Week #101 - “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” —Matthew 7:7

July 25, 2016

Hi Family!

Thanks for your emails and all the details. I'm excited too but you're a lot more crazy about it than I am, I'm sure :) It has been a little challenging to keep going every day--I am getting excited about coming home, but still working hard!

This past week it was hard to focus at times, especially since we got punted a lot.  Elder Andeo had a checkup at the hospital which took forever and for some reason that made me super trunky. And then to top it off yesterday after a whole week of trying to contact our investigator B. we finally got a lesson in with him and he told us he had some set backs this week that made it so we won't get to baptize him this weekend before I leave as previously planned. That was super disappointing. But I got over it because I know that God is in charge of everything in his work and things come about in his own due time. We also learned that Elder Andeo is apparently transferring when I leave next week, so we're hoping the next missionaries to this area will keep going with teaching him.

This week we had the opportunity to build a new house for a member family who were living in pretty bad conditions before. It was fun to build and get to know some of the older men in the ward better who helped build it and I learned a few new words in Ilonggo that don't come up in our general daily missionary work. It reminded me of working with Dad and also working with Mark at Heritage and how he would just say "hammer" or "screwdriver" when he needed me to get him something!  It was a super hot day and I was sweating like crazy! A storm rolled in later in the day and cooled things down when we were about done, and that was a welcomed relief! 

The next week I'll keep on working hard and doing missionary work. I'm ready to get home but I won't waste a minute of the time I've got left. I'm planning on saving up my laundry to bring home so I can use those super fancy mechanisms in our house that I didn't even realize how blessed we were to have before I left!

 

We fly to Manila on Tuesday the 2nd and then we'll leave Manila on the 3rd. Just 9 more days!

Love and miss you tons!

Elder Rasmussen

Week #100 Put Your Shoulder To The Wheel

July 18, 2016

 Hey Mom :) My finger is messed up because of the fan this morning haha so this may be shorter than usual!

This week and all the others seem to be getting faster. We had a good week and ended it with a good ol baptism of our investigator sister R.  Most of the week we looked for someone who wouldn't punt us so our lessons were a little gamay lang but we got to teach our awesome investigators, L and B. There hasn't been a rainstorm here in a few days so its been really sunny which is pretty and uplifting but also super hot. Yesterday wasn't anywhere near as good as the Sundays before. We got punted a lot and our one lesson an investigator had been drinking so there was no spirit, but they were still fun to be around and we did the best we could to teach a spiritual lesson with them.
There was for sure a reason I was here until August. We have so many new investigators I have met and they are all very willing to learn. God runs the show and I've recognized it over and over this second half of my mission.

Lots of people want to feed us before I go home so that will be fun and I won't have to eat as much of my lousy mission cooking. haha We have one more baptism on July 30 before I go home. I Love the people here especially Bonifacio. Me and him are pretty tight. :)

That's all for now! Love and miss you tons! Elder Rasmussen

Week #99 You know it, But Do You Believe it?

July 11, 2016
Hi Mom and Dad - Loved all the pictures you sent from your trip! That's cool Uncle Richard has all those R/C planes! Do you think he could help me get mine in the air when I get home?

Climbing For Coconuts!

We had a great week here in Molo and had tons of success. The best day was again Sunday like last week but the other days were full of goodies as well (even though I struggle to remember them). The weekdays are the most difficult days to get things done or have any kind of lesson with non members because people are busy and have lots of excuses for not listening to us. Most of our time goes into teaching less actives and talking to people but in the night time we are able to teach our investigators who are doing really good right now. 

A typhoon went through the Philippines this week so it rained for several days in a row. It slows the work down even more but I still like rain storms. While we were talking to a guy we had met it was pouring rain and there was tons of lightning with really loud thunder. After that we were thinking about going home but decided to get one last lesson in and the Lord blessed us with the spirit so we had a great lesson with the P family about the Book of Mormon. 

Yesterday was so awesome! We had 6 investigators come to church and three of them we had only visited once. It was such a great surprise to them there! We get told all the time from people we invite to church that they will "try" to come to church and that usually means they aint' comin'-- but these people did and we were way happy to see them. Just clear evidence of God preparing the right people at the right time to receive the gospel.

Brother B. never ceases to impress me with his faith and humility and sincerity in accepting the Gospel. We taught him about the Word of Wisdom this week.  He drinks coffee and occasionally drinks beer but even with those things he has willingly accepted the Gospel and said he would quit drinking those things. When I told him coffee is bawal (not allowed) he said "well that's ok I'll just drink something else like tea" haha so I kinda laughed and said "then you'll like the next one! Tea is also bawal". But it didn't even phase him and he still said he'd avoid drinking those things. I used to be a little shy about telling people not to drink that stuff since its so hard for so many people but now I don't even flinch because I know it's true and God will bless them for sacrificing those things.

I keep receiving more and more confirmations that the Gospel is true and that God lives. I don't think it's inaccurate to say I was a bit spiritually blind before my mission. This past 2 years I've grown so close to my Heavenly Father and I've been blessed with a testimony and knowledge of the truth. There's still a lot I don't know and understand all the way, but I've learned so much during my mission and I'm so grateful to have the gospel in my life. I know that my lack of understanding will diminish as I keep progressing and stay true to my covenants. I'll never fall away from the church or my testimony. I know it and I believe it. Love you lots and miss you tons! Elder Rasmussen

Week #98 O'er The land of The Free, and The Home of The Brave

July 4, 2016

Elder Rasmussen and Sister Garcia

Hey Mom and Dad! Glad you are having fun on your trip to Canada! Have fun and please be safe :)
We had a great week and man it went by quick. We had some really good key indicator numbers which means we had quite a few lessons and other stuff so that was good! I went on a split with Elder Naulu who is an American and we worked in his area. Every single lesson they had planned was a reject so we ended up tracting for like 5 hours which was tiring but we found some cool people including these 2 girls and some really well behaved kids. They are Catholic and very observant in their religion which isn't all that common here, but we had a really great lesson with them.

Sunday as usual turned out great for us. We worked with some members and taught 2 of our investigators one named R. who I have always struggled to feel the spirit while we teach him but this time was great and the Spirit led the lesson. Some members fed us and I was really hungry so I was especially appreciative of being fed . Our next lesson was with our new investigator who we just met last week named B. He is awesome. We have a great relationship with him and the Spirit is always there when we teach him. He's a big guy in his 40's and I did an arm wrestle with him and won the right hand but lost the left. I'm in horrible shape! He writes down notes, does his reading, and focuses while we teach. SO AWESOME. I've got a constant smile on my face while we teach him because I love the guy so much and we always hug him when we get there and also when we leave. Brother R. (ward mission leader) fed us dinner and that made us happy too. Too many blessings to count for one day! 

This morning was fun we played football in the park and sang the star spangled banner before we did it nice and loud to celebrate the 4th of July. Then we ate at a restaurant called American Legend and ate burgers and sang the Star Spangled Banner again in the restaurant. haha 2 years of being away from the best country in the world has made us a bit prouder than we were before :)

President Aquino went home last week so now president Cruz is here. I haven't met him yet but I hear he's a way cool guy.

That's about all this week! Love and Miss you lots! Love Michael Elder Rasmussen

Proud American <3

Week #97 - "Straight and Narrow Is The Way"

June 26, 2016
Hey Mom and Dad -  This last week was good, but sitting here now I can't remember anything much to tell you! We worked a lot but got rained on a lot which slowed the work down. 
We had an interesting run in with a guy who wanted to debate with us. I got to chatting with him on the side of the road and he eventually in the conversation brought up some doctrine about the Father and the Son being one spirit and tried debating with us about it. When that happens I usually quickly yet respectfully end the conversation and say "alright buddy we'll see ya" haha and then 2 days later we showed up at our investigators house and of course he was there doing bible study with out investigator, so we did the same thing all over again.

Yesterday was our most productive day. We had a member named Jessie working with us and he's fun to work with. A new investigator in our area showed up to church wanting to learn more about the church! That was amazing and I consider that a gift from God seeing that we are always looking for new people to teach. We had a funny thing happen at church yesterday. One of the member's dogs showed up at church and was running around during sacrament and inside the class rooms haha it was a clean dog though so nobody seemed to care too much about that. Then there were these little kids also running around in the church like wild dogs and I think they were street kids because no adult was with them. I had to babysit them since no one else would and they were being crazy in the church, so yah, that was fun (NOT).

Today for PDay we went to a driving range and that was pretty fun! It was fun to do something different since usually we just play basketball. Being on the driving range made me miss working out at the golf course :)

Well, sorry this is so short! Love you lots! Love Elder Rasmussen

Got our chest x-rays so that means we're getting on a plane soon!

Week #96 "Believe, Obey, Endure"

June 19, 2016

Hi Mom and Dad! Thanks for your emails! and thanks Mom for all the good juicy news! I'm not really sure what to say about this week because we didn't have very many teaching opportunities but yesterday was a good day. School just started up here again and everyone is busy so that made the work a little slow.
On Tuesday we got a call that we were being transferred to a different house which we were totally ticked about because we love our housemates (not so much the house) so on Wednesday we moved to a new house in Arevalo on the other side of the City, but we' are still assigned to the same Molo area. The new place is actually pretty nice I don't mind it but we miss our old housemates. We had way too much fun last transfer!

Yesterday was probably the best day for work this week. We visited a member who hasn't been to church in like 25 years! She was happy to see us, and was really responsive and humble so we are looking forward to helping her out. She's the daughter of a member (all of her children are members but she's the only one who comes to church). Another place we went to was our investigator Reina who is getting baptized on July 2. She is super cool and really responsive and the lessons just go great every time with tons of Spirit :)

I went on a split with Elder Mudrow to interview his investigators for baptism and that was by far the funnest day of the week! These 2 members came with us and they were just way fun to work with and being with Mudrow never has its dull moments. There were some Baptist doing bible study at the member's house while we were waiting. Elmer is the only member in his family and he LOVES the Gospel and has all of his priesthood ordination certificates and pictures on the wall. Then he showed up with a Meet the Mormons T-shirt on and I just loved this guy right when I saw him haha way funny guy. The Baptists were way nice but I just felt proud to be a Mormon Missionary :)

Beautiful Philippines Sunset!

Transfers are this week. I'm staying in Molo and no longer a DL :) My companion took over so that will be nice. Last transfer is on its way!

Have a great week! Love and miss you all!

Love Elder Rasmussen