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
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