Best years for my life

I think that quote is very accurate that says, "a mission is not the best 2 years of my life, but that the mission will be the best 2 years FOR my life," I can see how much I have learned about planning, goal setting, and teaching by the Spirit. as well as spiritual things, as scripture study, memorizing scriptures, and so on.

This week was a pretty fun week, and we are slowly making this area better, with about 2-3 more lessons every week, we haven't got any baptisms yet, hopefully they are on there way, but right now, we are just happy to have new friends and investigators here in Panglao

Last Sunday we had a talk about developing our talents, so this week I have been working on my drawing, drawing pictures from the Gospel Art Book, without people, because people are too hard.

Have a great week!

Elder Remer

Saving Lives this week, saved jill the jellyfish

Inspired answer to baptism question

This week we had a very exciting week, we started out with a rough few days, getting punted every day for 3 days, but still doing better then last week. We are teaching a lot of new people and hope that we will be able to bring the spirit into there lives so that they can feel the Holy Ghost and receive the best possible change to choose to be a member of the church.

Yesterday Brother A... asked us what are the requirements to be baptized, he says he is not necessarily going to be baptized, but everything we have taught, despite being new doesn't feel wrong to him, Elder Borrego gave him a very inspired answer talking about the process to see if they are really converted, because we don't baptize to have another member, another number, we do it so that they can enjoy the blessings of the gospel.

Elder Remer

the jungle boat

a crab

The Lord is in this work

I am so glad to have a companion that I get along well with, we are doing tons of service here and teaching more people then I did in the previous transfer, we helped families in Doljo, carrying 20 water barrels to different locations so that people would have water during the island power outage.

Fun story for this week
Me and Elder Borrego were walking and I am looking to the left, someone on the right of us, passing by on a motor, says tiligsik na, which means its sprinkling (raining lightly), But it was slow to register because he was a white man, so we both thought it was some European language, until it registered, that he spoke Visayan, he is the first foreigner I know that knows Visayan, we both looked at each other, and tracted the motor trail, because we wanted to met him. Turns out his name is P..., his family is a group of medical missionaries, and he had had contact with the missionaries before, but had suddenly moved and had stopped the lessons, turns out he was finished with lesson 1, and with great coincidence I had a Plan of Salvation pamphlet, in English, inside of my bag, the Lord is truly in this work.

It was a great week
Elder Remer

A picture of this plant that makes ... glue? I call it a Glue Berry

Follow Jesus and tracting in Panglao

Picture of our church

I really love teaching the youth class, especially because I learn a lot more from making the lessons then I get to teach, Its really fun. Yesterday we had no youth so I didn't teach, but I did prepare an amazing lesson, or at least I hope it would be amazing. It was about making choices, and leading by example. I wanted to start with a story in Matthew 4:18-20 about Jesus asking the 2 disciples to leave there nets and follow him. I thought about how Jesus Christ is always asking us to follow him, and leading by example. I thought about who are the people in my life that ask me to follow them. Then talking about the song I'll go where you want me to go,"with my hand in thine" And its powerful to know that the Lord does not expect us to choose the right without his help, its when we learn to do the right with God's help that we can say "I'll go where you want me to go"

Me and Elder Borrego with some of the kids we like teaching

Elder Borrego is amazing, he loves tracting which is exactly what this area needs, he also knows English so we are able to joke around while we are walking around Panglao tracting, or just getting to investigators houses. He is just a funny guy. His family is Huge, he has 7 siblings all girls, and he is 5th, he also has 3ish step-brothers, and he knows Spanish before the mission, so his bisayan is very good, I would say that we are at the sameish level, but he is 6 weeks behind me, so its super cool how fast he is getting the language.

Until Next Week
Elder Remer

transfer week and Korihor's questions

me and Elder Deguzman walked on this cool bamboo bridge

pictures of the cool walkways found here

Hey,

Our mission has been blessed recently to hear from one of the Area Presidency, Elder Bowen. His talk was very bold and powerful, wanted our mission to be the best we can be. He talked about false limitations, and if we are the missionaries that our mothers think we are. His talk was received with many different responses, some of the missionaries said that he was "too bold" some decided they do not want to follow his counsel, but as for others and me as well, I found it inspiring, and hope that my new companion did as well, hopefully this transfer we will see miracles.

We have one other investigator named Sister Mary, She is slowly progressing, and I am not sure how committed she is, we have almost no others, because Elder de Guzman is completely against tracting, I have been working with the Distract Leader to try and get him to try, but he just doesn't, he does so much, and works hard, but when it comes to tracting, he just doesn't. This week is transfer week, so I will receive my new companion Elder Borrego, and he knows less Visayan then I do, he is my junior batch, from America as well. Since I am the senior now, and that Elder Borrego seems like a willing missionary, we should hopefully be able to tract more, and teach more people.

For the youth class this week I taught about The parable of the ten virgins, and after expounding on the parable I asked the youth, Why didn't the other virgins buy oil? They knew the bridegroom was coming? What stops us from "not buying their oil" today. I said for me it is the people around us, asking us questions, trying to make us choose a different choice. We then talked about Korihor, attacking the members of the church with some very difficult questions, there are 6 of them.

1) How can you possibly believe that people know what will happen in the future, how can you believe in prophecies?

2) You can't know with certainty in things that you cannot see.

3) You believe because of your parents, you are following there traditions.

4) That blessings are not from God, but from your own work, wisdom, and effort

5) That there is no proof of an afterlife

6) That religion is for power, that the leaders of the church just want power over the people.

We then read the rest of the chapter about Alma's response, I love Alma, 

Have a Great Week,

Elder Remer

We had an awesome distract activity at a cave

some yummy squid

a kid named A... getting some fruit for me

 fruit called kayimito

working hard, baptism this week

Hey,

I wanted to send you a picture of my shoes, because we have done so much walking, the heal of my shoe is almost gone, working hard.

Thanks for praying for me everyday, I think it really helps with staying happy and diligent throughout the mission, I think that it is helping me a lot because I am always, relaxed.. calm.. I don't know in Visayan its kalinawan...

This week we had a baptism, the investigators name is L... , but he goes by Jr, he is 11 years old and was baptized by his uncle Brother C... . I would send pictures but in the rush, I forgot my camera. It was a pretty nice baptism, Jr had to be baptized 5 times, but on the up side, one of our members bought a ton of food for the refreshments after the baptism, if Jr was correctly baptized the first time, the baptism would have been perfect.

I also want to thank you for piano lessons, I played the piano this Sunday, messing up only a few times, gosh I wish I payed more attention when I was younger and stuck with the piano lessons. I also got to teach the youth about prayer, answers from God, and choosing good friends, teaching the stories of Enos, and the brother of Jared, along with a fun object activity. I will try my best to explain the object lesson. You ask everyone to hold both hands with there fingers flat, you then lay the stick on top of everyone's hands, you tell them the goal is to lower the stick to the floor, the rules are that your hands must stay flat below the stick and you must always touch the stick, if you lower your hand to fast that it comes of just a little bit, I make them start over. What happens is that  because everyone doesn't want to take there hand off, they push up a little, and with everyone pushing up, the stick goes higher instead of to the ground. We then try it again and again, until they get it. Then we try it with one person trying to raise the stick, making it impossible to bring it to the ground. I used this to describe that our challenging goal in life is to follow all the commandments the challenging goal of the activity was to bring the stick to the ground, but that if we surround ourselves with people that don't have our same goals then we will also not go closer to our goals, we need to surround ourselves with friends that have the same goals as us. I hope you can visualize that, if not just know it was a cool object lesson.

A fruit called sampalok, its super sour and sweet, its really tasty

Me and Brother J... , A... , and another girl that lives with them

Our church classroom, I teach the youth most Sundays on this outside porch, its pretty sweet.

Can a rock become living?

She's reading the scriptures, very colorfully

I wanted to share a parable with you that I liked. Starts with a question. Can a Rock Become Living? Surprisingly yes, after a long process. The rock is broken down into small minerals, these minerals go into the ground and stay there, until a seed is planted, the plants roots touch the minerals, then use them to slowly build itself. I think this is the way God works with us, that we are like the rock, at first, then over time we are broken down, until God can use us, and that's how we become more like Christ.

Will our investigators get baptized? Unfortunately it is official, They are not getting baptized, you see we are even more unlucky because apparently they are part of a super dajong, where if someone switches religions they mysteriously 'disappear' I had no idea thats how serious it is, on the up side, the dajong doesn't care if we teach them, so we are making progress... sort of? I just am glad the kids are so awesome, we even got the kids reading the book of mormon  every day, its awesome, and one is able to be baptized because I guess his family is somehow not part of the dajong, I don't really know but they are all listening, going to church, reading the book of mormon, really they are mormons, but there not mormons on paper. We are both sad and happy about it, thanks for your prayers, because the one we did get means a lot to us. And the fact we get to keep teaching the kids.

How do I do laundry? Normally I pay someone to handwash my colored clothes, as for my garments (underwear) I need to handwash those, you can either do crazy scrubbing for two hours, or there is a longer way of soaking the clothes and scrubbing them for 30-1 hour (takes 3 days) that is longer but less work, I prefer the longer but less work, the problem is if you forget to start the soaking, then you need to do it the other way, then you hang your clothes up to dry, so I have done both, its super tiring, but at the same time it makes you love washing machines, count your many blessings.

How am I getting along with my companion?  And my companion, lets see... I like him, we get along fine, the only thing is that he likes to start late for some reason, so I have slowed down to his pace, and now we are getting along great, I figure its better to have a happy companionship with a good amount of work, then a unhappy companionship and a great amount of work, on the plus side because my comp wants to leave the house at 1:30 or 2:00 every day, I get to do a lot of reading of Jesus the Christ and the Book of Mormon, I love them both so much.

"ice bucket challenge"

our camping stove, by the way do you know any simple recipes that I could try here?

Have a Great Week
Elder Remer