Transfers Again

Looks like in 2 days I will be transferring. I didn’t know until just now, while I was emailing. President gave me a call and informed me that I will be transferring this Wednesday. I will be with Elder Cacayuran, a really solid missionary. I have worked with him once on exchanges, back when I was assigned in Bagong Silang. I will be in Camarin zone again. I have great hopes for the ward and for the area I will be in. As for Batasan Hills, I will be sad to leave everyone here behind. It really is a great ward and I really enjoyed my time here, but I won’t resent leaving.

We had a baptism on Saturday, John Jay Espina was baptized. Elder Pajarin and I found him about 2 months ago. He has a lot of faith and he will be the only member in his family. I trust that he will make it through tho. He has shown amazing changes in his life and I trust him to do what he knows to be right.

Well because of the call from President I am pretty much out of time, I love you all and I will be updating you all next week about my new area and companion. I might even have some super special secrets for you next week.

Love

Elder Faulkner

The last transfer...

So this week was transfer announcements. We will have 8 companionships in the zone:  Me and Elder Cadayong, 1 other regular companionship, and then every other companionship will have a trainee missionary. 3 of those have only been in the mission for 6 weeks. The other 3 will be completely new on this coming Wednesday. As some of the biggest batches of missionaries are headed out, some of the biggest batches are also coming in.

Elder Cadayong and I will both be staying this transfer. I will live out the rest of my mission here in Batasan hills with Elder Cadayong. We are gonna get all the people we are teaching baptized and we are gonna find a lot more that will be baptized after I go. This area is really great. We are getting solid help from the ward. We have seen a big result of their effort in bringing people to Christ.

We had another baptism this week – the oldest person I will probably ever baptize. His name is Tatay Andronico. He is one of my favorite people to teach, but at the same time it is so hard to teach him. 

Andronico has a very strong faith and he speaks mostly exclusively Cebuano, which I speak very little of. But I love him a lot. We also got some great pictures with him. 

Yesterday we went to his house and decided to show him the restoration video in Cebuano. He just started talking to us in pure Cebuano, and I couldn’t understand him at all. We left him to watch the movie without us. It was a great experience. We are also now teaching one of his close friends, who has now been to church twice. Her name is Emma.

This coming Saturday, we have a scheduled baptism for John Jay Espina. We have tried to share the gospel with his family, but they are not interested. He will be the pioneering member in his family and he has shown the necessary faith to be able to do that. Will send pics.

Well I am pretty much out of time. Love you all, keep on keeping on. I will keep the pictures coming.

Love

Elder Faulkner

Typhoon Ompong/Mangkhut

https://google.org/crisismap/google.com/2018-mangkhut

Typhoon Ompong (or Mangkhut if you’re in the states) is heading towards the Philippines right now. Ompong is the equivalent of  a category 5 hurricane - larger and stronger than Hurricane Florence. Storm experts believe it to be as strong as Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the Philippines in 2013. 

Elder Faulkner is on the west side and will not receive the brunt of the storm. However, it is expected to cause much damage in the way of flooding where he is. Please keep the people of the Philippines and the people of China, Laos, and Vietnam in your prayers.

Kawawa Dam

We did a zone activity, pictures to follow I can’t send all the pictures, but I will just share the album with my sister Lisa and she can post the pictures wherever she wants. Siya ang Bahala. For the Zone activity, we went to Wawa Dam. It was actually really fun. It was about a 7-minute walk, after a 1-hour jeep ride. We saw some big rocks and some water and a lot of trees. I had a good time. 10/10 would do again. We went with the whole zone and only some people complained. So that is pretty good.

For the last couple weeks, I have been evolving my Taglish skills. Normally when someone speaks Taglish, it is mostly Tagalog but then you mix in some English words that pretty much everyone understands. Now that I have been here in the Philippines for so long, there are some bagay that are just more mahirap to express in English, so I tend to put the Tagalog word there so that it comes out a little more mabilis. Now this is more mahirap for some iba to understand, but for me it is great because it makes things so much easier. Basta I have come to love this language and I will be sad to leave it behind. The first few weeks might be really hard with switching back to speaking English exclusively. I will have to hanap some Filipinos. 

That being said, we are still on for the goal for 15 baptisms. We are really seeing a good difference in our investigators as we focus on baptism more and more. This last Saturday we had 4 baptisms (pictures to follow): Karen Pasco, Bryan Pasco, Gloria Gonzaga, and Jemuel Gonzaga, One completed family and one that is starting off. We were so excited about this because we have been working with these four for a little while and we have really seen their desire to make that change in their lives. They are all amazing wonderful people and I am sure that they will keep strong in the gospel.

Good week, Good work, doing great things seeing great miracles. Teaching great people.

I love you all. Keep up the great work. Don’t think about me coming home – I am sure that it will come eventually. As for me, I am trying to think of it more so it feels like a longer time away... Joke lang... Or maybe, not sure what to think anymore.

Love,

Elder Faulkner

Sanay na

Well we are doing really well here right now, we are seeing a lot of good things happening in the area and we have good hopes for the coming months in the progression of our investigators.

As for two of our investigators, Karen and Bryan, their baptism got pushed one more week because their dad had to go out of town for work. He is supposed to baptize them, so we pushed it out another week. They are going to be baptized along with Sister Gloria and Brother Jemuel.

We are planning for a lot of people's baptisms right now and it is a little hard to keep track sometimes. We are really focused on getting our investigators to baptism and we should really be able to prepare the area and the ward for the next missionaries.

As for the zone, they are doing so well. I am proud of all my missionaries, especially because most of them are very very young in the mission and are still learning a lot. Despite that, they are still seeing huge miracles and having great success in their areas.

We had Missionary leadership council this week – it is my favorite meeting in the mission – and it was a really nice experience to be able to talk with President and the other zone leaders. This is where I learn what they are doing in their zones to see success and to help others come unto Christ.

Elder Cadayong is doing really well right now, and I think he will have an okay time when he takes over as the senior zone leader. He has a lot of adjustments to make right now. The mission is a lot different when you have to worry about 8 other companionships on top of your own. It is a lot to think about and it is sometimes overwhelming. He is still adjusting to the work load but is taking it like a champ.

There is always a lot to think about in the work and we are always so focused on the present. It is weird to think of the future, especially when people keep telling me that I am so close to going home. It is a weird feeling, but I try not to focus on it.

Well anyways I got some pictures. We have one of my favorite members, Romel. He is the one that has the chessboard. We also have a picture of our whole zone.

We are doing great.

Hope you all are as well.

Love

Elder Faulkner