Temple and Service Project

 This past week was a Temple week for us.  Our whole zone went, then the session after us was the whole Antipolo zone.  It was great to be in the Temple again!  Such a great spirit there.

Also, this past week, we also had a service project for a member. IT WAS FUN!! I was hiking 80lbs cement bags up to the second floor, shoveling, and also cooking Adobo (no not all at the same time).  Adobo is a dish with Chicken, toyo (soy sauce), Suka (vinegar), Cebuyas (onions), Bawang (garlic), Paminta, then you can add in additional stuff.  It’s so good!

OUR FRIENDS ARE DOING GREAT!!!

We have Brother Deguzman who is the asawa (spouse) of a long-time member. He would have been baptized a long time ago but he had work issues where he had to work on Sundays, and he also had a word of wisdom issue. He has since then, stopped it, and shifted his work schedule because he is close to retiring so now, he can go to church again! His baptism will be on March 13.
Then Julie, who has been an investigator for a while now came to church this last Sunday! (It was stake conference) She had a great time and has since then gotten more curious and serious about wanting to be baptized!! The Lord really is bringing blessings down on us!!

THEN!! Remember Jana? The one who got baptized just a couple weeks ago? Her aunt, who wasn't supper interested in the message before, has loads of questions for us, and she only wants us to answer them because she knows we speak the truth.  She loves it when we come, because we were able to open up scriptures in both the Book of Mormon and the Bible! She is also really excited to start reading herself. She said, probably this year may be the year she joins the church!! So, we have been happy helping her find answers to her questions!!

The hard part though is, we are still needing to find new excited friends and just have to keep on working because the Lord will provide!!

Inspirational thought!

When pondering a little bit this last week, I thought back to some studies I had related to receiving revelation and some things that my President shared about prayer. I think it is safe to say, one of the best ways for us to grow closer to God is through prayer. If we are struggling in any way shape or form, if we are feeling kulang (lacking), reflect on your prayers and how they are. Are the focused, sincere, honest, out loud? If we strengthen our prayers, we will be able to grow so much closer unto Him!!

Love, Elder James Dunyon

Great week with baptism and new friends

This week was a pretty good week!!!

We had a really amazing day where we got 2 referrals, 9 new friends, and tons of lessons!!

The Aton family is doing great! They were baptized Sunday morning along with a child of record!! They are doing so good, and when we visited them Sunday night, they were asking us tons of questions about the temple!! We are so happy and excited for them!!

We have a new family - The Siervo family.  They are a referral of a member and there are 7 of them. It is a really cute family and they are all really open to the message. The two daughters came to church yesterday and we have only taught them one time so far.

Another referral is Dang, she has been searching for truth for a while and is really open and willing to read the Book of Mormon!  Jeff is still going strong, he said he will eventually be baptized, but he is just not ready yet.

The Castro family is still doing alright as well, know what we are teaching is true, but not quite ready to be baptized. We are also teaching their manugang (daughter in law) who is also really, really receptive.

One of the fun, but hard things this week, was that we have SO MANY FRIENDS that said they are willing to be baptized BUT are just not yet ready, they said they will be baptized and get there, but just not yet. We told the ward in missionary coordination meeting so we have a ton of members willing to come help fellowship and get them ready! So, we are excited to hopefully get our friends to church!! This next week is stake conference!! So, that should be fun too!!

Spiritual thought:

One of the things I also noticed was my constant need to increase a spiritual understanding. I love understanding the scriptures and deeper meanings and how it can truly apply to me. I felt a little lacking this week up until the end where I thought of ways to fix my studies and really invite the spirit back in. Sometimes it is just simple things to do rather than large things, but they really do make a difference in inviting the spirit!

Continue to always find ways to grow closer to Christ

Love Elder James Dunyon

Transfers, but staying

The sisters got dresses made and they also made us ties, so we were matching, then Jana wanted to join

Transfers are here once again, but I am still going to stay here!! Elder Yaba is going to Taytay zone and my new companion will be an American, Elder Bottoms. He is from Saint George and he is my second companion that is white, so this is interesting, hahaha.  We have to find new ways of finding in this area, because there are a ton of people that just want to talk to the Americans.  We get along great though. He goes home in the batch after me, so he is a long time in the mission too, still struggles with Tagalog though, but it is all good. I have come to learn that I actually have deep Tagalog, while others still have a slang Tagalog.

So, this week when it comes to work, we had a good full day of work with trying to figure out how to work this area with two Americans. But we had some great lessons. We have sooooo many friends we are teaching that all have a testimony of Joseph smith and the Book of Mormon but haven't come to church yet. They are still holding on to their former comforts, so we are trying to be patient but also trying to give them pushes to take the jump of faith. But things are going great. This last week all of our friends said that they wouldn't be able to come to church this week, but next week is a for sure, so we are hoping for a lot!!

The Aton family is set to be baptized this upcoming week!! So, we will be praying and are so excited for them!! Castro family is doing good but taking a little bit of time. They keep inviting their friends into lessons though so we keep getting some new friends to teach!! Jeff is doing great too!! He wasn't able to come to church this week but has been reading the Book of Mormon, so that is good!! A lot of our other friends are still pretty new and haven't been able to get back to them, but we are excited to help them out to!!

We had a meeting this past week about a new program that is being done here in the Philippines.  The missionaries and the members are "linking arms" to get missionary work and ministering done!!  Missionaries are now going to be assigned around 5 ministering companions, each of which will have 1-2-part member families that we will go with to visit. Through this, the missionaries will encourage, but not take over, ministering and at the same time, meet families with members who have not yet been baptized. So, both ministering and missionary work gets taken care of!! It should really help here in the Philippines because around 60 percent of the members in the Philippines are either Part-member or less active.  So, we are excited to get that started to!!

Spiritual thought:

You never know where help will come from. Sometimes it will come from those you never expect it too! When you ask for the Lord’s help, He will provide, just be patient! This week for me, there was a day where I was just struggling, and I wanted to feel peace. That day we were working hard like we normally do and were able to teach 6 lessons, and every single friend (they all are not baptized) where able to share some testimony of how the Lord has helped them overcome trials, and all of what they had said, helped me feel that peace that I needed. I thought it would come from a missionary, the scriptures, a thought, even a song, but it came from the friends that we were able to meet previous and all able to teach!

Love, Elder James Dunyon

This thing is called a Halo-halo (mix-mix in english) it is a ton of things put into shaved ice

 the night the volcano spewed ash, we were coming from a members house and we used bandannas to cover up, so yeah, we were outlaws