Week 89

Week 89
11-30-14

So friends and family this shall be the last update of my mission here in the Philippines Naga mission. This has been truly a great experience of my whole life. The things Ive seen and done here have been amazing. I am overwhelmed to serve here with our Filipino brothers and sisters sharing the Gospel and Serving those in need. This last week was a great one, Elder Seegmiller and I went on exchanges with some of the elders in our zone and we also were able to get some more new investigators and we actually had a little family of young adults come to church. Its been really hard t this week saying goodbye to all the people I've meet, super hard to finally leave the Philippines. But I am really happy to finally come back home to see all my other friends and family. A really cool thing this week is I got my suit that I got tailored and made here and it fits perfect! I also got this really nice hammock its basically a fishing net but its super masarap to lay in. But yeah I think one of the crazy things I'm going to miss the most is the food and the transportation no more jeepneys and tricys now.... this week for work has been good as well just trying to work to the end and I guess I did it. Its a super weird feeling now that I'm not going to work later today. But as hard as it is saying good bye I keep seeing everyone I said goodbye to last week, today, its really making it harder than it is and its just making me more stressed out. I  just want to say to everyone that I am thankful for all that have supported me my whole mission and can't wait to see you all this week. nagpapasalamat ako rin para sa lahat ng mga kaibigan ko dito sa pinas, na tulungan ako. mamimiss ko talaga dito sa pinas. alam ko na totoo ang simbahan ni jesucirtso ng mga banal sa mga huling araw . buhay and dios, si Jesus ay ang ating tagapagligtas sa buong mundo at nagdusa po siya para sa ating lahat. SObrung totoo ang aklat ni mormon siya ay ang isa pang tipan ni jesucristo. kahit uuwi na ako imposible para sa akin makakalimultan tungkol sa lahat na ginawa ko dito sa Philippines. Maraming salamat sa lahat ulit. Mahal ko kayo!

kitakits sa susunod

Elder Seth Llorens

week 88

Week 88
11-23-14

So this is now my last official week proselyting in the Philippines. It is really sad but I am super happy that I had about 2 years to do this for the Lord and for everyone else. So this last week for some reason turned out to be really fun. I think the funniest thing that happen this last week was a drunk guy came to church for all 3 hours and the best part was him singing Joy to the World at the top of his voice. super funny. But yeah this last week was a little hard at the beginning of the week but it turned out to be better as the week went on. The best so far has been our work finding new investigators. We also had some fun going on exchanges with some other elders. Yesterday was nice I got to go to a foreigners house, he's from Denmark I think but his step son is a member from here but less active. I got to eat some left over cake and leche flan so that was really nice as well. Another funny and embarrassing thing that happen is that we had to go to one of our different  far areas for a mission related thing, and when I went to get on a jeepney I accidentally head butted a girl... (not to hard) in the head, it was like a little thing but it was really embarrassing. I really felt bad because she was really embarrassed as well but I did all I think I could to say I was sorry, but yeah. This week was just really fun too a lot of random small things happened. The crazy thing is that basically I get to go home next week and be normal again thats going to be weird. Another fun thing is I'm going to go on a lot of exchanges this week to get my mind off of things and just make this last week fun. But thanks everyone again for all you have done from the beginning til now you are the bomb and I'll see you soon.

Ingat!

Elder Llorens

Week 87

Week 87
11-16-14

Hello, so this week has been awesome. We have been really successful in finding new people to teach this week so basically my mission President just told me to do was run to the end of my mission so thats what me and my companion are doing. But we are having fun at the same time. So everyday we basically have found new people to teach, usually from just talking to people and whats really nice most of them are letting us come back to teach them more. One of the days while we were working with some of the other Elders in our area, we were looking for a less active and this was cool he lives in this one house, and his step father is a really tall dutch man. So for the whole time I was talking to him in really horrible English. Basically I forgot how to speak formal english to anyone, but yeah it was really weird talking/ having a conversation in English. My favorite part of the week was on Friday, we had a zone conference and it was really cool to see a lot of my friends in the mission right before I leave. But yeah we had a really sweet spirit about the church, and it was nice to have a open discussion with the rest of our zone and other zones. This week you can say was busy we had 29 lessons all together, it was so busy we didn't have time to go to all of our other lessons because we were just going hard. It's been really cool how the lord prepares people to hear our message, while we were looking for this one street contact, we asked this lady if she knew who the person we were looking for, after a while of talking she started to ask questions, long story short she basically asked all the questions we teach in the first lesson and asked us to come back to teach her more later this week. Super cool that sometimes there are a lot of people looking for the "something more" but sometimes they don't know they are looking for it. That was definitely a testimony builder for me and my companion. And yesterday I gave a talk at Church about ... Missionary service.... no shocker there, But my favorite scripture I used there was in Alma 42:31

 31 "And now, O my son, ye are called of God to preach the word unto this people. And now, my son, go thy way, declare the word with truth and soberness, that thou mayest bring souls unto repentance, that the great plan of mercy may have claim upon them. And may God grant unto you even according to my words. Amen."

I am just super happy to have spent these few months preaching the Gospel to those who don't know about the Plan of Salvation or Plan of Happiness. Its been Gloryoso hahaha. But yeah 2 more weeks and im home and I get to eat my Double Double burger. That is the blessed day. But thanks everyone for your support and I'll see you Shortly.

Elder Llorens

Pictures

Week 86

Week 86 

11-09-14

So this week was pretty spanking sweet.... Monday night we had our usual Family home evening at the Pili home and we have another one later tonight. Tuesday I had my last MLC (Mission Leader Conference) at the mission home, I got to bear my testimony to the leaders of the mission with 8 other of my batch who are leaving who are Zone Leaders or STLs. SO that was a really great experience. I got to see some of my friends from the different areas and talk to them about life in the mission and getting tips about college as well. We had Elder Yarisantos and Simmons sleep over because Yarisantois and I went to Manila early in the morning with other exiting missionaries to get finger printing done so we can go home in December. While we were there we had to endure the immigration office.... possibly worst than the DMV. But afterwards we were allowed to go to the Mall of Asia and I just went nuts on eating American food, I got a really good burger from Tgi Fridays and also Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Cinnabon. So that was cool, we also got to see missionaries from other missions so we got to talk with them as well so that was fun. Also had my first hot shower in the mission field that was nice also. So Thursday morning we came back home, went to our areas and went to work and we planned for our zone training the next day. Friday we had zone training and that was really good, we helped talk about our strengths and weaknesses and what we need to do to improve and it looked like it helped, we could already see the results from the training. Saturday we had a 1 day mission we worked with our Branch Presidency and young men helping to reactivate the priesthood. It was a good help and it was good to work with our leaders as well. Sunday was nice day got to get some work in as well. Just really busy this week but it was a good week overall. Thanks again everyone for all the emails they are always encouraging. thats it for this week,

Elder Llorens

Week 85
11-2-14

So this was another successful week. On Monday we had a family home evening at our branch presidents house and that was really fun, some of the sister's investigators were there and it was really nice. On Tuesday it was a normal day of work but it was fun,we got ignored the whole day but we managed to get some lessons. The next day we had exchanges with the Calabanga district leaders... Elders Grospe and Cole. It was a great day we got 12 lessons all together, we were also privileged to eat some nice adobe that Elder Grospe made for us. On Thursday  we went to Calabanga to join their district meeting and that was fun. Turned out that the church was locked and that we had no other place to do district meeting so we actually called a member and asked if we could have it in her home and she said yes. She also made us Chicken Curry and that was glorious. After that I got some motion sickness than we came home, went to our far area and taught one of our investigators who is going to be baptized in December.  We went there and taught her and a less active member and we walked home. It was a good hour walk but it was a nice walk because we had really nice weather, it was dark ,a little cool and drizzling. The next day we worked hard as well got a couple of new investigators and some that were already talking about baptism and they are already reading the Book Of Mormon. But yeah good days. And on Saturday we went on splits with the assistants we got a couple of lessons but it was really hard because it was the Day of the Dead.  Everyone just goes to the cemetery to hang out with their dead so no one was at home, it was really hard to teach but we got some good conversations with people. I met some one from orange county so it was way cool. On Sunday we had 2 investigators come to church and also had one young man named Mark Anthony come for the first time and that was a really cool and our investigator class was full this week also so that was fun. We also had an area Philippines broadcast got to listen to Elder Dallin H. Oaks and other general authorities and it was really uplifting   This morning I am getting a nice suit made so I am excited to see what it looks like in 3 weeks. But thats about it but thanks everyone for the emails they are great and ill talk to you again next week.

Elder Llorens

Pictures

.23 cent Vest

Wheelie

Octopus

Family Home Evening Fun

Spicy Chili Ice Cream

Handsome Missionaries

Companions

Goofing off

Companions