Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Week 49

Week 49
2/24/14


So no update this week!  Being in the jungle makes for not so great internet connections.  Here's what I got from the email he did send:

So this week hasn't been great.  I have been sick with a sore throat and fever.  I think it is just a cold but it makes working in the rain and heat miserable. I found out that the son of the couple we baptized doesn't need to go through the discussions he can just get baptized since his parents are members now. So that was good.  I had a meeting with the Mission President this week and I think he is happy with the way things are going out here.  I have zone training next week so I hope to get the box you sent then. We all chipped in and had a small party for a nanay and her family.  She is super nice and feed us when she can so it was fun to do something for her.


Then we got nothing!  But at least we got a small update and know that he is okay…thanks for the continued support..Till next week

Week 48 Less Actives

Week 48
2/17/14





In Seth's wildest dreams!
Good Food 



Hello again friends. This week has been another great one. Earlier this week it rained randomly on Tuesday pretty hard, but the next day it got really hot. We got a lesson in the morning to one of our investigators with a baptismal date. He's actually one of the sons of
the couple that we baptized, so the parents were really happy now that we have a set date/ so after that we went home and cooled off, later in the afternoon we went back out our far area. So we got to walk to our far area looking for some less actives. WE walked pretty far for nothing we found a less active but were unable to teach. But it was not all in vain... we got in a good exercise and got to cross some really beautiful terrain so it was really good sight seeing. I crossed 2 bridges and was pretty tempted to go down to and just jump in the
water and cool off because it was so hot. So we walked all the way to the end of our area and turned around and walked in the other direction basically to the other end of  our area. We taught a less active who has been less active for about 10 years she said and now we are really good friends with her, we just talked about our families and where we are from so we are friends now. Anyways that was a good time because she said shes been gone for a long time from the church she likes how she is learning everything again, so we went to her twice this week. Sometimes just reaching out and sharing with familiar things helps.  We also went to our other less actives and their families. we are starting to read the Book of Mormon with them or Ang Aklat ni Mormon everytime we visit. And they are always fun they give us a little snack usually and we just talk about home and their day. Thats my favorite just talking to people about their lives and their days.. basically just being normal and having a good laugh. We also taught some new investigators this week. One is a son of a mother who is about 17 but unlike a normal 17 year old he gives really good answers when we talk to him about the church and its good that he's been coming to church but just hasn't been baptized.  We are also teaching his sister .. shes really good and has a really solid Christian background.  That helps a lot, at times we talk about prophets, apostles gods power and sometimes people don't have any idea what we are talking so we have to break down the lessons more and more. But we were lucky the one day we walked back  home a member saw us and told us to come to their house and they said they would feed us and he ended up giving me a pretty good pair of pants so that was nice... I guess its just blessings from God. We located  another less active and found out he's from BUHI my second area which is like one of my favorite areas and we were able to talk about the town and the area and I guess that was good for him  because he hasn't been there in a while. So  we got new elders in the district, my favorite is Elder Kaumaitototya. He's a pretty big Fijan. Now we got a Tongan, Samoan, Kiribati and a Fijian. Elders from around the world! He is a cool thing  I ate 2 chicken heads. It wasn't that bad until I tasted the brain when I started chewing... overall it was pretty good an will be paying 6 pesos again for another one hahaha.  I've started to work out again, I took a break but I'm getting back at it and I am going to try and stop eating rice..... I remember when I first got here it was so difficult to eat rice everyday but now its hard not to eat it… I literally need rice at every meal. I can't wait to go back home and eat at Bari Bari and eat all the rice and the Japanese guy is going to be like hahaha fat boy and I'm going to tell him to shut up in Tagalog hahaha. So thank you again to all the people who have emailed me and sorry I cant eamil you back right now... I am so frustrated with the internet shop right now I have had to switch computers 4 times in order to get on to my email and send this little update. so this is just the pleasure of emailing in a foreign country. But thank you again I really miss you all. And if you are wondering yes they celebrate valentines day and no. I didn't do anything for valentines day beside just hang out at home and talk. Thank again eveyone..

Mahal mula kay Elder Seth "Pogi" Llorens





Thursday, February 13, 2014

Week 47 - Baptisms

Week 47
2/10/14
Baptism Day



Okay so its been an awesome week! The reason why my weeks been totally awesome is because we have been teaching this family and some other people and on Saturday the family got baptized. It was just a great feeling to be there and to support them. They are going to now start a long journey and it makes me feel good to be part of that from the beginning. The feeling of the spirit was so powerful! I was standing near one of my favorite kids his name is "Haring" Absalon. He's 14 years old and it is him and his sister , but from the beginning he's been helping us teach people and its been a great experience not only teaching him but learning from him as well as  being his friend. When he was done being confirmed a member he shook my hand and looked me in my eyes... he didn't have to say anything but I felt his thank you. He had tears in his eyes and I felt them come to my eyes as well. The days like these are the ones you can never forget. They are the ones make it  worth while being here in a foreign country.This is my purpose as a missionary to  invite others to come unto Christ. and I hope everyone, someday can feel what I and Absalon felt. But yeah I was pretty excited!  So excited that as we celebrated I put on my Mexican mustache  and started taking pictures with everyone. Great day! 
We also had a lot of awesome food this week. One that is pretty good is jack fruit or in Tagalog... langka. It's pretty delightful, if its done right it tastes like noodles. and we also had this really good fish i think its called "gigiban" something like that. But it was really good it was BBQ'd. But fish is like my favorite now.  There is this thing called kamuting kalhoy and it tastes like potatoes but they have a bunch of farms here that grow it. Basically if they don't have any rice or food they eat this "kamote". It's good.
So I have been just teaching a lot of people this week mostly the people that were baptized to make sure they knew everything before jumping into it. But one day we were at the church teaching a lesson ... it was so freaking hot  then at about 2 o'clock we just see these dark clouds rolling in and when we got done with our appointment at the church it just started to pour so hard, we tried to wait for it to weaken but it just got  harder and harder we didn't have an umbrella because it was really hot. So we got drenched coming home. On Friday we had some fun,we had zone training and I got to see a lot of my friends and talk about our areas and stuff. We also had some transfers but no one in my house got transferred so I'm going to have another transfer with Teitawana and my poly boys. So basically that means we are going to be eating fried chicken and spam for another 6 weeks. My waist line is furious. haha. In other news summer is right around the corner and its starting to suck because now you have to have the fan on you if you want to sleep and if you dont have a fan your are not going to sleep. But besides that now we are just going to be doing the same thing we did this last  transfer. Working ! Cool thing is we are going to be getting 2 new elders tomorrow in the district. So I'll inform you if its anyone I know or anything cool. So the time has come that I have to start getting new shirts because the ones I have  are getting holes in them and are just getting dirty looking. So I'm going to try and buy them here, wish me luck.
 This morning we had a pretty good game of volleyball going on. We should start a team because our basketball team isn't as good as we thought but our volleyball team is pretty good. Basically our ploys are the ones that own it on the court. So its pretty funny when they just spike it on an innocent standbyer who isnt paying attention. It reminds me when Greg in meet the parents spikes it on his sister in law in the pool and gives her a gnarly bloody nose..... just picture a 200 pound Samoan doing that to a 5''4 Filipino.. hahaha classic. But yeah thats been my week. I continue to appreciate everyones emails and great support .... thank you but thats all for now..

Banggi na baga kakan kita

Elder Llorens

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Week 46 - Pictures

Week 46
2/5/14



So this was a really good week, we got a lot of lessons in with our investigator and I'm basically just having a fun time here in Goa. On Tuesday I went on exchanges with 
Elder Relf (I trained him) so that was super cool we got to be companions again and basically it felt like old times. I think the best part was us waiting for a less active so we are waiting outside his house and Elder Relf told me, that if you look inside, his walls are just covered in bikini calenders I didn't believe him so I looked and its true. haha! So we waited a long time to talk to him, so the restaurant  we were going to closed so like usual we got we had to scramble for food..we ended up having noodles, some brownie snacks, mountain dew, some mango tarts and tuna and yumm that was a great dinner. Reminded me of our Naga days. At least we didn't eat fried chicken haha. So that was fun, then we stayed up talking about life and had some laughs. The next day we came back and worked and got a lot of lessons in. Then we had district meeting, and after we ate some fried chicken LOL but since some of the elders are pretty good at cooking they made this really good sauce and I swear this sauce could have been served at buffalo wild wings. Super good.So the fried chicken was delightful..with the sauce.



 Some of the cool things that happened this week: We are preparing for 4 baptisms  on this coming Friday  so we are really excited for that. On Saturday I went on exchanges with some other Elders in my apartment and I got to go to the beach. One of the less actives literally lives like 5 feet from the shore and when we went he was telling me how crazy the super typhoon was. He said all of the wood houses which are made out of sticks and banana leaves were all destroyed but since his house was made out of concrete only half of it got ruined. Super crazy. It felt nice to take my shoes off though and walk on the beach.  The wind was nice. When we were just chillen we saw a pretty legit looking fin out in the water and we were trying to debate shark or dolphin.. I hope it was a dolphin. Sunday I got to go into Goa again to give another baptismal interview so that was fun.  I got to hang out and talk to one of the other Elders he's getting ready to go back home next week and so I was just chatting with him. I also ran into one of the other members from Naga and he told me that they finally got a group started in my last area and that Sunday was their first service, I was pretty ecstatic for that. We were trying so hard to get a group started but they were waiting for the new year to make it  happen, so I'm glad they finally got it together.  Today we played some volleyball at the church it reminded me off the MTC when I would play it everyday, now its not so intense but its still pretty fun and relaxing. Now Im here in the internet shop emailing everyone and saying hi. As for the weather its gotten way hot, super uncomfortable now. Last week it was cold, now its hot and humid again so we are getting ready for summer.





 Funny thing I got a pretty weird obsession now with lizards and now I like to catch and hold them.Last night I caught one and I was just throwing it on my roommates.. pretty funny because they were freaking out! For a bunch of Polynesians they were freaking out a lot over a little lizard hahaha. Cool thing now our investigators have been teaching me some bicol words. So I am starting to understand  bicol , I'll try studying it. I think it would be cool to speak both Tagalog and Bicol when talking to people.  They get such a  kick out of it when I speak Bicol to them. I'll master like 1 sentence in bicol and use it then they would just start talking to me and I'm like I have no idea what you just said hahaha. But now im pretty confident with my Tagalog I still got a ways to go, but now I can basically speak to anyone and not feel uncomfortable. So thats whats been happening with me. Next Tuesday and this Saturday we find out about transfers. I'm pretty sure im not going to be transferred. I just got here but i think Elder Teitawana my companion is going to be transferred. SO thats always exciting a get to have a new companion again.; So thank you again to all who have sent me emails I love hearing from you. I miss you all and can't wait to hear from you all again.

Active Volcano

kitakits sa susunod

Love Elder Llorens