The Last Chapter

This is Elder Espiritu reporting to you here Monday morning here in Cabugao, Ilocos Sur, Philppines. How are you all today? Me? Just getting ready for life. I'm starting to experience a couple of last things here, such as the last zone conference with President and Sister Andrada, my last cycle, my last area and my last companion.

It started out as a normal week. We went out, we worked, we found some people to teach and we taught others. It was like that until Wednesday. Thursday we woke up at 5 AM, and headed out the door around 6:10 to catch a bus going to Laoag. Got there around 8, ate a little bit of McDonalds and headed to the church for President and Sister Andrada's very last zone conference in their 3 years. 

It was a little shorter than other ones, but just as good. We focused on the qualities of good investigators and the importance of using family history (which I can improve on). It was fun to be one of the last people that they got to teach. That ended around 1:30. We listened to several other missionaries give their last testimonies (including 2 from my batch who are getting released early). We then had lunch and then at 2 we had another program.

The other program was all the zones doing performances for President and Sister Andrada. We had lots of people sing, a couple of zones dance, and all the Pacific Islanders do a haka for them. It was loads of fun and definitely memorable. I know that they enjoyed it. I sure did. It's sad to see them off, and I was lucky to be with them for almost 2 years. 

So the rest of the week Elder Cabasal and I spent working hard trying to get people to come closer to Christ. Little did I know this was actually my last week with him. We both came into this area at the same time, but it turns out we won't be leaving at the same time. Sunday morning comes around next thing we know, Elder Cabasal gets a text from the Assistants to the President saying he's transferred. Which means he won't be my last companion! I wasn't super happy to hear this, cause Elder Cabasal and I got along great. We really worked hard to build this area and he won't be here to see the fruits of his labors. But I guess this is what God wants. 

I have found it interesting too, because he is now my 10th companion that I only had for 6 weeks. Am I that ugly? Haha I don't really know why God has set me up to have so many companions in my mission. I know it's for a reason though. Maybe He wants me to learn how to get along with all different types of companions. I have enjoyed my time with each and every one of them. So I guess I will now again! 

So now here I am, at the final chapter of my mission, and I couldn't be more happier to end it here in Cabugao Ilocos Sur. It may go slow or it may go fast, but whatever happens, I am grateful to have been able to serve here in the mission I was chosen to go to! I know that God has called me here specifically and there are people that I need to befriend and teach. It hasn't really hit me that I'm so close to coming home (it still feels forever away) so I'll give it my all. Hopefully this cycle we can see the fruits of Elder Cabasal and I's labors, so hopefully it's a good one! 

I know this work is true and I know this gospel can change lives. Jesus Christ's church is here on the earth today and I am a disciple of Him. That's all for this week's my beloved friends and family! Love you all! 

Elder Espiritu

Elder Young, Sister Hicks and I

Elder Maroket, Brother Jison and I 

My friend Justinne Corpuz

Sister Bernal, Elder Madsen, Sister Tesoro and I

My batch Elder Jenson

Sister Anderson, Sister Cobing and I

Last day working with Elder Cabasal 

Rain, Fathers and Such

Heyooo! How's everyone doing? You all staying dry over there? Or are you getting super soaked like we are here? It was quite an eventful week for us with a fun district meeting, 2 more exchanges and... lots of rain.

It was quite interesting this week, since every day except Sunday the weather was nothing but a downpour of rain. It wasn't the funnest thing to go through. Almost every day I spent swimming in my shoes. It doesn't help that my rubber shoes have holes in the bottom. But that's not a big issue for me. 

All my socks have holes in them too ha, but having wet socks the whole day I wasn't the biggest fan of. But it's all good, the work must go on. It's worth it for the work of souls! 

Anyways this last Tuesday was also a blast. We had the 2 Sister Training Leaders (Sister Agudo and Sister Fontanilla) come from Vigan to our district meeting! They gave us a fun training about planning (something that we can also improve on) and so forth. 

Afterwards Elder Bordeos gave his very last training at his very last district meeting here in the mission (he goes home June 27th). It's always cool to hear from the really experienced people (don't ask me though cause I don't feel like a veteran haha).

The following day was spent with us heading to Sinait for exchanges with the Zone Leaders! I got to go with Elder Petty, a missionary from Australia. He and I have been really good friends throughout my mission, so it was fun going with him. We taught some fun people, including a girl who paid for my lunch cause she works at this certain restaurant and it was a special day for me, and some other fun people. It wasn't easy tracting in the rain, but we managed to do it. It's always interesting who you'll find, like a woman who was taught by the missionaries 25 years ago. It was fun!

The next day we went home and took the other 2 Sinait Elders with us for exchanges, Elder Santillan and Elder Wells. I went with Elder Wells, a missionary from Idaho. He's a cool kid too. He's a triplet, a runner, and just really fun to talk to. 

Maybe it's cause he also liked the nerdy stuff like I do (like Pokemon and Overwatch) so we had plenty to talk about. The exchange itself wasn't the best to be honest, we tried to find walking around in the pouring rain but didn't find anyone, but we still taught 2 good lessons. All is well.

As for the rest of the week, it was pretty on and off. For the most part when it came to finding new people it was not the best because of how hard it rained the whole time. We still were teaching our progressing people, but we were scared the rain would cause a lot of people not to come to church. We prayed that it wouldn't rain hard.

Luckily for us our prayers were answered. We actually had 8 people come to church, 6 from the Salodez family (although 2 were only 7 years old) and 2 who came last week, also 2 that we're working with. There was a slight drizzle but there were so many more people at church. It was a blessing. 

We still had a couple we were hoping to come, but I guess we still got to keep building their faith. We were still really happy with all the people that came, and we feel that we can see that their faith is building. They seem to really enjoy it at the church too, members, lessons and all.

The members here continue to be awesome because I had my last day here.... As a 19 year old. So I'm now 20, and yup, don't feel like an adult at all or anything. But I had a lot of people great me and feed me yesterday so I was really happy. I'm just happy with where I am now. The members here are so supportive, and really help when new people come to church. They always make sure people have friends so they can feel as comfortable as possible. I'm happy here and all is good.

Last thing I want to add, is Happy Fathers day to all! This is a great day to reflect about how great fathers are. I'm so glad that I got the dad I did, and I know for a fact that my dad is the best dad in the world. He is so supportive and I wouldn't trade him for any other dad! 

I would also like to have you all reflect that aside from our amazing earthly father, we have a very loving Heavenly Father, who watches over us constantly and wants us to succeed. He is our creator and wants us all to be happy. And we can be happy, if we follow His plan. 

He rejoices when we follow his plan and sorrows when we make mistakes. But He's always there to cheer us on! I know He has been cheering me on while I've been here as a missionary, helping His other children come closer to Him. 

I know this church is true and I know that this is the right thing to do. I hope you all had a good Fathers Day, especially to all you fathers, and thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! That's all for this week! Love you all!

Elder Espiritu

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

Cabugao District plus the Sister Training Leaders

My homie Sister Training Leader, Sister Fontanilla

My homie Elder Wells and I 

(we didn't actually get to use those though. :()

Exchanges with Elder Petty

Getting some "dates" with Elder Wells  (look at the box)

Ice cream and bread

celebrating Dunkin doughnut dayyyyy

Rain or Shine

Hello to all my family and friends! How y'all doing? I hope you're all swell. As for me, I'm doing swell too. It was a good week this week with a couple of ups and downs, but that's what makes life life. We got a lot of great people here that we get to teach, and even though we have millions of flies in our house and a couple of things breaking, life is all good.

So when I say that we have a lot of flies you probably think our house is dirty. But that's not the case.... Okay well maybe part. We are cleaning it later cause the Sister training leader missionaries are checking it tomorrow. Anyways at the front of our house there is a mango tree, and for some reason the flies love it. So it's been bad on the inside. They're constantly landing on all of us. We tried buying fly paper, except it was really weak (except it managed to catch a couple along with a cricket and lizard) and now we have an electric fly swatter. So we're working on getting rid of them. Here's the blessing in this, I've grown to not be as grossed out by bugs as much, (unless it's a large cockroach flying at your face and crawling all over you which happened to me Saturday night) but hey, you adjust.

Now that I told you a random fact here's the highlights of this week. We were still able to find lots of people to teach. We decided to find farther down this road that we usually go to, and ended up finding a cool family, and then upon our return we had another woman come up to us who was taught by the missionaries (one of them was my 2nd district leader in my first cycle) in 2015. It's awesome to see who the missionaries have been to before. Along with them we had plenty of other people to teach, and a lot who I can see their interest.

This last Thursday I went on exchanges with Elder Durbin, an American from Syracuse Utah, and we had a blast. He's almost 10 months in the mission and sgoing strong. We had a good day and were able to teach the Salodez family again, which is my favorite due to how well they listen. It makes me feel like I'm really doing my job. 

We had high hopes for people coming to church this Sunday except for the last couple days it's been really rainy (we found out it was a small storm) so that's been kinda gloomy, (my gloominess was added to cause the washing machine also broke so I did my clothes by hand and they're still not all the way dry). So because of the rain a lot of the people aren't able to come to church. This was the case for us. Except we did have 2 come. 

These two were two girls that we found last Sunday while working with our branch mission leader. To be honest we saw them as we were passing by and were planning on just heading to our appointment, but our branch mission leader decided we should talk to them. So we did, and this last week we ended up having several discussions with them. When they came to church they had a lot of questions since they are Catholic and noticed a lot of differences. So this upcoming week we plan to keep building their faith and helping them understand. 

So even though days can be gloomy, and things can happen like bad rainy days, washing machines breaking, lots of flies, burning a hole the size of a baseball in your shirt, life still continues to have small blessings, such as waiting for a bus for an hour and the moment we decide to try to hitch hike a car passes by that has 2 members from Pasuquin branch (which is 2 hours away) so we get safely home. Also our blessings are the people we have come to love and continue to help grow. 

I only have a little more time to do this and after that I won't ever have this type of chance again. I'm really grateful to be assigned in this area and I know this is where the Lord wants me to be. We're ready for another exciting week and can't wait to update you! That's all for this week! Love you all! 

Elder Espiritu

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

We went exploring on a beach with members :D

As the Weeks Pass By

Would you look at that! It's already June! You know, back in Utah when you think of June you think of summer. No more school and vacationing time. Here in the good ol Philippines, it's a little different. June here means it's the rainy season, the start of school and everyone starting to be busy again. Nevertheless that is alright, and we can still work effectively. I mean we've been doing it for awhile. I'm not sure if the time I've spent here is catching up to me but I find it interesting how I feel during the afternoons. It's also fun meeting someone new every time we go to this one house full of relatives. 

It's been kinda weird this week cause every morning it's all bright and sunny, then around 1 or 2pm we start seeing dark gray clouds, and next thing you know it starts raining. It wasn't too bad for the most part, except Saturday. 

That day we legit had to take cover 2 or 3 times and wait out the rain so we didn't get soaked. It's surprising how long rain can last. We got stuck the first time under a shed for half an hour. But, our spirits are still high, even though our socks are soaked. I'm not sure why either. Maybe it's the almost 22 months catching up to me but I've been really tired around 1-4pm the past couple of weeks. 

I'm pushing through it though, and I've been studying diligence in Preach My Gospel so am really doing my best to work hard every day even though we're tired. Nothing we can't handle!

We kinda had switch off days this week, where one day we were pretty successful, and one day we had almost all of our appointments fall through. Whenever we have slow days, I always think to myself that to everything there is opposition, meaning there's a really good day coming because we had a slow day. 

So all is well! It's a lot of work opening an area. We're doing our best to keep planting seeds. 

We've found some rocking people while we've been here, and my favorite so far is the Salodez family. They are in a little compound of houses and are all related to each other. There are several children that really want to listen and every time we go there we have someone new that we meet. 

This last Saturday we were teaching around 13 kids and parents the Plan of Salvation. It was like we were teaching Primary. 

Afterwards we had another really cool lesson with one of the kids' mom, who really wanted to join in a couple days ago but her husband was drunk. Her husband is very nice though and we're actually teaching them both now. The wife was really curious to know how the Mormons started, and when we taught her we could tell she was really listening. So far she has much potential.

We also had some success Sunday when we were able to coordinate with the members to help provide transportation for some of that family. We had 4 of the kids come, and although a little at first, we can see the desire of the other family members. It's slowly growing. 

We're also really grateful for the members. We've only been here 3 weeks, but I already feel close to several of them and there's already a bond. It's awesome. I'm really glad to be assigned in Cabugao. 

Fun fact: one of my favorite families from Batac ward stopped by on their way to Baguio. My love for the people here is real and they are the best people. 

So there goes another week in Cabugao. It wasn't the fastest most interesting week, but it sure was a good week! 

I bore my testimony in Ilocano during fast and testimony meeting and all the members thought it was great even though I still don't know much. Whatever language we speak, I know that this work is true.

I'm grateful to help strengthen the saints here in Cabugao. Let's pray for more and more good weeks until it's over! 

Until next week, love you all!

Elder Espiritu

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

Just chillin on P-day

May May taken stolen shots

Rocking the Flower look and Glasses

Dinner with Mommy Sandra

Working with Vlad