Transferred!

(From Alayna:  Hi Everyone, if I've been one thing, its been BUSY!  I'm sorry for the delay in posting and for this really long post!  Here are Frasier's emails for the past 4 weeks.  I'll try to be better now that I'm not traveling for a few weeks!)

2/25/18

Our work has been really good this past week. We worked as a threesome with Elder Temple on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I’m not saying that he is the reason we had good work, but it definitely gave us the extra motivation. We had 45, then 53, and then 33 contacts those three days. If I remember correctly, we had 22 new investigators but I’m not exactly sure.  We were also experimenting with this idea Elder Temple had of doing the lesson 1 overview using the Introduction to the Book of Mormon. It is very powerful. We could tell the difference in the people that we used that with. I wish I could take credit for that idea but that was all Elder Temple. Basically, all the points in the L1 of Preach My Gospel fit in somewhere into the introduction to the Book of Mormon. We are supposed to use the Book of Mormon in all the aspects of our work so that would include contacting and the L1 overview. Lesson 1 overview is basically the bait or the hook. You can honestly feel how much more powerful it is when you use the Book of Mormon. It is amazing how truly powerful that book is!

I am finally kind of over being sick. I still have a bit of congestion in my nose and throat, but for the most part, I am ayos lang (added by Alayna: translation is “all right”). Now the major part is just staying hydrated. It is starting to hit summer time here meaning it is starting to get really hot! On Thursday, I drank all of my waterbottle, and then we stopped at a little store so my companions could buy some juice pouches and I ended up buying 3 of them because it was so hot. When we got back to our apartment that night all my clothes were just wet. It was kind of nasty. I was drinking a ton of water and was still thirsty.  I am going to buy some more drink mixes today just to be safe.

This cycle has gone by really fast. It feels like just a few days ago I started a new planner and now I am already on week 4. That is crazy. I don't know where the time has gone. It is true what everyone says that after you hit about 6 months or finish your follow-up training it all starts going by really fast. The only bummer about that though is that I am running out of time in this area with all the friends I’ve made. I don't know when I will get transferred, but it is now sooner than later. 

We found this place called Snow Panda in the mall. It is absolutely amazing!  I think that Snow Panda could make a killing if it was opened up in the U.S. Especially with how popular places like that are right now. It is amazing! Its like a layer of fruit, and then ice cream, and then fruit, and then ice, and then more fruit and cream. I’m just bummed I’ve been here for 5 months and I just barely found out about it. (Don’t worry Hokulia, Its totally different than you so you don’t have to worry.) It is like heaven on earth. Its not like anything to compare it to in the U.S. I’m going to bring it back to the U.S. though and make millions!

I found out yesterday that Elder Temple will be returning to his area on Thursday. That is a good and a bad thing. Bad: I’m re-losing my best friend again. He probably wouldn't say the same thing about me, but I really like being around him. Good: I will finally be re-instated to my position as Assistant to the Assistants to the President again. 

Forever and a day, Love Elder Williamson!

3/4/18

I had this really great idea for an email over this past week. It was very inspired!  It had lots of scriptures and other quotes, as well as stories. It honestly would have made you cry or be spiritually enlightened. There is only one problem with that email…I didn’t write it down or anything and over the course of the past few days, I totally forgot what I was going to say!  So, I’m sorry, but you all will just have to wait until next time I come up with a world changing idea.

Don't get your hopes up too fast. I got sick again last week. Let’s just leave it at I made the bathroom trip way more than enough times over the past week! (30+) Needless to say, that was not the funnest experience in the world! 

I am very thankful for Sloane Insekto. She had trained me over the 7 years of her existence for this very time. One of our investigator families has 3 little girls that are super cute! They like to talk to us and are always playing or doing something. This past week one of them was wearing a “Sophia the First” shirt. I asked this little girl about Sophia. We then had like a 5-minute talk about princesses and Frozen. Those little girls were very happy to know that I knew all the characters and everything about Frozen! 

I think the Lord is still trying to humble me. With the sickness I had; I had the thought that I should study the humility section of the “Preach My Gospel”. I am not done with it yet, but it has been a really good study. I think we can all be more humble than we now are. For me I have realized specific areas where I can be a lot more humble in my life. I will tell you what I have learned about that next week. 

Sorry, not much else to say. I need to write down my thoughts more!

Forever and a day, Love Elder Williamson!

3/11/18

We did a community service project on Sunday so these are just some pictures we took. I bought a bolo in preparation for the service project. It basically is a sword though. It was really fun! Elder Van Wey and I worked on chopping stuff while the Filipinos weaved baskets.

I bought the biggest bolo I could find at the market. It does the job pretty well. We also used it to cut open some coconuts and we had fresh coconut water and the white part inside. It was tasty!

We had family home evening with the Abad family and this was the result of the losers of the game we played.

This is the Book of Mormon that I bought a while ago that I told you about.

This past week we had zone conference and I had a great time.  I am just going to type what I wrote in my note book. (It might be a little bit choppy or rough.)

A goal is just a dream if you don't have a plan and then act on that plan. You are not a failure if you do not reach your goals, you should however pray for Gods help in setting those goals, do EVERYTHING you can to accomplish those goals, and then if you do that you can go to sleep happy at night because God will take care of the rest.

1. PMG pg. 94, Gordon B. Hinkley: Every morning missionaries should get on their knees and plead with the Lord to help them set goals and create plans to the blessing of those they will be teaching.....

2. Alma 6:6 "The welfare of other’s souls"

3. Diligence is steady, consistent, earnest, and energetic effort in doing the Lord’s work. 

4. The Lord expects us to work dilligently. Then he will bless us and help us. But all blessings are predicated upon the attached commandments. 

5. D&C 75:3 "Labor with your might."

It will be easier if you are working towards something you truly want. Once you have something you truly want it is easier to stay motivated and put in the grinding effort it takes to get there. "Begin with the end in mind" (This part came from my Coach Talley’s email to me.) 

6. Jacob 1:19 "We did everything we could" 

We should set goals in all aspects of our life and in the work. Without goals, we have no direction or motivation. 

7. "When you fall short of a goal, evaluate you efforts and seek for ways to accomplish the goal. If needed adjust your expectations." That does not, however, mean that we should lower our expectations. Our productiveness and our motivation goes down if we do that. Plus, the Lord expects us to be perfect and you can't have any higher expectation than that. (Matt. 5:48)

We should also not be discouraged if we do not meet our goals. We can control a lot, but not everything. Especially in missionary work, people have their own agency. We can’t force them to do anything. If we get discouraged though, we lose the spirit, joy goes down, as well as effectiveness and desire. 

How to set goals:

-Pray for help and then listen to the spirit.

-Goals are usually measured in numbers, but those numbers should always be connected to something real. (A person.)

-They should be specific, measureable, and attainable. Even though they should be attainable, they should be making you stretch and work. (Mosiah 4:27) "You should not run faster than you can run, but you should also win the prize."

-Your goals also have to be time oriented or have some sort of deadline so that you are motivated.

Accountability:

"When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate or improvement accelerates." Thomas S. Monson

We need to approach our goal setting with the idea that we are going to report our goals. We then need to feel responsible to accomplish those goals, because we have been given the opportunity to even attempt them. 

You should report on your goals by being proactive and telling others without being asked. 

Accept responsibility. Weather it be good or bad the results are of your doing. Don't blame others. (If someone cuts you off, get ahead of them and don't let it happen again!) Race analogy.

Always be willing to learn and even seek our advice. Take advice from leaders, companions, people that are older, and younger.

Be motivated to do your very best. Accountability does not only come at the end. It is a principle that influences how you begin as well.

This is probably one of the most inspirational quotes of all time that we make fun of all the time. 

This is my gym in Cauayan.

This guy didn't even know where Texas was!

Forever and a day, Love Elder Williamson!

3/19/18

I’ve Been Demoted!

This has been a little bit of a crazy week for me. It was transfer week this past week and I actually ended up getting transferred this time. That’s an adjustment for a missionary no matter where they are just because you have to move houses, get new companions, figure out a new area, and almost a new way of doing things with every transfer you have. For me it was also a change because I had been in the same area for 6 months since the start of my stay here in the Philippines.

Here are pictures of Cauayan people before my transfer:

I thought that it would be a lot harder and a lot more stressful when I transferred, but it wasn’t that bad. There wasn’t anyone from my old zone going to the same zone I am in now, so I had to travel by myself. That is weird because as a missionary you are, of course, always supposed to be with a companion. I traveled for about 3 hours by myself to get to my new area. It was actually kind of fun being by myself and almost a sense of rebellious adrenaline because I wasn’t with anyone. The only bad part was that the bus driver was listening to ballad love music which is not necessarily my cup of tea (even though I wasn’t listening to it of course). Another little bit of a drawback to being transferred is this: My mission contains the hottest city in Asia within its boundaries. I don’t know exactly where that city is, but it is in the northern part of my mission. Guess where I traveled? To the northern part of my mission. I am in the Tuguegarao South zone now. It is really hot here. Luckily it is a little bit windy here or else I would  be melting to death. It is not too bad though. Most of the time I am sweating just enough that I am always wet, but not enough that I am ever like dripping sweat or anything. I think they said that it is about 40 degrees Celcius, but nobody knows for sure. Maybe someone can check and see what the temperature is here. 

Here are a few other adjustments: We don’t have a shower head (like most places in the Philippines). I have to bucket shower. Its not as bad as you would think but it is definitely different. My area is full of some of the most generous people ever. It seems like literally every lesson we teach they offer us snacks. Yesterday we had lunch at our branch mission leader’s home, and then literally every person we stopped at or taught a lesson to had a snack and a drink for us. I felt like Santa Clause. I kept on receiving food from everyone and had to eat it, even though by the end I didn't really even want to eat it. Don't worry though, I won’t be getting fat just because of how much we walk and sweat. We also don't cook ourselves food. For lunch there is this little restaurant type place that is right down the street from us so we go there and get a cup of meat and a cup of vegetables with unlimited rice for only 40 pesos. Then for dinner we have dinner appointments almost every night. Like I said, the people here are supper generous. The one adjustment that I didn't make that I am happy about is that there is a member that cleans our clothes (Added by Alayna:  he does pay her!) so we don't have to do that ourselves. 

The reason I said that I have been demoted is this: I used to be Assistant to the Assistants as you may have remembered me telling you before. Now I am Assistant to the zone leaders. My new companions are the zone leaders in the Tug. South Zone. I will send pictures next week because I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of each other yet.

One of them is named Elder Santillan. He is from Bicole, Philippines. He is a man of many talents. Before his mission, he did martial arts and was a street fighter. They would do competitions and stuff all the time. It doesn’t quite make sense though just because he looks like a teddy bear and he is one of the nicest missionaries, but he knows how to take people down. If we are even joking around the apartment, you will like pretend to punch him and then he will hit you ten different ways before you can even blink. He is also really good at magic. He can describe any magic trick to you and how people do it, as well as he is really good at them himself. He was also a bartender so he supposedly knows how to make really good fruit drinks and stuff like that. Aside from all the other things, he is also a really great missionary. He is great with scriptures as well as doctrine and teaching. He is always cracking little smart-alleck jokes and is always smiling. My other companion is named Elder Eriksson. He is from Springville, Utah. He is really good at Tagalog and is also great with scripture and gospel doctrine knowledge, as well as teaching of course. 

Our work has been good. My companions are zone leaders so they are really good missionaries and have a really good area. I have spent most of the time just figuring out where I am going and getting to know all the people here. There are some really great recent converts in this area as well as some progressing investigators that are really solid. There is of course as with every area a lot of potential as well. I am blessed with a Filipino and a really smart American as my companions so I have a really good environment for language learning. We created a whole new language study plan for me and we have already been working a lot on my language study. I’m still trying to get up to speed on the knowledge of scriptures and the missionary lessons that they have, but I guess it is better to just hit the ground running than wait and wait and be babied along the way. 

We also had our interviews with the Hiatt’s this past week. I had a longer interview with Sister Hiatt than normal because my companions were doing zone leader accounting with President Hiatt. We had a lot of things that we talked about. I love being around the Hiatt’s. They want the best out of us, but they are very loving and caring as well. They once again asked a lot of us and told us a lot about what we should be doing, but us three took it as motivation to achieve a higher level of excellence. 

If I had any advice for any one that will be going on a mission in the future it would be to do all you can to gain your testimony before you go on your mission. Just from what I have learned from being around others and hearing stories, as well as personal experience, I would think that is one of the biggest things. You will be a way more powerful teacher as well as it will be a lot easier time for you on your mission if you have a testimony of the church in general as well as follow the invitation on the last two paragraphs of the introduction to the Book of Mormon.

(Added by Alayna:  The last two paragraphs read à

“We invite all men everywhere to read the Book of Mormon, to ponder in their hearts the message it contains, and then to ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ if the book is true. Those who pursue this course and ask in faith will gain a testimony of its truth and divinity by the power of the Holy Ghost. (See Moroni 10:3–5.)

Those who gain this divine witness from the Holy Spirit will also come to know by the same power that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, that Joseph Smith is His revelator and prophet in these last days, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord’s kingdom once again established on the earth, preparatory to the Second Coming of the Messiah.”)

I will take pictures and send them next week. Hopefully everyone is doing good. Until next week.

(Added by Alayna:  No pictures sent this past week.)

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Forever and a day, Love Elder Williamson!

  

3/25/18

This past week has been a little bit of a different week. We have had lots of things going on that have seemed to hinder us from being able to do normal missionary work. Most of that is just that we transferred apartments. That took almost a whole day for us to pack all our stuff as well as move all the other stuff in the apartment and clean in preparation for moving apartments. Then the next day was moving day and we had to spend all day moving stuff across the city and then the rest of the day cleaning and then organizing our new apartment. The next day we did our weekly planning and then still had to clean a little bit, as well as get punted. Overall about half the week we weren’t very productive as far as numbers go, but I believe that we were doing what we were supposed to be doing and what we had to be doing. We were all a little restless after all that was over so we are ready to hit the ground hard this week. Hopefully the Lord has many people prepared for us this upcoming week.

 I really love my companions that I have been blessed with this cycle. We all three get along really well. We are always seeming to be having fun, smiling, and laughing. As well as maintaining the dignity of our calling. We know when it is time to be serious or when it is time to be more focused on certain areas of the work. Elder Eriksson and Elder Santillan are awesome. They are super great with doctrine as well as scriptures. It seems like they have all the lessons and all the scriptures for those lessons in the Preach my Gospel all memorized. It has been a little bit tough just trying to catch up with them. But, I guess it is better to hit the ground running than walk the whole way there. Elder Eriksson is also doing a lot to help me with my language learning. Elder Santillan is trying his best, but it is honestly hard for the Filipinos to teach others how to speak their language. It is just natural for them to speak it and most don’t always quite get how to explain it. I’m learning from both of them though. Elder Santillan is keeping us on our toes. He is always doing something to make us laugh or doing something surprising. It seems like he always has something up his sleeve. He is very obedient and a very good Elder.

We moved houses as I said earlier. That’s a good thing. Our old apartment was about half an hour away from our area so it took forever to get there every day. It was also all concrete so it kind of looked like a dungeon. Our new apartment is right in the smack middle of our area, and it is painted so it is a lot more inviting when you walk inside. There are a lot of reasons we miss our old apartment though. It was right in the middle of Tuguegarao city, so it was fun to walk home every night. There was also a little restaurant we would eat lunch at every day that was super cheap and had good food. We also had this guy that lived not too far from our apartment. He would sit on a table outside his house/store and never move. He was always in the same spot at morning and at night. We joked that we were pretty sure that he was waiting for his girlfriend to come back or something. Every time we would walk past him though he would give us a big wave (he would like throw his hand behind his head, lean back, and then fling his arm up in the air. It was really lazy/funny looking) and then ask us where we are going even though our answer was always the same.

 I’m not sure if there is really much to report about our work. We have branded ourselves the underachievers this week. We were low on every single one of our goals this week. If there wasn’t an excuse this past week would have been really pathetic to be honest. Luckily we do have an excuse. We have a few really good recent converts and progressing investigators, I still don't really know them that well though, so it is hard to tell you a whole lot about them.

Spiritual message for the day: One thing that we have learned through a few experiences in the past few days is that pride is a great poison in life. Pride is the cause of almost, if not all, contention or negativity. It may be hard to notice it, but if you really dig and look at the problem, pride is the problem. Investigators that don't want to accept the message or get offended over something is really because they have too much pride in themselves to realize that they need help or need to change. That goes for relationships as well. You could start with some problem that is so small and meaningless, but as soon as you let pride enter into the situation, the spirit leaves, and the situation starts to spiral out of control before you even know what happened. That is one thing that I would recommend for all of us to do is to check ourselves of pride, and if you don’t notice it in yourself, that probably means you have a little bit of pride anyways.

We were thinking about making a companionship t-shirt. On the front it would have 3 hands making a hitchhiking thumb because we are always trying to get rides in our area and sometimes we are waiting for over an hour to return home at night. On the back it would have a quote "Meryenda muna tayo" which means let’s have a snack first. It seems like almost every lesson we have or even people we walk past tell us they will buy us a snack first. It has become kind of a joke with us how much it happens. People are super generous here and it is awesome! I’m not complaining either because I don’t have to go hungry for very long.

Last P-day we were walking in the mall at the end up the day and there is this place called Rest-N-Go. All it is is a vacant store slot, so they decorated the walls with a poster of sky and then a field of grass, and then they put turf down on the ground. Inside they have a bunch of massage chairs that you put money in like a vending machine. Then it reclines back and goes to work. Apparently Elder Santillan had been wanting to go there for a while. We walked past it and decided to try it out. It was awesome! Probably the best 20 pesos any of us have ever spent. It was also a great way to end our P-day. It was funny at first especially with 3 guys in nametags shaking around on a chair, but we actually scheduled time to go back to it today. This time we are going to upgrade to the 50 peso package. (15 minutes) ha ha

(Added by Alayna:  20 pesos is equal to 38 cents!  So, the upgrade to 15 minutes will cost 95 cents.  Frasier needs to rein in his spending! Lol) 

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Forever and a day, Love Elder Williamson!