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

      

Malanday na, Tayo.

We made it down the street again. Elder Ewing and I are in Malanday and we are living the dream. We are working with the ward to contact the people that were taught before specifically the ones that have been to church, it is great because the Bishop knows almost all of the investigators who have been to church over the last several months.

Since being in this area:

·        We had 2 baptisms and 2 confirmations

o   Marvin and Russel

·        We have found a good amount of the past investigators.

·        Mercy went to church

o   See below

·        We got a couple new people in the zone.

·        We had a really good sacrament meeting

o   This building has air conditioning

·        Our new area is pretty big.

·        Got a new apartment

o   The lock is broken.

§  Please don’t break in.

·        New apartment is bigger more room to pace.

So this week we got to church and we were greeting all the people and we saw one member wave us over. He was sitting next to this girl and he goes on to explain to us that the girl had just walked into church. She didn’t know anyone. She had never met missionaries. And she didn’t know anything about the church. Her name is Mercy, she told us about how she felt like she needed to go to church in our building that day. She stayed the full 3 hours and we set an appointment to meet with her later today. She has a lot of potential and really wants to learn more. We are very excited to teach her.

We are still working with our zone-mates to really get going and focus on the work. I have noticed once you start to focus on something (especially if it is the welfare of other people), most other concerns seem to just disappear. Right now, as I focus on the work – not many things get in the way. When my focus strays from the work, it becomes impossible to work effectively. So many other things get in the way. The truth is, we achieve whatever we focus on. Everything else will fall away and become unimportant. That is the thing that we will get.

Find your goal, get focused, expect great things.

Love you all

Elder Faulkner

I made it out alive didn't I?

So we did it; we made it through the transfer. If the last 6 weeks were hard for you all, be glad – you probably learned a lot. If they weren't hard for you, well that is sad because you could have learned so much more. Recap of this transfer:

·        The whole mission moved around.

·        Started with 18 missionaries in the zone.

o   Lost 6.

o   Meycauayan Ward is down to 2 missionaries

o   Even with transfers, we are only gonna have 6 companionships in the zone.

·        Elder Ewing and I are staying together

o   We are transferring areas to Malanday Ward

§  That is still in Valenzuela zone

o   We are moving into a much bigger apartment.

·        Moving deeper into the city,

o   Probably gonna die of black lung.

·        We need to teach the missionaries how to teach better

o   I have to learn how to teach so that I can teach others to teach.

·        I started a goal to really read the Book of Mormon in Tagalog.

·        We still are gonna get 28 baptisms in March

o   We had 3 baptisms scheduled for this week

§  1 fell through

§  The other didn’t make it to church for her confirmation.

o   Baptized Krisel who has been waiting to be baptized for like 5 months

·        I got sent some pictures of my birthday celebration a long time ago

·        Life is good but difficult

·        There is pretty much not really stress anymore, stress is just a choice

·        Edi wow

I love you all, in the immortal words of a prophet of our time "If you are not reading the book of Mormon every day, please do so"

The gospel changes people's lives. My cousin Christian challenged everyone to think about things that have changed in their lives because of Jesus Christ and the love of our Father in heaven.

I would like to extend that same invitation to all of you. Take some time to think if your life has changed and in what ways. You can't share the joy of eternal life if you have not felt the change in yourself.

Love

Elder Faulkner

Santa Maria, Meycauayan, and Malanday

This week we worked in Santa Maria, one of the biggest areas in the mission. The ward out there has been having a lot of referrals and wants missionaries (they haven’t had any for around 4 months now). We got to talk to all the people out there that had people they wanted taught by the missionaries. It was a good experience because we got to see what happens to a ward when the missionaries get taken out. They want the work to be done but they don’t have the proper authority to have any convert baptisms. The Church of Jesus Christ is very organized. The standards are never lowered no matter how big the need seems. When we came in, these people were really prepared to listen and to make commitments. We probably won’t be the ones to continue to see these people taught and baptized – but that is alright. We will get to help the zone teach these people and help them get baptized in a timely manner.

     

One thing we have been really focusing on is working as a big team to make sure the most effective work is done. We can’t really do anything if we are only thinking "this is my area and my ward". We have to start thinking "what can we do today for the salvation of those around us?" People get so distracted with their area and forget that they need to do more for those that want to be baptized, no matter where they are. We are gonna start ward hopping a little bit within our zone. So if one ward has more people to teach they get more missionaries.

      

Other than that, not too much happened this week. We have been really trying to get people to understand our purpose as missionaries. We are trying to be even more straightforward with people we teach. We have seen the blessings of this and we are going to have 3 baptisms this week. We are excited to see people that have walked hard paths to get to where they are now.

  

• ·        This transfer, our zone started with 18 people. We now only have 12.
• ·        The whole zone will be rearranged in about 2 weeks.
• ·        I had a sit-down lunch/business meeting with a billionaire
• ·        Someone I taught 4 months ago moved into my area and will be baptized on Saturday
• Every day is a struggle

#blessings

Meycauayan smells really bad.

Might be moving to Malanday soon that is like 30 minutes down the street

Welp that is all we got right now.

Shoutout to all you people I love you

Have a great week

Love

Elder Faulkner

Moving Mountains by Faith

We have the promise several times in the scriptures that roughly says ‘By faith ye may move mountains’ (See Matthew 17:20). But what does this really mean? Faith is power. Faith is God using us to accomplish a specific purpose. This requires our personal willingness and belief, along with our action and determination. Faith is very different from a belief because it requires us to be completely committed. Our President stresses to us that God can do his work with only a select few if they are committed, fearless, and focused. But he cannot do his work with unwilling, non-committed servants.

     

God does the work for us. Every baptism I have seen in my mission is a pure miracle. It is the desire of God that the work still goes forward. As for moving mountains, the concept is the same. God moves the mountain when we:

1. Realize that God needs the mountain moved.

2. Determine to do everything in our power to move the mountain ourselves.

3. Pick up a shovel

4. Decide to stick it out to the end.

This means that sometimes God does the work when we are just starting the work, and sometimes He does it when we are almost done. The important thing is no matter how much work we did, God will still remind us that it was Him who did the miracle.

     

Faith is often misunderstood in the world, because people think that God just does the work regardless of what we put in. The whole point of faith is that it is a constant learning opportunity.

    

Elder Ewing and I have set a goal that our mission president called "Ridiculous". At the same time, he said he also respected our faith and he loved our goal. We have been doing everything we could to reach that, but have been pretty much hitting our heads on a wall with how much progression our efforts have given us. We have been given so many miracles. We realized that God needs His children baptized. We are doing everything we can – we went to work, and no matter how bad it seemed we just kept going. We have been seeing almost nothing, but know God has blessed us in other ways that we didn’t even think possible. In the end, the blessings of Baptism are so much greater for the people being baptized than for us. Thankfully, we get to see these people change and get closer to God. And we get personal conversion out of it. Win Win Win.

    

Can't Stop Won't Stop.

Camera is out of Battery so no pictures this week, will charge – promise.

I love you all. All of you that are out there. Keep on keeping on.

The quick update on the life:

·       Had another Missionary Leadership council.

·       Stake conference with Area President Elder Bowen.

·       Talked with the bishops in our stake they are cool we will be working with them.

·       Will be baptizing those people in Santa maria. Super fast.

·       We lost 5 missionaries in our zone. Stress was too high.

Read the Book of Mormon every day. 3 prophets in a row have emphasized it. If you aren’t doing it: REPENT NOW.

Love you all

Elder Faulkner