The Gospel and Families

Can you believe it's already almost June? Time flies pretty quickly doesn't it? So congrats to those who are now have graduated high school, and congrats to those who are one step closer to finishing high school! Hope this will be the start of a wonderful summer for you all. 

To me this week didn't feel like summer at all due to heavy rain every day, but hey we got a lot of work done, rain or shine. It's been quite a fun experience so far helping a new missionary learn the joys of missionary work, and so far my anak (child) or trainee Elder Yranon, is doing well. 

He still is definitely learning the ropes of mission life but he's doing really well. It's been helping me do well too as a missionary to improve my own teaching skills and desire to study! We are doing pretty well with no major problems! District leader isn't bad too. I'm learning how to teach better on different subjects and relying on the Lord to help me know what to teach to the district every Thursday. It's a challenge, but I have a good district to help me out.

So our week consisted of going back to the investigators that we felt have been progressing the most, so we weren't able to find new investigators. We felt like there were a lot this week that are gaining a desire to learn. They still come in all types of personalities.

We had 2 investigators come to church, Sister Marryann and Imnah Joy. I am still amazed at how they come to church even though they're very quiet and shy. It takes a lot to get them to say yes or no so I admire their desire. Imnah Joy has been reading every pamphlet that we've given her and we saw that she wrote down her prayer to try to memorize. We tried to get her to pray but she's still shy. One day we will get her out of her shell. (on a side note I did get to hang out with a sea turtle again)

There is another 12 year old that we have started teaching again who  surprised us by how smart she is. Her name is Dae Shin Mendoza. She hasn't been taught by the missionaries for 3 months, but when we reviewed all the lessons with her, she remembered a lot. We asked her about where we came from, what is our purpose in this life and where we are going, and she still remembered what the last missionaries taught her. 

She believes it's all true and wants to be baptized on June 24th, 3 days after her birthday. We want to accomplish that goal, sadly the problem is she lives far away from the church and her parents are busy managing a little resort. We're doing our best to help her and hopefully we'll see her continue to progress!

On a different note, I would like to say how grateful I am for the Plan of Salvation. Because we had a lot of lessons this week we taught the Plan of Salvation a lot. For those of you who don't know, my sister’s first son passed away five weeks after being born on May 28, 2016. So of course, my nephew Tristan was on my mind a lot this week especially during the lessons about the Plan of Salvation. 

I am so thankful to know about this Plan, because even though it's hard and I miss him a ton, I know that he is in a state of peace and rest, waiting for us to embrace him again. I know God’s plan for us is real and I know that Tristan, my Grandpa Eddie (who also passed away over a year ago) my Grandpa Ben (who passed away when I was younger) are all in a state of peace and rest, waiting to see us again and maybe even helping me as guardian angels. 

How lucky I am here, to be able to teach this wonderful plan to other families who may have lost someone dear to them too. I know God’s love for us is real and His plan is for us to be as families together forever. That's what our message is here as missionaries to the people of the Philippines: to strengthen families as it has done to mine. 

This gospel is so important to me and my family, so I hope you all remember how amazing it can be in your lives too! My companion and I are doing our best to help others understand this great message too! We are doing our best every day! Love you all and I hope you had a great week!

Elder Espiritu

**you can email Elder Espiritu at joseph.espiritu@myldsmail.net

Birthday at for CJ at the Delos Santos family (there were more people there promise, I just cropped them out) with a surprise guest

It rained this whole week so we partied in the rain every day

The Talkative, The Quiet and The Friendly

Well I'm not going to lie I would never expect the shy ones to actually be the ones that follow through with stepping out of their bubble, and it's also nice to meet people that are fast paced too. Along with that, I personally think asking questions makes life more fun. But then again it is possible to find people that might possibly progress faster than others.

Alright so fun/weird fact of the week, every day at 4 I just lost all energy and desire to work. But don't worry, I pushed through every time. Just a random fact for you to know, and let me know if any of you can relate. That has nothing really to do with this next paragraph. :P

So this last Tuesday, I went on another exchange with Elder Langeveld. It was a little slower at first but it got better as we went. I helped him teach a lot of lessons and extend an invitation of baptism to a lot of the people he was teaching. We managed to extend a good amount. 

The last thing we did was teach the Mendoza family, in which the sister studied in Norway before and had lots of questions. To me I really enjoy when they ask questions because it means I know they are searching for the truth and actively listening. This similar experience happened with one of our investigators Roel Mendoza, who was a member of the Iglesia ni Cristo before but became a member of the Born Again church due to his wife. 

He asked several interesting questions to try to see how our church was different and was really surprised to hear we had another book. He also asked about tithing, where our main church or headquarters is, what our social media is and such. He was really grateful for us teaching him and hopefully he will be able to know the truth. We invited him to read and pray and to attend church. He wasn't able to attend church but I hope we will be able to help him progress. He is really smart and fun to talk to. 

I talked to some really talkative people this week, but of course you can't have one without the other and you got the ones who don't really talk at all. That accounts for 4 people that we are teaching. 2 of them are sisters, and 2 are also related to each other. So theres Maryann (23) Emma Joy (12), Rachelle (13), and Rosemary (11). All pretty quiet, and it takes a lot to get them to say anything. To my surprise, those 4 quiet ones where actually the ones who followed through the commitment and came to church. I was very happy to see them come, especially since we haven't had many investigators at sacrament meeting. 

Later that Sunday we went to Maryann and Emma Joy (fun fact we were very happy because before we knocked on the door we could hear Emma Joy reading the pamphlet we gave her out loud!) and extended an invitation to be baptized. We gave them 2 options for a date, either June 24th or June 17th as a possibility. To my surprise they wanted the 17th! Hopefully they will still follow through but we shall see! 

With Rosemary and Rachelle, it's still a work in progress. But there was 1 surprise new investigator of ours that I never met until I saw her at church. Her name was Diza, who is a cousin of some members that are on and off in attendance. She was helping lead one of the members here Christian, who is mostly blind. 

She let us come over and we taught the Restoration to her and her brother. We asked her her thoughts about the lesson and asked if they believed it's true. They both said yes and extended a baptismal date, and want us to come over more often to teach. I have a feeling they could progress fast due to living in a house with all members to help them out. I think it's going well.

This week was a reminder to me about how different people can be. You can have the quieter ones, the fun and talkative, the fun truth-seekers and many more. But even though there are different people we can all still have an interest in knowing the truth, which is the truth of the gospel. 

Elder Yranon and I are doing our best to help all others to come unto Christ, whether quiet or loud! So there you have it, that's my week for you all, hope you all enjoyed it and loving life! We are doing are best to help all types of people here and I hope we can continue to find people who are ready to accept the gospel!

Elder Espiritu

**you can email Elder Espiritu at joseph.espiritu@myldsmail.net

Doing some community service at a local high school

Family home evening at the Ramos Family

Partying it up with the Salamero and Cabal family (Diza is on the end and Christian is the one next to her) 

Doing service earlier this morning (you can't really tell but I was covered head to toe in dirt and my shirt turned brown :P )

Chastising and Patience

You know, one thing that can be a great learning experience is being chastised, especially by a general authority of the church. But don't worry, it was to the whole mission, and it wasn't too bad. Just a reminder of the little things that count! Which can also count towards gaining patience!

So like I said last week we had this thing called a mission tour. Elder Yranon and I traveled to Claveria first from Laoag on Friday, and found ourselves back in Laoag Tuesday night. That Wednesday morning, we were privileged to hear from Elder Bowen, who is one of the Area Presidency of the Philippines. It was of course a great meeting, but it did have a little bit of chastising. 

The chastising was about obedience. I was expecting that he would chastise about a lot of big disobedient things but he focused on 2 basic things of obedience: Arising at 6:30 and planning every day. He asked all of us who has followed these 2 things every day for the past month without fail. It was interesting to see that only a few raised their hands. 

It shows that sometimes we don't really think that not doing the simple things make a difference. Then Elder Bowen told us that they do, and we are actually sinning. The definition of sinning that he gave is knowingly doing something wrong. Therefore waking up at 6:45 knowing you need to wake up at 6:30 is sinning. It did hit me and several of us on how much the little things count. 

So now my invitation for you is to think about all the little things that we don't think much of, but I promise you that they make a difference! We always need to pay attention to all the commandments or rules to follow, not just the bigger ones. It was a good chastisement, and I know that was a way to help us improve. 

So now we go to Elder Yranon and I's first full week as a companionship. I'll be straight up it wasn't the best week, but we were still hardworking. Of course our work and progression will be a little slower due to Elder Yranon being new, and all of the people that were progressing have been baptized now, so we are basically starting again from scratch. 

Our main focus was finding. It is nice that Elder Yranon speaks Tagalog and Ilocano so he doesn't have to worry about the language barrier, but he is still learning how to just talk to people and build a relationship. The finding actually went pretty well and we did help out one another.

The biggest challenge for me this week was our last appointment on Sunday. We have been teaching 3 really young kids, one 12 year old boy, one 12 and 13 year old girl. It was definitely a test to my patience. They are all really nice, but the problem is they are all extremely shy. When I say shy I mean it takes about 5 minutes to pry a yes or no out of them, and the whole time they just look at the ground. 

It tested my patience a lot just cause I felt like it was going nowhere. Though I don't know what will happen next week, I know it will definitely take a lot of time for them to come out of their shell. The one boy Mike I have been talking to since I got here in March and he is still very shy. I just did my best to understand and I know they are really young. I don't know what will happen in the future, but maybe some day they'll open up!

Sometimes we are like this in our lives, as in bundled up in a shell and afraid to come out. It may take some time for others to really open up to anything, and some fast. But we just need to be patient with each other, because we are all not the same. All we can do is reach out with love and never lose hope, even though it may take a very long time, there is always hope for everyone! 

The challenge I have for all that are reading is do your best to always reach out with love, and hope for the best, even when it seems all is lost! You're never too far off the path to come back! 

Elder Espiritu

**you can email Elder Espiritu at joseph.espiritu@myldsmail.net

Some of my homies from Utah (Sister Morton, Sister Novilla) plus Washington and Micronesia (Elder Walquhist and Elder Amyda)

Elder Amyda and I (he came in at the same time as I)

Finally met my Cousin in Law Elder Markoet (My cousin from the Philippines married his older brother)

We took a short hike to a waterfall 

Short and Sweet Reunions, New Beginnings

I have to admit, this was definitely one of the happiest weeks I have had in awhile. It's really great to catch up with people you've come to love, and start a new beginning with ones you will come to love.

So for those of you who remember last week, at the end of my email I told you I was going to train a new missionary! So last Tuesday, I traveled down to Laoag. Once I got there I got to see who all the other trainers are. I was excited to see that 4 of my batch are training. I was happy to see that my first companion ever Elder Odermott was training too! I started talking to him and asked him what area he's going to be assigned in. I was extremely excited for him when he told me he was going to Laoag 5, my last area. I started trying to tell him all the great things about the area. I knew that all the trainers for that week got to split with all the other missionaries in Laoag until the trainees came, so I jokingly told him I'd go show him around Laoag 5. To my surprise, that's exactly what President Andrada had in mind! 

I never thought that I would have such an awesome opportunity to go back to my previous area for a couple days, with my first ever companion Elder Odermot. It was such a blast getting to catch up with him, and we talked a lot while we were together, updated each other with our lives in the mission and even outside the mission. His apartment is now only a 2 man apartment, so it was just him and I at the apartment for a couple days. I felt really old, like I was actually an adult and this was a college apartment or such. 

We had a blast those couple days. I was also grateful that I got to show him all the people I came to love and I'm sure he will come to love. I decided to show him all the people that were willing to help him out with his area, because he now has the whole area instead of half like I did. After visiting a couple other members that were great, we went to search for them. To our luck, they were all at one house, getting ready for an upcoming YSA conference. It brought me joy seeing their faces light up when they saw I was back. It makes me happy to know they actually liked and missed me. All the people I went to were disappointed that I wasn't returning again, but it was nice to see all of them. 

At the bishop’s house of course my friend Dianne was happy and the bishop’s wife, because I got really close to them. I was pretty surprised to see that their 2 little kids actually remembered me. Sister Florez talked to me about how sometimes they would grab the phone and ask to talk to Elder Espiritu while I was gone. When I had to leave the last day, Rance got really sad and wouldn't let me leave, so we had to tell him that I was coming back the next day. The last thing they said to me was "Bye Kuya Elder!" (Kuya means big brother). 

The reunion was great, and I miss them again, but hey, now I got a child of my own! So when I say child it means my trainee, :). On Friday I finally got to meet him! I opened my letter to see who he was and I am happy with who I get to train. His name is Elder Yranon, and he's from Sanmanuel Pangisinan under the Urdaneta mission. He's 24 (which is an honor that I'm his mission dad cause I'm still 18) and already speaks Ilocano (which I still have very little knowledge of). He's a little quiet but I understand cause he's new.

It's interesting to be a senior companion, but becoming a senior companion has showed me how much I really do know about missionary work. With my last companion he took over a little bit which I was okay with. But now I get to lead! 

So far, Elder Yranon's challenge is a little different from mine, just because he already has the language down. I had a schedule for the first day and the schedule and what we were going to teach totally changed. He wasn't ready to randomly switch but he did well. He also really wants to work on building trust in the people we teach by talking to them a lot. It's just things that will take time! But so far I'm enjoying it with him. He's obedient, willing to listen, and a good guy. I think we will get along great. 

So far I can see he will be a hard worker. Every day we've come back exhausted so that's a good sign that it will be good. So of course, it's going to take a little time to adjust to this new life, but so far, it's fun. 

I know it's going to be a challenge but I know this is the best way to grow! I know the Lord qualifies those he has called, and I can do this! Next week will be our first full week plus mission tour (more details next week) and it's going to be great!

Elder Espiritu

**you can email Elder Espiritu at joseph.espiritu@myldsmail.net

Having Pizza Hut again for the first time in forever

Short reunion with these little homies (before I left they called me Kuya Elder (kuya means big brother)

 My life (umaasa means hoping)

Another short reunion with my buddies in Laoag 5

Meeting my Anak (child) (trainee)

 I got to meet a celebrity here... Crush from Finding nemo! he tried to slap me a couple times

can any of you do this?