Nagulat Ako ng Maraming Beses😮- I was surprised a lot of times

Hey Fam!

 I'm not sure where to start with this week😅 I'm just going to skip to Friday. So on Friday morning President told us we all needed to go and buy a 2 weeks supply of food in case we got quarantined to our houses bc of Corona virus. To do that Elder Castro and I had to go get a ton of money to give to the missionaries. We bought 50 kg of rice hahaha. After we bought our food we were getting ready to go out and work... But then President called and said I was going to be emergency transferred! I had to pack up and left my Baliwag family 3 hours after the call. It was sad not being able to say bye to our recent converts and members, but its good:) 

My new companion is Elder Lungren! We are batch mates so we have been good friends for a really long time now! We are the APs so it has been pretty busy the last couple days. Friday night I got to drive for the first time in 19 months😂 It's super fun haha we are using President's car this transfer:) 

Saturday was the longest day of my life😂 Metro Manila started a quarantine so President Hughes and the Senior couples knew they weren't going to be allowed to leave. As a result of this Elder Lungren and I had to wake up at 4am to move to Santa Maria, which is outside of Metro Manila. We then transferred a lot of Elders and sisters from 5am until 6pm trying to get everyone situated before they shut off Metro Manila😅 It was fun to see the rest of the mission and meet some more missionaries!

 We got back to our house around 7pm and started cleaning the crap out of our pig stye! It's a tiny 2 person house and had wayyyy too much stuff in it. We threw away tons of stuff (Including the 4 extension cords the had tied to the ceiling to hang clothes on😂) We gave up at 12:30am when we realized we had been awake for 20+ hours and needed sleep. Our house is looking pretty spiffy now though! 

Highlight of that crazy Saturday was seeing the pictures Elder Castro sent me of the 5 baptisms I missed😓❤️ Hazel, Eloisha, Miyaka, Anna Mae, and Jex all got baptized:) I was happy they still made it happen even though Corona is trying its best to stop the work. 

 Sunday

Metro Manila is now closed off. They have checkpoint stations on all the roads stopping cars trying to get in or out. Anyway, Elder Lungren and I have basically been doing everything for 5/8 zones in our stewardship in the "Quezon City North NORTH mission"😂 It has been a lot of phone calls, texts, and driving haha. I'm just glad I'm doing it all with my good friend Elder Lungren😆

 Monday

 We had district council in the morning. President told us to go to one that was just inside the borders of Metro Manila to see if we could get in😂 We got in fine with an ID bc we told then we would leave in 2 hours They said they are going to make it more strict soon tho. 

We finally got to work for a few hours that night! We taught two lessons to investigators and gave out 3 Bap dates:) Then we went to a dope members house named Cherry and ate with them. Followed by another dinner appointment at Bishops house! It is my first time in an open area (both of us are new to the area) so it will be fun trying to figure the area out on top of all the mission responsibilities😂😆

I am learning a lot right now! We are all safe though and don't have many problems! It has just been crazy to see how cautious the government is... I know it's the same all around the world😂

Love you guys!!

 Elder Reber 

Paradise🌴

Kamusta Fam,

Scripture of the Week:

D&C 52:14 And again, I will give unto you a pattern in all things, that ye may not be deceived.

I know that God gives us patterns to find success and happiness in our lives. I have learned a lot of these patterns on my mission, and continue to make my own patterns for teaching and resolving concerns. The miracles of habits and diligence continue to show in our area. 

I had some experiences this week that I'm not going to forget for a long time.

1) We had 4 baptisms. Jay-Ar Robinacio, Judilyn Gungob, Jhared Galvez, and Angel Pamintuan are the newest members in Baliwag 2nd ward!

2) We had 27 investigators come to church. Then there were also 13 of our Recent converts:) I never want to leave this family I have found😅

3) We gave a workshop in Zone Conference focused on the Christlike attribute Knowledge. It actually went super well! We had fun with it and taught some good principles for studies and attitude.

The 4 D’s of Learning

D- Decide     - Choose ONE topic to study

D- Discover  - Find all the information you can about that topic. 

D- Develop   - Organize it into a workshop, lesson plan, or sacrament talk. 

D- Distribute - Share it with others so it becomes your knowledge, not just information.

Vote For Yourself! Be consistent. Change your identity slowly over time. 

4) I got sick this week😂 I lost all strength in my body and didn't want to eat anything. It was actually pretty dope! I ate dinner at 8pm on Wednesday night, Thursday I only ate 1 bite of pizza and 4 bites of salad. Then Friday I didn't eat lunch until 12:30 in the afternoon! Hehe that's like 40 hours with 5 bites of food:)

5) I helped run an English class for our ward! It is so funny getting a group of 20 Filipinos in a room and telling them they can only speak English! Quote of that hour was from our 14 year old investigator Francis... "Go away! Out! I need retreat!" 😂

6) If you remember that cool lesson we had of testimonies last week... Jex got permission to be baptized this week!! We're super excited for him!

7) Fun Fact: If you want to be good looking in the Philippines you need 2 things... White Skin... And a pointy nose😂 It's a little bit backwards compared to the States. Anyway, our investigator pulled a funny joke on his friend this week. He pointed at me and said "His nose is pointed. " Then looked at his friend "Yours is disaPOINTED!" Hehe he was dying.

**8) God directed us to be in the right place at the right time to give 2 Priesthood blessings. Here's my experience:

After out baptisms we asked a member if she had any food because we hadn't eaten at all that day. She said she was sending her kid to buy them food right now and would love to get us some as well. As we were waiting for the food, it took a lot longer than expected and Elder Castro and I wanted to go out and work. We knew we couldn't leave though because she was buying us food. 

That's when Sister Boyack showed up with her companion Sister Acosta. Sister Boyack looked a little bit off so we had her sit down and rest in a back room. We gave her a Priesthood blessing. After the blessing she continued to get worse though. Her arms and legs began to lock up and she couldn't move anything. Her face turned pale and her hands started turning a greyish purple color. We had to carry her out of the chapel on a chair and rush her to the hospital. She was actually sent home in 2018 because she had a brain tumor that almost took her life. President has made it very clear to me to not take any risks when it comes to her health.

Sister Boyack started feeling better after she got the medication she needed and I thought it would be alright to leave before President Hughes got there so we could go work again. I felt we needed to stay for some reason though.

As we were there, Recca (Recent convert) walked in holding her crying baby. I was super surprised! "Recca?" She looked over across the hall and I could see that she had lost all hope in her eyes. She was all alone walking into a hospital she knew they couldn't afford. She didn't have her phone, no ID, and her kid was having a seizure. When she saw us sitting there she explained it as her seeing "Two Angels of light in her path of darkness." 

She rushed her son to the front counter and explained to them what was happening. Apparently she was coming from a different hospital that told her they didn't have the equipment to help ZK. She had to trike in traffic while her son was burning up in her arms. She just prayed out loud crying, pleading God for help. 

We helped her call her family and gave her son a blessing. Elder Castro said that "the blessing would work according to the faith of your parents." He stopped crying and everything seemed okay again. It was a hectic 2 hours, but I am grateful God prompted us to be in the right place at the right time. He has a master plan for each of us. He probably knew that Elder Castro and I would've been stubborn and went straight to work after the baptism... But he tied us down to the church when our food took long. He sent us on an errand at the hospital to pick up water at 711 for sister Boyack so we could be there for Recca. Gods wants to use us all if we are willing to be his instruments. 

Life is good❤️

Elder Reber 

More pics from last weeks hike