How Do We Feel God's Love In Our Lives?

7/2/18

How Do We Feel God's Love In Our Lives?

This was a super powerful experience I had this past week. We were teaching a new investigator. He is the son of a less active member. We were just teaching the basic lesson one overview.  I asked this young man how he can feel the love of God in his life? This was the best part of the whole lesson. The young man replied, "Um, when you win the lottery that is a pretty good example of God’s love". Ha ha! That conversation is a lot funnier in Tagalog. I guess that is what I get for asking a 10-year-old kid (that doesn't really care) that question.  Our fellowshipper that was with us as we were teaching that lesson almost lost it. That is definitely an experience for the journal!

I will send pictures this next week of my current apartment. Elder Eriksson and I got into a habit of making jokes with each other about relating everything we were doing to girlfriends. He emailed me about how my time is here in Mallig and this was my reply to him: 

"Let’s just say that the Mallig apartment is like a girl that you have no desire to go out with, but you went to prom with her because your parents made you."

That is only half joking, the apartment isn’t the worst in the world, but it definitely isn't the best!

This is a pretty exciting week. On Wednesday we have the opportunity in our mission to have Elder Haynie come and visit with his wife. He is a member of the 70 and has been assigned in the Philippines Presidency, but will be moving to an area in America later this year. That is exciting because we will be having a mission conference. That means that the whole mission will be gathered in one place to listen to him. This is the first time that has happened since I have been here. I will get to see all of my batchmates in the mission, as well as my former companions. We will also get to have free lunch at mission conference, as well as listen to a member of the 70 speak!

As far as work goes, it is going here. We are trying to figure things out with investigators. Some are progressing more than others.  I love all of them, but some are harder than others to get to do what they need to do. The closest baptism we have is July 28^th-ish. It depends. 

Happy Birthday to Sloane Insekto. She is 8 years old now. I know she is excited for her baptism this weekend as well!

This was another fun thing that happened: We noticed that our freezer in our apartment had about 2 inches of frost in some parts, so we decided that it was time to defrost it. The problem was that we had a bunch of pork that was frozen. We ended up calling a member that we are pretty close with. We asked him if he wanted a bunch of frozen pork, and, of course, he said sure. Then we told him we will drop it off at his house, but the deal is that he is cooking it for us for dinner tonight. He said sure, why not. It was great, we dropped it off, went out to work, and then came back and he and his family had cooked it for us. They made cinigang for us. It was interesting because it had banana in it as well. And then, we added cili (chili) to it as well. That was the first time I have ever had spicy banana, but it was actually really good! 

If I have learned one thing while I have been in my mission it is this (and it applies to missionaries as well as just normal life too):  

Be yourself!  Focus on being yourself and nobody else!  Don’t get into the fake missionary mode (I kinda want to punch those people). Be yourself and not Sister Molly or Elder Joe Mormon.

That’s all I’ve got for you for now. Keep kicking! 

-- Forever and a day, Love Elder Williamson!

7/9/18

(Added by Alayna, I'll first post a bunch of pictures that Fras sent along with the explanations.  The letter is a bit lower.)

There was a wedding at our meeting house on Tuesday. We had a special guest, The Wedding Singer!  It was kind of funny. There is also a picture of me with the people that got married, but the guy taking the pictures didn't know how to use the camera so every picture has his finger in it.  Ha ha!

Also, our branch had 3 new babies last week. They are all super cute. This little guy got adopted by his aunt and uncle who are the neighbors of his birth mom and dad. His new parents haven’t had kids, so the father’s sister said that they could have her next child. I guess that makes more sense in the Philippines.

This is a picture of Elder Tuwai and I ridding on the back of a jeep because there was no room inside. Don't worry, it is just like tubing, just on cement instead of on water! 

(Added by Alayna:  I told Frasier he needed to take some time to relax and play a little.  So, he sent these pictures and explanation!  And, he must have needed some energy for the Rubiks Cube! Ha ha! #redbull)

Proof that I played with my Rubiks cube for 15 minutes. 

Pictures of the snacks we got last week. It is called halo halo.  It is a very popular snack here in the Philippines. Let’s see if Mark knows what flavor I got? I’ll give you a hint…it is one of his favorites.

 

Check out these workouts that I found! 

A picture of me and Elder Eriksson. He leaves after this cycle.

My driver’s license. 

This is the new chapel they are building in our area because the meeting house is bursting at the seams.

7/9/18

Why Did Adam and Eve Eat the Forbidden Fruit?"

This conversation is once again a lot better in Tagalog. Do you remember that guy that I emailed you about a few weeks ago?  He was drunk the day after his baptism.  He is awesome!  He is just an old Filipino guy that is super funny!  

Well, we were teaching him the other day and we were teaching him about the fall of Adam and Eve. At the end of the lesson, we asked him: "So why did Adam and Eve eat the fruit?"  He took a minute to think really hard, and then replied with confidence: "I guess because they were hungry."  We all took a minute to laugh, and then re-explained it to him (even more simply) so that he would understand!

We had an awesome opportunity to have a wedding in our meeting house on Tuesday. In the pictures, you might be able to see what our meeting house looks like. The wedding was awesome. Mostly because we had free food afterward, and a surprise performance from the one and only Wedding Singer! We only went for an hour, but we showed up for the best part (food and entertainment).

There were 3 members in our branch that had children in a 2-day period. I only have a picture of one of them, but they are the cutest little brown babies you’ve ever seen! 

On Wednesday we had the wonderful opportunity to have a mission conference. The whole mission got together. That in itself was awesome because that never happens. As soon as you walked into the church it was a different feeling. Everyone was so excited to be there. I got to see all of my old companions, my whole batch that entered into the MTC together, and then some other friends that I have made through my time here. I also was lucky enough to see one of my recent converts. The meeting was in the Cauyan chapel which was the one we used in my first area. After the meeting, while we were all talking and taking pictures, I saw one of the Abad kids standing at the door. I ran up and talked to him for a minute. He was there for seminary (1 good thing). He saw all of us but was just too scared to walk in and try and find me. They are all still doing super good. They went to the temple to do baptisms and are still fully active! 

The reason we had a whole mission conference was because Elder Haynie of the 70 was coming to speak. He is awesome! I have now had an opportunity to meet all 3 of the area presidents here in the Philippines (2 weeks before they switch it up). Elder Haynie is different because he doesn't take it all so serious. He was joking around a little bit, told lots of stories, and even started calling one of the Elders by his first name so that he could use this Elder as an example in one of his stories. I will just mention a couple of the things he said:  He took some time to give a history of the Philippines which was really cool. He is a little bit of a history nut, so it was really cool to listen to him talk about that. One thing that was really awesome that he mentioned is there are many LDS references to "the Isles of the Sea". It has been stated by Gordon B. Hinckley that that is a direct reference to the Philippines (and the Polynesian Islands). That means that it is really good news for me and Autumn (sorry, no soup for you to anyone that is serving in Europe or anywhere else)!  It is so true. The Church has grown faster here in the Philippines than it did in America. That is why there are 22 missions and 5 temples here with more to come!  I am super lucky and blessed to be able to serve here! 

Another cool thing that he mentioned was the recipe to never fall away from the church (at least in his eyes):

1. Read the Book of Mormon every day

2. Pay a full tithing

In his mind, it is that simple! 

The main thing that he came to talk to us about was how we can be more successful in contacting people. If we do it the way he was mentioning (which has been proven in other missions in the Philippines) we can very possibly start having baptisms every week for 2 or 3 straight months. It all comes down to how we are finding people. You can talk to every single person you see on the street and that is good, but that is going to have a very low success rate. The key in all of this is that "scattered Israel hangs around gathered Israel".  What that means is that if you talk to and use members, former investigators, and recent converts the right way, they can do all the filtering of the people for you, and then all the missionaries have to do is do the teaching. If the people I listed will find the people that they truly believe are ready, all they need to do is meet with us and then they will be entering the waters of baptism.  I could talk a lot more about that, but it is just a lot of missionary statistics and stuff that isn't necessarily super interesting, but it is exciting news for our mission here! 

I also had the opportunity to have a quick little conversation with Elder Haynie, but I will talk about that next week because I am short on time this week. Too much to talk about! 

Another great thing that happened this past week was that President and Sister Hiatt attended our branch for church yesterday. It was awesome! Everyone is a lot more on top of things and serious when a mission president shows up to a Sacrament Meeting. The Hiatt’s gave great talks and I actually had a good personal meeting with President Hiatt. I will also mention some things we talked about next week, but I would just say that my Mission President is the best!  Even though you have to realize that no one is perfect, and I have had to realize that about all my leaders, I have realized they really do want the best for everyone. It is really funny to listen to the Hiatt’s try to speak Tagalog. Sister Hiatt was speaking at the mission conference and was trying to say "we love people." I forget what context it was in because we were all just laughing after she said it. She said, "Mahal namin tao". If you directly translate that, it does say "We love people". The problem is that is just weird and not correct to say. One of the Filipinos keeps a list of every time that the Hiatt’s say something like that, and I can promise you that that is a new addition to the list!

I will end this email by saying some advice that one of my friends in the mission that is leaving this cycle said to me: 

"Give them Jesus" simple as that! 

Mahal Kita. Sa magpakilanman at isang araw.

(Added by Alayna.  Translation:  I love you forever and one day!)

-- Forever and a day, Love Elder Williamson!

7/16/18

I’ll just get right to it. For some of you that I have talked to a little bit more, you may know this or if you have read all my emails. The mission has not been the easiest for me. In fact, it has definitely been the hardest thing I have ever done mentally, emotionally, or spiritually (not physically though).

Missions are definitely not for pansies and sometimes I have felt like a bit of a pansie.  It is kind of hard to describe.  That is the thing about the mind…it is not as easy to figure out as the body. If you have a bruise or a broken arm, you know how to fix it. Sometimes with mental stuff, you don't know you have something wrong, and you don’t know how to fix it, and you don't know to take care of it until it becomes a big problem!

I didn't think I had any problems before my mission. At the start of my mission, I didn't feel like there was anything wrong either. As time has gone on, and I have talked with people, and more things have come, I have kind of let my guard down a little bit. I will tell you about the conversations I have had with some people in the past few weeks. I wish I could tell you everything that is on my mind and all that I have talked about and been given to read, but that would take all day to type that email and sadly I am not allowed to just email all day. 

When you come on a mission or many other challenges that you may have in life, the first thing people tend to do is question their testimony.  In most cases, the testimony is there and it is totally fine. There is usually something going on. Sometimes you are just in shock to the new situation you are in and have not had time to deal with it and think about it yet. When you enter a mission especially, you are subject to a whole new level of spiritualness, and sometimes it can get exhausting and hard. You are not totally equipped when you enter a mission either, but you are more expected to just pick up with the pace of the work, rather than the work slow down for you. Sometimes that high speed can give you excitement and exhilaration, and sometimes if you’re not ready for it, you get left in the dust.

When I came into the mission I don't think I quite knew what to expect, and was not totally prepared. It was hard for me to pick up the pace and keep up. I started to question my testimony a little bit, but I leveled out. Then I was in a meeting with Sister Hiatt and she brought up the question that she thought my testimony was a bit weak. To be honest it probably was.

I’m not saying that what she told me was right or wrong, but we as missionaries do have a little book for handling the stresses of being a missionary and one thing it says is not to question your testimony first.  I like the words of Elder Holland: "Hope for the good, and doubt the bad." Even though that quote is taken from a different context, it applies here as well! 

The first conversation I will mention is the one I had with Elder Haynie. It was lucky that I was able to have a quick little talk with him. I was taking a picture with someone when he walked past and stopped for a second, and then Sister Hiatt walked past and said that he should talk to me for a minute. (Sister Hiatt is a little bit bold and blunt sometimes.)  Elder Haynie and I talked for a minute and I basically just told him that I was struggling to really know if the Book of Mormon was true and whatnot.  I told him that it is not that I don't believe it. In fact, I really do, I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe what I’m doing. I just can’t really truly say that I KNOW it all is true.

Elder Haynie is a really funny and nice guy. He kind of just got right down and said:

"There is nothing wrong with believing. To believe is not a bad thing, believe is not a bad word. It is perfectly Ok to tell someone that you believe and not to say that you know."

That is such great advice!  Believe is a powerful word. Sometimes we let Satan tell us that to believe is not good enough or that it is a bad word. That comes from being too much of a perfectionist, but I want to tell people that I know something is true. In reality, we don’t need to have a perfect knowledge. Elder Haynie then told me to go and look up in the scriptures and the Topical Guide the word believe and any other forms of the word believe. He said I might be surprised at what I find. Another thing that I noticed is that if you go to the Articles of Faith, it doesn’t say "we know", it says "we believe". 

I then talked with President Hiatt last Sunday. We had a nice good talk about the concerns I have been having lately. It was convenient that he attended our branch for church so that we were able to have that meeting. To put it simply, I have just been feeling some uneasiness and even some guilt lately. I am definitely not a perfect person or a perfect missionary. Anyone that knows me will know that fact. That is where the perfectionism that I told you about comes in again. Perfectionism can come as a benefit in the right time and the right places. It can help in launching a man to the moon, athletics at times, it can also help in art (my pottery that I got into my senior year). Perfectionism can also become a great poison though. I have made mistakes as a missionary and as a person just like everyone else. The thing with missionaries is that we try to hold them up on a pedestal. We imagine them as perfect and without mistakes. I still do that even as I have been on my mission. I see all of these stellar awesome missionaries, and get down on myself that I am not a perfect missionary.

One thing that President Hiatt and I talked about is that missionaries are still people too. There is not one missionary that has not made mistakes or one person that has not made a mistake. For example one of the legendary missionaries of my mission… when he was new on his mission I heard a story that he refused to do his studies in his missionary attire.

Even Kyle Whittingham made a mistake in his life. He played for byU as a college student! Ha ha

President Hiatt gave me a few talks that he said he had gathered over his time here and that the area presidency had given him. I forgot to write down the names of the talks, but they were about perfectionism, different stresses that we have, and that Christ still loves us. It was cool for me to talk with him about that and receive those talks. To me it meant that there are other missionaries that are just a little bit special…just like me.

(Added by Alayna:  Just to give a bit of context, Fras has not been sleeping well.  He has also had some stomach and heat illnesses.  Those were all compounding with stress and he was feeling pretty down.)

What I have learned is that we don’t need to be perfect to be a missionary, or to be a priesthood holder, or to enter into the temple, to be a good spouse, or even just to be a good person. What we need to be doing is trying. The Atonement can and does apply to all of us if we are trying and doing what we need to. That is one thing that we need to understand about the Atonement is that we need to try. Even if there is no one who understands, the Lord does, and He will help you. The Atonement is there no matter what you have done, how many mistakes you have made, or how many times you have made the same mistake. One quote I really like is this:  "No one can sink further than the infinite Atoneing hand of Jesus Christ".  

We have to be careful because this does not justify anything, but it does give a helping hand and a way back.

With some of those mental things that I have been telling you about, I have now been able to get in touch with the area mental health supervisor. The church does not just care about the physical health of the missionaries, but it also cares about the mental health. There is a senior missionary who is specifically called here in the Philippines to supervise over the mental health of the missionaries. He is a retired psychiatrist and was called to do the same thing here for missionaries. His name is Elder McOmber. He is really awesome!  He grew up in Provo, so after a little bit of conversation I ended up telling him that it was byU fans that were giving me all these stresses and problems! Ha ha! 

Psychologists are tricky. If anyone has ever talked to one before, you know what I mean. They get you to say things that you don't know you are even saying, and make you realize things you didn't even know. I got in contact with him over this past week and will continue to be in contact with him so that we can make my time here in the Philippines as effective as possible. He started out just by talking to me. He asked me about my mission. How things are going. What I thought when I opened my mission call, and what I have realized since I got here.

I told him that I didn't really know a whole ton about the Philippines when I received my call, but that I quickly got online and looked up things about the Philippines. We then started talking about testimony and knowing things. Pretty much like what I said earlier in this email. He then started talking about knowing, believing, and a whole bunch of other stuff. He told me about his testimony of the Book of Mormon and how it was quite similar to how I started out with my testimony. He said that he never had a moment where he just all of the sudden knew that it was true. He then told me about when he came to the Philippines.

He said when he came here, he didn't know much about it either. He said he had read up some stuff, but that was about it. Once he came here, he heard them speak Tagalog, he felt the humidity, he saw the people and the conditions they live in and how happy they are. He tasted the food. He went on and explained how he used his senses to gain a knowledge about here in the Philippines. He then related that to testimony. He said he had trapped me. He told me that at the start of the conversation he asked me about what I knew about the Philippines. I told him not much, but then as we both had come here we had gained a true knowledge of what we once only had part of a knowledge of.  We had part knowledge when we read about these things before we came here. He then said that while we can’t use all of our senses that we have to gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon, we do have that similar testimony that we did before we came to the Philippines.

Right now, I have part of a knowledge and that is good enough. I don't have a full knowledge, and probably never will. There are only probably 15 people on this earth that have a full knowledge of the work and the glory of God, but they don't really talk about it that much. 

That is a basic summary of our conversation that we had, but we will be having more in the future. I am excited to see how he can find other ways to trick me into being happier, having more peace, being more calm, etc. 

-- Forever and a day, Love Elder Williamson!