Bongalon:)
At church we had 8 investigators! It was an awesome last Sunday here. One of the investigators that came is actually a Muslim lady that lives with one of our members. She has refused to listen to us in her house, but when I told her I was transferring she got super sad haha because we are always so nice to her. The member she came with, Sister MariLou, actually had to leave early to go to a different ward too. But Sherfa stayed the whole time and said it was a pretty good experience after all! Pretty cool stuff:)

Update for Francis and Nekkie Salvador. They didn't get baptized on Saturday because Francis had work all day. I was kinda sad about it because they had passed their baptism interviews and everything and I thought I was going to get transferred and not see them get baptized. But since I am still in Caloocan, I think I am going to get to come to their baptism this upcoming Saturday! We went and taught them one last time last night, dang they are honestly just the best family ever. Brother Francis told us a super cool story! He used to drink coffee 3 times a day, but really wanted to stop after we taught him about the Word of Wisdom. He knew it was going to be hard for him because it was such a normal habit, and his coffee is free at work. He said the day after we taught him the Word of Wisdom he was at work about to pour some coffee because he forgot, but when he poured it came out super fast and missed the cup and burned his hand! He said he remembered our lesson and believes that Heavenly Father is helping him become a better person. They have come to church 5 weeks in a row now since the day we met them, and I couldn't be more grateful:)

I guess I'll just end with something a drunk guy told me on Tuesday: "Sometimes I can't understand because my eyes can't hear." You guys can ponder those wise words this week haha. Love and miss you guys!
-Elder Reber

Highlight of the week!!