I Feel Like Dora

Hey how's it hangin' young folks.  Not too much happened this week so i'll keep my email a little bit shorter.  

As always with the new transfer we spent the majority of our time exploring our area and finding new people to teach.  We walked and walked and walked, in fact we accidentally walked too much and crossed boundaries into Caloocan, which is a part of the Quezon City North Mission... oops.  It paid off though because we were able to find a couple of new investigators and families to teach who are very accepting to the message!!!

This week was very physically challenging.  Our house was really giving us problems.  For a portion of two days we had no electricity so our electric fans didn't work :'))  It was so hot I could have probably just lit myself on fire to cool down.  On top of that the City of Tondo was going through construction this week so they shut off the water one day.  When it finally turned on the next day it was colored green and undrinkable :')))  But hey due to the mercy of the Lord we are still alive, working hard, and serving.  I know that all these trials and hardships will all pay off here and no effort is wasted or goes unseen by our Heavenly Father.

Later in the week we found the reason as to why we had no electricity.  A driver under the influence drove right into an electric pole next to our house.

Take care, I love you keep pressing forward

Elder Burdeos

Father's Day! :))))) and Transfer Week :(((((

Happy Father's day to all of amazing dads out there!  You are the best examples and of course every boy's first hero is their dad!  We love you dads!!!!!

Transfers are this week and I will be staying in Tondo!  I got a new companion and his name is Elder Sison!  He is yet another Filipino and he's pretty chill, we're going to great things here as a companionship.  We have already seen some miracles happening since he arrived here.  Our investigators attended sacrament and we found some new families to teach!!  

SOOOOOOOO i'll fill you in on one of the challenges we faced this week.  Sister Cinco and her family are some of the investigators that we have been teaching for the last few weeks here in Tondo.  They are incredibly nice and always willing to hear our message.  Unfortunately, they refuse to go to church because one of the members in our ward was a good friend of theirs back in the day.  Turns out he has a pretty big amount of debt to them and refuses to pay it which caused them to become poor and move into the ghetto part of our area, the permanents.  Since then they have been struggling and living some pretty hard lives.  The father of the Cinco family says if he attends our church and sees him he'll punch him right in the face so you can see there are still some pretty bitter feelings going on here.  Well, the father of the Cinco family passed away this week from a stroke... Shoot.  Sister Cinco is still willing to listen to us and we delivered a very powerful lesson to her this week reminding her about how families are eternal and she'll see her father again and she REALLY enjoyed it so we hope to see how the spirit will help us to comfort and progress their family.

    That is just one of the struggles we have faced this week but I love having trials in the mission.  You really have to stop, ponder, and listen to what the spirit is telling you.  We have no idea what to do or how to help these people sometimes but Heavenly Father knows all of His children individually so we just need to listen.  This week was sweet.  

That's Elder Sison my new companion! 

While exploring our area we walked into this tiny slit of an entrance and it led to this giant market it was sick.

District meeting where they announced transfers!!!  Always the scariest meeting!

Last picture with Elder Dominguez on transfer day!:(((  Freak i'll miss him so much.  He transferred ALL THE WAY down the stairs.  Our area is Tondo 1A and he transferred to Tondo 1B...  Same house and all.

Still Guapo as always.

Have an amazing week and once again HAPPY FATHERS DAY I LOVE YOU DAD!!!

Elder Burdeos

Faithful in the Kingdom

This week was tight.  Even though the majority of the week was spent looking for a new apartment because ours isn't exactly passing missionary requirements.  The Lord truly blessed us while while we were searching because it was cloudy the whole time and we didn't die of heat stroke.  

Something that I would like to share is a thought coming from the Philippines broadcast that we had this last Sunday.  Elder Lynn Robbins mentioned the faith that it took to establish the church back in the day.  It really makes us think, if we lived in the early times of the church would we be able to endure and keep the faith?  Travelling thousands of miles on foot and enduring hate and violence upon you and your family because of your religious beliefs?  He then stated that if we are faithful now, we would have been back then.  BUT THEN THE QUESTION COMES are we faithful enough and satisfied with where we are on the foundation of our testimonies today?  I don't know, just something that I really pondered this week and it really increased my testimony and faith thinking about the hardships that they faced back then being Mormons and outcasts. Well anyways I had a great week this week and I hope you all did too!

We got to visit the new buildings at the Philippines MTC and they are BEAUTIFUL.  Super spiritual and great experience, you can truly feel the spirit while walking through the halls and buildings of the place that starts the journey.  The happiness lasted up until the 2 hour jeepney ride that really made my buns sore because we had to fit more than 25 people in one small chubby bus.  But now it's all good :')

Some pictures from the Philippines broadcast we had on Sunday in which we had the opportunity to hear from some leaders of our church!  Kind of like a small General Conference, it was very enjoyable and spiritually edifying.

We were kind of just chilling planning where we would go next by this little river and these kids came up and started chilling with us.  Little kids are our best friends here, they know everything.

​It started pouring rain and the lighting looked pretty nice to me and Elder Dominguez took a picture here, nothing too spectacular.

This week is transfer week but i'm almost positive i'll be staying in Tondo and Elder Dominguez will be transferring because he's been here for about 6 months now :-|  Flip i'm going to miss him SO much though, easily my favorite companion so far.  

HAVE AN AMAZING WEEK I LOVE YOU

Elder Burdeos​

Stand as a Witness

I hope you are all doing well because I really miss each and every one of you!  This week was A LOT better than last week.  Although it sucks being sick, it feels amazing when you start to heal so it all worked out :)

We had our zone conference this week and it was incredible as always.  There's always something special about hearing from your Mission President because you know that he holds the keys and authority to give the missionaries in this mission the guidance and instruction that they need to carry out our responsibilities as representatives of Jesus Christ.  The theme that I got out of this zone conference was standing as a witness of Jesus Christ.  Every member of this church has their own witness as Jesus Christ and all of us have an obligation to protect our faith and constantly exercise it by following His example and learning more about His word.  Stand as a witness and let nobody touch that foundation that you have built as acknowledging Jesus Christ as our Savior and Redeemer.  Great zone conference I enjoyed it immensely.  

Of course the struggle we had this week was, you guessed it, investigators attending church.  Sometimes it gets really hard when you spend a whole week teaching about the importance of church attendance and your investigators don't show up to church.  You just love them so much and want them to exercise their faith but DANG JUST COME TO CHURCH.  Hahaha nevertheless we'll keep working and I know Heavenly Father will provide ways for them to come to church.  

Here's a picture of my companion and Blackie Chan lurking in the background there. Look at how cute my companion is freak.

Alright that's it for this week I love you all have an amazing week and STAND AS WITNESSES!

Elder Burdeos