thanks for the emails and letters

I really enjoyed General Conference. I liked Elder Hollands talk Are We Not All Beggars?. I liked how he said that "I have never been poor, I will never know how it feels" I remember that powerful statement. It is cool to see the people here giving up so much to come to church and to do their home teaching. They normally walk 5 miles to get to their home teaching assignment, and then another 5 miles back, just because of how far everyone lives from one another. I hope that I will be able to become as giving and caring as these people are.

One of the days this week I went on splits with my distract leader Elder Roskelley, It is super cool to see the strengths he has in missionary work compared to that of my trainer, he gave me advice about tracting and advice on learning the languages/dilects here.

I'm grateful when people send letters and emails, especially the pictures, I really like seeing Colorado again, its funny because my friends in Colorado dream of going on vacation to somewhere warm, topical, with different kinds of fruits and trees, next to the ocean, where the people here dream of going on vacation to the mountains where it is cold, to great rivers in a log cabin.

A Baptism!

This week I got to baptize a girl named Heart. She might be the most shy person I have ever met, I am so glad she got baptized.

I wanted to tell everyone about the baptism. The baptism was planned on starting at 3, me and Elder Creswell got the the church at 11 to make sure that everything would be ready with plenty of time to spare.

At 11 we found the font was already filled with water, but the water was super dirty, so we drained it for the longest time, saw that it was completely dirty and decided to go to town so we could get cleaning supplies and also find a printer to print the baptismal program, who would be speaking, what hymns would be sung, and something for Heart to keep forever.

We went to town and got cleaning supplies, made and printed off the program, by now it was about 12, we decided we would eat lunch after everthing was ready for the Baptism, we came back to the church and started to really clean the font, we cleaned for 30 min, and then decided to start filling it, it was a slow tickle of water, an hour later it wasnt even a 1/4 of the way full, so we started to try and find ways to fill it faster, we found the right knob talking with a member on the phone, turned it, and the water came out faster, but also a lot of dirt came out, so by the time it was 3, we had returned the font to its original dirtiness, probably should have checked the water before we cleaned it, even with this dirty water the babtism turned out great.

Thanks for your time

Elder Remer

crazy holiday, sick companion

At the Remer house, we usually get an email from Elder Remer on Sunday night between 10 and 11 pm. Since the time in Cebu, Philippines is 14 hours ahead of us, it is close to lunch time on Monday for Elder Remer. This week, he emailed earlier, around 8 pm for us. We were gathered for family scripture study when I got his email, so I took this picture to email back to him so he could see us in the moment. Technology is great! His letter this week mainly answers my questions, so I'll include the questions...


Thanks Mom for the long letter, I'll admit when there is a lot of mail sometimes I don't get through it all, but on weeks like this one It is truely a blessing. Thanks so Much!

Has there been a holiday since you got there, or any holidays upcoming? For Holidays we have had one, and I am glad it has just been one. It was the biggest party I have ever seen in my life. These people, who didn't have food, somehow managed to put out 10 or 15 speakers and play music. The entire city was like this, in my house on the edge of the city, I could here the music as I woke up in the morning. I would describe it if everyone in Castle Rock played the same radio station on  huge speakers outside and took the day off just to party. It was crazy.

As for other Holidays the next one is Christmas, so people are putting up Christmas lights now, it seems very strange, because its not cold, and still months away until Christmas, but I guess not for the Philippines.

Did you have any good experiences teaching or helping people this week? Unfortunately because of the rain and my companion being sick we have only got to teach 5 lessons this week. I am so grateful that I am in an area that people open up the the gospel. I can't imagine going an entire week working and getting no lessons. I was so bored this week sitting around while waiting for Elder Creswell to get better.

Any requests for your Christmas package? Are there any snacks or treats that you miss? Any requests for my Christmas Package... I would like, maybe a board game for P-day, some jaw breakers, if that would be okay. And I might need a new camera, something broke inside of it, and I haven't been able to turn it on, but I feel like that is a huge request, I am sure that next time I am in the city I might be able to buy one, I want to try to make sure that I get one that charges on an outlet or something because electricity is so much less expensive than batteries. If you could send church magazines that would be the best thing ever!!

Thanks so So much Mom,
Elder Remer

what makes me laugh?

I have found lots of things that have made me laugh in the Philippines. Here in Jagna it's mostly the signs, for example this one pointing away from the ocean.

Thank you so much for praying for me everyday, I can see the difference it makes, as for most people they say the hardest part for them was the first 2 transfers, while I am feeling pretty good, maybe my trials of my mission will come later, but just in case I am reading this book they gave all the new missionaries called Adjusting to Missionary Life, it has a bunch of techniques about relieving stress, I am trying to pick a few and try them out every day to twice a week, so that when the stress does start to come I will be able to get rid of it before it becomes bad.

I am finding Personal Study to be amazing, I can't believe that I am running out of time studying the gospel every day. Before my mission I found it hard to study for 20 minutes and now I find it hard to stop studying after an hour of study. I am wondering if after a year that I will find it hard to study that hour every day, or if I will value it even more.

I love it when people ask questions at the end of their emails, I never know what to write. 

So what am I eating? I eat tons of rice, almost every...if not every... lunch and dinner is with rice. Here they never eat rice plain, they always have a sauce to put on it and some kind of meat, normally fish, chicken, or pig. The hard thing is that you need to put a piece of meat and rice on your spoon. I have found out it is super weird to eat rice without putting meat on your spoon, sort of as weird if someone were to bring a 2 liter of soda to a party and just drink it out of the 2 liter instead of pouring it in a cup. The problem is you need to try to balance out your meat-to-rice ratio so that you eat all the meat and rice, its so confusing. Then fruit here is normally the desert I have eating mangoes as well as a lot of different kinds of fruit like tambis, langsat, and rambutan.

Its super cool to be given this fruit and have no idea how to eat it, do I eat it like an apple? peal it like an orange? peal like a potato? break the shell against a rock or with my fingers? I love it so much.

Where do I go to send and read emails? There are places called Internethans- bolohonon(the dialect of Cebuano I am using) for "the place of using the Internet" its a small shop where there are computers that you get on and then pay for each hour that you are online, last week we had a zone meeting so we needed to leave, and one of the Missionaries hadn't gotten to email because his computer didn't work, so I gave it to him.

What kinds of pets or animals are here? We see lizards all the time here called tikis. There are animals that I haven't seen yet, but I am hoping to see sometime while I'm in the Philippines, like a hambubukad aka flying lizard/dragon, and a tarsier (a tiny monkey thing)

tarsier photo from wikipedia

These are some other pictures I took:

my wallet/coin purse

the dock

the main form of transport a Tryk, they are 3 wheeled taxis, pretty cool

There is nothing else like it

I have been asked about who we are teaching and working with, so for missionary work we have 2 IBD's but one is 8 years old, so we actually can't teach her, since its the branches responsibility. We are teaching so many people, its kinda crazy, we have 3 progressing investigators, 27 investigators, with 9 of the investigators being close to being dropped, 14 inactive families that we are focusing on, and 5 recent converts.
it is so cool to be constantly walking and visiting people, I know it won't normally be this busy, so I am trying my best.

Like for example yesterday I was on splits with Jake, who is 26 and preparing to go on a mission, we went to go teach this Sister, we visited her and she was crying, I couldn't understand her, and didn't really know what to do, and Jake, I could see that he didn't know what to do, I wanted to help so bad. Then, then the Holy Ghost told me to share a scripture that I had studied. I was so worried and scared. I knew that the situation was serious, and I didn't understand it. I decided to trust that It was the Holy Ghost I shared a scripture 1 Ne 14:1 to her, this was it - "And it shall come to pass, that if the Gentiles shall hearken unto the Lamb of God in that day that he shall manifest himself unto them in word, and also in power, in very deed, unto the taking away of their stumbling blocks." 

I explained that this was a Scripture directed to us, the Gentiles, that if we were to hearken unto the Lamb of God, or in other words, listen and obey the words of Jesus Christ (the commandments.) Then we would know that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are real, because they will remove our obstacles. I testified that during the really hard times, when we are not sure what to do, if we follow the commandments with all our heart and just try our best to obey the simple things, like reading our scriptures and praying with our heart every day, listening for the feelings of comfort, and going to church every week, that our lives would become better, little by little, not all at once, but slowly. and that our lives would continue to better until we had overcome our trials. I could tell in her eyes this is what she needed to hear. I then felt like I should give her a blessing of comfort, so that is what I did, I felt the spirit in my heart, and I'm not even sure what I said, but I knew it was from God.

Later I found out that this Sisters husband left her a note that He was leaving her, and never returning. If that wasn't enough pain for her, here in the Philippines there is no divorce, so she can never get married again. I had no idea that this is what happened to her. I am not sure what I would have said to her, I mean... that is just so hard... but after that scripture and what I said, I knew, in my heart, that she knew that she would be okay, if she just tried her best to do these simple things that we had taught her.

It was so cool, and so sad, cool for the difference that I made,  I really like it out here making a difference in peoples' lives, whether teaching people that know about God how to be closer to him, and how to speak to him, and receive answers, or teaching someone that went to church but never knew that God was really there, and teaching them about faith, how they would not see God in this life on Earth, but that through prayer and reading the scriptures that they could know in their heart that he is there. I don't even know how to describe it, I am in a different country walking miles every day, not understanding the people most of the time, coming home completely sore and ready to pass out, and feeling so happy and good because I knew that I was asked of God to come here. There is nothing else like it.

Until next week,
Elder Remer

quick days and culture shock

(Ryan didn't write a group email this week, so here are a few excerpts from his letter to me.)

Hey Mom!

As for the best way to contact me, it doesn't matter too much if letters or emails. Emails are good because I get 2 hours of email/ internet time a week, so while it is limited, I think it is plenty of time to email people. Letters are great because they only come every 6 weeks, and is super exciting to get one. These are the downsides, Email time is limited so if a lot of people email me, then the time to read and write emails gets cut off, the downside to letters is I only get them at transfer times when we go to the mission office, and then I get transferred I go to my new area, read the letters, write them, and then mail them 6 weeks later, when I go to the mission office next. I guess a balance would be to send me letters with their email address so I can email them to reply. But yeah... that is the mail situation

Its weird that the days go by so quick, I am exhausted from walking every day, about 6-8 kilometers, whatever that is in miles. I am told I am in hard core culture shock. But I feel great. The side-effects of culture-shock that I am having are that I am just never really hungry, I mean I can still eat, but I could easily skip a meal and be fine, Also all the food tastes great, I kinda like being in culture-shock, that being said I am being careful and eating food when I am not hungry so that I won't get sick here.

Saturday Elder Creswell was sick, so we stayed in our apartment all day, and after my personal study I decided to see how much the scriptures have about the universe, Abraham 3 is super cool, i read through it and read the picture thing and the translations, it really is pretty cool, I drew a picture to my best understanding what this chapter was saying, I wonder how correct my picture is to the real thing, its pretty cool.

I am finally teaching!

I Am Here: Elder Remer points to Cebu on a map of the Philippines

Hey Everyone,

It is crazy here in the Philippines, I really want to adjust to there culture, it is so cool. A few examples that I find pretty cool, both simple and crazy things.

Simple Things: Rising your eyebrows twice means yes, nodding is saying that you don't know, shaking your head is the same as a no, you making a kissing face at something to point at it, and you always eat your meat with rice, by putting both on a spoon, if you don't people think you are really strange.

Crazy/Funny: The traffic is insane here, there is rarely a crash here but everyone is an aggressive driver, its like everyone has the same crazy mind and somehow it works, they also use there horns a lot better, to signal passing someone, or that they are about to come through. They also will not travel if it is raining, because it is bad luck. They believe some strange ghost stories, like a wak-wak - or witches/ghosts that walk on ceilings.

There are also a few things that are hard about teaching, that are good and bad. They are super open to talk about religion, and feel the spirit during our teaching, but rarely change churches. An example was that we taught someone, they prayed, felt the Book of Mormon was true, but gave the reason that they were Catholic to not join the Mormon Faith. It's a little weird. Because of the Rain belief, church attendance can be almost no one if it rains. And last, there is no divorce in the Philippines, so a lot of people don't get divorced and live with each other, and we need to ask them to get married, a HUGE commitment. Or worse they were married before and just left their spouse, and found someone else that they had a family with, in which case they can't go to the temple to be married because technically they are married to someone else

I love it here so much, despite the differences

It is so beautiful, I am teaching in the Bukid, aka Jungle/wilderness/mountain, where I almost can't believe how little some people can live off of. I can't believe how lucky we are. This area is said to be a hard area, and I think some missionaries think it is weird that I am so happy despite the lack of progress, I simply tell them that I do not know any different, it is my first area. But, I think its more than that, I feel that I am happy because the Lord is happy with the effort I am making to try and teach the gospel.

Here are some pictures of the area and temple, that are just amazing, along with my area, home, me and my companion and such. I wish best of luck to all of you

Elder Remer