Memories of a Mission – Page 11 – "We will work for the glory of our Lord"

Merry Christmas from Mindoro

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Well this has been the craziest Christmas day of my life. This morning I got to talk to my family. It was good but it took us forever to get it all set up because I gave them the wrong number because Elder Fa’oa gave me the wrong one. We didn’t start the call until almost an hour after we were supposed to. I really enjoyed talking with them. Being away from them has really made me realized how much I love them. I really have a great family and I’m grateful for them. I called from the church so I got to sit in air-conn and it was good. After our calls, we went back to the apartment and showered and got ready to come back to our area. We wanted to eat lunch at Mackeys but they were closed so we ate next door. It tasted alright but the portions were really small. After lunch, we got really lucky and caught a bus really quickly and got back to Calintaan really fast. We went out to Marilaw and did a follow-up with the family that is living with Nanay Cabanig. It was okay except that our Tagalog isn’t perfect and they speak a different dialect so it was difficult to communicate. We also visited Bro Oreta and shared a Christmas message with him. Finally we visited the lady who is here in Calintaan, visiting her mother. She’s from Pennsylvania and so she speaks really good English. She fed us good tuna sandwiches and also a really good potato salad. We also showed her the “Joy to the World” VCD. She said it was nice but wasn’t exactly very interested. Her name is Lettie Lee and she’s really nice and friendly. Hopefully we can just be her friend and the have the Elders back in Pennsylvania teach her. We’ll see what happens there.

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Christmas Eve on Mindoro

Friday, December 24, 2004

We had a zone service project this morning out in Magsaysay. They have an investigator who we helped to build his house. It was good but there were too many people really and so we didn’t’ all have to work all the time. It was a lot of fun though and we got to top it off by riding in the amazing air-con van both there and back. Very effective. After service, we went back to the San Jose apartment and tog all cleaned up and ready to go. We all went out to Calintaan in the van so that Elder Fa’oa could interview Bro Sergio Aldana. While he and Elder Cox and Dick were waiting and doing the interview, Elder Boucher, Elder Pradilla and I went to Dagupan to tell Bro Pulido to drop by Bro Selso before they go to church on Sunday. Hopefully that’ll happen. We went back to get the other Elders and Elder Fa’oa told us that Bro Aldana was good to go but that we needed to get approval from Pres Beck. Hopefully he’ll still get baptized on the 1^st of January. After the interview was over we went to Rizal and picked up the Elders there so that they could also come into San Jose. Elder Cox and I got some pictures printed and also spent a long time looking for a man who owns a bakery and told us he’d give us a bunch of recipes for Filipino breads. Tonight all of the Elders had a Christmas party over with Bro Elmer. We were up on the roof top and we just ate a lot of real food and had a good time. We also had a nice little spiritual testimony meeting and I enjoyed that a lot. We didn’t get home until 9:30.

Me and Elder cox at the Christmas Eve party.

The Calintaan District on Christmas Eve (Elder Baylon, Elder McCauley, Elder Arnesen, Elder Morgan Cox)

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Crazy travel day

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Today was a crazy day. We’re sleeping in San Jose tonight because we have zone service tomorrow in Magsaysay and we have to be there fairly early. We had a good lesson this mornin to the other son on Nanay Cabanig. It went well but I’m not sure how much of it actually got into their heads. They actually speak BIsaya and that combined with our less than perfect Tagalog provided an interesting situation. We also got all the paper work for Bro Sergio Aldana done today. He hopefully will still be baptized on January 1, 2005. Elder Fa’oa is going to do his interview tomorrow so we’ll know then if that will actually go through. After lunch was when it started to go crazy. We weren’t sure how the jeepney and busses would work and so we were really anxious to get to San Jose. Well, anyway, we took our pillow-cases full of stuff for our stay in San Jose and headed out, planning to stop a few times on the trip. We made it to Sis. Espy and told her to visit Bro. Aldana and then we went to Bro Gregorio’s to do correlation. He wasn’t there and because it was only 3:30 and Sis. Gregorio told us that there would be a lot of rides later on, we decided to go back to Dagupan. Well we did and we obviously were supposed to because we taught a good second to Bro Selso Lopez. He had good questions and has good potential. After we taught Brother Lopez, we started to wait for a jeep or bus to go into San Jose. At this point it was about 5:00. Well we waited and waited but there were no vehicles going into San Jose. When, after way too much time wasted waiting around, it got to be 7:00 and we decided that we’d better start walking back to Calintaan so that we’d be in on time. We’d walked almost the whole mile back when the bus came. Argh. We decided to go ahead and ride it so that we’d get to San Jose. It was a good ride. We rode on top of the bus laying down, looking at the stars. We got into San Jose at 8:45 and went right to sleep.

The view from riding on top of a Jeepney. The buses were taller and more intense to ride on but this gives you a bit of an idea.

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Fixing records and the Sabbath day

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Today wasn’t a normal P-Day. We decided to take our P-day on Friday because we’ll be in San Jose for Christmas. This morning we did a lot of work for the branch. We spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon at the church getting the CMIS all fixed up so that Elder Cox can take it with him when he goes back to Manila. There are some really messed up records in this country. We had kids married to brothers and parents as kids of their children and all sorts of other crazy problems. Hopefully we’ll be able to get it straightened up and start to get the records all fixed up here. We finished with that work at about 3:00 and went back to conversion work. We tried to do some finding work in Dagupan but all the people were out in the fields of drunk so we didn’t have much luck. We did get to teach a lesson about the Sabbath day to Moreno Delfino. He used to be a 7^th Day Adventist so this was an important lesson for him. We tried again to get him to commit to baptism but he’s still thinking about it. This is good because I’ve noticed in him that if he says that he’ll do something than he does it. We asked him to pray about it. Hopefully before Sunday he’ll have decided what he wants to do. Tonight we watched the testimonies of the Apostles video with Edward Alamon and his wife. It went well. Edward is a member but he is inactive for some reason. His wife is Methodist now but she’s ready to be converted. Edward is really afraid to share the gospel with her for some reason as well. He just needs to get up the guts to come back to church and help his wife to learn about the church.

http://mission.arnesenfamily.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Lennie-Tardio-Christmas-Card.pdf

I got this awesome card from one of our ward missionaries, Lennie Tardio. She and her sister were the best ward missionaries you could ask for and her family is awesome.

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Packages from home

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

We had our zone development meetings today in San Jose. It was really good; Elder Fa’oa and Elder Boucher taught about anchoring our testimonies and ourselves on Jesus and then also how to help our investigators anchor themselves. It was a good lesson. I’m really learning a lot out here about the reality of Jesus Christ and His atonement and the power that it has. My testimony is becoming more and more my own.

I’ve had a cold for the last few days and so I’ve been having kind of a hard time. After our meetings in San Jose, we came back to Calintaan with the Rizal Elders. The four of us: myself, Elder Cox, Elder Baylon and Elder McCauley went caroling in Dagupan. We got to visit a lot of people and it was fun. We also taught a lesson to the Vilorias about spreading and sharing the gospel. Hopefully they’ll be able to give us a strong referral. We also gave them the album of the pictures from their baptism and the marriage. We also gave Pulidos a box of “chips ahoy” that we bought and I gave their kids a crazy squishy ball and a koosh ball that Grandpa sent me. They enjoyed them even if it was a somewhat strange gift.

Sis and Bro Pulido eating fruit by the foot that my parent’s sent me. They had not idea what to do with it!

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Taking care of “visa” papers

Monday, December 20, 2004

Today was a big waste of time. We did our weekly planning session and that went well. We really have to step up the work because our people have all been baptized, almost, that were strong investigators and we are really looking weak for investigators now. I don’t want the work to slack off here and start to slide. We also tried to work on getting some records fixed up but all the cabinets, of course, at the church were locked and so we couldn’t get any dates. Anyway, by that time it was time to go into San Jose for our visa papers. This was a horrible waste of time. Almost all of our prime proselyting time was wasted in San Jose. The visa papers also were a joke. They didn’t even bring the right papers for Elder Cox. They brought the ones for my next companion. They just had him sign anyways even though it had the other Elder’s name and information. The pages that we signed were all blank too and some of the things we signed were to say that the forms were filled out correctly. This was just another evidence to me of how worthless the government is here. I just hope that we don’t have our identities stolen or anything because they have all of our info and signatures now and also our finger prints on a bunch of blank papers. What an absolute mess.

The outside of the airport in San Jose. We drove this way on the way in to San Jose every time.

We did get to teach Bro Aldana about the law of chastity and we got his interview set up for this Friday. He’s really making good progress.

I also called home today to do my setup call for Christmas. It was good, but I was kind of unfocused for a while. I’m excited to talk to them on Christmas Day.

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Vilorias are confirmed

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Church was really good today. The Spirit was strong and all the teachers were there and were prepared. Bro Pulido taught in priesthood about being happy in life and not focusing on the bad things that happen. This is a lesson that especially applicable here because the most common response to the question “How is life?” is that “Life is hard here in the Philippines.” People here are often sad because they think of all the hard times that they have and don’t count their blessings. Sacrament was also good because the Viloria family got confirmed and became members of the church. I’m so happy. I can’t even imagine what it will be like to spend eternity with them. We went to their home this evening and taught them a good, thorough lesson about the temple. They really want to go and they said that they’ll start to save their money now so that they’ll be able to go in a year. If I could just see them at the temple, I would be so happy. I feel so glad for their children who will now be able to grow up in the gospel and become strong members. Most their children won’t even remember when they weren’t members of the church. This missionary thing, with all of its trials and hard time really is worth it when you get to see a family start their progress toward the Celestial Kingdom.

The Viloria Family in front of the church

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The Viloria’s Baptism

Saturday, December 18, 2004

This morning we had the baptismal service of Romil and Maricel Viloria! Wow! So rewarding. All of the trouble and hassle of the marriage and of the interview with Pres Beck is finally worth it. The service was actually really crazy. No one came and even Bro Pulido, who should have done the baptizing, and Pres Isla, who should have presided, didn’t come. Elder Cox ended up presiding as District Leader and he also baptized brother and I got to baptize sister. It was a good experience. They are so happy. It was great to see brother and tell that he felt clean from all that had happened to him. Tomorrow they’ll be confirmed and become members of the church. I guess that was the one baptism that I’ll get to do in the ocean.

The Viloria Family

Us with the Vilorias on their baptism day. (Elder Cox, Maricel, Ramil, Elder Arnesen, Rachelle, Michelle)

Me preparing to baptize Maricel in the ocean

The rest of the day was good. We taught a lesson to Bro Aldana about the temple. We also went to Bro Gregorio’s home and took a picture of a “crystal ball” that came from under a tree on Palawan. All it was was a large brown glass ball. He thinks that some millionaire will buy it from him. It probably has something to do with old evil magic or something so I didn’t touch it. Anyhow, that was a strange experience. We also are trying to work with Pulidos to get another referral. We taught two first lessons off of finding today and so we’re trying to build back up our base support in Dagupan.

This really has nothing to do with anything but you should read the text on the building.

Yesterday, we had Zone Conference. It was good. I found out in my interview with Pres Beck that my next companion will also be an Elder Cox. He is from Idaho and is one batch behind me. I was, in my pride, hoping to be made District Leader, but I need to quench my pride. This is one of my biggest faults that I always think that I’m better than everybody else and I need to have a lot of hard humbling experiences. We watched “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and that brought back good memories of home, all except for the heat. I also got 5 packages. Three from Grandpa and Grandma Thomas and two from my family. There is a lot of candy but my favorite is the 12 days of Christmas thing that they sent. There are twelve envelopes that each have a candy and a note from one of the family about something they like about me. It is really a great gift and I can feel their love for me every night when I open that day’s little envelope. I was a little bit disappointed that I didn’t even get a letter from Amy. I was really hoping to get one. Oh well. The Lord knows what is best.

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We try to make cookies

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

We had a really relaxing P-day today. We actually tried to make chocolate chip cookies this morning. They worked out ok except for the fact that we had no real chocolate chips and had to use “Star” margarine in place of real butter and real shortening. The batter was pretty bad tasting but the finished product wasn’t all that bad. We took some of them over to Labros, the owner of the big tindahan here, as a Christmas present. We are going to look in San Jose for some better ingredients. We want to make cookies for our members and investigators for Christmas but they need to be really good. I also got to take a nap today and write a couple of letters.

Riding to San Jose from Rizal

For proselyting today, we taught a first lesson to an old man who can hardly see. It was interesting. We had to talk really slow and really clearly in order to be understood. We also taught Vilorias a little bit more about the temple and also about tithing. They told us that of course they would pay their tithing once they are baptized. Also I’m positive that they’ll make it to San Jose on Friday for the interview. The only concern they had is where they would leave their kids. I think they got that all worked out now so hopefully we’ll see them on Friday.

We also went by Bro Andales but he wasn’t there; probably because there was a marriage down the street. Hopefully he doesn’t drink but we saw him asleep yesterday and his wife told us he was drunk.

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Vilorias get married!

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Vilorias got married at 9:30 this morning. This was amazing because we’re in the Philippines and things just don’t work our right like that very much. Anyhow, they were really happy and finally that obstacle has been overcome. We took all the vegetables for the chop suey to Pulidos and had Sis Pulido teach us how to make it. We wanted it to be a surprise for the Vilorias but Sister Viloria came over half way through to help. While we were cooking, we had another experience with the cannibal. He just charged into the “kitchen” grabbed a knife, and started peeling this huge potato-like thing. We had lots of kids there and they were all scared to death of him. I’ll admit that I was scared as well. A crazy cannibal man isn’t exactly who I want to meet when he is holding a huge knife. That man really should be in jail or in the asylum or something. Anyhow, we got a fun video of the cannibal waving a knife in my face.

Elder Cox was the “godfather” for the wedding.

I was the “godmother” for the wedding. I’m still not sure exactly what that means.

After the wedding was formalized. Ramil (holding Gabriel) and Maricel Viloria, Me, ElderCox, Vice Mayor

When we finished cooking, we went and got Bro Viloria. We found him outside reading the pamphlet that we’d given him about the temple. What a great guy. We all ate and it was really delicious. Because we have Zone Conference on Friday, we had Bro Viloria cut out hair again after eating. I got it cut really short, almost military style. I actually really like it.

Cooking Chop-Suey for the wedding

Me getting my first shorter than ever haircut.

Eating dinner after the wedding

The little celebration for the wedding (Samuel Pulido, Ramil Villoria, Maricel and Gabriel, Rachelle, Irene Pulido

Sis Pulido and Sis Viloria cooking

After such a happy day we actually ended on a sad note. We went and tried to teach Edwin Calera a lesson on the Plan of Salvation. We taught the lesson, I guess; but he didn’t get anything out of it. We really fought to get him into the discussion but he had no desire. We tried to commit him to talk with his wife about the messages but he wouldn’t commit. We finally tried to get him to say the closing prayer but he wouldn’t. I was really upset and angry at him and his laziness. We took back the Book of Mormon and left. I feel bad because it was Bro Pulido’s referral and we were really laying the law down on him. I hope Bro Pulido understands.

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