Elder Graden Reber: 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