May 21st 2012 Letter

Hello family!

I am sorry I did not do so well at emailing like I said I would. I hope you will forgive me, but we had no time at all. We do not really have a preparation day today either, but I have a few minutes right now :) 

I am really excited! A family that Elder Querubin and I had started teaching just got baptized! And he sent me the pictures! I am super excited for the Laurel family, and another family who they are related to will be baptized soon, they have been attending church and attended their baptism as well. 

I also get to go back to Palawan on Sunday, I will not be able to go to my second ward, I am not sure what we will do about our investigators. But we will still make it to our first branch, which is the English speaking one. It is the biggest culture shock I have faced on my mission, being in an English speaking branch.. It is weird!

I have been super tired, trying to fulfill my new responsibilities, we had a few days where we went to bed at 12 midnight and woke up at 3, just so we could get all the things done that we needed to. We were given permission to be up as late as needed, so we were not being disobedient :) 

Elder Baltazar and I have the least amount of time to spend in our area, compared to the other missionaries, with all of the different things that we have to do. At the same time we are expected to be the highest baptizing area, and to bring in the most less actives back to church. When I got here we had 0 investigators with baptismal dates, and 0 investigators that were progressing. Because no work had been done in the area for the past three weeks. We decided to be confident and put forth our best effort. We have only had 4 days of work in the past couple of weeks, because of transfer meeting, and taking care of the going home missionaries. The Lord has really blessed us, in those four days,  I have one experience I would like to share out of many that have happened to outline a little bit of what happened in those four days. Elder Baltazar and I just got out of a lesson and we saw our car sitting there, (I have a Philippines license now!) and we decided we should walk instead of drive, so we could meet some people along the way. We turned around the corner and kept walking. We heard some swift footsteps coming after us, and this young man was running, and he was sweating, and breathing pretty hard. He asked us "Are you Elders!?" we replied that we were, and he said in these words "Member po ang Nanay ko! Pumunta kayo sa amin, binyagan nyo ako!" If you cannot understand that then you are not as excited as we were when he said it! In English he said "My mom is a member, coming to our house, I want you to baptize me!" We taught them, and gave them a goal baptismal date, as well as their neighbor who sat in on the lesson, and they came to church! They were there before we were!

That was the most unusual and unexpected experience, but there were many others. I had never experienced anything like this before, it was crazy!

Anyways, I really love you family, and I hope you are not upset with me, or frustrated with me for being bad about calling and emailing..

Also thank you to Doug and Denene for their willingness to help out right on the spot! I love you both so much!

Love,

Elder Munk

These are the grand pictures of Elder Munk and Elder Ward  As  you can tell my biceps are shrinking.

That is the temple! It has been recently remodeled and is looking very good.

That is my district getting fed by the district president, his wife is a great cook!

That is Benjie on the left, he is a very guapo kid!

April 30th 2012

Hello Family,

This last week has gone very well, we are starting to get the work in our area up, and things are starting to look for the better.

We have had a lot of exciting experiences, most of which were unexpected and may open up some very big doors for us in the next little bit.

I love my companion, Elder Ward, and we are working well together, we get along perfectly, and even though we do not agree exactly on everything we can quickly make compromises that work out with absolutely no arguing. I hope I get to be with him for another transfer after this one, besides the fact that I love him I also would like having a companion who knows the area well, because it is huge, and I am a slow learner.. :)

There was a baptism on Saturday of Benji Mamposti, he is 9 years old. His family is now complete in the church and they are starting to prepare to go to the temple. He is super cool, and I should be able to get you a picture of him. We went over there to teach him a couple days before his baptism and his next door neighbor had a stroke, it was amazing how fast their family responded and helped this lady. They got her to the hospital and took good care of her until her family got there.

While we were sitting in church yesterday listening to the speakers someone we had not seen before walked in, and a member introduced her to us, she had been standing out front and looked a little confused. She is from Batangas and just recently moved to Binan. She told us she was a member and had not been to church for a while, we got her address and name. We later learned that she was not a member, she was baptized in a Born Again church and say the sign "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" and said she felt good and wanted to go to church. She lives with a group of people called the... I forgot what the are called, but they do not speak very much Tagalog, or English. The live along the railroad tracks in a giant open air house, with tons and tons of people. None of them have jobs, they all beg for money, even the kids who are not old enough to speak will put their hand out and give you puppy dog eyes. She is very receptive, and that is what I meant by big doors, we can really help these people to make big changes in their lives, and Eunice might be the one to help us gain their trust :)

This is the most exciting thing: So far in my mission I have been able to listen to Elder Russell M. Nelson 3 times in person. All three of those time were in the Missionary Training Center, he is coming to my mission on May 22nd! To have a special zone conference. This will be the fourth time hearing him speak in person, I am super excited. We will get to shake his hand and hopefully have some question and answer time with him. I am super excited!

I really appreciate all of the birthday cards I was able to get, the Crandall family looks good as always, especially Brian, have you been working out? I enjoyed reading all of those letters and I am excited to one night visit Callens again, around 11:30pm. :)

I also really appreciate hearing from Kaity, if I could give you advice for choosing a major I would probably say, "You should be a Mormon missionary, it is way more fun!" Or I would say, just pick what you really enjoy doing :)

I am really happy today!

Just so you know.

And I love my little Sister!


See you later!

Love,


Elder Munk 

April 23 Letter 

Hello po!
 
This last week has been a very grand one, we have had lots of good fun
experiences, and been blessed a lot in being able to teach many
people. Especially a lot of new people.
 
I have made a small goal to be friendly with everyone, and say hi to
everyone we walk by, and of course give them a big Elder Munk smile.
My goal is to do everything in my power to make the smile back, some
people are resistant, but I can usually get everyone. One of the
people I said hi to the other day was touched by my friendliness. A
few days later she approached us and started talking to us. She has no
problem with listening to missionaries, but is not really interested
in acting upon what we teach, but that is okay. She referred us to her
son who enjoys learning about other churches. The first time we met
him we taught about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
after his mom had given him a pamphlet that we gave to her. During the
lesson I quoted Joseph Smith's first vision, and Brother Manibo
started saying part of it along with me, which is a pretty good sign
that he read. He also excepted a baptismal date for May 19th. We will
be going back to him soon.
 
I just got a new haircut, I do not want to sound prideful, but I look
pretty guapo.
 
I also met Elder Pena, who was born in my branch here in Binan, he
moved to California at age fourteen and served his mission in New
Jersey, he went on exchanges with Elder Tryon. But he was in the
English speaking part of the mission.
 
Elder Ward and I also are celebrating our birthdays today, we were MTC
companions and now we are together again, on both of our birthdays! I
am April 11 (if you forgot) and Elder Ward is May 2nd.
 
I would also like to wish Neil Hanson a happy birthday, I would like
everyone to give him a big hug, a big kiss, and a medium sized sweater
vest.
 
I cannot believe Rachel is married, I have decided that I will need to
go on a double date with her and her new husband, and hopefully some
other girl, if I can get anyone to go with me. As to make up for the
loss of a real date.
 
Elder Ward and I also have set goals to help reactivate at least 3
people per month, and to baptize every week from April 28th till at
least the end of May. We had everything lined up well for April 28th
till May 19th, but our May 5 dropped out on us till June, so we are
going to fail our goal. But to make ourselves feel better about it we
are going to get some ice cream.
 
Our new house is still super nice! I really like it, and it is not
very expensive. I will the U.S. had the same housing costs. There you
get 1/3 the house for 3 times the price...
 
Anyways, I feel like I am just going off about nothing, I want
everyone to know that I love you all, and I would like to issue a
challenge to you, well it is more of an idea that you should take as a
challenge. With how big our family is I think referring friends to
missionaries is not really all that hard, we have lots of friends :)
Along with that try to get to know some less active members and just
befriend them, help them come back to church :) Honestly I feel
equally as good about doing that, as when someone is baptized into the
church. Start out with one person and help them come back :)
 
I love you family and friends,
 
Elder Munk