Well family yet another day another week another month is over here in the Philippines! I can’t believe this week marks my 4th month in the mission and  I only have 20 more! Time here in the Philippines just flies by! I’m sitting here emailing next to Elder Pulshipher and we are just talking how fast it’s been. It’s good that way! Time flies when you are having fun no?! I have to admit probably the best thing I have heard this week is right now.  I opened up my email and saw a message from dad and it was so simple yet so eloquent. James Harden going off for 47 against the Thunder. You just can’t beat that. Like where was the defense. Where was Durant. Where was Westbrooke. Where was the D-fence. Then to see that he led the Rockets over the number 1 team in the NBA. it just simply made my week! It was awesome hearing that! So dad thank you for that! Also on a more spiritual note... 58 new missions were created! Holy Crap. Or here in the Philippines they would say grabi gid. damout mga mission no? That means like holy cow! Lots of missions right?! But yeah that’s crazy! You'll have to send me a list of all of them soon! That’s awesome though that so many are opening.  Any new countries.. any new Philippines?? So many! dang! and so awesome that Corona won state again! That’s awesome they were able to pull that off 2 years in a row especially without Calaen, Avrey and Andrus and all those other factors that played last year.

 

So to answer some of your questions....

 

I have no chest pains anymore. My skin is doing good. I think the humidity helps and Ii haven’t had any new zits. Just a few white heads but thats pretty normal I’d say. I’m drinking filtered water. I have had some sketchy water but always prayed before and have been fine. I always try to drink filtered and we'll definitely put a push on that this week. But like at home and everything it’s always filtered. Sometimes members will feed us and I’ll be given water and they tell me to drink and you don’t really have a choice. I  mean I do but sometimes they'll get offended! But so far no tape worms.

 

Who are my investagators. We don’t really have any yet still.... We have a few potential but whenever we visit they just say they don’t want to hear. We are trying hard though to find at least one these next few weeks together. Even if not, we are just really trying to fellowship cause this area there are damout mga less actives. (alot of Less actives) they say they are either Catholic now, poor or  offended, so they have no desire to return to church which is frustrating cause I think when they see two Americans they don’t open up to us cause they think we won’t understand the problems. But we do. So that’s what we are really trying to do but at the same time we really want an investigator. 

 

Also we aren’t in a ward we are in a branch. Its called Minapasuk branch. Our branch president’s name is President Pilicano. He’s about 26, served his mission in Bacolod and moved back after and married! haha He now lives with his wife’s family in a little bamboo hut and has 2 kids and no work. He knows English though but he’s a really good guy still.  He tries but no one in our branch is the go get em type of people. We only have one real missionary minded person in our ward but she just chastizes people saying they'll go to hell if they don’t go to church. Our branch just kinda struggles. Very poor, very stubborn if they don’t like it or if things don’t go their way. They always say they'll do things and then they never do it when we follow up with them. Like home teaching or visiting teaching never gets done. We try though! They are all good people just don’t know the truth as much as they should and they won’t reach out to the truth if it came!  We try to do our best though and connect with the people!

 

But that’s that with our ward and our area. It’s just a very hard area with everything especially the langauge cause it’s mixed and people. We’ve been told that Minapasuk is one of the hardest in the mission according to our Stake President. So it’s all good. We understand that and keep our heads up and strive to do our best. The main thing is that I have a testimony of this gospel and know that it has blessed my life and know that it can bless everyones and make everyones life better than it is! If people could just realize that it would be so much better for them!

 

There are hard times on the mission like people not showing up to church or people won’t listen to us but those times never outdo  those moments where the Spirit is strong or where I just feel so blessed to be a part of this work in this church, in this mission, with friends and family and leaders who support me at all times. I know that that’s what counts and I hope that I can share it more and more with people and help them in their life!

 

I am so very thankful for all that I have in my life!

 

Know that I love you and miss you all!

 

The work is great! and I’m doing great!

 

Love you all!

 

P.S. what’s the kidnapping thing with Nats comp?

 

 

 

 

 one with Elder Pulshipher in the Computer place

 

Hey all! How is everyone doing! As I’m writing this I’m trying to upload some pictures but the computer that I’m on isn’t reading my camera for some reason so hopefully soon I can figure it out cause I took some good pictures of me this week.  Like me crossing a waste deep river with a pretty strong current! That was was fun! haha. I had to go waste deep and cross a river. It was probably a good 100-150 ft. wide! It was sweet. We were just crossing rocks to get to one point but then there came the point where we had to almost just swim! Elder Lengs balance is terrible and he slipped within the first 2 steps in the water and looked like he just jumped in the pool! haha. I was laughing hard cause for me I got through pretty easily. Oh sweet... yeah I just loaded them so I’ll send you pictures. I got like 5 pictures coming this week!

 

So this week has been pretty good. Not much has gone on. Little teaching for some reason. Every house we went to the people like weren’t there so it was a little frustrating but that didn’t get me down cause we did teach and the lessons we taught I felt like went well. But for me I felt they went real well. I feel like I was able to express myself much more and was able to feel the Spirit guiding my words and what to say. Even still sometimes I can’t understand the people. The old people here are so hard to understand cause they have no teeth (like seriously. maybe three teeth total. no front teeth at all!) and they just mumble all their words and speak so fast. Before I would have let that get me down but now I just go into those lessons with the mindset that I’m just going to listen and act like I know what he is saying. And as I do that I feel like I may have no idea what he is saying but I know excatly what to say. There is a Quote in PMG that I love. It’s Jeffery R. Holland and he just talks about how listening is the most important thing we can do. Look it up cause I forgot what section it is but thats how I feel when I teach those type of people. I can really see the Gift of Tongues coming into my teaching and as I keep progressing and doing the things that I need to do to excel in this language I know I will be an instrument in the Lords hands like it says I can be in the scriptures.  Everyday is just an adventure here and I’m starting to actually wake up just ready to go hit it hard. Before I would be like ahh man... 6:30. I wish I was still asleep and able to go watch some college b-ball today. But the more and more I wake up and just work, the more and more I look forward to the day and what it has in store for me! The people here actually understand me when I speak which is nice. We were talking to this one lady the other day and she was asking me how long I’ve been in the Philipines and I was like almost 2 months. Then she asked Elder Leng and he said almost 5. She looked at us and was like you’ve only been here for 2 months and you’ve been here for 5? We were like yeah why? And she points and me and says to Elder Leng ''he's learning the language way faster then you'' it was way funny. Good thing Elder Leng keeps his head up!! He's improving more and more which is good. His biggest problem is he speaks really choppy and the people don’t understand. But it’s getting better. I’m helping him with pronounciation and flow cause that’s one thing I've picked up really easy!

 

Well fam. I know this letter wasn’t the best but I have had a good week. I find new things about my self every week that I didn’t know about me before. Like how much my personality is like dads.  Here in the Philippines they can’t find scriptures that easily so Elder Leng will always just grab the scriptures for them and in my mind I just say ''stop grabbing.'' I don’t know if you guys know what I’m talking about but dad would always say that to us kids! Natalie and Shauna probably know whats up!

 

Well fam and friends! know that I love you all and miss you all! You are always on my mind but the work here goes on and like I said everyday it just gets better and better! I can’t wait to see what is in store for me in the near future! I know that this is the true church and we have a living prophet who leads and guides this church today! It’s truly a blessing that we have and I love that it is in my life. I have the oppurtunity to share it with others here in the Philippines and there are others everywhere in the world sharing the same message in different languages and different cultures but the thing that stays the same is the gospel and the feeling of the Holy Ghost that testifies of the Truthfulness of these many things!

 

I’m truly so thankful for that!

 

Love you all!

 

Elder Sargent

 

 

 

Sagay Zone

 

crossing the river!

soaking wet! haha it was so fun!!

a namit(cool) picture of the sky one day with the sun peaking thru the clouds!

the river its self

Monday, February 11, 2013

Hey there family! So this week marks my first transfer already in the mission.  I can’t believe Febuary is almost halfway over this week! But that means in like 2 weeks I’ll be 4 months out.. 1/6 done with my mission. Time moves fast for sure! I’m doing great and improving everyday, it feels like, so thats a huge positive! 

 

So this week has been really slow moving but it’s been of the best weeks so far in the mission. Kinda weird how that works out for me. I think maybe just cause back home things are moving fast with everyones lives and family. Then I’m just here all the way around the world! haha. idk. But it’s alright...at least it was a good week!

 

So just some things from my end about this week!

 

So this is all random things then I'll talk about my week more! I figured out this week that we can listen to music. It has to be a cd though cause we have dvd players in every appartment so we can play church music.  So if you wanted to send me some church cds or make some and send them that would be sweet! I got your package with the Sour patch kids and the cards! Very fun! Those sour patch kids were down within 5 minutes! haha. In my zone the zone leaders saw my id from Corona when I had my long hair... I now have a nickname.... Jonas Brothers! haha they either are like "Jonas Brothers! how you doing" or they'll just say "Joe Jonas" but it’s funny cause they have their little Philippino accent when they say it! My zone leaders are way good guys. Elder Olaya and Elder Tannagan. Both Philippinos. One leaves in 2 transfers so like 12 weeks, and the other has till October! But yeah I thought you guys would think that was funny. Even though I’m not a fan of the Jonas Brothers at least I get recognized as someone in a boy band! haha! Also, for Uncle Dave(on moms side)  there is a guy that looks like the Philippino version of him! It’s so funny and what makes it better is that he drives a motorcycle! haha! I see him all the time and I’m just like hey Uncle Dave! I’ll have to get an incognito picture sometime if I have a chance! haha

 

So that’s pretty much it for randoms.. It sounds like you guys are having a great week with Dax and Kaleb’s baptism! I’m so proud of Kaleb and know he’s going to be a good missionary some day! Hope all the other families are doing good. By the way.. When is Makennas baptism date. Is there one yet? 

 

So for this week! It was way sweet! It started out on Monday with P-day  and just P-days are always great! Good time to relax and just have some good food in the city of Sagay. (so i live in Bug-ang try that on google maps and if you can’t find that look up Minapasok that’s like the area that I live in. So I’m not sure if it’s a city or a town!)  But yeah, like a solid week for sure! On Tuesday we had a special district meeting cause President Lopez came and talked to our zone for training! He gave some really good insight on Church attendance. I don’t have my jouranl with me right now to talk about anything in particular but he just basically talked about strengthening the church and our wards and stakes through baptism. He said the more we expound the church church the more we can strengthen the church. He said you have to expound to strengthen and strengthen to expound. For me, I’ve realized that in this area we are in the strengthening stage! We have one investagator who is 9 years old whose parents are inactive and don’t have desire to come back to church so we are looking for more to teach but we are really trying to work with members and fellowshipping! haha. We have 325 members but yesterday only 49 showed up. And it’s mostly all women and children! I dont know. It’s weird, me and Elder Leng feel like we are doing our best teaching but at the same time we are pulling some lower numbers but we feel like we are doing more then just teaching so thats good! We are improving. . They say they understand me 100% of the time like accent wise but my grammer gets messed up sometimes so when that happens they say it’s like 75%-85% depending. For me, that’s pretty good! I’m really trying not to plateau and really work on figuring out vocabulary and grammer so that way my goal is to just really know this language as early as I can.  I’m understanding about 60-70 percent depending on the person but from context I understand pretty much everything! So I’m definitely improving! 

 

This week I had districts exchanges!  Me and Elder Pulsipher hit it up strong here in my area of Minapasok.  He has really improved his skills with speaking wise! We actually had a really fun day! That one picture with damout mga bata(many children) I sent was one area we went to.  It’s about a 30 minute walk from the city into the buk-kid (jungle) and when we got there I’m pretty sure most of them just didn’t know what to do with two Americans... one 6'2 and one like 6'3 1/2! haha It’s like we were movie stars walking into a movie theater! haha. Everyone just came over and stared at us. We invited all them to sit down and listen to our message.  We shared just a simple message on trusting in the Lord and the people seemed to love it! So that was way cool! I feel like when I was with Elder Pulsipher we both felt like we learned more from each other. Just cause I’m pretty sure I could connect with Elder Pulsipher better and it was just so fun cause it was like teaching with a best friend.  That is definitely something cool about the mission-the friends you make. I know that I’m making some of my best friends here. Now I know how it is with Shauna and her comps and Nat and her comps and what not!  

 

That was pretty much the highlight of my week!

 

This mission is so fun and just an oppurtunity of a lifetime! 2 years is going to fly fast and I’m going to miss it for sure! I already know that! The things that I learn and feel everyday just amaze me.  I know that this church is true and I’m so thankful for the knowledge we have of everything! It’s truly a blessing! I’m so thankful for my life right now!

 

Well family! Know that I love you and miss you! I hope everyone the best and hope that all is well back in the USA! Here in the Philippines all is good! Know that I’m safe and happy and ready to work hard these next 2 years, 20 months, 80 something weeks. 600 something days. Whatever the time, I’m going to live it to the fullest! I love it!

 

Love you all!

 

Elder Sargent

Hello everyone! I hope everything is going good back home! To say the least this last week was just awesome! and what a great way to start this one with reading emails about home, friends, superbowl but most of all my new nephew Dax Sargent Bell! I have to say that's just a baller name! I love it! and he's a cute little guy! I'm going to be honest I think newborns are ugly but I think that Dax is just a cute little guy! So glad that the Bell family has had a great start to their February and with Kaleb getting baptized this week that is just awesome! Kaleb, it's the best thing you can do! I'm so proud of you and I'm so sorry I couldnt be there! I hope you the best!

 

So family!! Like I said this week has just been awesome! To start off the food here is just great! Just the rice I just eat and eat platefulls of it and never get tired of it then also the bread is just so good! I love it! But besides that the work is just going great!

 

Me and Elder Leng are now starting to really get along and we have seen a huge difference in teaching together. We are still at the beginning but we know that if we keep it up good things will happen! So this week I don't really know what I've done to improve my language skills but I've just really been focusing on vocabulary I guess and I swear last week every lesson I probably understood about 70-80% of what was being said! I think I'm really getting a feel for how they speak and can pick up on a few words here and there so I put those together and it's increased so much! I'm just hoping from here on out it stays with me! A lot of prayer and humility has gone into this work and I'm not going to get confident just yet! haha. I've learned my lessons before! So that's my plan of action. But the Work is so much more fun when you know what people are saying. Even this one lady Sis. Rayu she is a less active for years nows and doesn't believe we need the Book of Mormon when we have the Bible. She speaks pure Cebuano and I was even understanding what she was saying. I think it helps when you just go in saying alright I'm going to understand. If you doubt even a little what does that say about your faith in the Lord? Why would the Lord bless me with comprehension if I doubt that I'm going to hear these people. It says over and over in the scriptures that the Lord blesses us to the desires of our hearts. It's so true. If we desire what we need the Lord will bless us if our deires are righteuos. I know I have a desire to have a million bucks right now but that isn't a righteous desire in the Lords eyes. I also know that I have been called to be a instrument in the Lords hands to teach these people in the Philippines about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. About the TRUE and living Church on this earth! I know that... as my desires are to learn this language... to be the best helper in the Lords hand and to do this work for Him. That's a righteous desire of mine and I have seen such blessings from the Lord as I work diligently, obedieantly and faithfully for my righteous desires to come to me at this time!

 

Family Friends, who ever reads these emails,

 

I love this work. I love this mission. Words can't even express what I feel right now as I email home about my progress and this work of the Lords. I know for a fact I am meant to be here in the Philippines right now. I know for a fact that I have been called by the Lord to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. I can't express the amount of thankfulness to family, friends and leaders who support me and pray for me. But most of all I can't express my thankfulness to the Lord and what he has done for me in such a short amount of time. It's such a blessing to have Him in my life where I know that he is truly guiding me and working through me to help these people here in the Philippines.

 

Well all! It's time for me to get! But again. Know that I love you all and miss you all! I wish you the best and I hope you have a good week!

 

I love the mission! (and the food) (still miss the milk)!!

Love,

Elder Sargent