As the weeks pass by like days

Hello everyone,

How was your week? Mine was pretty good. We had a good zone conference, and we focused a lot on time and why it is important. It is interesting to think that time is our most important resource and it is the thing that everyone wants more of, but people also tend to waste a lot of it. I have also wasted a lot of time, and I will probably end up wasting a lot more, but it helped me focus on thinking about what my priorities are and how I can best use my time to achieve my goals and get done what I want to get done.

We also thought a lot about the pattern that God has created for us; the pattern that we receive light and blessings into our lives, depending on our own obedience and willingness to change. Elder Ewing and I gave a workshop about that – about how when we follow the plan that God has, He trusts us more and allows us to better show his light to others. This process allows us to have the spirit and help others change their lives.

We are still working hard with the Malanday Ward in order to help reactivate those who have been gone for a long time. We want to help complete families. We talked a lot about that as a mission, we need to focus on making families complete in the church again. It is a big work to do, especially when it seems like some families do not want to be together. We are there to show the blessings and help them make it down the path again.

Right now, as a missionary, I really like the work we are doing. It seems that every single day you do such small work and you can’t really see the difference in people's lives. Eventually you see a big difference that has taken place over that time. We have some days now that I can really see the help we give to people. We give them ways to change and discover the truth, we allow them to better make decisions for their lives. We are in the business of informing people what they could have, and helping them achieve that.

I am learning a lot, focusing on humility and self improvement – which tend to go together. I hope that you are all doing well.

BTW we baptized a kid named Pacman.

Well I should probably have some more to say than this, but my mind is running out of things. I wish you all a great week.

Love

Elder Faulkner

The most effective missionaries are the most annoying

I told you all last time that we have been working with those we teach to have family prayer. The next step in this big plan is to have them read scriptures as a family. We have our families that we text every day, sometimes twice a day, to remind them. We have had 3 families so far apply this at least once, and those families expressed how much us constantly bugging them to do this has helped them. One family, the Pernia Family, was very excited to be able to start and it looks like they will continue family prayer and scripture study. Sometimes people want to do these things but they just lack a constant reminder in their lives. As missionaries we provided the reminder for them to do it.

This week we saw a lot more progression in our zone for baptisms. We had 9 baptismal interviews in the entire zone. We are really trying to get those that have been going to church for a while to make commitments and be baptized. Being a leader in the mission has taught me a lot about baptism and confirmation. We have a lot of jobs that are mostly organizational, we keep records of the missionaries and investigators for the entire zone.

I have thought a lot about personal improvement this week, I am going to start more critical self-evaluation so I can see what I can do to become more Christlike and a better teacher. Constant improvement is one of the hardest things to have in this life. Retaining a good rate of improvement is something I want for the rest of my life, and I will specifically be trying to apply that this week with how I teach and how I learn.

Welp, I am pretty much out of time. I love you all and I really appreciate the individual emails that you send to me.

Love

Elder Faulkner

Family Prayer, it is all we teach

Well Elder Ewing and I have started a pretty uniform system with our part member families. We teach them all that they need to have prayer as a family; we talk about the blessings of doing it, the logistical way that they can make it happen, and we follow up a lot and send out a lot of reminder texts. We really want to take the support with the ward as far as we can to really get everyone strong and established in the Gospel.

There are many ways that you can live in the church, but in the end – we should always be improving. We are trying to get people established in their homes by helping people with family relationships through family prayer, scriptures, and church attendance. That is also what I am going to tell all of you to do. Invite the people around you. I know you all have people: roommates, spouses, siblings, neighbors. Pray with them. It doesn’t matter if they are members of the church or if they are some other religion, almost no one in the world would deny a prayer together if invited by a loved one. 

Prayer is a way for us to be united. It is a way to learn together and discover things about the world together. It is a way to open our minds and our hearts to personal direction and guidance from God. It is a commandment to pray by yourself and also in your families. 3 Nephi 18:21. 

Organization and planning are very important. Our mission president tries to ingrain in our minds to plan so that we can make a more effective use out of the time we do have. He expressed that people practice hundreds of hours for a 3-5 minute solo in a performance. We need to take the time to sit down and practice so we can be more effective teachers. We are trying. This is a skill that I will take into the rest of my life.

Well I love you all and I hope that you don’t have too much stress in your life. If you do – take the time to plan and pray. It will help. I promise. 

I love you all,

Elder Faulkner

Family Prayer and Family Scripture study

This week was interesting. None of the investigators that went to church last week went again this week. But we had 3 different people make it to church, including one less-active family – the Gulpan family. There are 6 of them altogether and one of them has not yet been baptized. We are going to help them get active in the church again. They have already had an appointment with the bishop and we have been checking on them, and staying for a visit. The ward trusts us a lot right now because that family came back on our second week in the ward; everyone thought we did something amazing! We just went to the family that the bishop told us to find and it worked. 

     

We had a very interesting time with sister Mercy this week. She didn’t come to church because she thought that she was going to have to move back to her province. She has gone through a lot in her life and we have a lot to do to help her make her way in the world. She has had many, many trials, but if she keeps showing strong faith she will definitely see many miracles in her life. Right now we aren’t sure exactly what will happen with her, but we will be sure to keep in contact and continue teaching her.

      

This ward is a little different from other wards I have been in. The bishop is very active in his calling and wants to help us with the work as much as he can. We have a lot of young men who have just returned from missions or who are planning on leaving soon. We will hopefully be working closely with them so we can teach their friends and give them many missionary opportunities.

       

·        This area is really big

·        We still have a lot of members to meet in our ward.

·        My book is being typeset

·        I have been reading the Book of Mormon in Tagalog

o   300 pages left

      

 We are teaching a guy named Enrico. He has just started to listen to the missionaries and he has made some really big changes in his life. As of right now he is solid on going to church and we have really been focusing on reading the Book of Mormon with him. We have been sitting down 2-3 times a week to read the Book of Mormon with him and his family. We have found this is a really effective method to get people stronger in the gospel. You just sit in their house and read the Book of Mormon with them as often as possible.

       

Spiritual Message:

Read the 11th chapter of the book of 3^rd Nephi. Think about how Jesus gives the Authority to Nephi. Think about the effect of that ability to baptize on the entire civilization. Think about how you would respond if Jesus himself was the one to give this authority to you. There is a lot you can learn from that chapter, but I will leave the searching to you.

Love Elder Faulkner