Tuesday, December 27, 2011

12-28-11

Hey everyone!

Real quick for those who are reading this who I didn't have the opportunity to skype with on Christmas...  I've been transferred from Pilar, Bohol to The Celestial Kingdom, Cebu (otherwise known as Polambato).  It is absolutely fantastic up here.  The members are amazing as are the investigators.  The Branch is small but has ton of potential.  We have senior missionaries in our district who feed us American food on special occasions and even got us some Christmas gifts!  It's only been a week but Polambato is amazing, and by far my favorite area so far.

Now for the family, it was awesome to see and speak with you!  It sounded like you all had an awesome Christmas.  Mom told me about all the shopping down there, and that sounded great for you guys too.  Even here in the Philippines, when I grocery shop, I get slammed with an unnatural tiredness.  Shopping absolutely kills me.  I don't know why.  I'm more wiped out after 30 minutes of shopping that after 2 hours of basketball.  One funny thing that happened a little bit ago, we were grocery shopping in the mall and we heard the weirdest noise coming from the radio.  Filipinos love their mix music.  They'll mix to songs together to make a remix and I still have yet to hear one that actually sounds ok.  This particular noise we heard from the radio was one of their mixes.  It was Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer mix with Leaving on a Jet Plane.  So weird.  I don't even see how they fit, but whatever.

I'm still package-less, but it's alright.  I'm going to be the happiest missionary when I get them mid February.

Thanks for all your love and support!
Elder Garver

P.S. Just in case Chris forgot, make sure the Parkers now how thankful I am for my scriptures!

Friday, December 23, 2011

12-20-11

Hey sorry Mom!  P-day got switched to Tuesday this week because of conflicts with travel for the returning missionaries and whatnot. So It's a bummer that I'm not going to get to read your letter this week, but I get to see you soon (skype) so don't worry. So to answer a few of Dad's questions, I really wish I was fluent and firing on all cylinders... I'm sorry Dad, but you had it super easy. Just going to throw some stats out here for you. There is a rating system for languages, which official name I forgot, but Spanish is a 2/5 on the difficulty scale, and English and Cebuano are both 4/5. Talking with missionaries here, I've learned that you never become actually "fluent" on the mission here, you just learn as best as you can, and that the average missionary starts clicking a bit more with the language around 6 months in the field. Now, all that said, I am not just blundering around here in the Philippines. I am able to have conversations and teach lessons pretty well, or at least well enough. There is still a lot I don't understand, and my speech can be slow at times, or a lot of times, but it is coming along. The other thing too is that, because it is an unwritten language, every island has it's own dialect and way of saying things. I've heard that I was born (my first area) in the hardest island so hopefully my next area will become easier for me because of my challenging first area.

Speaking of areas... Transfer day is tomorrow, and I am transferring! I'm out of my first area! I'm not a greenie anymore! My new area is Polambato, Cebu. So I'm going to the big island for a while. I am sad to be leaving Pilar, but very excited for the potential success in my new area. I've heard that the branch there consists of about 15 or 20 members that are active, but over 800 that are inactive. Lots of lost sheep that are just waiting to be brought back. I'm so excited to just work my butt off every day. I love work! I will definitely not miss all the down time in Pilar with all our travel. My new area is pretty bukid as well, but that means that it will be clean and beautiful, hopefully. Speaking of that, Papa, I think about you all the time when I see the sunsets here. They are beautiful, and I haven't forgotten what you told me. I am not taking them for granted.

I still haven't gotten any packages, but now I'm going to Cebu, I might get them a bit faster. We'll see. Thank you for the gift money, Nuna and Papa! I have no idea what awaits me in Cebu, but maybe I'll buy some new belts or some knives or something. There is so many amazingly crazy awesome stuff out here. I'll let you know when I find something to get.

So it was a good week, and I'm pumped for Polambato.

I love you!
Elder Garver

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

12-14-11

Hey Americans!

It's good to hear from you! I love email. It is such a great blessing to be able to instantly communicate across the world. I am also very excited for skyping the family on Christmas.  Transfer day is actually on the 23rd here so I may be getting transferred and things might change a bit. I will try super hard to let you know if it does, but I think everything will work out well. President really wants us to talk to our families so if things change I will probably be able to send a quick email to let you know of changes. At any rate, maybe it is best that you log on a bit early to wait just in case.

So things are going pretty well here. No real huge news or updates but it's all pretty good. This week was actually really tough for work. And laundry. It is now officially rainy season here and I saw the sun maybe 1 or 2 times total last week. It poured almost every day, which makes work near-impossible here since Filipinos have a very firm belief that if they get wet in the rain during the day they will get extremely sick with fevers. So all the people hide, and all the Filipino companions refuse to leave shelter until it dies down. It's interesting to see the stark differences in beliefs just about medical health and the world. My last companion truly believed that mermaids were real, and I had a couple members laugh at me a while ago because I didn't know that dinosaurs (T-Rex, Triceratops, etc) still lived in Alaska. "Elder that's your own country and you didn't even know that? How silly of you!" They aren't joking either. I don't know what is taught in the schools here in the mountainous wilderness of Bohol, but, yeah. We still worked hard and got a lot of good lessons in this week.

Bikes are still being purchased and we should get them this month.

Before I make an end of speaking, I would that ye should know somewhat more concerning my appreciation for mail. I want to specifically thank Emily and Shaelyn for their letters, as well as Nuna and Papa (with Brandon as scribe) and Grandma Hansen. I love reading your updates and I especially like to see how those I care about are progressing spiritually as well. It probably has to do with my calling as a representative of Jesus Christ, but when I read my friends testimonies and stories of their spiritual experiences, I am filled with joy and thanksgiving. I am sorry I can't write back to you all specifically right now, but know that every letter is received with a huge smile and and am grateful for them all.

I love you all!
Elder Garver

12-7-11

Hello!

It's me. That stinks about the mold problem. I hope it doesn't cost too much to remove. Is drywall really that expensive? I'm super happy to hear that you guys are all moved into the house now! Maybe not unpacked, but at least living in the new home. Can you send me the new address and phone number when you get it so I can relay it to my Mission President? Speaking of houses, if it turns out it's just super expensive to remove that mold, you can always just move out here. A really nice house out here, the same size as our house in VA would cost you about P700,000 to get custom built here (less than $17,000) and the bill for AC each month would only be around P2,000 (less than $50), so yeah, it's always a possibility.

This week has been super interesting, and I felt like I worked super hard with a lot of success, so it was definitely good! This new focus of ours is helping already. We spent the week finding and getting to know these inactive members all over our area, which meant lots of walking, but there was always a happy face at the end of our hikes to greet us. The members here are all so willing to welcome us in and talk about their lives, and what is holding them back from coming to church. I found it really uplifting this week to hear the testimonies of these inactive members. When we began to talk about the church, every single one of them told us they still knew it was true, and spoke of how much they missed the peace and happiness that flows from it. We had many people tell us right away that they would come back, some who had a few problems they needed help with to work out, and only 2 who said they couldn't come back due to problems in their lives right now. So in just one week's time, we made a lot of really amazing progress. To illustrate, we have consistently been seeing about 20-30 people come to church each week for sacrament meeting. After this week's work, nearly 50 people were at church! This number will hopefully just continue to grow as we start giving out callings and working more with ward members. We will also be able to reach even more people, currently inaccessible, once we get our bikes. Hopefully this next week or two. So the work here is super exciting right now.

In other news, Christmas is now in full full full swing, and I still have the Christmas Spirit, even though celebrations started in Sept. and I hear, don't end until Feb. One thing I'm missing actually is Christmas music. We hear it on radios in houses, but all we listen to in the apartment are hymns and EFY music. I think I'm going to buy a Christmas CD today if I can find one.

Well that's it for me this week! I love you!
Elder Garver

Monday, December 5, 2011

11-30-11 Pictures

 Me fighting a goat for territory!
Our Thanksgiving feast...no rice!!

11-30-11

Hi Everyone!

I did get to have my Thanksgiving feast here.  It was way good.  We ended up having mashed potatoes and bratwurst!  It was soooo good to have a meal with no rice!  Your Thanksgiving sound different but really good too.  I would kill for a steak right now!  How did you guys like the liver?  I can't stand it.  There is a Sudan here (what you put on rice) that is chicken liver and hearts.  Every time I have to eat it I fight severe gag reflexes.  That has been the only thing here so far that I have eaten that I literally cannot keep down.  Everything else is pretty good.  I guess intestine isn't that great either, it just depends on how they flavor the poop inside.

So now the Big news!  We had zone conference on Monday, and WOW.  We sat down and first thing we heard was "Hey Elders and Sisters, the zone conference is going to be a little longer than usual today.  We are going to end at 4:00pm"  That's 8 hours long!  We soon found out why though.  President just got back from a Mission President seminar with the Area 70s, and the Quorum of the 12 have made some huge changes to the Philippines missions.  First, President gave us some stats.
-There are 645,000 members of the Church in the Philippines
-Only 114,000 are active (attend at least 1 sacrament meeting every month)
-There were 77,000 convert baptisms performed from 2004-2010
-Only 14,000 are currently active of the 77,000
-Out of all members in the Philippines, only 22,000 are Melchizedek Priesthood holders (abt. 3%), of which about half are inactive.
So these are some pretty disappointing stats.  He then shared with us Jacob 5:47-48 about the allegory of the olive tree who's branches grow too fast and heavy for the roots to sustain.  This made a lot of sense to us, and then he told us what we are going to do to fix it.  First, starting last Monday, NO MORE TRACTING.  None.  We are now almost entirely focusing on building up and strengthening the Church that has already been established here.  We are now focusing on reactivation and retention, and our main goal is not baptism, but temple sealing.  Our baptisms will now come from part member families, or loved ones of less or non-active members that we meet while fellowshipping and rescuing.  We are now working very closely with the Branch Presidents and Bishops to organize accurate membership records, organize them geographically, and then go rescue and help all these lost sheep return to the Church and get to the Temples to be sealed as eternal families.
President shared a couple quotes with us from the General Authorities at the conference.
President Neilson- "If all we do next year is properly teach and strengthen recent converts and inactive members of the church and get them to the temple without a single new convert baptism, the Prophet will be happy.
President Ardern- "As we reach out to reclaim inactive members we will bring back thousands, and we will bring in thousands.
So this is a crazy new approach to missionary work as I know it, but the Spirit was so strong at our Zone Conference, and I know this is inspired, and it is what the Philippines needs to establish a strong foundation that can support the rapidly growing church here.  So that is all very exciting for us here, and we are anxious to see the blessings start flowing into the lives of the people here through the Church

So that's the big news from the Philippines this week!  Keep up all the hard work back home!  I love you!

Elder Garver

p.s. I included a picture of us at our Thanksgiving feast, and me fighting a goat for territory in Pilar.  Love you!