HOLY KWAN (feat. Coron)

HOLY KWAN.  This week was the best week of my whole mission... It was insane.  I'm just going to give you the rundown of what happened this week!  Sorry if it ends up being SUPER long.  

Tuesday:  HAPPY HALLOWEEN I woke up and my thumb was super swollen so we are still trying to find what i'm allergic to...  We zoomed to the office today incredibly fast because there is a holiday here in the Philippines called the Non-working day which is exactly what it sounds like.  No traffic and one very happy Elder Burdeos.  The kids here are so funny, they were all trick of treating and instead of asking for money they would ask for 5 pesos.  Smart kids.  A pretty cool tradition that they have here in the Philippines is called "All Soul's Day"  where tons of people spend the night in a cemetery and it's basically the fourth of July in a cemetery with no fireworks... If that makes any sense.  Lucky for us, the cemetery just happens to be in our area!!  We headed over there and talked to some really cool people.

Wednesday:  Today we walked 2 HOURS to the cemetery... For Papa John's Pizza.  It was a super rare occasion and I regret nothing.  

Friday:  Friday was crazy.  We woke up early at the mission home because they were going to have a conference there.  After the conference we came back and ate Shakey's with some friends in the mission and that was tight.  On the way home I got pulled over FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME IN MY DRIVING HISTORY.  It was because I had accidentally crossed a yellow line which I was unaware about.  The cop was so set on giving me a ticket so I did what I always do to be innocent here and I ENGLISHED HIS FACE OFF.  Filipinos love it when you compliment their English so I just explained how i'm a foreigner and i'm not used to the driving and after 30 minutes I convinced him to let me go with no ticket or 2000 peso fee.  I was way happy and thankful for that tender mercy hahaha!

Saturday:  CORON DAY!!  We got up bright and early and rushed to the airport.  We basically flew to the airport and got there in less than 10 minutes and hustled to catch our flight.  Turns out that our flight got delayed anyways and we were 2 hours early... I didn't mind though we met some way nice people at the airport and that gave us a little time to practice talking to people and sharing our message.  

We got on our flight which was an hour and a half but felt like a solid 15 minutes.  Flying into Coron was like flying into Jurassic Park and maybe even more beautiful.  We landed and picked up our mission car from the airport and headed on a two hour drive to get to the chapel.  The drive was a pleasant experience though because the only traffic that we had to worry about were chickens and stray dogs.  When we arrived in the Elder's area we were able to arrange exchanges to work for the rest of the day.  We worked in the northern part of the island in a place called Busuanga.  It's an amazing place.  I walked up to the very first door to tract and before I said a word they invited us to come in and we were able to share a little message with them.  We spent all of our time that night on one street because the people kept letting us in and were open to our message.  Each time was just a little testimony builder to me that the Lord really does prepare people to hear this message, and the people in that area are really the Lord's chosen.  At the end of the night we found a little Japanese type restaurant (you know, one of the ones where you sit on the floor and eat with chopsticks) and we had sushi.  It was a good night.

Sunday:  This was a pretty challenging day because we had to find out how we were going to get all of the investigators to sacrament meeting while at the same time we had to make sure that there would actually be a sacrament meeting.  The sacrament meeting took place in a small pavilion on the side of a shaded outdoor basketball court.  We were constantly running back and forth escort people in while bringing equipment to the sacrament from the Elder's apartment.  After a pretty hectic morning we had a pretty good turnout of 45 people at sacrament!!  That was a giant step from the 3 that they had in attendance last week!  It was an amazing experience and it baffles me to think about the amount of faith that each and every one of them must have had to attend a meeting of a church that they have never heard of upon invitation from some random little boys wearing ties.  During the meeting we were actually able to get some investigators to come up and share their feelings since it was fasting testimony meeting.  There is so much potential there and you could feel the spirit so strongly just knowing that Zion is gradually strengthening and this is only the beginning. 

 

​After this week you could say that I am in love with my mission and being a missionary... 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Kamusta na kayo? Happy Halloween!!!!! If any of you have any sick costumes be sure to send them to me I would love to see them. Turns out they celebrate Halloween here in the Philippines and you get really cute little kids giving you high fives on the streets while you're trying to baptize their parents :))) Tuesday: Here in the Philippines they have what's called "coding". It means that if your license plate ends in a certain number, you are not allowed to drive for a specific day of the week from 7am- 8pm. Pretty weird but it helps the traffic out a ton. So we forgot our vehicle was coding and woke up late so we ended up walking to the office and to the area which was a total of about 3 hours hahaha. Wednesday: The assistants forgot to switch our van out so we had to walk to the office again and it was even better the second time. Thursday: We ran to the LTO in the Quezon City mission with some missionaries to go pick up their licenses. I ended up seeing one of my companions from the MTC, Elder Casares!! He was very friendly and even though we didn't quite get along in the MTC I realized that I missed him and it was nice to catch up with him. We waited at the LTO for like 4 hours just sitting there then when we left we got a call from the assistants that we needed to move out of the house due to some emergency transfers and housing problems. So we are currently homeless... Not really, we're actually staying at the mission home right now with the Assistants, air conditioning, and heated showers. Homeless has never felt so good. Friday: I went on exchanges with one of my best friends in the mission, Elder Fiesta. He's one of the assistants and he was one of my first friends back in my first area haha. I learned a lot from teaching lessons with him. Something that I would really like to try to improve in my teaching is listening with love to those we teach. Also Elder Asay called us and told us that a couple of the investigators that we taught in our area was interviewed and being baptized so that was exciting!

Front row seats to the car show here

Elder Casares (My MTC companion) and I at the LTO

Best license plate ever

 So as you can tell this week has been a great learning experience for me and I've learned to just go with the flow and if I have a positive attitude about all the trials and hardships that i'm going through right now, the Lord will provide a way for everything to work out, 100% of the time. FUN NEWS: PRESIDENT WILL BE SENDING THE OFFICE ELDERS AND ASSISTANTS TO CORON ON SATURDAY SO THAT WE CAN HELP THE ELDERS DOWN THERE GET THEIR WARD STARTED IN A NEW AREA. I'M SO EXCITED, MY PICTURES NEXT WEEK ARE GOING TO BE SO COOL SO STAY TUNED. BIRTHDAY SHOUTOUT TO MY BIG SISTER ALYSSA!!! Have an amazing week AND A REAL SPOOPY HALLOWEEN!

 -- ELDER BURDEOS
"IT'S BOUT TO GET REAL SPOOPY IN HERE" ​
 The Church of​ ​ ​ ​Jesus Christ​ ​ ​​ of Latter-day Saints​
2016 - 2018 PHILIPPINES MANILA MISSION

Transfer Week and Cole Sprouse

There he is in all his glory.

So much happened this week yet I don't want to go into detail with it.  This week was transfer week which was one of the craziest weeks I have ever experienced.  

Monday:  We went to the area office by riding the MRT (The Filipino Trax).  We picked up the rental car we would be using and on the way back we found giant billboards of Cole Sprouse.  The Robles Family, one of the families in our ward, treated us out to Shakey's Pizza! 

Tuesday:  We spent the day with the departing missionaries, weighing their luggages and taking them to the hotel that they would be staying at for the night.  It was pretty fun because we were with Elder McCauley and Fiesta, the assistants, and it was like an all day adventure.  We picked up the departing missionaries from the mission home and drove them to the Mall of Asia to their hotel.  Of course we ran into another problem and there was a miscommunication between the church and the hotel so we had NO rooms for the departing missionaries.  Turns out the Quezon City North mission had the same thing happen to them so we all just sat in the hotel lobby for like 2 and a half hours.  It felt like it was so late but it was like 11:00 which is about the time I would be leaving the house to go hang out with friends before my mission hahaha.  So we just sat there waiting for some miracle... and it came!  The hotel supervisor comes down and says he "cancelled reservations" (Whatever that means) and they now had 14 available rooms!!  Such a tender mercy.  One of the Elders forgot his stuff at the office so we had to drive back to the office and then back to the hotel again.  We got home at 1:30am.

Wednesday:  We got up at 4am to head to the MTC and pick up the new missionaries.  They were chill and polynesian and stuff.  The Americans went through some problems with their fingerprinting so they were unable to come with us in the morning and we had to hold two in-field orientation meetings.  We drove back and forth from the mission home to the mission office all day and that's all I want to say about that.

Those two days were probably the most stressful and the rest of the week was just fun.  Other cool things we did this week:  

- We watched "How to Train your Dragon 2" for my first time at the mission home on P-Day

- The Filipino greeter from Walmart on 13400 S. walked into the mission office one day and I just about lost it.  What are the odds.

- My Aunt hooked it up with another package at the office

Yeah this week was sick.  i'm loving it here.  

These are the two assistants, the one on the left of me is Elder Zesiger and he went home.  He was the missionary who picked me up from the MTC and i'm the one who took him to the hotel to go home hahaha.  ​

​This is Elder Lopez and he was one of my favorite missionaries in the mission.  He also went home.  By the way these pictures were taken in the hotel lobby while we were waiting there for hours.​

ELDER FAWSON.  He sits at 6'9" and he was a super humble and hard working Elder.  He will be missed.

Love you all have a good week long live Cole Sprouse

Elder Burdeos​

The Office Season 10 (feat. Elder Burdeos)

So much change in so little time.  I got a call on Thursday night from President Fermanis saying that he wants me as an Office Elder in the mission office and that i'll be replacing good ol' Elder Webster.  I had a lot of mixed feelings about that call because of reasons such as:

1. I won't have the chance to finish training Elder Asay or see any of the baptisms that we had set up for the area.
2. Elder Webster (The Elder i'll be replacing) has been in the office for the last 15 months so replacing him would be like when Will Ferrell tried to replace Steve Carrell on "The Office"... A disaster
3. And of course the worst one:  I HAVE TO DRIVE IN CENTRAL MANILA.

So there were some downsides to being called to the office but I learned shortly after that being an office Elder is tight.  We get to do all of the behind the scenes work with helping with transfers and stuff you never take into account when you think about missionary work such as housing, supplies, finances, and mission documentation.  Doesn't sound too fun and it didn't to me at first but now i'm loving it and i'm so grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve here.  

    As Far as the new area goes, it's looking pretty promising so far.  On my first night in the area we met with one of their recent converts, Clair.  Clair has one of the strongest testimonies and it is so powerful to hear her bear it while we teach her.  She hasn't exactly had a break from her problems in a while, she went on about how there are a lot of trials in her life right now like not having any electricity in her house, the city hall losing her health card, and taking her youngest daughter to the doctor after getting hurt outside and stuff like that.  After hearing her problems I would imaging she would be a little frustrated but after explaining everything to us she turned to us and said, "But Elders, I have God and we're going to be okay".  It was pretty powerful and you can tell the spirit has really found a way into her heart.  

Our Zone went to the Manila Zoo this last P-Day.  I give it a solid 8.0/10

I drove for the first time on Thursday and I absolutely hated it :')))

Keep us in your prayers hahaha love you all have an amazing week!

Elder Burdeos

General Conference pt. 2

So I finally had the chance to watch general conference and it really gave me that spiritual fire I needed.  I remember back in the day (like one year ago) I would get super bored and I would not be able to pay attention but it's like the whole perspective of the General Conference has changed for me as a missionary.  It's such a privilege to hear from our leaders every six months and is just one more of the millions of reasons that this is the true and restored church of Jesus Christ.  I won't go into depth about what I learned but I would like to invite you all to watch it if you have not already and if you already have, set a goal to watch it a couple more times and I know that you will continue to feel the power of the words of God.  Even though our dear prophet Thomas S. Monson was not able to attend you could still feel his spirit.  

A fun experience that we had this week took place while we were walking to the church one day to teach an investigator there.  On the way, we noticed a nice old lady chilling in a wheelchair just watching people pass by.  We decided to start a conversation with her and like 30 seconds into the conversation she just starts crying really hard and telling us about how her kids kicked her out of the house and she has a skin condition which gives her difficulty walking and nobody helps her.  This story kind of broke our hearts and we couldn't help but feel super bad for her.  I asked her if there was anything that we could do for her and she kept declining and telling us it was okay and she didn't need help.  We kept pushing and pushing for her to let us help her with something and she finally told us that she has some friends at the top of a hill on that road and she wanted to go talk to them but she couldn't make it up there on her own.  So without hesitation I started to walk behind her wheelchair and told her I was pushing her up the hill, she thought I was kidding up until I actually started pushing.  She was laughing the whole time as we pushed her up this hill and as some of her friends in the little neighborhood were asking her what was going on she would always respond, "I'm being deported! They caught me!"  hahaha she's awesome and we managed to get her up the hill and with her friends.  We'll start teaching her this Wednesday and we're super excited.  

Small acts of service can really help us to feel the pure love of Christ and charity for those around us.  When Jesus Christ himself was here, not only did He teach those who were willing to listen but he also showed His love through His actions to each of God's children by serving them.  Being a missionary is such an honor and Elder Asay and I have been working harder and harder to make sure that we don't take this chance that God has given us for granted (granite).  

Don't forget to get out and vote for good ol' Romeo "Lucky" Medina for Kagawad.

They had a mural painting contest in our area back in 2012 so you'll see cool murals like these all around on walls and underground passes.

This is probably my favorite little girl.  Her name is Eileen and she is super chill and mature for her age.  No joke I could probably just sit there and talk politics with her.

I convinced these little kids that Elder Asay was Captain America and so they wanted to take pictures.  Elder Asay handed them pamphlets and told them Hulk wanted them to give the pamphlets to their parents hahaha what a guy.

love you bye

(James) "Harden Not Your Hearts"

I should make that into a t-shirt.  Rest in Peace Elder Hales, what an incredible example of a dedicated servant of the Lord.

A big theme that came to me this week was hardening not our hearts.  I pondered the meaning of what the scriptures mean when they reference that saying and some things that I decided would really help me to harden not my heart were to: 

- Be more humble

- Have a good attitude

- Obey willingly

If we soften our hearts and hearken unto the Lord in all of our doings, He will let us know why things that we don't expect in our life are happening and reveal more of what he has in store for us.  

Good ol' Elder Asay and I have been working every minute of every day, so when we came to church on Sunday and none of our investigators that we expected show up actually showed up, it was super hard for us.  However if I were to complain at that moment and grow angry at God or feel bad for myself that would go completely against what I have been studying this week about hardening not our hearts.  So we continued to be humble and have faith during the rest of that meeting and really felt the spirit as the members bore their testimonies (by the way we haven't seen general conference yet due to time differences so it was just fasting testimony meeting).  Anyways after the meeting we got up and turned around and it turns out our investigators were there the whole time but we just didn't see them hahaha!  What an incredible feeling and example of the blessings that will come if we put our trust in the Lord.  

Welcome to Buendia

President Fermanis allowed me to go to lunch with some of my family last P-Day and they spoiled my companion and I yet again.  If you're reading this, Auntie Susie or Milet, I love you you're the best.  This is the cheesecake I got and it's plate was in the shape of a mousetrap.  Legendary.

We met with some of our members this week including the Thayn family.  We just talked about their missions and "Stranger Things" and they are now my best friends here in Makati.  They're amazing.  

I love you all have a stellar week.

Elder Burdeos

You Can't See Me

Kamusta yung mga nagbabasa ng emails ko hanggang ngayon.  Konti lang kayo seguro hahaha!

We're killing it here in Makati.  We've been able to see some small miracles coming from our diligent work in our area.  I come home super tired every day and I wake up maybe even more tired but we've found a way to make it work.  

One day we were on exchanges and a man walking his dog stops us on the street and says, "Elders!!  I have a question!  What's the difference between the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood?"  What in the world.  How crazy is that?  Turns out a while back, this man had a copy of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration Pamphlet but moved away before he could really be taught.  We were super excited to hear about that and we've been teaching him ever since!  Another super cool experience came during a super long stressful day.  Elder Asay and I had just been walking back and forth from appointments that fell through so we just opened our planners and started going to some of our potential investigators.  I got the impression to visit the house of a man we had street contacted the other day.  We looked for his house for a good 20 minutes walking up and down the street but we could not seem to find it so we decided to just give up on that.  However, we passed by an investigator who we had dropped a while back because he was rarely available due to his work and his little kids.  We decided to head to his house even though we didn't really want to because it just seemed like a waste of time walking to his house and we didn't feel like getting rejected for what felt like the 100th time that week; but we had nothing to lose so we did it.  Turns out we caught him at the perfect time.  Him and his wife were just sitting in the living room playing with their 3 little kids.  They let us in and let them teach us and we were able to really connect the gospel to their needs.  Brother had to lose his job to take care of his family and was going through a lot of stressful times but we were able to share some scriptures from the Book of Mormon that seemed to comfort him and bring him some happiness that day.  He invited us to come back and teach them about the message this week!  

It really boosted our testimony that the Lord has His own way of moving this work along.  Even though what we feel we should do may not be what we want to do or it may seem pointless at first, if you follow that spirit you'll follow the will of God which ultimately leads to happiness.  I stand by what my awesome companion said this week, "Straying away from the will of God is straying away from the happiness that he has prepared for you".

Elder Adawag and I went on exchanges this week.  He claims to be full Filipino but deep down I know he's a chinese kwanner.  He's crazy.  I love the guy.

We seem happy but we're dead inside :))))

"You can't see me" - The legend, John Cena.

​Have fun.  Be safe.  See a doctor if the symptoms persist.  Love you.

Elder Burdeos​