JIFFY

Jesus

Invited

Friends

Find
Yours

This is the new program in our mission. It is a way to ask for referrals from active members. It gives them the chance to think of who they will refer in the actual lesson.

First, we pick a topic that will help them with something in their lives, just to bring the spirit and allow them to understand the importance of the gospel to them.

Then, we give them a card that has space for 10 names on it. We tell them to think of those they can help out spiritually; those that are close to them that need the help and that might be a little bit interested.

If time permits, immediately after that lesson, we take the member to introduce us to those friends and set a time that we can come back. We don’t push the people too hard. Hopefully, we get them more comfortable with the missionaries, and immediate results. We haven’t had enough time to do this yet, but we are trying for this coming week. 

This and mapping is all we do. 

I had the chance to go out with the mission president and teach a few lessons with him. It is interesting that someone who cannot speak the language at all can add what needs to be heard based on how he assesses the situation. It was a good learning experience and he told me to always focus on the opportunities that you have, rather than the problems; always think about the strengths you have before your weaknesses. I loved the chance to be able to learn from President Hughes, one-on-one.

Welp I am probs gonna sign out. this has been one of the most tiring weeks of my entire mission. We had to plan an entire blitz in the last 2 weeks (all the missionaries in the zone get with members for the day and go out to specific areas – specific houses. We had to make sure that there were companionships set up and that they all went to different places, and that all the houses got found.) Either way, it was fairly successful.

Well I love you all have a wonderful day.

Elder Faulkner  

Batasan Hills

Elder Nelson and I had a really strong start in this area and in this zone. I have really big shoes to fill here – the person I am replacing just became the assistant to the president and he did really good work here. The ward is solid and we have already been doing a lot to try to build trust here. Elder Nelson has been here for a really long time so he is known by all the members, and the leaders really like him.

The teaching here with Elder Nelson is going really well. He is a good teacher and has a very strong drive. He is definitely my best non-Filipino companion at the language – he is good with his accent and speaking like a Filipino does. We have been waiting to be companions for a long time.

I think that one of the best things we are doing is supporting the individual companionships in our zone. There is so much potential here. As a zone, at least one companionship has baptized someone every week since January. If we can keep up the consistency of our work, we can really push this group of missionaries to new, bigger heights.

There is a lot of responsibility here, there is always so much to do and so much to learn. We are trying to be precise and organized so we can be effective in working with our missionaries. This has been a good way to learn about personal ministry and revelation. As I focus on the words of last general conference, I see a lot that I can work on to improve and change. As I do so, I will be continued to be blessed – just like the blessings I have already seen. 

I am not sure exactly what the next few months will hold, but I am excited about it. We are already seeing miracles with the people here in Batasan Hills and in our missionaries. 

We have had so many experiences, I can’t even begin to list them out. I will say, we had a baptism on Saturday which completed a part member family. Both parents are now active and preparing to enter the temple, while the two newly baptized kids are working well with their parents to become strong, active members for the rest of their lives.

Thank for listening. I can’t get out all the information I would like, I had a lot to write to my mission president about how things are going in the zone right now.

Thank you love you all

Love

Elder Faulkner

Grow into the Principle of Personal Revelation

So, this week was pretty crazy; we had a lot going on in the zone, and not a whole lot going on in the area. Honestly, we have not seen a lot of progress in our area lately – but we are taking advice from the mission president in how to better work with members and get the area progressing.

I am not going to be thinking about that too much; I will be moving to a new zone to be companions with one of my best friends in the mission: Elder Nelson. He is a talented missionary who is very, very fluent at the language. I have talked with him a lot throughout my mission. He was my zone leader while I was in Bocaue. I am looking forward to working with him, in what people say is the most progressing area in the mission (lets hope I don’t screw it up).

We will see what I can do and learn in my new area. I will be in Batassan Hills Ward in the Fairview stake. Fairview is right in the middle of the city. I have been trying to avoid the dirty air in the city my whole mission and it has finally caught up to me. Elder Nelson has been assigned there for over a year. He loves the area and has told me it will be fantastic.

I look forward to the changes that are happening in the mission. We are seeing a bigger focus on personal revelation, service, and working with members

Personal revelation has been the topic of my studies ever since general conference. President Russell M Nelson told us to work every day to receive specific personal revelation and to find answers to problems through the Spirit. He says God is willing to teach us and talk to us, but we need to show him that we are willing to listen to Him and write what He would have us learn.

I encourage all of you to take part in that activity. Take time every day to pray and to think. Write down what God is telling you about your life and what you can do to solve your problems. We all have problems – big and small. We need God's help to direct us in these trials. I am seeing a lot of good things as I sit down every night with a pen and paper and write the thoughts that come to my head. Take time to study the words of Prophet Russell M Nelson and work on your relationship with God. The windows of heaven can be opened unto you. God wants to reveal unto you His secrets.

We will see what the future holds in my new area, I think I will learn a lot there. There will be so many new things to experience. Also, if you remember Elder Bromley – he is the district leader for my new area and I am very excited to work closely with him in the coming months.

I will try to get you some pictures of my next area and the people I work with there. I have really been slacking on the pictures lately. Sorry about that.

I love you all. thanks for the time. Thanks for the personal emails.

I got to talk to my Mom and My dad this week and I really enjoyed the time video calling them. It is always fun to see the fam.

Love

Elder Faulkner

You're only one call away...

Elders tend to get 4 calls home in their missions: 2 Christmases and 2 Mother's Days. My first call home happened in the MTC (Christmas); it feels like it happened so long ago, but also it feels like the time has passed in an instant. This next week will be my last call for Mother's Day. It will be the last time I get to talk to my parents before I see them in person. It is very weird to think that this whole thing will be coming to an end. I try not to think of that; I just keep myself busy enough that I do not have to worry about it. I love the Philippines and I love the people. I have seen a lot of miracles. I have met so many people. We are keeping strong over here and not giving up anytime soon.

      

Calls like this normally divide your mission into 4 parts, this being my last part. I have heard it said that the last part is the best because you can just apply all the things that you learned and work a lot more effectively than you had before. I look forward to that. In some ways I have already started that portion of my mission. Of course, there will still be a lot to learn; but I will not have much that held me back before.

      

On a completely different note, there is a person welding literally 10 feet away from me right now. It is kind of distracting. Welding is a specialized skill that can get you more money than most normal jobs here.

      

This week we have been struggling to push our area to progress – mostly because we have been mapping and working in the other Elder's area. We still need to teach the progressing investigators that we do have, and add to the teaching pool. Because of the mapping, I now know every single active and less active member in my area on the membership records. If they have moved in and not transferred their membership records, we do not know about them yet.

      

Dehydration is a real thing! Don’t let it get you. I just found out this last week that during fasting (members of our church go without food or water for 24 hours on the first Sunday of the month, just like Jesus did in the Bible) we are allowed to drink water in this mission. I didn’t know my whole mission! I will still try to go without. Water is so important in this country because it is just constant sweating and humidity. But we are getting into the rainy season so it will probably be a little bit easier to make it through those challenges of dehydration.

     

Elder Kauffman and I are doing alright. He has been struggling and we have been able to talk about the reasons a mission is difficult; hopefully we will continue to see good progress together. He has a lot of potential, but everyone gets tested on the mission. We are still seeing how he is going to deal with this trial. I think that every single missionary goes through specific individual trials that really push them.

Welp thanks for listening have a wonderful week and keep on keeping on.

Love

Elder faulkner

Wow, magic.

I am here and still alive, and it looks like we will be making it into the rainy season very soon. Hopefully that means we won’t have to endure the heat for too much longer. Don’t get me wrong, it is still going to be really hot, but it will cool off while the rain is going on.

This week we focused almost exclusively on mapping, so we didn’t get many lessons. We went to and mapped around 120 different households. It was fun to be able to know every single member in our area. This coming week, we will be doing the same thing in the other half of our branch to have the entire map updated. 

         

We have taught very few people this week and I look forward to getting back to regular missionary work after all this stuff is taken care of. But for now, you have to just go on with what you are called to do.

       

There is a lot going on right now, but I have learned well to only focus on one main task at a time; it makes my time a lot more productive. I have learned a lot of organizational skills while on my mission – which is probably the biggest miracle of all (as I am usually not a very effective person).

     

I will story to you now about a family that we are teaching. The Papa family. We found these two girls through their father, who is a decently active member. The two girls, Aileen and Erika, were taught before – but then they got very busy with their schedules at school. We have been teaching Aileen for about 3 weeks now and Erika for just about a week. This last Sunday, they both came to church together. It is nice to see their testimonies grow steadily as we teach them and read the Book of Mormon with them. This is one of those families that we just kind of stumbled along at the right time and we were able to teach them again and again. They have accepted baptismal dates in the month of May and we will hopefully be working very closely with their father to help them go to church every week and to read the Book of Mormon.

       

We focus a lot on individual prayer. People who are struggling with other things in their lives have forgotten to pray, losing that small consistent, connection with God. Through prayer and their scripture study, we were able to help 2 families back to church.

Here comes the invitation to all of you: Make your prayers more sincere or make your prayers happen more often. 

Just these simple things allow our lives to change. One person that we are teaching said that she saw a huge change in how people at her house treated each other – just because she went from praying 1 time in two weeks to every day. When we give consistent love and respect to God, He fixes our problems (or at least gives us the direction we need).

Well, I love you all.

Thank you muchly for your reading of my letters. Keep on keeping on

Elder Faulkner