ACHILLES HEEL OF FOLKS HERE IS CHURCH ATTENDANCE

Quite a week indeed.

Typhoon season has officially started, and from what I understand, my mission is currently caught between two... which should be fun :P As of now, we have no power or running water, but pfft, who needs those anyways? That's just for city slickers. We weren't able to work yesterday, as our zone leaders instructed us to stay inside. Hopefully I'll have some good typhoon stories to take home.

In other news, as it pertains to my area, very little new happenings to comment on. No progressing investigators. The universal Achilles heel of the folks here is church attendance... That's all :P I'm so sorry. Nothing new or exciting I promise.

Love you all!
Elder Mikesell III

CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN IN NARVACAN, MET A FILIPINO WHO LIVED IN LOS PRADOS AND FOUND AN INVESTIGATOR WITH A BAPTISMAL DATE

Super quick: we climbed a mountain with the Stake President and the priesthood quorums here in Narvacan... It was awesome. I met a Filipino at the top who spoke really good English. Asked where he came from. He said he just got back from the states after having lived there two years. I asked where. He said Nevada. I asked where in Nevada. He said Las Vegas. I asked where in Las Vegas. He said North Las Vegas. I asked him where in North Las Vegas, and he replied in a gated community called Los Prados.

Crazy Hippos :P

On Tuesday, as we went outside we found a bat which had partially (but not completely) died on our doorstep. We named it Bruce. (I hope someone gets that.) We tried to nurse him back to health. Bruce died.

We have an investigator with a baptismal date. We met him only yesterday. I shall call him Brother Gulaw. He was almost baptized about a year ago in Palawan, here in the Phillies. I'm excited.

Those are the highlights.

Love everyone :)

Elder Mikesell III

KARABAW, HUT HANGOUT, HOLDING A GOAT AND MAKE-SHIFT WEIGHT LIFTING STATION

A good week :) Lots of ups and downs, but that's what roller coasters are for! Just a highlight and quite a few pictures due to my forgetfulness these last few weeks. Subjects include the longest horns I've ever seen on a karabaw, a sweet hut hangout, my apartment, me and Elder Smiler trying to hold a goat and it freaking out, and Elder Smiler/Brother Jonathan's accidental twinner day. Health conscious missionaries quickly learn to become resourceful. Attached is our weight lifting bench composed of four broken plastic chairs, two broken jump ropes and an ironing board, our weights are poured concrete and our jump rope, which is a cheap china affair, is reinforced with bike grips and a healthy amount of tape.

BUSINESS AS USUAL HERE IN NARVACAN, ANOTHER 6 WEEKS STRONG WITH ELDER MACALAGUIM

The weekly! Business as usual here in Narvacan :P There was no transfer, and I'll be going another 6 weeks strong with my companion Elder Macalaguim, which I'm a huge fan of! I really like him as my companion. No one came to church... again. But such is life and missionary work! Onward ever onward. The bright side is that we taught the most lessons I've ever taught in this area last week, and we found the most new investigators I've ever found in my whole mission. The whole mission got freaking pumped after Elder Bowen visited us!

Other than that, not much has changed. My apartment mates are the same, and no new progressing investigators of which to speak of. It's freaking hot, and I've decided that I will never live anywhere hot :P to quote a certain correspondence I just sent earlier,

As for the heat of Las Vegas: "I am SO determined to not live in Vegas. Like I'm not even going to date females from Las Vegas, due to the fact that if I end up marrying one, she'll probably have family in Las Vegas which will increase the likelihood of me staying in Vegas, and that's just a no go."

I might give the addition that there could be exceptions to that rule... if she's really cool, but it's not like I'm thinking about THAT or anything :P ha! What? Pfft! That's just ridiculous! Elders thinking about courtship and marriage? That's preposterous. It's not like that's the only thing we talk about or anything. :P I love everyone back home, but I love it here too :) Lucky for me, I get one now and the other later, so I'll just enjoy whatever I'm given at the moment! I'm off to save souls! Pip pip and cheerio!

Elder Mikesell III

P.S. Don't worry about the man on the raft in my pictures. He's not drowning (which is what I assumed at first). It's a kind of fishing they do here. He's wearing goggles in order to see under water.

EVERYONE IS DOING BETTER THAN BEFORE, BROTHER SIMBAHAN, THE VOICE OF GOD, A MAGICAL KEY AND SPARKS OVER BIBLE VERSES

First things first, I'm sorry, but I forgot my camera :P My bad, haha, but this was a good week fore sure! Our companionship, district, zone and mission are really trying to respond to the challenge Elder Bowen gave us when he visited us a few weeks ago, and the enthusiasm is downright contagious. EVERYONE is doing better than before! So much better! Me and my companionship, especially. So many of the problems I thought my area had were just me, a lack of faith, and mental limitations. I'm so grateful for the mighty servant the Lord sent to call us to repentance, haha. Just one experience I'd like to share today:

Brother Simbahan :P

Brother Simahan is a crazy old guy that lives only about 200 yards away from our chapel here in Narvacan. He's a really nice old guy and has faith in Jesus Christ. But he's also kind of crazy. :P To illustrate his... ahem... unique brand of craziness, you need to understand that he's quite a visionary man. He's told us that he heard the voice of God back in the 80's, that he was given a magical key by St. Peter which he used in the past to heal a mute, and that when he reads the bible he sees sparks over the verses. When he sees the spark, he then records the time and date at which he saw it next to the verse, and he believes those sparks are the Holy Ghost communicating to him which verses of the bible are true. Soooo, yeah, that's Brother Simbahan :P

We decided after a rough few lessons that we needed to teach him about the priesthood. Straight up, no dancing around it. He responded soo much better this lesson! He really liked the doctrine of the priesthood and he felt like it made more sense that God's kingdom would be orderly rather than random. I turned to my companion after saying something, but when I turned back to Brother Simbahan, he had his hand outstretched to shake mine with a big goofy grin on his face. When I asked him why, he told me, "Congratulations. I saw the spark in front of your face!" Sooooo because he saw the spark he believes that we were telling him as true and that we're prophets :P Which took some time to explain, haha, but I love the guy!

Things are going good. I love my mission, this people, and this gospel. I may or may not have a new companion by tomorrow, but I'll be sure to keep you updated on that :P

Feed your fire!

Elder Mikesell III

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!

ELDER BOWEN VISITING OUR MISSION, WE TALK ABOUT PEOPLE & I'M LOVING MY MISSION

ang mga bata :) (the kids)

Hello comrades!

The first comment is: it is hot here :P

But, in other news, things are definitely improving! Elder Ian Bowen from the Philippines Area Presidency is visiting our mission right now, and I am heavily enjoying listening to a general authority. Something that he said while giving a hands on talk during the Saturday session of our stake conference about ward council really struck me: "in our ward council, we talk about PEOPLE." He was inferring that it's not about budgets or schedules or so forth. It hit me because he repeated it three times. Me and my companion thought a lot about it and started to try and apply that principle in our teaching and planning more, to not just plan lessons but to prepare to share with people. Not just teach lessons, but have a conversation with people and share with them what we have.

As soon as we started we've seen the impact :) things are going well.

In other news, I've started working out daily, it's freaking hot, me and Elder Macalaguim will be another transfer together, it's super duper hot here, I'm loving my mission and don't ever want to go home, and it is ridiculously hot here! Those are the feels this week!

I hope Justin has a safe flight home, and I have something special for him when I come home!

Love you all :)

Elder Mikesell III

Cows wandering in the graveyard, an unchaperoned herd of goats just making its way down the street (haha), a bunch of pictures from our early morning jog/nature walk early this morning with Brother Eugine (a prospective elder we are becoming way close with) and our favorite members in the ward, the Ruiz family! Also, in the Philippines, colonies of warrior ants also spin webs. Terrifying. I know.