Sunday, April 22, 2018

The Spirit, Mud and Travel Logs

One thing I really like about being a zone leader is how busy we are. I'm not sure if I've stated that before, but we never really have a dull moment. 

Another week has flown right by and the time doesn't seem to be slowing down. The funny thing is most of our time this week was spent mostly in areas that aren't even ours. That seems to happen frequently though. With exchanges, meetings and traveling, time just seems to go by so fast. 

Highlights: Bus rides, Mud and the Spirit.

After emailing last week, the rest of the day flew by, and next thing we knew it was Tuesday. This last Tuesday we went to Ballesteros to attend their district meeting. Elder Anderson taught about prayer. At first I was a little surprised about how he can teach for so long on a simple principle but I was really impressed with how he taught. 

I have really come to love the Bible dictionary in the scriptures. Prayer is actually work and there's more to it than meets the eye. It was a really good district meeting. 

After the district meeting, we ate lunch then waited for the Sister training leaders. Once they got there we headed back to the chapel for our meeting with the District President. We reviewed notes from our meeting last time, then what to improve and such. 

Ballesteros is close to becoming a stake. Just a couple things to take care of! 42 baptisms away from having enough members and a couple of other things! We have a plan, cause of course "when there is no vision, the people perish." -Proverbs 29:18. So make sure to always have a plan/vision!

I really enjoy meeting with President Credo. He is a really good district President and wants the district to become a stake! 

The following day, after another district meeting with the Allacapan Elders, we had to take the rest of the day to travel to Laoag for our exchanges with the Elders that are the assistants to the mission President. We got there, ate and waited for them. 

The following day the exchange started. I went with Elder Francia, a Filipino from Manila. When I was in my 3rd area, he was actually my zone leader, and now he's an AP and I'm a zone leader. It's interesting to see what can happen. 

Anyways Elder Francia is actually one of my favorite Elders when it comes to teaching, because he is really good at it. He works hard in his area and for President Andrada to make sure everything is in order. I have a lot of respect for him and enjoyed the exchange. I always learn a lot. Even though we had to travel back the following morning at 4:30am, it was all worth it. I love going to Laoag for exchanges!

As for our own work here this week: it involved more sweat, Spirit, and mud. 

Fun story: last Saturday we decided to go to 2 of our far areas since we haven't been able to visit them lately. It's all dirt roads so we were planning to bike and have a member (who also has a bike) join us. Right before we planned to leave the sky turned dark gray and poured rain for an hour then the sun came back. It was a really fast storm. 

So we still biked, even though the dirt turned to mud. Every article of clothing I was wearing had mud on it. We then contacted members and recent converts I've never been met with. It's interesting to see where some live. For one we had to cross a muddy path, a rice field and more grass roads to get to her. Far, but there's nothing too far for the work of the Lord!

Spiritual experience of the week: while teaching one of our progressing investigators and her aunt, we decided to share from the Book of Mormon 3 Nephi 12:14-16 where Jesus teaches the Nephites about being the light of the world. We related it to us teaching having a light/countenance, and our light grows brighter as we live the gospel. I've seen it happen to so many people. I love seeing the impact of the Gospel!

Speaking of spiritual impacts, Kathlyn came to church again, along with a couple of others. This means Kathlyn's baptism will be this coming Saturday April 28th! We're very excited for her and so grateful to become a part of this special day.

So that was my week. All is well and we learn more every day. This week will be another busy one with visiting more district meetings, 2 exchanges, and the baptism. We're really excited! 

The work of the Lord isn't easy, cause salvation isn't cheap. It's all worth it! We will all have the greatest reward in the end if we do our part. 

I love the Lord! I love the people! I love the mission! Excited for another great week! That's all for now! Love you all! 

Elder Espiritu

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


Meeting with the Sister Training Leaders 
and President Credo


Intense studying with Elder Morehu and Elder Francia ;)




 Saying hi to Elder and Sister Nelson (they made cookies for me when I went to Laoag for exchanges. They're the best.)


Crossing a rice field to a recent convert's house

Sunday, April 15, 2018

The Elect and Sweat

The time just seems to be flying by here in my life as a missionary, and I'm enjoying every minute of it. Not easy sometimes. Definitely not dry (I legit sweat 24/7) and tiring, but worth it. 

What things happened this week? Late/early traveling to distant places by bike and by bus, taught a lot of good people, have lots of food fed to us, attending baptisms, and good spiritual experiences.

Right after I emailed on Monday we left for Laoag for our Missionary Leadership Council. The fun part of this trip was 1) we tried to leave at 12 but had the bus pass right by as we were walking to the highway, so we waited for another hour. 2) The 2nd one was so full we ended up having to stand for most of the 5 hour ride. We survived though and made it to Laoag safety. 

MLC was another great experience. Our mission had 94 baptisms this month which is pretty great! We're slowly but surely improving every month. One thing I really liked from this meeting was this: as a leader, you can't please everyone. You just gotta do your best, and try your best to help everyone. People may not like you, but everyone has different opinions and personalities. Just do your best! 

It was a really good meeting, and we will be having another one this May before the cycle ends. 

Part 2 of the fun trip: we were supposed to leave at 8:00 on Tuesday night, but there was no bus, so we had to wake up at 3AM and take the 4:30AM bus. We got home at 9:30, and Elder Ballan and I crashed. Once we woke up, we dragged our tired bodies out of bed and biked to our area to teach. We taught some good lessons and came back. 

This week most of my life as a missionary has been filled with sweat and exhaustion. The bikes are really nice, but it can be tiring. It's all worth it! It may be far at times, but there isn't a soul that needs saving that is too far for us. So we do it. 

Elder Ballan and I have been teaching a lot of great people and finding more to teach. Let me tell/update you about 2 of them now. 

The first is Olive. We met her awhile ago when I was with Elder Nichols. She was a referral of another recent convert, and for the past couple of weeks she's been awesome. The first time we gave her a book of Mormon, she didn't read. The 2nd time, she read about 70 pages. Now, she's in Jacob, around 162ish in the Tagalog version. 

She's awesome, really wants to become a member, and the Spirit is always really strong when we teach her. We taught her sister this last Sunday with her, and they were both thankful after we taught them. I was with 7 members when we taught, and at first I thought it was going to be overwhelming, but it ended up great. There was a sweet and calm spirit.

The next is Kathlyn. I've been teaching her for awhile, and she's been great ever since we've taught her. She's really smart, top of her class actually. It's just easy to teach her. 

For a couple weeks, she stopped coming to church. When we asked why, we realized her mother didn't want her to go anymore. So we challenged Kathlyn to share with her mom why she wants to become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saings and share her testimony. The next time we followed up, she did, and her mom is okay with it now. Her baptism will be coming up on the 28th!

Elder Ballan and I are doing well! Aside from Kathlyn and Olive we had 4 others at church, and we're working on teaching them. There is so much good in this branch. It's pretty easy to get someone to come along and work with you, and lately we've been getting more people to feed us :D. It's simple, but so helpful when people feed you so I'm really grateful for the members and people here. The Filipino culture is just so friendly in general. 

So again, the mission is still treating me well. It's not easy physically, mentally and spiritually, but it's all worth it. I love it. 

My testimony grows stronger every day as I study the scriptures, and teach people the truth about the Gospel. 

Our zone is also doing well and continuing to work hard to teach repentance and baptize converts. The zone leader life is busy, great and I love it. That's all I got for this week! Love you all!

Elder Espiritu

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


Philippines Laoag Missionary Leadership Council 
April 10th 2018


Ballesteros Zone leaders and Sister Training leaders 
(Sister Fontanilla, Sister Asetre and Elder Ballan)


Elder Ballan and I



Working with our 7 fellow shippers 



Sunday, April 8, 2018

Being Full

One of the best feelings I have is being full. What type of full would you say? Physical. Just kidding. Although being physically filled is important, being spiritually filled has a great value of importance in our lives. 

I know we're a week late so this might all be old news to you, but we just got to finish General Conference which was great. Along with that I had an interesting week adjusting to a new companion, sweating and bringing souls to Christ. Let's break it down.

Monday I said goodbye to Elder Nichols and was helping other new Elders get to where they needed to go. All the new district leaders are just released zone leaders (and Assistant to the President) which is actually really cool, cause I know all of them really well. 

Anyways, Tuesday came around, Elder Ballan came, a Filipino from Bicol Philippines. So far what I've learned about him: he's a nice guy. He's very observant and really detailed in teaching. It's a bit of an adjustment going back to being companions with a Filipino. After spending 4 1/2 months with 3 American companions, it's different being with a Filipino again. We get along, but are just working on random adjustments such as teaching and food :D

I am privileged to lead the area after 6 weeks. We actually had a good week for teaching. We had several good lessons with a very strong spirit. Every day we tried to track down some of our referrals (we have a lot) and we found a good amount. 

One had several good questions about religion in general and then about ours, and listened very intently. 2 of the referrals we found really want to be taught, even though their parents don't want them to, and a couple always ask us when we can teach them. The Spirit is strong as we teach and I love teaching all these new people.

Along with the new people, I love the members in this branch. We were invited several times this week to eat with people, and this last Sunday we went from drinking coconut juice with my recent convert Grace, to eating a nice meal with Nanay Ligaya, then having a snack with Sister Rosalina. After teaching we had some bread and juice with some of our younger investigators. The people are awesome here in Allacapan.

So like I said the biggest highlight this weekend was General Conference. I've really come to love conference while I've been here and I learned a lot. A couple of big changes and awesome announcements in this church, and we're just going to keep improving. There are so many things I liked during conference. I'll just share a couple.

First: I really liked Elder Lynn G. Robbins talk about success. It's not only about going from failure to failure, but growing from failure to failure. We all fail and struggle sometimes in different areas, but if we give up then we will never learn. 

Heavenly Father lets us fail and taste the bitterness of failure in order for us to grow. An example for me is the language. I'm still not perfect and make several mistakes but that's how I learn. The same principle applies to several things but that's how we grow!

Second: we never know when the opportunity is to teach our families. I don't have a family of my own yet, but I am grateful for the parents that taught me. We never really know when we are able to teach so we must always be ready. 

Another statement that Devin D. Durrant said was how we need to teach obedience to others by showing our obedience. I thought about that while I am a missionary. I want to tell my kids (especially my sons) that I was an obedient missionary and they need to be too. So we can show others to be obedient through our actions! Always be obedient!

General conference was in a neighboring town and no transportation was provided, so none of our investigators and many members weren't able to come. It will all be better next week. 

I'm excited for this cycle with Elder Ballan! 

The Church is true and was restored through a loving prophet Joseph Smith. I love you all!! Email you next week!

Elder Espiritu

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


Riding back from Conference in a van


The Allacapan Elders and sisig


The Ballesteros zone sisters (Sister Cheney, Sister Altre, Sister Fontinilla, Sister Asetre, Sister Canoneo, and Sister Libre) (minus Siste Alejandro at Sister Fausto)


I don't know how to label this picture


our "apo" (grandaughter) in the mission


My favorite baby of my recent convert, 
along with Charles and Aira's hair



Sunday, April 1, 2018

Another Cycle, Another Chapter

Just like that another cycle passes in the mission, and 6 weeks have passed since I left Batac and came to Allacapan. A lot has happened and I hope it's changing me for the best! This week was filled with great experiences from getting new transportation to zone conferences to more baptisms! 

On Tuesday later in the afternoon after working for a little bit the Assistants to the mission President called us telling that they were here in Allacapan and had a couple of things for us. What were those things? It was 2 bikes for Elder Nichols and I, along with a package from my awesome Tita Nenette! It was a very happy day. 

Wednesday we had a very spiritual meeting which was another zone conference in Aparri. It's been a year since I've been to a zone conference there so it was cool to see that. 

The conference was very spiritually filling and I learned a lot. Something we learned was the importance of teaching for understanding, because sometimes (very often in Tagalog) the words we use when we teach can be really deep like dispensations, gospel or revelations. So we learned how to better teach. We also learned how to use all the things we have to teach to our best abilities, such as art books, drawings and such. I always feel like I have something I can improve on after every zone conference and I'm grateful for that. 

One this I really love about zone conference is hearing the testimonies of the missionaries going home. We heard from one Sister (there's only 3 going home this cycle) but I love hearing a pure testimony of a missionary. God lives, Jesus Christ lives, He is our Savior and they know us personally. The Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith is a prophet, and Russell M. Nelson is the prophet in our day. Simple testimonies can be very powerful. I really feel the Spirit super strong and know that their testimony is real.

As for adventures this week: We had a couple of struggles with the bikes this week that we're still adjusting to. First, the first day we had them one of the bikes got a flat tire and several holes in the inner tube since we bike on several dirt roads. So we fixed that. 

Then the one I use has a hard time switching gears and my bottom isn't really used to the seat, I also sweat a lot. But that's not a big deal at all. We can have all of those fixed (which we are in the process of) and there are a lot of positives. 

One, we save a lot of money and time. It's awesome. It may be tiring and sweaty, but every time my legs start burning I think "my legs will be jacked by the time I go home"!

We still have several people that I love teaching here, and one of them is Sister Angela, who was just baptized this last Saturday! Once again, I loved hearing the power of one's testimony. Angela's was very powerful and simple. She explained how she was shy with us before, but she could really feel the changes in her life. Though young, she has felt the power of the gospel in her life. She's already going to be a great member. We have several other people that we are teaching that will soon progress, and the work's going great!

So another cycle ends, and another one starts, and another companion I am now saying goodbye to. Yes, this is my third companion in a row that was from Utah, and my third companion in a row that I only had for 6 weeks. It was a great companionship, Elder Nichols and I had a blast. He has been a zone leader after almost a year. He did an awesome job, and he's going to do awesome in his next area. 

My new companion is now Elder Ballan, a Filipino  It'll be another great experience. He'll love it here. The work is great, the people are awesome, and like always, the church is true. 

Although not easy, all the experiences are worth it! Just always remember, never give up and always look on the bright side! Love you all! 

Elder Espiritu

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


Enjoy this picture of me and a rice field  


We caught a snake (Jk a local here killed it and we asked to take a picture with it) 


A missionaries Christmas (shoutout to my awesome Tita Nenette)



Ballesteros zone



Allacapan District


Sister Pinpin


Sister Faoa and Sister Afualo


Baptism for Angela, Pricila, and Mary Joy!