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

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! 

The Wonderful Allacapan Life

Every time it hits Monday, I'm always amazed about how fast time flies here in the Philippines! Another great week finishes with a lot of success, growth and lots of things learned! I'm still amazed about the growth of the branch here in Ballesteros district, especially in Allacapan. As a zone leader, it's really cool to see how everyone's progressing. So here's how my week went:

Tuesday: We decided to surprise Ballesteros district by going to their district meeting. Sister Libre (a new missionary still being trained) was very surprised and nervous because she was the one training, and didn't realize the zone leaders were actually going to come. It was a good district meeting and Sister Libre did awesome.

Wednesday: We had exchanges with the Ballesteros district, and this time I went with Elder Reamon. The exchange went well, Elder Reamon is really good at just talking with people and is very motivated to do all aspects of the work, including finding, which can be grueling sometimes. So I appreciate that about him.

Thursday we had another exchange, back to back, with the Abulog elders. I went with Elder Pu'efua, a Samoan elder who is from Samoa but moved to Utah when he was young. We actually had a fun finding activity where we set up a juice stand in front of the school and gave out juice to the students. 

At first everyone passed by us and it was kinda awkward, but a lot of the members came and helped us out, so we gave all of our juice out and now have some potential investigators for the future! The rest of the day was successful too.

On Saturday we are happy to report that we had a successful baptism! Sister Donnafe and Sister Grace were happily baptized around 2pm. A couple of hours earlier we were doing our best to prepare due to a flood in the girls' bathroom. The water was barely a little higher than my knees. They had a good experience and the Spirit was very strong.

When Sunday rolled around they were confirmed as full time members of the church and we couldn't be happier. What makes things better, is we have another baptism coming up this Saturday, for our investigator Angela Ancheta! We're super excited for her, and this last Sunday we were even more excited due to a lot of our new investigators coming to church! 

There were a few that we taught this week that already wanted to come to church, and sure enough that Sunday there they were. One has already told us she wants to become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and several others have very high potential. 

It's a lot of work to take care of the 10 investigators we had at church, but we're happy with how many opportunities we have to help people come unto Christ. 

So in conclusion: Life is going great! Although very busy, it's very enjoyable. Every week we go to a different area for interviews for people wanting to be baptized, lots of meetings, going on splits several times a week with the members and teaching awesome people. I love it all and I know I'm very blessed to be here in Allacapan. 

We got another exciting week coming up with Zone conference, traveling for more interviews, more awesome work and the baptism this Saturday. 

The work really is hastening here and I'm blessed to be apart of it! I know that this work is true and I know I am here because of a 14 year old boy who wanted to know the truth. Now I'm here helping several other people his age discover the truth too. 

That's all I got for this week! Like always, Love you all!

Elder Espiritu

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

Exchanges with the Ballesteros Elders 

(Elder Madsen and Elder Reamon)

Exchanges with the Abulog Elders 

(Elder Nungay and Elder Pu'efua)

Working with Denz and CjoyImage 

 Donnafe 

Nanay Grace

Allacapan branch baptism 

The Work is Still Hastening

On Tuesday we had 2 meetings we were able to attend. One was a district meeting and the other was a Missionary Coordination meeting with the District President. Both were awesome, and I got to meet President Credo. He is a really good example of what a leader should be like. 

We talked about the goals of the District from last month and what we did to improve, and talked about the weaknesses and struggles too. He is very on top of things. Ballesteros district is very close to becoming a stake. They just need around 59 more baptisms (especially future priesthood holders) and 3/5 branches are already qualified to become wards! The church is really growing here and I'm excited to be a part of it!

Wednesday we were supposed to have an exchange which we ended up canceling because both of the Elders got sick, so we just worked our normal day. 

Thursday we went on splits and I worked with Romel and Angel. It was actually a really good day and we went to most of the people we needed to go to. The first 3 lessons were all pure Ilocano and no Tagalog. So I did my best to follow along and got bits and pieces. That's the joy of the Philippines, with over 900 languages here! 

On Friday as we were reviewing what we could work on in our area, we discovered we have 31 uncontacted referrals. We need to work on that and on visiting all the people we need to. 

Saturday was also busy with interviews for baptismal candidates. I went to the other Elders' area to interview 3 of their investigators to see if they were ready for baptism. All three, though young, have already gained a testimony that this church is true. I'm excited for them!

As Sunday rolled around we were a little nervous to see who was going to show up because of District conference which was held in Ballesteros, about 40 minutes away from Allacapan. They did have a service to bring them there but there were a lot of members who were planning to come. 

To our joy, we had 6 of our investigators come to the conference! The conference was awesome and I learned lot, especially from the Seventy who visited us. 

He told us that even when Elder Rasband was called as an Apostle he was terrified. Even the very top can get scared. I learned that no matter what your calling in the church is, the Lord will qualify you for your work. We never need to be afraid if we have trust in the Lord! Just put our trust in Him and He will deliver us!

As for some great news, Elder Nichols and I have 2 baptisms this week! Grace Merabite and Donnafe. We have been working with them for awhile and it's awesome to see how much they've grown. 

We'll have a total of 5 baptism this week, 3 from the other Elders that I interviewed, and we're very excited. This work is true and I love seeing the change in people's lives! That's all for this week! Love you all!

Elder Espiritu

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

Boodle fight again

Just looking at them rice fields (that's what most of the scenery is here)

Ballesteros zone's surprise for Sister Andrada's birthday

Busy life, happy life

I remember once when I was at the MTC that while you're on the mission, the days are slow but the weeks are fast. I testify that that is true. As for this week it wasn't neccessarily long as in boring, it was long because we had so many things to do. 

We're still very busy here in Allacapan carrying out all our duties and all of our work and such. But it's all enjoyable. We had another long trip to Laoag for a meeting, lots of splitting up for work, more exchanges, and teaching at a school!

Right after emailing Monday morning we hopped on a bus and headed to Laoag. It went fast, tried to sleep through most of it but that didn't really work, but we made it. The following day we had our Mission Leadership Council. 

Like always it was a great meeting, we talked about seeking knowledge and divine light. It was physically (they always feed us breakfast and lunch) and spiritually filling. Afterwards we got on a bus at 8 and headed back. We got back to Allacapan around 12:30, but didn't get to the apartment until 1 since we had to carry 4 boxes of copies of the Book of Mormon in Tagalog, and someone's package. We are super happy since we finally got Tagalog copies after giving out English for several months, we're happy that we're able to give out the language that they can better understand (sometimes the Ilocano version is also too deep for them). 

Those boxes were heavy though. Fun fact: for the most part Tagalog words are a lot longer than English. The English book of Mormon is a total of 531 pages. The Tagalog is 777. So yes, they're bigger.

Anyways as for other things that happened, on Thursday I went on companionship exchanges, and this time I went with Elder Dollano who is a Filipino from Quezon province. The work went well and we had a couple of other members work with us too. What I really like about Elder Dollano is how well he can connect with people. His strength is definitely making people laugh. He's really good at that, and I respect it. We had a great exchange and a lot of fun. 

This week we have an exchanges with the District leader in Ballesteros, so that should be fun!

Whoever gets assigned to Allacapan branched is really blessed, because here the member missionary work is very strong. On Wednesday we went on splits, and even though almost all of our appointments fell through, we still had a couple of good lessons. 

Every Sunday we also go on splits and I had 7 members come along with me. They're really helpful, all good at teaching, and fun to talk to. I'm starting to create some friendships here.

Another highlight of this week was on Friday morning we were given permission to teach at a school! It's a small private school and the head over the school is actually one of our investigators. 

A couple weeks ago Elder Nichols and his last companion along with Elder Dollano and his last companion were able to teach the 8th grade class. It turned out to be very successful and we have a lot of progressing investigators because of it. 

This time we were able to teach 10th grade. Although a little quiet, it was fun to teach them. They were all respectful and it was a cool experience. Hopefully we'll have some success from that. We're still contacting all of the ones we taught.

Church on Sunday was of course great. We were happy to see 6 of our investigators come to church. It's only half of what we had last week but we were still happy because almost all of our progressing investigators came. All of our investigators are awesome and if they're able to come next week we will probably have some baptisms here in Allacapan very soon. 

The challenge for this coming Sunday is we have district conference in the neighboring town of Ballesteros, and it might be harder for them to come to church. We'll pray for the best!

Life continues to be busy but that's the way I like it. It's not boring. It can be tiring but it's all worth it. 

God's work is still hastening and I'm glad to be a part of it. I know this church is true and I can't deny it. That's all for this week! Hope for another exciting week! Love you all! 

Elder Espiritu

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

Mission Leadership Council

Our Sister training leaders, 

Sister Fontinilla and Sister Navales

 My last STL's Sister Licausi and Sister Hicks

My fellow Filipino Americans, Sister Veras and Sister Novilla

Exchanges with Elder Dollano

Teaching at Allacapan Institute

The things that happened this week

I'm running out of ways to label my email so that's all I got for this week. Anyways, my 2nd week in Allacapan is now complete, even though work wise here in Allacapan I maybe got 2 days in. We were crazy busy and other things happened, but the crazy busy life is way more fun than the same old same old! 

We had interviews to do, and exchanges in Laoag, sicknesses, working with several members in either pouring rain and blazing heat. That's about a good summary for this week.

I'm not going to lie, our zone is pretty dang awesome. Elder Nichols and I are really happy with how they're doing. So there are 8 companionships (4 sets of Elders and 4 sets of sisters) and this last week we had a total of 74 come to church this last week! The average was 9 at church. They're awesome. So these last couple weeks we've been having to travel a lot for interviews for their baptismal candidates. Really keeps us on our toes!

On Wednesday, we worked in the morning, got sunburned until 12, then hopped on a bus that has very high powered AC for 4.5-5 hours to get back to Laoag. Once we got back to Laoag, we just missed a could have been world record "Boodle fight", which is where they put all their food together on giant tree leaves and eat with their hands. It covered several streets. We just missed it, but it's okay cause we got McDonalds instead. Allacapan doesn't have that. So we headed to the AP's apartment, and also talk to the couple missionaries (Elder and Sister Nelson) who promised to make me cookies the next time I come back. 

So this time I went on exchanges with Elder Morehu, a Polynesian from New Zealand. This is his 2nd cycle as an Assistant, and he is the same batch as my trainee. Since he is foreign he is about to hit his 1 year mark in March. 

The exchange was awesome, he's such a nice guy and a really good teacher. I was really impressed. He's really humble too and just overall an awesome Elder. Got a lot done, taught a lot of people, then at 7 had dinner and at 8 had to head back to our area on a bus. 

It might have been from going from heat to a really cold bus and also lack of sleep, but the next morning after travels I woke up with a pretty bad fever. I checked my temperature and ended up having a 102 degree fever. I was not happy since we really weren't able to work in our area this week and then I got sick. 

So I asked Sister Andrada about what I should do, so I took some medicine, slept, and luckily around 3, I had enough strength to work! I know God is really watching over me. The next day I was fine. 

On Saturday we had 4 young men work with us. It was a hot and tiring day. Several places to go, a lot of people not home, I got sunburnt again, but it was all worth it. It made up for all the lessons we didn't have due to being gone.

As soon as Sunday rolled around, we had 13 investigators at church! It's crazy how awesome and how blessed we are in this area. People come when we invite them, and we are really blessed. We have a couple of people on track for baptism this March, and Elder Nichols and I are super excited. 

Of course we couldn't do this all without the members help. The members here are a lot of help. We've received several referrals from them and haven't even had time to go to them all. They work with us a lot, especially on Sunday, you at least have 4-5 people work with you, sometimes up to 10+. They're awesome.

It's only the 2nd week here in Allacapan and even though I barely worked in this area, I feel I'm doing a lot better this week. Although I still miss Batac and a couple of other things, the work here is awesome and the people are so great. 

I still have a lot to do but I know I'm really going to enjoy it here. I know the work I'm doing is true, and I know I was sent by a prophet of God to help the people here come to know the truth. It's not easy, but It's worth it! I'm excited for another week! 

After this we'll be going back to Laoag for our Missionary Leadership Coordination! Until next week! Love you all!

Elder Espiritu

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

What I do when I work with Elder Morehu ;)

A small boodle fight at the apartment

Chilling in my ride 

Our average taxi here

Going coco for  coconuts with some members