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

"You had 12 brothers and sisters?" "8." "Yeah 12 sounds better"

You remember that one scripture in Alma? Where king Lamoni asks "How long are you gonna be here?" to Ammon, and he says "Perhaps until the day I die".

That is like the mission. Here is what you have to understand about missionary work, you see the worst in people. That is exactly what Ammon saw in the Lamanites, he saw their killings and he saw their disputations and their problems – but the most important is he loved them enough to serve them forever. I love these people that I serve enough to serve them forever if need be. The love that a missionary experiences for the people is unexplainable but the devastation that he feels when people choose not to improve their position in life is the same way.

It is like your family. You see them do good things, you see them do bad things, and you love them. The important thing is to never let the bad things inhibit the love.

The thing almost none of you will ever understand is the love and the pain of a Filipino. They are the fastest friends in the hardest of times. They are the people that smile the most when they feel like nothing is going right. They have some of the most hard-up circumstances – but they always have a joke. I have learned more about hardships and how people deal with those hardships here than in the rest of my life combined.

In the Culture of the Philippines, people have learned to share and give even when they have nothing. It is a culture that has been affected by so many things and it is a tragedy how many hardships the people here have. In the end they deal with them well and they are great people.

We had a baptism

The zone is still kind of falling apart.

Charity is probably the most important thing.

We have a big thing going with a closed area that has a lot of people going to church we may go over there and teach the people over there a couple times and then baptize them. I will keep you updated on that. There are 10 of them.

I got some pictures.

I love you all I hope you are holding up without me, you only have like a year left....

Welp anyways good luck

Love

Elder Faulkner

That moment when you have no moments

So many things happened. I will aim to give a brief overview of the week. Sorry I couldn’t write more.

~      We started really trying to get referrals out of the ward members.

~      One of the sisters in our zone got ringworm.

~      Another says there is a ghost in the apartment.

~      We have a baptism this coming Saturday.

~      We found out some stuff about missionaries who used to be assigned here.

~      We got a 2-minute visit by President Hughes on Sunday.

~      We are changing the way that ward missionaries work.

~      God lives.

~      We revamped the Key indicators a little bit.

~      We try not to knock doors anymore.

~      I got new Glasses. (They are pretty cheap here)

~      I got an eye exam. (It was free here.)

~      We found an ok family. (Tucong Family)

~      We got a solid member referral.

~      I am gonna get a ton of my clothes retailored for like 2 dollars.

~      Spirits the best teacher.

~      Started Tagalog language learning book part 2.

I love you all.

Elder Faulkner

Can't Stop; Won't Stop

There are some things that we learned about Goals this week. In proverbs 23:7 we see:

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.

Our mission president reiterated the importance of always thinking about goals until we achieve them. This means that you need a constant mental effort to accomplish that goal. It will not necessarily be easy, but it will be possible. We have set a goal for 28 baptisms in the month of March. We are doing everything in our power to constantly work and do things that should lead us to reaching this goal. It seems a little ridiculous, but if we are teaching enough lessons to progressing investigators and teaching the right people, it is not impossible. God does impossible things all the time. Our mission president said that most goals should catch your eye and scare you. If they don’t, you are not pushing yourself. We are striving to work differently; to work smart and to see the difference in the results. 

There is a lot that comes with goal like this. We make a constant effort to evaluate what we are doing in order to find those little things we can do to make a huge difference. Most of reaching a large goal involves starting off with a very sure start and not moving from that. It is very possible that we will not reach this goal – but we will fail forward at the very least. 

Teaching with Elder Ewing is a different experience. He is a better teacher than pretty much any other companion that I have ever had. But we realize that no matter how good the teaching is, you still don’t get anywhere without the spirit. We strive to only teach by the spirit, and hope and pray that our investigators feel it. 

We are really starting to push the members to be active in the work. We decided that it would be impossible to find 28 people by ourselves without members that are ready for baptism by march. The members will find more quality investigators. We are going to ideally make some family mission plans with some of the families in the ward. Which we will explain in the next few weeks as we understand what we are doing. 

We are trying to make the work more precise and more organized. I have always had a problem with organization in my life, but I am still pushing myself to make that into a strength. 

Yesterday we had a good experience. We were getting ready to head to a broadcast of the funeral service for prophet Thomas S. Monson. We had about 30 minutes. We prayed in the street to ask God to send us to someone we could teach in that short amount of time, who would accept the gospel. We walked down the street and didn’t really feel anything. We were just standing there for a few seconds and we start talking to the little kids coming by. One of the kids points us up the hill and tells us that his mom wants to talk to us. We looked up to see a lady that we had not noticed before, standing outside the large gate of a church. We go up to talk to her. Her name is Pearly, and she is a devout Baptist. Her cousin is the pastor of the church she was standing in the threshold of. We start a conversation about how she moved from Catholicism because of the activities and programs in her new church. We then start talking about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. She seemed to kind of understand the importance of such a book. We testified of it and she said she would read it every day. I don’t know how much will come out of that meeting, but we will follow up to see what she has learned. It was a good experience.

       

After that, we saw the broadcast of the funeral services of Thomas S. Monson. He will be remembered for his personal ministry and his love of individuals. I know that God calls living prophets and speaks through them today.

Culture: If you don’t speak the language correctly here, almost no one will correct you. As it generally works – the more correctly you speak, the more people correct you. I think it is because it is much easier to correct just the one mistake than many. Before Elder Bromley and I split up, I told him about this – the more correctly he spoke, the more people would help him learn the language. I saw him the other day, and he said that people were starting to correct him – so he must be making great progress in learning the language. I am proud of him.

Tagalesson: Some nouns made from verbs:

Prayer: Pagdarasal

Church attendance: Pagsisimba

Repentance: Pagsisisi

The act of Reading: Pagbabasa

Speech: Pagsasalita.

Alrighty everyone, keep up the amazing. I love you all and look forward to seeing what you all have to say next week ;)

Love

Elder Faulkner