Week 21

Week 21
8-5-13

Disclaimer from mom: the blog is not in the correct order because I somehow skipped a week :( So be sure to read the previous entry to catch up, it's a good one!!

New Companions!

So another great week. This week we were able to meet everyone in our zone and we had a zone confrence with our new President and the APPs and that was a really sweet experience and yeah I played the piano not to bad. Afterward we feasted on fried chicken and that was flippin good!

 The week was slow due to the elements there was a lot of rain and none of our drivers that drive the triceys wanted to take us to our area and our area is too far to walk maybe 2 hour walk and that wouldn't have worked out because it was raining so hard. So one of the people we were going to teach lives across this bridge but the bridge that goes to her house got washed away so hopefully the weather is better this week. 

 We had a really good lesson this week with one of our investigaotrs and it was the first time I taught about the first vision and  The Restoration of the church.. ibinabumbalik ang simbahan. That was a really great experience one that I can't really explain that well but it was definitely a great experience.  This is one of the reasons why I'm here for sure. But yeah not to many crazy things happened lately,  just some funny bathroom stories that I dont think I can talk about, not about me but my room mates and yeah a funny story about me doing push ups but that will have to be told another day haha. 

 Congrats to my cousin who finished basic. And I hate all of you who are having a great summer. But thank you all for the awesome emails. You are all great and keep them up!!!

 OO astig ng lingo na ito. at thankful ako para sa lahat ng kayo.lahat kayo ay sobrung mangandand mga kaibigan sa akin and mamaiss ko kayo. but mahal ko lahat kayo. sige na ingot kayo  No translation provided :(

Elder "POGI" Llorens

Week 19 July 22,2013

Week 19

7-22-13

So alot has happened this last week. On tuesday we went to Naga city to meet our new companions, Elder LA'ulu my companion and Elder Finau are getting transfered and Elder Cawit is Buntis/pregnant ,haha, he's going to train.So yeah got to see my Batch Elder Pickford and he's going to train and Sister Hurst and Sister Barlow are training. So the transfers came around I was Called/Promoted to senior so this means I will follow up a fairly new missionary. I am going to be his follow up right after he got with his training, at this moment my heart sank and I got pretty terrified because this means I am going to be a follow up right after I got done with my follow up. But he's a cool guy, my new companion is Elder Lapana from Samoa. So yeah another Poly From Samoa as my companion. Might as well become an Uce..."for the Boys" "Duck Quakers". So yeah a really scary assignment considering elder Lapana just gone with training and isn't that good at Tagalog yet and I have to train him and open a new area. So a little stressful. But i am grateful for it.

On top of the world!

 Elder Cawit is training an American Elder Etough from Utah hes legit! He's a sports guy like me and likes duck dynasty so he's the man... he's a pogi now. And yeah so they are now part of the Buhi boys fraternity and I was told because of so many missionaries there might be 2 more elders coming sooner or later! So yeah super cool. But  like I said our area was terrible since we split areas last transfer so we would average like 7 lessons a week but i want to leave this area better then where i found it and we were able to get 17 lessons this week!
 3 new investigators and 5 less actives come to church. this is good considering 65 of the Buhi members that go to church only 6 came from our area. So this week has been actually good a lot better than my last weeks. But yeah it was weird when I started just talking to people, random people I was able to speak and they understood and we got return appointments to their houses and I was able to teach them their family and friends. I know this is through the power of the holy ghost and the gift tongues. 2 nephi 33;3. And this is the blessing of being exactly obedient. When teaching these people you know when you are teaching that this is what they need and you literally are the ones teaching them and you are  the one they trust... a pretty big responsibility and a lot of pressure and stress. But I know when you are on the lord errand he will shape the back to place the burden placed upon it. Its definitely a hard assignment but the Lord doesn't give easy assignments. But yeah just gotta hang tough and never quit.

I have a testimony of this work and am grateful for it. I would like to give a shout out to my pops Happy Birthday I love you and I hope you have a great day. Buut yeah Iriga got a lot of new missionaries this last transfer everyone but me and the Zls are training. But the cool thing is that 2 Elders are from Anahiem so yeah they are cool they are half Samoan and something else I forgot but  they are legit... of course!  I am totally bummed that I can't go to the US Surf open this week but what evers there's always summer 2015.....haha bummer I lose.

 Thanks for the email sorry if I couldn't email all of you back but yes thank you for the emails they are really encouraging! Thank you. Oh and Remember that if your having a rough day that you have a loving heavenly father that loves you more than you can comprehend!

Engot kayo

Elder Llorens

"it will all be worth it"

Week 20

Week 20
7-29-13

Okay so another good week this week. Not a ton of lessons like we wanted  but we ended up doing a lot of service for people. Another cool thing that happened is we got another 2 new investigators and got a referral! So yeah thats like the high light of my week. The service was fun. We pulled a lot of weeds and made food for this family because their son is getting ready to leave for his mission. 

 On Saturday we had a branch family home evening and I gave the lesson and that was cool we had some fun games that we played and I just looked like a goof to be honest. But it was a blast. Then on Sunday I gave a last minute talk on service and I think I did really good my whole talk was in Tagalog and they looked like they were understanding me, they didn't give me that weird look like what the heck is this guy sayin haha. So I felt good about it. 

Its been raining on and off. And yeah its currently raining really hard!  So it rains here and then it gets super sunny and nice out, so I'm convinced that the weather  is  bipolar over here!   Every time we come back from Iriga we always ride on top of the jeepney but honestly as soon as we get 5 mins on the rode it just pours on us and it sucks. We get drenched but its really fun. We'll probably still ride top load haha. 

 This young man is so far my favorite kid to go on a mission, so I bought him a sweet Vans hat and a flash drive for his pictures and music. I gave that to him earlier today. He's going to do good. So our house is super fun me, Elder Lapana and Elder Eatough like messing around especially to Elder Cawit haha.(so that means we pick on him) . But its still pretty hard becoming a senior companion. I feel so new myself.   I'm still trying to make my area better. Since we are opening up an area its hard but its all good I have seen the blessings and its been super great. I can easily say this is the best time of my life!

 I hope all those who were affected by the Train Crash in Spain are okay, you are in my prayers. And a shout out to my boy Garrett Wolfe Happy birthday! Well this week was good and I expect next week to be better. We have Zone conference for all the missionaries in our Zone and I was asked to play the Piano, uh oh!  So we'll see how this goes! Wish me Luck! Anyways Thanks for all the email they are awesome. Love you all. Til next week. 

Engot kayo

Elder Llorens

Week 18

Week 18 -7/15/13

Missionaries in my area

Okie dokie so this week was good. not much happened but it was a good week.  On Thursday we had our last district meeting and that was fun. Man this last 6 weeks went by sooo fast. I can't believe I'm getting a new companion tomorrow. I'm sad to be losing Elder La'ulu, but there are alot of new missionaries coming in so many of the people in my batch from the MTC that just finished their  training will be training now.  So yeah crazy stuff is going on now, it's a little more stressful. 

 This last Saturday I was able to go on a boat  and watch 7 baptisms across the lake and that was a great experience! Seeing all of those people come together at once was impressive. You couldn't help but to feel joy watching them become filled entirely with the holy spirit. Before their baptism they  were happy, but when they came out of the water they were someone entirely different. You could see it an feel it. That was a great experience and I will never forget it. 

Where we had our beach party last week

Just like that experience,  I am never going to forget what I have done and seen here. Not too many people can say they have served the lord for 2 straight years without phone or whatever other worldly distractions there are.  I have gone through some trials, but all I know " it will all be worth it". I know some people would cry being in my everyday position, but I wouldn't change a thing. It's funny to think that people all over are serving the Lord wether for 2 months or 2 years, we are all in the service of the Lord.  We are all going out of our comfort zones to different degrees, but we are all blessed to have this opportunity. I have seen true miracles and know that there is something bigger at work here. I have seen true sacrifice and I have seen real people serve the Lord and I am Honored to serve here with them. I am grateful for this work  and I know after I am all done ,this will make me a better person.  I am thankful toGod for giving me all that I have, I am grateful for my family and their support and also my friends that have given me their friendship. thanks everyone I'll talk to you soon.

Elder Llorens

Gotta Eat!

Week 17

week 17

View from top of mountain

7-8-13

Alrighty, so this was another great week. I have one more week left and I get a new companion, so far this has been the fastest transfer and hopefully it keeps up like this. 

So lets see this morning I had a zone activity at the beach because our zone had the cleanest apartments and it was a blast! The beach was white and the ocean was just flippin sweet made me miss home really bad and I was deffinitely debating going into the water. It was super  fun  we played some beach volleyball and played pass with the rugby ball and spent time with the missionaries in the zone and my new president. 

 My new president is great and so is his wife. We went to Naga on friday to meet them and I was able to see my former companion and my last zone and it looked like they were doing great. It was good to catch up on the happenings from when I was last there. Got to meet my brother in the mission he's cool. So that was fun, afterward I went to the mall and bought 4 Mcdonald hamburgers and a large fry and the next morning I was just dying..ugh I haven't had that in soo long my stomach felt like it was going to blow up. it kind of did. 

Umm..lets see on 4th of july I couldnt find any fireworks so I ended up climbing a mountain instead and that was intense. We just got a machete and got a guide to take us up and yeah we literally made our own path up. It was cool you could see our whole area the buhi lake and Iriga city but then it started raining and we booked it off , almost fella couple times but it was all good.  We got big coconut leaves and that was our umbrella sows hiked all the way to the top and  then ran down and walked home, and we decided that since its raining and we are already wet might as well just run home in the rain. so yeah happy 4th of July. 

Top of the mountain

The others in Buhi got 3 batismal interviews this last week so they are going to hopefully have 3 baptisms next saturday. so thats whats up. So far that's it me and  Elder Finau went out together on our exchanges so that was cool, we have been out for the same time and yeah we went solo and we did pretty good understood a lot.  Thats the other cool thing, I have been having conversations with people so yeah thats cool I can talk to people sort of now, so looks like I am progressing in the language. but yeah besides that nothing has really happened this week.During exploration day on July the 4th me and Elder la'ulu found this river and a bridge and the river is full of lillies and I thought it was pretty neat. any ways thats all. Thanks for all the emails, again they are most appreciated.

Bridge with Lillies below

Always,

Elder Llorens

Week 16

Week 16  7/1/13

**Sorry for the late post we were on vacation....

So for my news this week something very exciting happened on Saturday; we had a Tropical Storm come in and that was gnarly! We were told to stay indoors and at first all it was just a little rain. Then I was just sitting studying some stuff and I looked outside and I had been air drying my clothes than WHAM my clothes went flying on the line and it just poured like there was no tomorrow seriously felt like i was in hurricane Katrina thats how hard the wind was blowing!   That went on from 8:00 in the morning to about 2:00 the next morning and then a little into the next day. 

My 1st Tropical Storm

The fun part was when we had to buy food at the gardeners market, there was no one there and yeah I got rained on a little but luckily I had my yellow rain jacket that I found at our house. It kept me dry on my back, but the jacket is made for a Filipino so it didn't exactly fit very well hahaha. But it was funny seeing all these people give me the double take when I was walking down the street in this bright yellow jacket . I dont care, I'll most likely never see them again. It was so weird when I was walking down the street I saw this guy wearing a Fountain Valley High School boys soccer jacket and yeah that just made me laugh to see it. I'm a 10000 miles away but yet there's still stuff from home following me!

I also went on exchanges this week with our Zone Leaders again and that was good. We were able to find some potential investigators in the area. Our Mission President and his wife finally left and we get a new Mission President and the Naga Mission and the Legaspi Mission have officially split. I will travel this friday to meet the new president and his wife in Naga,  so I am looking forward to that. I was able to see the church missionary broadcast last Sunday and that was great hearing form our Prophet and the Apostles.  After listening to that you can't help but re-rebooted. This morning we went to Iriga and played some basketball with our Zone Leaders and some other Elders form the other district. After we got mang inasal (all you can eat rice). 

Just messin around

I just want to say congratulations to my sister for being an  International  dance champion!   She was in Las Vegas and danced at Thunderstruck Nationals. She definitely worked her tail off and she deserves this great honor. She competed out of 40 something dancers in her solo age and she was first overall so Big congratulations to her. I only wish that I could have seen you dance, Abby.

Shout out to my sister

Also want to say Happy 4th of July to all those in America. Going to miss gong to the park and watching the fireworks. However, I did see a sign that said fire works for sale. and we also have a ladder that we can put on the balcony that goes up to the roof. So there are some possibilities this week.hahaha. 

So thats it I think. Can't wait to see my last zone and my old companion this Friday when we  meet the new president. This week its a good one, stay cool California I know I'm not. And thank you for all the support!

  This is Elder Llorens signing off; till next time, stay classy California.

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Week 15 6/24/13

Week 15 6/24/13

So this week was good. A little slow, I think its because I have finally  adjusted to the missionary life. Its gonna be weird adapting to life after the mission but something I'm kind of looking forward too. Especially the part where there is air conditioning, food anytime you want, a good bathroom and toilet, and sanitized water!  This week what has been killing me are the brown outs or black outs, they are the worst!  Sometimes there is no electricity for  between 2-9 hours and the worst part is when you get home and you get in the shower and all of a sudden it just goes dark, it leads to awkward situations, Haha you are just going to have to trust me on that one. It also stinks  when you are getting ready to cook food, or getting ready to go to bed and you have the nice fan on the closest thing to air conditioning then it just turns off and you are just sleeping on the floor with your nice gross mattress and your star wars sheets and then presume to sweat bullets. 

But on the funnier and brighter side of the week, me and my Companion Elder La'ulu crashed a 10 year olds birthday party. In the Philippines its normal to invite people who you don't know or are just acquaintances with to a party's so you can add to the fun and have a better time hopefully. For us we stuck to eating their food and rocking it on the Karaoke machine, I did some classics: Journey, Beatles, Beach boys, Taylor Swift and Syiempre/ of course Ice Ice Baby and I tried some Frank Sinatra. So that was fun considering we walked pretty far to get there maybe 14 km. So good rewards and blessing for going to  that I guess.

Teaching my companion to do the "Bernie"

 Some thing cool I read in D&C was  when Joseph Smith asked the brethern, " shall we not go on in so great a cause?" and thats exactly why I am here to help other come closer to god. They say they don't want to listen or say they aren't interested but we somehow get a return appointment and we later end up baptizing them. A lot of people don't know where to look for what they are searching for. Its my job to help the Filipino. They are so great they are the best I already consider myself filipino! They live day to day with so little. The way they live baffles me, they honestly would choose to live the way they are rather than go for something much better, they are humble and truly loving people. I am truly thankful for living in America where we are able to voice our opinion and have a good government with fair laws. I am especially  thankful that my family doesn't have to live in poverty everyday. I went on exchanges last week and just talking to other filipino missionaries they say they would rather be missionaries all their life so they can obtain the blessing of the Lord rather than go  home and return to poverty. 

I am thankful that I have a really good companionship and thats important for all missionaries and those getting ready to go on missions if you have a good companionship you'll be successful and you'll make that connection that helps you to work well together.
I am thankful that I am healthy and able to continue to work here.  I am thankful for all of the support I have.  I am thankful that our Heavenly Father continues to pick me up when I am down and continues to lead and guide my work here.

Shout out to Cejae and Jordan T.  Happy Birthday! Hope you both had great days.

Keep the e-mails coming please!!!

Love, 
The one and only Elder Llorens