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

Investigators and new mailing address

Elder Remer is serving in Panglao, a small island

This week has been a pretty hard week, not spiritually, but because we might lose our only family investigating right now. we have been teaching there 3 children about the gospel, and they are super far in the missionary lessons, we have a baptism scheduled for the 14th of February, but they are part of a dajong(explained later) We have a 50% chance of baptizing them. The dajong is the people who own your house and insurance, if you are of the same religion as them, you get a needed discount, if not, you won't be able to afford a house or insurance. Not everyone here is part of a dajong, but turns out this family is part of one, it just depends if we are lucky and they are part of a relaxed dajong, or if they are part of a hard-core-catholic one. Hopefully it turns out well, I had some pictures this week, but forgot my camera cord, so hopefully next week,

Have a great week,
Elder Remer


(note from Cindy) The mission office sent us an email this week updating the mailing address. Send all correspondence & packages to the following address:

Elder Ryan D Remer

Cebu East Mission Office

LDS Church Compound, National Highway

Bajac, Liloan

Cebu 6002 Philippines

For packages: (Contact Ph# 032-424-1012)

The Philippines Cebu East mission also receives pouch mail. Here's the address for that:

Elder Ryan D Remer

Philippines Cebu East Mission

POB 30150

Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150

Getting Christmas letters and teaching primary

Thanks for your email, I really like the rock climbing story (the two guys in Yosemite free climbing Dawn Wall), its cool to read the story and think "yeah, I guess that's cool" then put the scale on there.. the thoughts change to "what on earth!!" I would be happy just completing a 5.12 by the end of my life after trying over and over again, the fact that they climbed sections of that, on the first time every time, it blows my mind. and as for the 5.14d... that's like climbing a brick wall, its so crazy hard. That is super cool for me, thanks.

Oh, guess what yesterday I got a ton of Christmas Letters from the primary. It was fun to read all the notes from the primary and they were useful to test the English of some of the people here. Also I got a Christmas postcard of Paul, Aubrey, Ava, Mabel, and Max. Its so much fun to get Christmas mail at the end of January.

I thought I would send you a picture of some of the things I did last week, because my comp was super sick... again, but he did get better enough towards the end for us to do some work.

1) Solved a 5x5 rubix cube, and then again, and again, until I could solve it with any pattern, spiral, and ctr

2) Built a nindot card tower

3) dominos with cards

4) teach a super smart 9 year old (photo above)

We have 4 Elders in Panglao, our areas are pretty big, but we focus close to the church because we only have a group right now of 20 people and an amazing group leader. The other Elders are kabalay with us (living in the same house) and my language is improving very fast with the house of me and 3 other Filipino.

At church this Sunday I had a fun time teaching the primary 10ish year olds. We acted out the story of Nephi, from the 1st chapter until Nephi gets the plates of brass. We had a lot of fun moments, like when I, lehi, picked up my family, and brought them to the wilderness, because the word for carry, and to bring, is the same word in Visayan. We had a lot of fun, and all the primary went to there parents and excitedly told them about Nephi and Lehi, and the plates of brass. It was super Fun.

New area and sick this week

My new area is very different, it is not the hilly jungle but a flat area with lots of houses.  The area is new with only a group, we do have 4 Investigators with a Baptismal date, that are kids/teenagers. I had a lot of fun in Jagna, and I am sad to leave it behind, but also I want to make this area the best it can be.  We are in Panglao by the way, with my companion Elder De guzman,

We had fun on Wednesday going to people having parties because me and one of the sisters were leaving, we also went to the highest point in Jagna, it was super fun, 

I am pretty tired, haven't been sleeping well with the cold I got, I have been pretty sick for the last few days with a fever, but we are getting back to work today, Hopefully we will be able to bring a lot of people to Christ.

Elder Remer

Transfer to small island of Panglao

Today is transfer day and I am transferring to Panglao, a small island off the coast of Bohol, Its both exciting and sad, but I hope I can learn to love the people there as much as I love the people here.   Unfortunately this week Brother R... is out of town, which is sad because today is my last day here, Today I don't have a lot of time to email because I need to pack to leave at 5 and we have a visit with someone at noon, so today will be a pretty wild and fast day, Thanks so much for helping me go on a mission.
I have included some pictures, one of me and Elder Lewis, taught him how to solve a rubix cube, a picture of a new shortcut/path we found, and me and the youth, I taught them because their teacher didn't come to church.