Week 23

Week 23
8/19/13

Getting ready for dinner..

This week was really strange, So Monday was legit got to play basketball in Iriga again and I was showing off my Kobe Bryant magic, but like Kobe I injured my ankle so its killing me. Tuesday we went to our far area to teach one of our less actives and we had a really great lesson, it was good but it took us all day to get come back because there was no tricey so we decided to walk 30 mins later we started running away from this storm that was chasing us but we weren't that fast, it  caught us. so yeah  we just got wet again...  Wednesday was good  we taught the little girl we were going to baptize so that was legit. But  Wednesday was the highlight of my week. we challenged 2 of our investigators to baptism  and they both accepted and one of them I personally found. I was just feeling awesome can't really explain the feeling when they said yes. The next day I gave the workshop in our district meeting and it went really well and it was fun. On friday we went back to the investigator that were were going to baptize this Saturday if everything goes smoothly.  we also went to one of the less actives that have been less active since like 2006 and we had to cross  a sketchy bridge it was  50ft in the air and everytime we walked across it something fell off of it. I had to literally help elder Lapana over it.. he's scared of heights hahaha. Anyways I got a text from the investigator that I personally found and she said you guys can't come to the appointment because she is at the bus stop going to Manila to work there and she doesn't know when she's going to be back... My heart was crushed this means basically all the lessons we taught her went out the window just like that. I'm trying to get her address so I can contact the Elders in manila. But yeah I am crushed. Sunday the other investigator didnt go to church we waited at her house for an hour to talk to her she wasn't their on the way back however we saw a member and he called us over and introduced us to a friend so we got a refferal 5 minutes later. Estig! We saw him again talking to someone different he invited us to talk to them its a girl and a grandpa, the daughter spoke perfect english to me....  I found out the grandpa was a contractor and had built some of our churches so its a good lead it made up from the crappy week.   I have been reading the Book of Mormon this week and it has been helping me out a lot. On Saturday I see if I'm going to stay, get transfered or train so this is going to be a good week hopefully. As always thanks to  everyone for the email they always make me feel great . 

Elder Llorens

Week 22

Week 22
8-12-13

Typhoon Utor

We did not receive an update yet this week.  We did hear from Seth and typhoon Utor  passed over his area bringing heavy rain and winds, but he is safe and said he was enjoying the cool (as in temperature)
weather we will let you know if we hear anything else.

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