Book of Mormon Challenge

 December 5th Letter

Hello Family! and Friends!

I am having a great time in Puerto Princessa, I have a big zone and am doing my best to get to know all of the missionaries here. It is hard because 4 of them are on an island where I will not be able to go visit. (The one with zebras and giraffes). I also learned that Palawan in the favorite vacation spot of Brad Pitt, I hopefully will have the opportunity to teach him sometime.

We are working really hard and trying to find those who are prepared to hear the message of the Restoration, we have found a whole lot of people that are ready to listen, but they seem to have trouble acting on what they hear. I have been blessed so much, in the past few months, I will admit I was a little bit bummed to be leaving my last area and my trainee, but I know that I am supposed to be here. I have a lot expected from me in the zone, but I am super excited and going to put my shoulder to the wheel. :)

I am pretty excited with my new apartment, we have a washing machine, which I think sometimes people take for granted.. I know I did back home. It makes laundry pretty easy, but the only problem is that it shocks you, but it does not hurt all that much. It actually reminds me of my last area and our lovely toaster oven...

I have met a lot of people since I arrived here 5 days ago, and I am enjoying getting to know them. I had a sad experience a couple days ago with an investigator. We taught them for the first time (my first time, probably the 5th time overall) and I really love them, I connected with them real well, and they are just really fun to teach. One of them was unmarried and pregnant, she was separated from the babies daddy, and living with her friends in a boarding house. She had come to church and was reading and marking her scriptures. We came back, and things did not feel right, we saw candles lit in the house, and we decided to go and talk to them. Her little baby, was a stillborn and they were preparing for his funeral. I had never seen any person that young dead before. It was hard, we offered a prayer, and told Sister Jane we loved her, and if she needed anything she could always call us and we would be there for her. I do not fully realize what they felt, or what they believe will happen to the child. It makes me even more thankful for the Gospel and the Restored Church, to know that the Plan of Salvation is made perfect and fair. We have been able to give her hope, and will continue to do all we can, so she can gain a full testimony and know for certain the plan that has been prepared for her and her family.

Sometimes life does not seem fair, I realize that some people do face very big trials, and in my life I never really have, I do not fully understand the things that people have to go through. I have come to the knowledge that everything we teach is true, I know for certain that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know that everything which we face in this life is for our own good, Heavenly Father does not put obstacles in our way that would keep us from returning back to Him. I know I am weak, and I really am not able to accomplish much on my own, but I find strength in so many things.

I would like to offer a challenge to everyone who reads this letter, and I would challenge you to challenge others to do the same; read The Book of Mormon from cover to cover. With something to mark with, using the color yellow (yellow is best) mark every single reference to the Savior, whether it be pronouns or any reference made to Him. Go through and also mark His words, whether it be from His mouth or in circumstances where the Prophets say "Thus saith the Lord," or in similar instances. You will be amazed, this book as we know testifies of Jesus Christ, but I am guessing, (just a guess) that most of the world does not realize just how much the Book of Mormon testifies of Jesus Christ. I promise you as you do this challenge you will grow in faith, and you will be able to use the Book of Mormon to invite others to come unto Christ. This challenge is for members of the church and non-members. Give away Books of Mormon to those you know, and challenge them to do the same, maybe we could get the whole world taking the challenge. If you start today you will finish around August, if you can keep a 1 chapter per day pace. I know you can do it.

I love you all! Especially my little Devin,

Love Elder Munk

I actually love you the same, but I needed to let Devin know.

November 7th, 14th, 21st, 30th Letters

 November 30th Letter

Hello!
 
Well I have a few stories to tell from the last few days, it will be fun.
 
Where to begin? Alrighty, Tumarbong sounds like a good start. After
church on Sunday we needed to catch a ride home by flagging down a
vehicle, we ended up getting a truck and hopped in the back and sat
down in a safe/unstupid manner. The air re-circulated into the back
and we got dusted so much. The tired ended up going flat and we hopped
out for a bit to wait for them to throw on the spare tire. Out of no
where, (actually out of the truck cab) came a white man named Miles,
as in miles away from home. He was from England and had been living on
Palawan for 20 years. (Which is equal to the lifespan of an Elder
Munk). We talked with him for a little while and he told us great
stories about Volkswagen beetles, Afghanistan, and the Mormon
Tabernacle Choir. (With a little bit of banana farming mixed in). He
used the word see-loo-bree-us which I am not able to spell, he used a
negative marker along with that word to describe the previously
mentioned country.
 
On Saturday I received a call telling me I would be transferring to a
different area, and leaving my companion in Quezon (Trainers/Trainees
are usually together for 2 transfers not one). On Sunday I figured out
I would be going to Puerto, but I was not sure where or if I would
have a specific assignment. I received a call yesterday from President
Stucki who told me I would be assigned as a zone leader with Elder
Hyde (whom I love). I am really excited, and the zone is going to have
a very productive December, and we will do all we can to keep it up. I
also have stores in my area and some restaurants which I will enjoy,
but not too often. My companion has been assigned a follow up trainer
who has been out in the field for only 4 months. That puts their
combined months at a little more than 5. They are both Americans.
President Stucki has a lot of trust in Elder Smith to follow up my
kasama Elder Halterman. I trust him too, they will have great success
down in Quezon.
 
Well, I do not really have many other stories yet, I will send some
pictures soon. I am learning already that I will have a lot of
responsibilities as a Zone Leader, and will even be flying to Manila
every month. I will be sleeping in the mission home, and that means I
get a hot shower! Unless the other Elders use it first. But the
mission home in only for the Palawan Zone Leaders. :)
 
I am super excited for Devin, he will be fending off things just like
his older brother. Devin, I know how you feel.
 
Also Kaity! Happy Birthday! I hope you had a great birthday, and have
fun being old. You can drink as of 1 year from now! And buy handguns.
I know you are not a huge fan of drinking, and you are definitely
(most-likely) afraid of guns.. So I will not worry about you :)
 
Sorry if I forgot to answer your questions, but my time is running
short. Keep me in touch with things that do not really matter! I like
having a big smile on my face, so you should all continue to write me!
 
Love, Elder Munk

November 21st Letter

Hello!

This week has been pretty exciting, we have experienced a lot of miracles and a lot of.. well other things. We had great success in inviting people to be baptized, many of them said yes, and we have close to 20 who say they will get baptized on December 24th. Unfortunately it is a lot easier to say so than to do so. We did see a few of them at church, but most of them chose not to come.

We discovered a few new areas in our area that were formerly undiscovered, we were led in that direction through referrals we had received and we tried to contact them. One of the ladies in named Sister Garcitos, we asked her children, who were playing outside, where their mother was. They when inside and asked her, she told them to say she was not home. The kids came out with smiles on their faces and said she was asleep, we could see her through the hole in the door. We asked if they could tell her we stopped by, they said no, because she was in the bathroom. And one kid just flatout said, she is inside! Than another kid said she was asleep in the bathroom, and knowing Filipino bathrooms, I doubted that anyone would sleep in a place like that. They than started saying she was in Narra (1.5 hours away) and we decided to come back another time, we ended up seeing her later and talking to her for a bit, she did not want to talk with us that much though. As we traveled farther back into that area we came to realize that everyone would hid, and that none of their kids could lie very well. We decided to talk to someone walking down the street and ended up walking back to his home with him, through a "shortcut" up in the mountains. We taught them and gave them a baptismal commitment about 20 minutes after we met his family, they accepted, and we will see what comes of it in the coming weeks.

We also had a successful day on saturday and the Ramos family was baptized, Riza, Sherwin, Rose and Kenneth, along with three individuals Mera-mae, Nilda, and Ronie. All of them made it on time, and were confirmed yesterday at church. The Ramos family is awesome! Brother Ramos was a fisherman, he would work from Monday-Friday being out on the ocean and be home from Friday night to Monday morning and go back out to work. The basically live from hand to mouth (they have enough to buy food for maybe a few weeks with no work.) but Brother Ramos took the whole week off so he could be baptized, because of a storm the ship was delayed and he would not have made it back by Saturday. He was visited by a friend, while his co-workers had already taken off to sea, and he was offered a job on land, which will give him Sundays off, every week, and is a better job. Their family also makes it to church early and sets up the chairs, before most members arrive.

We also visited a waterfall earlier today in the Narra area, because we have a meeting here tomorrow morning, so another day of Preparation away from home, three weeks with no real time to do laundry puts hair on your chest. At least from what I understand. But my understanding is also a bit skewed more often than not.

Also, I am not sure what Alivia did to her knees, but I want to let her know that I love her and wish her a speedy recovery after her surgery. I will tawagin  ang aking kapatid na lalaki to take special care of you.  :) Devin is good at that.

I am also grateful for the responses sent in about the concern I had asked about last week. I will do what I can! I think I will be teaching a pastor this week, I do not plan on arguing with him, if he decides he wants to than I will politefully tell him to stop talking and do something effective with my time. He was one of them throwing dirt on the church before. So I am not exactly sure what to expect from our visit. But I do plan on baptizing a pastor sometime before my mission service in up. Better sooner than later.

I love you all, and am excited to hear from whoever wrote me for Christmas. We do not have snow here, although there was a hailstorm in the Philippines once.. We are still planning on having a white Christmas :) But I will let you know more about that in the coming weeks.

And, no I have not picked out any Palawan Natives to marry yet... I am helping them get married to each other. I figure though, if I can become as good as a missionary as Ammon, sooner or later I will have someone offering one of their daughters... But I will also let you know more in the coming weeks.

Love,

Elder Munk


 November 14th Letter
 Hello!

I do not really remember a lot of what happened in the last week, I am pretty tired and my brain does not seem to be running at full speed but that's alright. It is preparation day, so I get a little bit of time to not but fully with it. I think this is why we have preparation day. I think it is a little bit funny when reading through the Ten Commandments about how we are given 6 days to finish our work and we are required to give one day to the Lord. For 2 years it is the opposite, and I love it. We are going to have a successful week if everything goes well, we will have a baptism this Saturday, of a truly converted family, they are great. The day we found them we talked to a whole lot of people and got rejected flat out by everyone except them. But we could not teach because there was no other males there, so we came back and started teaching, we gave them baptismal dates right away and things have gone well since than. Yesterday they were the first people to church (And some of the only because Manny Paquio had a boxing match) and they set up all the chairs in sacrament. Usually the members should set up the chairs, but we are excited when the investigators do it.


Everything is going really well, I think I am going to end up marrying a Palawan Native.

We are working hard to find new people to teach here. We run into a similar concern with all people, that all churches are true because they all worship Jesus Christ. It seems simple to me that if every church teaches something different than they cannot all be true. That is an obvious truth that is outlined by the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and really Elder Munk's common sense. We teach many things to try and resolve this concern, which most of the time does not lead anywhere. Except in the case of a couple people who we are teaching, who seem to understand. I have developed a twitch every time I hear someone say, "isa lang ang Panginoon natin." Or we only have one Lord. Because I know it will lead directly into this same concern. If you have any insights on a way to clearly address this concern I would like to hear from you. If you have no idea, you can still email and say hi :)

Also, yes Jon Chin, I met Elder/Brother De Guzman, I actually met him at the members house who you mentioned. I do not think they are dating, because she says she is going on a mission.

I am going to be heading down to Rizal in a little bit, with Elder Gillette (my BYU mission prep classmate/MTC buddy) because I get to interview 2 candidates for baptism in Rizal. I hear it has the most beautiful sunset in the whole Philippines, but not every night, so I am hoping for good things tonight. After the 2 hour shuttle ride.

I am also learning how to cook, I am cooking things based on what they look like because I have no recipes. Everything has turned out alright. I also think it is a bit funny we have a bag of pure MSG sitting on top of the fridge... I do not use it though. But I end up eating MSG about everyday, it is in everything here.

When I said I am going to marry a native, I left out a little bit, I am going to help marry a couple, they do not have a marriage license yet. :) Do not worry Mom, I am not getting married at for at least a month after I get home.

I love you Family, I also love who ever else is reading this, and maybe even some people who are not. And I really love the Galbraiths. Give them Hugs and Kisses from me, especially Stew. :)

Byebye!

Elder Munk

 November 7th Letter 

Hello Family! And friends. :)
 
This was an interesting week, we had built up a lot of potential in
the last few weeks and were excited for everything to happen. A lot of
things fell apart in the past few days, due to people being out of
town, moving, and not coming to church.
 
We are still working hard, and doing what we can to find new
potential, and trying to do what we can to keep our current
investigators moving in the right direction. Everything will turn out
alright, we have high hopes and know a lot of good things are in
store.
 
Elder Ardern of the Seventy came to say hello, as well as teach the
missionaries on the wonderful Island of Palawan. He taught many very
good things, and told me to share an experience with my family, so I
think I will reserve it for them :) If you want to know you can ask, I
just do not want to put it up, on my ever so popular missionary blog.
He did ask for Dad's email address so you will probably hear a little
bit from him soon. Or at least once Dad returns from his trip.
 
Going to the meeting involved a three and a half hour drive, with a
three and a half hour return trip, we enjoyed the seven hours in the
shuttle. We talked with a few people, including a very outgoing 5 year
old girl named Hannah Joy. She was really funny. Hinda nga!
 
While we were riding to Tumarbong for sacrament yesterday a lady tried
to secretly take a picture of us, we caught her, and she just lifted
up her cellphone again to take a picture so we threw out some big
smiles and talked to her about the gospel, we left her with a pamphlet
and invited her to church, she read the whole pamphlet in about 10
minutes and said thanks. We tried to get her to come with us to the
Tumarbong sacrament but she was trapped between a "bag of palay and a
really fat man" as my companion explained it, the bag of palay was
there, but the man was pretty skinny, either way she was trapped, so
hopefully we will see her next week.
 
I have a new Cars notebook, I am pretty excited about it.
 
I know missionaries do not use slang, but I do not know another word
for punk, so I guess I won't say anything, but I love the Galbraiths
even if they are a slang work :) I will come visit you someday!
 
I appreciate the emails, and I am glad Devin is wearing my clothes,
the way that I would proudly wear them. Except Devin is way more
muscular than Elder Munk, this rice is slowing me down.
 
I love you Family! I am bummed Daddy is gone, and I am excited to hear
from him soon.
 
Elder Munk
 
PS the pictures may be fuzzier than real life.
 
 

October 19th, 24th, 31st Letters

October 31st letter 

Herro po!
 
I am doing super well! Due to some technicall difficulties we
currently do not have much time to email. I would like to express my
appreciation for the emails and letters I have received, especially
from Rachel! I really appreciated your uplifting email, keep working
hard in school, and eat a lot of rice, maybe you will serve a mission
in the Philippines too :)
 
I would like to address the concern brought up by those who may not
trust in my ability to cook, I have developed the ability to cook
simple dishes by applying the use of my sense of smell, taste, and
natural ability to be unorganized to be able to cook Filipino foods
without a recipe. I have successfully cooked pork adobo and anpalaya
with egg. I plan on making a few more dishes every week, but I may
need to purchase a cookbook first; in Tagalog so I can read it :)
 
I am really tired.
 
I am also having trouble putting my thoughts together.
 
A General Authority is coming to the mission, I have the opportunity
to sit on the stand with him and speak. I thought when I was told I
would speak that it would be makakanervous sa akin, but I am actually
pretty excited, that will be on Friday. He also spoke at General
Conference.
 
The work in our area is going really well, the mission has been
getting about 120 baptisms per month, sometimes higher sometimes
lower. (There are a lot of missionaries here). We have a goal of 300
in December, which is a lot, but we have been preparing to reach that
goal for months, while increasing the number of baptisms in October
and November. The zone I am in was able to baptize more that it has in
the history of forever, which was exciting, part of it was because
this zone used to be where the disobedient missionaries got sent, I
think it was supposed to be a punishment, but now we have a solid
group of missionaries here, and we have a lot of potential.
 
Tasha Alivia and my Mommy all looked very cute in their Halloween
pictures I received, and Devin looked like a man, while Trevor looked
pretty scary, I do not really know when I get home next year, but even
if it is after halloween we will still carve pumpkins :)
 
Well, anywho, I hope you all know I love you, if you do not know you
can ask and I can tell you more personally, kind of like how I often
tell Devin, sometimes it gets pretty personal. I love you Devin! :)
 
Anyways, I hope some of this made sense, bye!
 
Elder Munk
 

October 24th letter 

 "Hello!" - President Thomas S. Monson

I am having a very good 
time and we are working hard, I was outside of my area for a long time 
so we are trying to get new schedules and get reorganized so we can work
 more effectively and teach more. We are putting a strong focus on 
having our investigators share with their families and friends, so far 
it is very effective, and we are not finding a whole lot of people 
ourselves. It is a lot more difficult to find people than it is to ask 
others to find people :) It just depends if they are willing to help us 
or not, and we found a few families that are really helping. 


Elder Munk is training a new missionary named Elder Halterman, you 
can probably tell from his last name that he is not a Filipino, he is 
definitely an American. I thought I would have a difficult time with a 
missionary who was new and not fluent in Tagalog. But I was wrong, it is
 actually really good and we are having no real difficulties. I learned 
this area had Americans before, but they have not been here for a while.
 Now there are two of us. Elder Halterman is from Minnesota and is 6' 3"
 he is pretty good at the language and is a very hard worker. He wants 
to do the best he can to be a good missionary and work hard. Neither of 
us are good at cooking but I will experiment and we will eat what I 
make. :)


I have a story that I think you might not believe... I worked in 
Aborlan for a couple days, we had our Preparation day there and one full
 day of work, on Preparation day we played frisbee on the beach while 
was awesome. We started coming back to teach a family (cause we played 
in white shirts and ties.. at least we were ready to work) and we were 
stopped by a member and we went to teach his wife and pamangkins we 
played frisbee with them and taught a lesson. At the end of the lesson I
 thought to myself, "I sure love frisbee" and felt that I should give 
the three kids my frisbee. I thought for a second, there are no (not 
even one! As far as Elder Munk knows) frisbees to buy in the Philippines
 and I would not be able to play for a full year. That thought passed 
pretty quickly and I gave it to them because that is what I should do. I
 guess I have changed a little bit in the last year, last year nothing 
could pull me apart from my frisbee. I probably will not really hear 
much about that family again, because I was just visiting the area but I
 feel good.


Our branch presidency was reorganized. All of them are now active 
which is nice. The President is from Tumarbong, while the 1st councilor 
is a newly reactivated member and the best member that helps with 
missionary work. The 2nd councilor is 18 years old and will be turning 
in his papers soon to serve a mission. I did not really expect that to 
happen but we are excited to be working with them. 


The food I made is in a picture I am sending, also we had a baptism 
on Saturday and Sunday. And the other picture is the beach in Aborlan!

I
 love you family and friends! Also... I got the letter from the 
Burnhams, thank you Catherine! But Alivia.. you did not answer my 
question, :)


Love, Elder Munk

October 19th letter 

Hello! Again!
 
This last little bit has been a fairly interesting time in my mission,
we have had some good success, we were thinking we might have some
incredibly almost too good to be true success, but there has to be
something that slows you down.
 
There is a church whose name shall not be mentioned, we can use the
codename Voldemort, that has been printing off fliers that are not
exaclty what I would call favorable. They say the Mormons worship a
different Jesus, and they wrote a bunch of other things, I did get a
pretty good laugh at their spelling though (They tried to throw in
some English, they spelled words wrong in Tagalog too) I thought a
little bit about why they would do something like that. My companion
wanted to go down and talk to them, but I figured it would be best
just to keep teaching and hope none of our investigators would get
effected by the persecution coming from other churches in Quezon.
Almost all of our investigators heard about the flier or had seen one,
and all of them grew closer to the church. (Not Voldemort's church).
We even have new investigators from the church that shall not be named
who I think will be very good potential, and it will just make me feel
good if they continue to progress and get baptized. I do not
necessarily think revenge is a good thing, but I like to think of it
more as good prevailing over evil. Besides everyone here calls me
Harry Potter.
 
Elder Oliverio's flight to Manila left about 4 hours ago, I am
currently in Aborlan, I will be picking up my new companion on Friday.
In mission terms Elder Munk is currently pregnant(buntis) and about to
give birth. I will be training a new missionary for hopefully 12
weeks. I need to be here for Christmas so I can accomplish one of my
goals.
 
I have come to realize that I am improving a lot as a missionary, I
have fun everyday and have really gained a knowledge of my purpose as
a missionary and a strong conviction of how important missionary
service is. I have seen many people change and make good decisions and
come closer to Christ. I have seen others make bad decisions and move
farther away from Him. I know the joys of being apart being
nakakatulong sa mga tao, upang gawin ang tama. I have come to love the
language, the people and the food. (I just made some all on my own.) I
realize that I am about 1 year through, because Julie told me so in
her email. I know I could happily serve a 70 year mission and love
every moment. I do not want to believe that the 2nd year goes faster
than the first. Something I believe all missionaries need to know
before they leave on their missions in that missions end. You only
have 2 years to be a full time servant of Heavenly Father.
 
I love you family and/or/and + or friends,
 
Elder Munk