Wk 99 Pinalangga kong pmailya September 26, 2011

  Hey! Everyone!

     Mom thanks for that song that you sent, I really like it. (In the Strength of the Lord by Jenny Phillips).  I am actually listening to it right now. I think I might cry. :). But really...I like the message. I kind of feel like the brothers of Nephi. Heavenly Father has blessed me so much and I have had so many marvelous experiences, but the good old natural man of Garrett likes to forget those things I have learned and just focus on...me or slacken my strength. It’s a dirty pronoun, me. These past few weeks have just been a real trial for me. I think a lot of it has been because of my attitude and just thoughts toward companion and self. Maybe it’s the fact that I will be going home soon. They call that trunky. But I want to deny myself of all trunkyness because first of all I know that when my mission is over its not. Being a disciple of Christ is not just a two year thing, it’s my whole life. I remember a letter that Elder Stewart wrote about being a disciple of Christ.*  I don't want to just serve two years and...yup done. But...I want to BECOME. Kind of like that talk that was given last General Conference. Becoming vs Doing. This last week was just that. A Doing Elder Kirschbaum, and nothing of the sort of Becoming. I have been having a hard time Becoming and even doing. Becoming the most important of the two. The song you sent me just kind of reminded me of the faith that is needed in the Lord, an enduring faith not just when it’s convenient. huahh.

      Yesterday at church I was surprise attacked with the "can you give the talk in sacrament in 5 min" So after playing the opening hymn on piano and confirming Sister Gracelee Gadong.  I received a little revelation on what I could speak about. Something that I want to do better this next week. That is...having a vision. In Proverbs it talks about without a vision, the people fail. I applied it to wearing glasses. When we take off our glasses, we can't see as well. It was a training given to us at leadership training. That will be something I will do this week. Set myself a vision.

    Well let’s move outside of my mind and let me tell you about the awesome Baptism and Activity we had this week. A few weeks ago we decided we were going to do a combined baptism with a close by ward. It was going to be Alfonso, Erma, and Gracelee being baptized. After the Baptism, we would do a talent show. After getting everything rounded up and then Saturday came. Here is what happened in a nut shell.

     We have been telling Erma to inform her husband about her baptism for a long time. Her date is now moved to the 8th hopefully of October. The father has a great respect for the church.  He is awesome and we are still working with him.

     Alfonso ended up coming back from Manila on Monday, but then left again to Borocay (a famous tourist spot here.  You should look it up if you haven't already) He was supposed to be baptized on the 24th but we will have to move his date. We had a lesson with him though on Sunday and he told us he had smoked and had almost gotten rid of his addictions but not yet. So we committed him right then to stop. He gave us his cigarettes and we chucked them and stomped on them on our way home.

     Gracelee was baptized!!. We had 1 baptism this week. Even though the others weren't baptism it was an amazing baptismal service. Gracelee was soooo ready. She just bawled as she bore her testimony after. Her family was super happy.  In one year they will be at the temple. :)

     The activity was a success in the end. We had a talent show. Even though most of the talents were little 5 year old girls. We had a few investigators come too! And of course we drew eyes on our chin put diapers on our heads and did the whole upside down lip sync thing. The same thing that you did in your mission Kyle. haha. :)

Well I have to go now. But I love you all and I am so grateful for all that you do for me. Talk to you again next week.

-Elder Kirschbaum

Wk 98 September 19, 2011

Hello Family,    

     This week started of pretty awesome, and then got awesomer, and then exploded with awesomeness today when our whole zone was invited to eat at a members house. Let’s start though with the first awesome.

     Awesome: One Wednesday we went down to Iloilo for leadership training. It is always fun going to Iloilo. It is kind of like a vacation almost. It’s super fun seeing everyone and learning and telling stories. The whole way down to Iloilo I talked to a man from Germany. He was a pretty funny kid. 25 years old his name was Karl. When he said his name is sounded like Kall because of the accent. It was fun having the opportunity to share the gospel in English. There are very few times that happens here. After the trainings, Elder Misbach, my old comp, the AP if you didn't know, and I went out working. It was way fun to be back together again. We went around and just tracked really big houses and practiced different techniques. It was really enjoyable. Elder Misbach is an awesome guy. Love um. Amen.

     Awesomer: When I got back on Saturday we had Mar's baptism. The baptism went really well. The branch had a good turn out. I was the one to baptize which is a real privilege. The water in the font was about 3 feet which was a little bit of a challenge. Good thing Mar was really good at doing the limbo so we were able to baptize him first try. After the baptism, he was a little bit shy to bare his testimony and we forgot to tell him that he would be bearing his testimony after. Everyone just kind of shouted at him while he was up in front of everyone telling him to say what he felt. Mar kept on saying it felt good. Nami nami ang pamutchug. It was a great feeling. His family was really excited for him and are planning on going to the Temple soon with all their kids to be sealed.

     We will be preparing Irma and Gracelee and as soon as Alfonso gets back from Manila we will be preparing him also. He gets back....today. They will all be getting baptized on the 24th of September. We decided to exercise some faith and do a combined baptism and activity after the baptism. Our plan is to have all the members invite friends to watch the baptism and after have a talent show.

     Kyle I remember you told me once how you held a talent show and one of the talents was riskay dancing. We are praying that everything will work out and that it will be a success. Yoohoo.

     It is weird thinking about how things will be coming to an end very shortly. Someone told me that I should be signing up for school about now. BLAA. That’s a little weird after not going to school for 3 years now. The other day one of our members came up to me and asked me to solve a math problem 3x/5=3x or something like that. It took me the whole gospel principles class to solve. But I solved it I’ll have you know. :).

     Thanks for the emails. Palangga eot ang kamu tanan. makita kat ing nakon sa pila ka adlaw ina kamon kato. :)

-Elder Kirschbaum

Wk 97 September 12, 2011

Minamahal kong pamilya,  

      What a week. This week flew by way fast. Just like always it was a challenging but rewarding week.  We are planning for 1 baptism this week on Saturday right after I get back from Iloilo, and 3 baptisms the following week.

     Mar is the brother of a kid in our ward. Their family is almost all members expect for him, Mar, and their oldest brother. We have been teaching Mar for about 4 weeks now. He is a really fun kid to teach. He is 17 years old and since he has listened to the gospel he is changing for good. We taught about the Ten Commandments the other day and we went through with him the steps of repentance and committed him to repent. He said he would repent.  He's doing great and will be ready to be baptized by the end of this week.

     Irma, is a miracle woman. She is sooooo ready to be baptized on the 24th. Right now we are just reviewing lessons and answering her questions.

     We taught Gracelee yesterday. I don't know if you remember but she is the wife of a long time less active member that recently started coming back to church. Our first meeting we met with Gracelee we committed her to be baptized on the 24th of Sept and pray about that day. We haven't been able to teach her until yesterday, two weeks later. We followed up with her on how her prayer was and how she felt about the 24th. She said she is willing.  She is ready to be baptized on the 24th. This week we will be going to teach her every day, so she will be ready for the 24th.

     Alfonso comes back from Manila this next week, so we will be working with him for his baptism also hopefully on the 24th. Also we met an awesome kid the other day. He has a really strong desire though to find the truth. We taught him the first lesson about the restoration of the gospel. As we were talking about the spirit with him, he said that he felt something while he was reading the pamphlet at his house. He said he just felt really good while he read about Joseph Smith and his vision.

     So pretty much the work is going great. We are pretty blessed to be able to teach people that are interested and willing to make and keep commitments. It makes such a big difference.

     Not everyone has been progressing though. Some investigators that attended church with us a few weeks back are now hiding from us which has been way sad. 

     We have been learning Aklanon everyday from a member in our ward. That’s been way fun. Well, I think that is about it for now. Love you all. See ya soon, and talk to you next week.

-Elder Kirschbaum

Filipino Fact of the Week:

 Air Conditioning is called Air Con

The bathroom is called CR for Comfort Room

You ask for a tissue instead of a napkin.

You say "Take Out" if you want to get your food to go.

When you walk into a restaurant they say "Happy Morning!"

Wk 96 September 5, 2011

Hey FAMILY!   

      It was way good reading your emails this week. I got some good laughs. Some Filipinos gathered around my computer wondering what the white guy was laughing about.

 1st off: Mother Good luck on your journey this month.

 2nd: Father, I just love your emails they are always way funny. It sounds like you got some humble pie. I think your leadership analogy was great. Good job.

      It’s been a good Monday today. I spend 350 pesos on pizza and pasta today, that’s a lot. That was nice for a change. The cashier lady gave me a weird look when I told her it was just me eating everything I ordered.

     This weeks gone by really fast. I am having a hard time remembering anything that happened. Let’s seee.

     Nanet one of our long time investigators that was supposed to be baptized in the next few weeks.  She decided not to come so we tried to listen to her a lot, and just express our love. We will be going back to her again this next week so see how things are going.

      Irma, a non-member mother of three member kids. Irma is our most progressing investigator at this time and she is AWESOME. She has been coming to church the past 3 weeks, and this last Sunday she had a remarkable experience. After church she explained what happened to her. Part of what happened to her is that she prayed that she would know if she should be baptized on the 24th of September or earlier. Well She got a pretty solid answer and so she will be planning on getting baptized the 17th of September. We are really excited for her.

     I really like that scripture Kyle. "Welcome home thou good and faithful servant, now enter into my rest." I will also make that my goal as my mission is coming to an end. We watched the Jospeh Smith Video the other day with one of our investigators. I don't think Joseph Smith slacked at all up to the time of his death.

     I wish I could write more but my mind is kind of scattered right now and we have a family home evening coming up really soon and I still need to wash my clothes. So I will leave it at this for now.

I love you all and talk to you next week.

-Elder Kirschbaum

PPS Kyle here is the correct translation.

Kung gusto mo cheeze pizza, iptaas ang iyong mga kamay. -Tagalog

Kun gusto nimo cheeze pizza, ipaibabaw ro imu nga mga alima - Aklanon

kun luyag mo cheeze pizza, ipaibabaw ang imu nga mga kamot - Illongo

Wk 95 August 28, 2011

Helo 1nc agan,                                         

      Dis wik waz a blst n da realy hrd wik. (This week was a blast and a really hard week.)  At the first of this week I was just struggling bad, with everything. Even though Elder Verzo has only been here about a month now, he knows a lot already about missionary work because he worked with the missionaries like every day for months before he came here. He’s way good at the language.  I love this side of being a missionary, it’s always fun to have learning moments like this. About half way through the week I guess you could say I was just really discouraged. On top of that I felt like my TagalogAklanonIlonglish was turning into Tjajpsoiejfj;lksajf. aka I was having a hard time in the language. haha.  I was really praying hard for help from Heavenly Father to get me out of that slump I was in. I had  some enlightening revelation. Heavenly Father taught me that...It’s not so much about what I could teach him, it was more about just loving him. I remember when I was being trained and how I didn't so much remember all the logistics of missionary work, how to fill out a Baptismal Record...etc.. that my trainer taught me, I just remember my relationship with him and our work. The only way I could truly help my comp is by my example, in excitement, attitude about the work and obedience. I decided to pray for more understanding of him, and to support and love his ideas. BOOM. That made a difference in a matter of minutes. From Wednesday forth, our work turned around like Tony Hawk doing a 360 Benihana. (That is my attempt of writing how dad poetically writes)

 Alright the good stuff...

      We found some teenaged kids this week. They are a group of guys. Really poor, and like to play cards. Their age is from 14 to 18. We have taught them a few times this week and invited them to church. They CAME! Tiamson, Jonjon, Carlos (has a big mustache), and one more ( I forget his name). They had a good experience at church, including Jonjon lost his wallet which I think will actually be a good experience for him because we told him to pray that he could find it. They don't have the biggest testimony in prayer so we are praying also that this experience can grow his testimony. :).

      Armando is an investigator that his half paralyzed. We had a great lesson with him on Saturday and he was going to come to church the next day but there was a misunderstanding. I guess he wanted us to text him Saturday night and we didn't. So on Sunday morning we texted him to meet us somewhere so we could go together to church but he didn't text back. We got a text later that day saying that he doesn't understand us and he doesn't want us to come over anymore. He lost his Ape tit. (Hence the subject of this email) He was pretty mad I guess. We just bore our testimony over text. haha cause that is all we could do. He said that if he wanted to hear the gospel he would just come to church but he didn't want us to come over. We will see what happens. We will be visiting him anyways on Wednessday.

      Sister Gracely and Ronald:  Ronald is a less-active member for years. Lately he said that he "woke up" and now him and his wife have been coming to church. This last Sunday we were able to visit them. We asked them questions about what they wanted in their family. They said...WE WANT TO BE A FOREVER FAMILY. Wow. Me and Elder Verzo just looked at each other in awe. On the first visit we gave sister Gracely the non member a baptismal date for the 24th of September. I am sooo stoked to teach them as a family. They are just sooooo ready and I love um. ah.

Well that is about it for now. I love you all very much and talk to you next week.

-Elder Kirschbaum

Oh mom I read that talk you gave me by...I forgot on GRACE. I loved it. What I got out of it: Jesus Christ did it all. All of it is paid. It wasn't just so that we could return back to Heavenly Father, but that we could become like Heavenly Father.  All I need to do is develop the desire to use his Atonement always and practice. Learn Heaven.

A big part of me always says that I need to be more and better, and I have a hard time of being okay with who I am. Knowing about Grace and how the only thing we have to do is practice I think helps us realize we don't have to be perfect. We just need to do our best to be perfectly willing to...practice.