ELDER BOWEN SHOOK THINGS UP, FOUR GROUPS OF INVESTIGATORS AND A SAD LITTLE TEDDY BEAR

It's a good week! We recently had Elder Bowen from the Seventy visit our mission, and he just shook up everything. In our mission, we have a standard of excellence, which is like a goal that we try (and usually fail) at obtaining, as far as how many lessons we teach and how many new investigators we have. Me and my companion usually only get barely above half of the standard, but Elder Bowen came and told us to double the standard because the problem wasn't the standard but our faith. We did and blessings have come! My area and our entire district almost doubled and in some areas tripled what we were doing before! There is real power when we do what God's servants have asked us to do with faith :) We have three or four groups of investigators I have high hopes for.

Brother Boondok: just a sincere humble guy. Reads the Book of Mormon a lot but is also accepting missionary visits from like 4 other churches at the same time.

Brother and Sister Maliwanag: great investigators but are living together and aren't married. There are laws here in the Phillies that make divorce nearly impossible and Sister Maliwanag has a previous marriage.

Brother Noe: actually a catholic lay minister or "acolyte", but he has an open mind. His wife may be a tougher investigator than he is, haha.

Brother Bukid: our one and only progressing investigator! He prays and comes to church all the time. The problems are that he can't read, is verrrry poor (like ya'll Americans DON'T EVEN KNOW how poor folk can be) and he only speaks the native dialect here, Ilokano, which makes lessons interesting.

Please pray for those folk :) I love you all!

Elder Mikesell III

A sad teddy bear inside a tricycle which I thought was way funny.

A typical filipino family home evening.

PICTURES TODAY! COWS, CHURCH SIGNS, MANGOS AND TYPICAL PHILLIES HOME

Pictures today!

1) Cows look like this in Asia.

2) I find wonderful irony in the "inc" at the back of the church's name, haha. There are more churches than dogs in this country.

3&4) This is a reasonable home for anywhere from 2 to 7 people. Count your blessings ya'll :P

5) We discovered this at the chapel. Silly programming jokes, haha.

6&7) Mangos grow like weeds here, like the freaking Garden of Eden.

8) In America, computer virus fake ads tempt us with free iPads. This is the bait to lure in unsuspecting Phillies :P

NEW APARTMENT, APARTMENT MATES & THOROUGHLY ENJOYING MY MISSION LIFE

Holy cow this week! There's a lot to update in this one.

For one, we switched apartments! This new apartment is the giraffes gym shorts. Sooo groovy.  I should have taken pictures, but I suppose I'll get to that next week. :P It's also within 30 seconds walk of a pandesal bakery, a water refilling station, a spot where tricycles wait for passengers, our favorite member's house, the market, and an internet cafe where we can email. (Those are big deals here in the Phillies!) Which makes it downright superb. Also, as opposed to our last apartment, me and my companion have apartment mates! Elder Smiler and Elder Fanene moved in with us from Santa after closing down their apartment in the area!... until Elder Fanene got emergency transferred! :( awwww. I love the big lug. He's the HUGE fellow in the pictures I sent out this week. He's the biggest missionary in the mission, but he's got the biggest heart, too. He was replaced by his cousin Elder Lesa! He's a cool bloke. I don't know him very well, but we already get along together swimmingly.

Other than that, the work is going well, it's finally starting to rain, and missionaries from a different church tried to bible bash us yesterday, but all is well :) I'm actually thoroughly enjoying my mission life. I've noticed some elders count the days like they're in a prison or like a torture camp, but I'm trying to really live it and enjoy it. I've got my whole life to hang out with white people and eat white bread and ketchup and speak English, but the time I have for rice and Filipinos and Tagalog is very limited! (ode to my father who's wonderful advice helped me to rethink my attitude). And earlier today I called my mama bear for Mother's Day! Seeing her, David, Justin, Chase and Kayla did much to brighten my day :) I love my fam bam and look forward to being reunited with them, but for now it's sickle thrusting time!

Feed your fire!
Elder Mikesell III

FRIED CHICKEN, WATER BUFFALO AND WEIRD FRUIT

May 3, 2015

A few snap shots of the week :) The fruit is a weird one that grows here. I don't know the name, and it's hard to place the taste. The picture of the water buffalo and the kids driving it, I would caption as "the coolest childhood chore ever." The food is the 300 pesos worth market fried chicken that we and our apartment mates got on a whim. (300 pesos is a lottt of fried chicken, haha), I'm just having a grand old time!