Hello Family!
I didn't mean to scare you off that time that I said not to email me
so much. I just got a lot of longgg emails that time not giving much
time for a reply. Diane and Katie, I would still like to hear from
you too.
Carmon is a small town. It has one main street. It is full of buses
going from Cebu to the Northern part of the island and back. All of
the stores and everything are within about 2 blocks. But it has a gas
station! I haven't found a place to buy meat here yet. I have to go
to Danao, about 20 min, to get anything but fruits and vegetables to
eat. We have district meeting there on monday. I bought some meat
there last week and it had gone bad by the time we got home. But
vegetables are cheap here! I got two bags full for about a dollar!
Fruit is much more expensive though. I wish they had more variety. I
eat a lot of mangos and bananas. They have good grapes here though.
We now have 5 people in this area with baptismal dates! one of them
isn't that dedicated, and some of the others, unless they really
become converted, I don't see them staying active. They live with a
bunch of inactive members and this branch of 40 or so people isn't
exciting enough to go for the social life. We will keep working on
them. Well I am sure glad we have a washing machine back home. It is
so time consuming washing your own clothes. I literally don't have
enough time to eat and clean and do laundry and study and sleep for
the full time. Yesterday I got up half an hour early and went to bed
half an hour late and almost missed an hour of study time. I just
wish I could work and study and not have to worry about the little
tedious things.
I spent all of my pday cleaning the apartment. It was a mess when I
got there. But it is clean now! the fridge still stinks though. I
cleaned the entire thing with bleach this morning and as soon as I
plugged it back in the stink came back. any ideas?
I am right on the ocean here. It is beautiful at night! The other
day the moon was full, the sky was clear, and it reflected of the
water so beautifully! There aren't any nice beaches though. they are
all cliffs or rocky.
We haven't gotten a fan yet. hopefully in about 20 min. Ill unload
my 1200 pesos on it and hope the Zone Leaders pay me back tomorrow at
zone conference. that will be exciting! For conference we have to
drive an hour I think to the chapel somewhere else. Probably the
stake center. thanks for doing the debit card for me. Master Card
doesnt work very many places here. Ill find out today if it works in
danao. If not I may be asking for a Visa.
Thanks for all your prayers for me! I feel so blessed here. I wish I
could study all day long. the scriptures have so much doctrine in
them! I have grown so much in the last 3 weeks! I love being a
missionary. Things I have never thought about are making so much
sense to me now. It is hard sometimes, but it is so worth it.
Everything will be for our profit and learning right? It is hard now,
but I am learning so much. I will be so much prepared for life after
my mission than I ever could have been. The Gospel is such a
blessing to us. Knowledge has become so important to me. I love
learning! I bought an english dictionary so I could better understand
the scriptures. I am learning so much! Eric, you will never know how
much of a blessing a mission will be for you until you look back on
what you have learned. Dont miss it for anything. Learn to love the
trials. It is the Lords way for preparing you to serve Him better. I
heard so much that people said they thought they had a testimony
before their missions and realized how small it was once they got in
the mission field. The same is happening to me. I knew it was true,
but there was so much I didnt know. there was so much I didnt do. It
is amazing how much we can learn from the Lord and from the
scriptures.
I love you and hope you are all doing well!
Elder Schenk
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
September 21, 2010
September 21, 2010
Mom,
I am doing great. I have lots of news too!
I transferred last week. I am now in Carmen, about an hour and a half north right on the coast. The two cities directly to the north and south of it are in my area too. I got your dear elder. There were 11 areas in my zone, only one in my ward. My new companion is Elder Agbayani. He is a Filipino. We eat out a lot at the little places on the side of the road. I plan to get a whole lot of food soon so I can put a few more inches back on. This last week has left my already too big pants dangling. I went to McDonalds today to make up for it. It costs about the price of 3 other meals, but still cheaper than the US. I am in a small branch now. My area has been struggling. It just needs a little tlc. Faith and obedience brings blessings from the Lord. Carmon hasn't had a convert baptism since February, but the President promised that if we keep the mission standards we will have an average of 3 per month. Why deny the blessings. So to start off with a bang, the day after I got there we committed someone to baptism on Oct 9. Two days later we committed two more for the 26th. So I think things will start looking up here. I am in Cebu again today. Because of where I transferred I got to go to the temple two weeks in a row. Today was one of them. We also need to get a new fan for the apartment. We are down to just one, and that isn’t going to do. It'll take a few weeks, but soon the apartment will be clean and looking nice. I get to wash my clothes by hand now! Yippie! Now I will have absolutely no free time, not that I had any before. I am excited for this Saturday though! I get to come back to Cebu again and baptize Ritchie! I am so excited! Irene is being baptized as well.
I sent you an envelope with some pictures in it. Hopefully you get it in about a week. That is a different waterfall. Yours looks better, but mine is taller. I don’t know where I am going to do email anymore. It costs 10-15 pesos an hour. You can probably print off the emails, but I never had. Just more money. We do have an oven! Just right for two slices of bread. About half the size of the toaster oven I brought to college. None of the apartments have an oven but the first one I lived in for a week next to the AP's. That one had hot water too. That’s living the life! We have zone conference next week so I get to meet with the president then. We have one once every two transfers. The Church came out with more preach my gospel material for missionaries. We are being much more efficient now. We commit to baptism in almost every lesson. It is super helpful in finding people who the Lord has already prepared, and not just people willing to listen. We were doing that in Cebu and every one of our progressing investigators was willing to be baptized if it was true. Amazing! Missionary work has come so far! I teach a lot of the first lesson now. I don’t do a whole lot of the others, but I still try. There is still a lot of vocab I don’t know. It’s hard to teach because when I ask questions usually I miss the main point of the answer. That makes it hard to fit the lesson to the investigator. But for the time being, that is what my companion is for. And no, no machetes yet. I’ll try to keep it that way.
Tell everyone I love them. Thank them for their prayers. I can really feel the Lord blessing me in my work. Tell Katie I am excited to be an uncle. Tell Diane the same. :)
Sure love you!
Elder Schenk
Mom,
I am doing great. I have lots of news too!
I transferred last week. I am now in Carmen, about an hour and a half north right on the coast. The two cities directly to the north and south of it are in my area too. I got your dear elder. There were 11 areas in my zone, only one in my ward. My new companion is Elder Agbayani. He is a Filipino. We eat out a lot at the little places on the side of the road. I plan to get a whole lot of food soon so I can put a few more inches back on. This last week has left my already too big pants dangling. I went to McDonalds today to make up for it. It costs about the price of 3 other meals, but still cheaper than the US. I am in a small branch now. My area has been struggling. It just needs a little tlc. Faith and obedience brings blessings from the Lord. Carmon hasn't had a convert baptism since February, but the President promised that if we keep the mission standards we will have an average of 3 per month. Why deny the blessings. So to start off with a bang, the day after I got there we committed someone to baptism on Oct 9. Two days later we committed two more for the 26th. So I think things will start looking up here. I am in Cebu again today. Because of where I transferred I got to go to the temple two weeks in a row. Today was one of them. We also need to get a new fan for the apartment. We are down to just one, and that isn’t going to do. It'll take a few weeks, but soon the apartment will be clean and looking nice. I get to wash my clothes by hand now! Yippie! Now I will have absolutely no free time, not that I had any before. I am excited for this Saturday though! I get to come back to Cebu again and baptize Ritchie! I am so excited! Irene is being baptized as well.
I sent you an envelope with some pictures in it. Hopefully you get it in about a week. That is a different waterfall. Yours looks better, but mine is taller. I don’t know where I am going to do email anymore. It costs 10-15 pesos an hour. You can probably print off the emails, but I never had. Just more money. We do have an oven! Just right for two slices of bread. About half the size of the toaster oven I brought to college. None of the apartments have an oven but the first one I lived in for a week next to the AP's. That one had hot water too. That’s living the life! We have zone conference next week so I get to meet with the president then. We have one once every two transfers. The Church came out with more preach my gospel material for missionaries. We are being much more efficient now. We commit to baptism in almost every lesson. It is super helpful in finding people who the Lord has already prepared, and not just people willing to listen. We were doing that in Cebu and every one of our progressing investigators was willing to be baptized if it was true. Amazing! Missionary work has come so far! I teach a lot of the first lesson now. I don’t do a whole lot of the others, but I still try. There is still a lot of vocab I don’t know. It’s hard to teach because when I ask questions usually I miss the main point of the answer. That makes it hard to fit the lesson to the investigator. But for the time being, that is what my companion is for. And no, no machetes yet. I’ll try to keep it that way.
Tell everyone I love them. Thank them for their prayers. I can really feel the Lord blessing me in my work. Tell Katie I am excited to be an uncle. Tell Diane the same. :)
Sure love you!
Elder Schenk
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
September 14, 2010
Dad,
Thank you for your prayers for me and for my investigators. I can feel the Lords help and guidance. The weather here is awesome... if you were on vacation. But it is a little hot for a collared shirt and tie with black pants. It rains every few days. Sometimes it rains really hard, like yesterday. It goes from sunny to sprinkling to huge drops dumping down like nothing in Washington. Within a half hour or so it stops, but that is enough to cause the back roads to flood. The road we live on is at the bottom of a little valley and everyone’s garbage goes floating by in the river.
I am healthy. I sleep well at night. No problems there. I am so tired that falling asleep is no problem. We just moved yesterday again. We moved next door to a smaller place owned by the same person. We have an AC now, so I sleep really well now. It was super dirty though. We spent all Monday cleaning. We washed all of the walls and floors. It’s all tile and concrete so you can just hose the whole thing down, but we don’t have a hose. So lots of buckets and sponges. It is nice now.
For pday we go hiking in the bukid. It is so beautiful! We took our district up to the waterfall we hiked last week and then walked all the way down the the river to town. It took around 4 hours. This week we are going to the temple! Only once a month. I love living next to it so much. We have lots of cool stuff in our area.
Investigators.
Ritchie, Irene, Archie all have baptismal dates.
The Luza family is super golden. They are a definite possibility for baptism. They are praying hard for the answer. Erwin is the uncle of one of the members we work with. He has some complications with his wife about joining. Hopefully she will let him. He is a possibility.
Others:
Dino Barsal
Jerico
Kelly and Esmey
Joan Chan
Abbeth
Rangie
I love you! Take care,
Elder Schenk
Mom
I don’t have any time to respond. We have to get to the temple. I love you though. I emailed dad for everyone. Thanks so much for your prayers. I feel so blessed! We have so many good investigators!
Love you so much! Thanks for making me who I am. It is so nice to have been raised the way I was.
Love,
Elder Schenk
Tell Eric I said hi and give Andre a high five. I love you too Eric!
Thank you for your prayers for me and for my investigators. I can feel the Lords help and guidance. The weather here is awesome... if you were on vacation. But it is a little hot for a collared shirt and tie with black pants. It rains every few days. Sometimes it rains really hard, like yesterday. It goes from sunny to sprinkling to huge drops dumping down like nothing in Washington. Within a half hour or so it stops, but that is enough to cause the back roads to flood. The road we live on is at the bottom of a little valley and everyone’s garbage goes floating by in the river.
I am healthy. I sleep well at night. No problems there. I am so tired that falling asleep is no problem. We just moved yesterday again. We moved next door to a smaller place owned by the same person. We have an AC now, so I sleep really well now. It was super dirty though. We spent all Monday cleaning. We washed all of the walls and floors. It’s all tile and concrete so you can just hose the whole thing down, but we don’t have a hose. So lots of buckets and sponges. It is nice now.
For pday we go hiking in the bukid. It is so beautiful! We took our district up to the waterfall we hiked last week and then walked all the way down the the river to town. It took around 4 hours. This week we are going to the temple! Only once a month. I love living next to it so much. We have lots of cool stuff in our area.
Investigators.
Ritchie, Irene, Archie all have baptismal dates.
The Luza family is super golden. They are a definite possibility for baptism. They are praying hard for the answer. Erwin is the uncle of one of the members we work with. He has some complications with his wife about joining. Hopefully she will let him. He is a possibility.
Others:
Dino Barsal
Jerico
Kelly and Esmey
Joan Chan
Abbeth
Rangie
I love you! Take care,
Elder Schenk
Mom
I don’t have any time to respond. We have to get to the temple. I love you though. I emailed dad for everyone. Thanks so much for your prayers. I feel so blessed! We have so many good investigators!
Love you so much! Thanks for making me who I am. It is so nice to have been raised the way I was.
Love,
Elder Schenk
Tell Eric I said hi and give Andre a high five. I love you too Eric!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
One Month in Cebu!
Family,
Thanks for the dear elders. I did get them. Mom, you almost didn’t email me in time. When I was reading dads yours showed up. Thanks for the pictures. They work out great this way. That is exciting that Eric is on varsity tennis! My bigger than me little brother is a stud! And varsity soccer! Elder Clark is super good at soccer. He was planning on playing after high school but got taken out pretty bad in one of his last games and hasn’t been able to play since. I guess his ankle got messed up bad.
In the Cebu City zone we have 11 different areas. We only have one ward. Cebu city has so many people. They cram so many people into a small house, like the size of our dining room. On the other side of the wall is the neighbor’s living room. They are packed in so tight. It gets really dirty. But out in the bukid it is a lot better. They often times have nicer, larger houses with a yard. But they build everything on the steep hillsides. It’s crazy. I’ll send you a picture some time. I’ll try to get them developed today. Yes there is air conditioning in the chapel. They call it air con. It gets freezing during sacrament meeting! Back home when I would hear that it was going to be 20 degrees Celsius on the Canadian station I was excited it would be a nice day. Now 20 degrees is freezing! I have a hard time. I feel bad for the Filipinos. Often times they speak English, Cebuano, and Tagalog at church. They are supposed to speak all in English, but it doesn’t always work out that way. They speak English really well in the city. Not so well out of the City. We are teaching one investigator in English, he is originally tagalog, and Elder Clark talks to him in Cebuano. It is interesting. Here in the city they mix all three languages in common talking. I don’t notice so much. I just keep smiling, praying that someday I will understand. It is getting a lot easier. I am finding that some things I can say without thinking about them. It just feels natural. Other times I say things all wrong. Oh well. It is fun. We have a gospel principles class that usually has 8 to 10 people. Two are recently baptized. And usually someone will show up that we don’t know. That is always nice.
The work is picking up. President promised us that if we get our key indicators that the mission has set, we will average 3 baptisms a month. We are working hard and have a lot of prime investigators,
Ritchie and Irene both are being baptized on the 25. We got permission from her father last Saturday. That is a cool story. Apparently he is crazy and a drunkard and chases people out with machetes, but he ended up being really receptive after we talked to him. We are going to go back and talk to him and hopefully teach him how to read and write. He lives in one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is down from the waterfall about 1.5 miles. It’s a good hike. It took us 1.5 hours to get there the first time because we took the long trail around. We took the district back there today for p-day because it is so beautiful. I love it!
We have 2 sisters who are committed to baptism, but they still need their father’s permission. Their mother referred them, and she is inactive, and now they are more active than she is. Doesn’t really make sense to me. But I think they will be baptized. Their names are Kelly and Esmey.
We also have another couple who are very receptive and are willing to be 100% if they find out it is true. Melinda and Luey Uzah. They would do so well with the gospel.
We also have one more who says he will be baptized if he finds out the book of Mormon is true. He is all about the bible though and doesn’t think we need anything more. We will see. Brother Jerico.
Also Archie, Maria, and Erwin have a good chance at being baptized. They all are possible investigators, just hard to catch up with. It is hard when their phones don’t work and they don’t have answering machines.
Did you get the TV from Wal-Mart? If so I know the exact one it is. It will look nicer with HD cables, but we don’t have anything that is HD, so don’t worry about it.
I love you all, Take care!
Love,
Elder Schenk
Thanks for the dear elders. I did get them. Mom, you almost didn’t email me in time. When I was reading dads yours showed up. Thanks for the pictures. They work out great this way. That is exciting that Eric is on varsity tennis! My bigger than me little brother is a stud! And varsity soccer! Elder Clark is super good at soccer. He was planning on playing after high school but got taken out pretty bad in one of his last games and hasn’t been able to play since. I guess his ankle got messed up bad.
In the Cebu City zone we have 11 different areas. We only have one ward. Cebu city has so many people. They cram so many people into a small house, like the size of our dining room. On the other side of the wall is the neighbor’s living room. They are packed in so tight. It gets really dirty. But out in the bukid it is a lot better. They often times have nicer, larger houses with a yard. But they build everything on the steep hillsides. It’s crazy. I’ll send you a picture some time. I’ll try to get them developed today. Yes there is air conditioning in the chapel. They call it air con. It gets freezing during sacrament meeting! Back home when I would hear that it was going to be 20 degrees Celsius on the Canadian station I was excited it would be a nice day. Now 20 degrees is freezing! I have a hard time. I feel bad for the Filipinos. Often times they speak English, Cebuano, and Tagalog at church. They are supposed to speak all in English, but it doesn’t always work out that way. They speak English really well in the city. Not so well out of the City. We are teaching one investigator in English, he is originally tagalog, and Elder Clark talks to him in Cebuano. It is interesting. Here in the city they mix all three languages in common talking. I don’t notice so much. I just keep smiling, praying that someday I will understand. It is getting a lot easier. I am finding that some things I can say without thinking about them. It just feels natural. Other times I say things all wrong. Oh well. It is fun. We have a gospel principles class that usually has 8 to 10 people. Two are recently baptized. And usually someone will show up that we don’t know. That is always nice.
The work is picking up. President promised us that if we get our key indicators that the mission has set, we will average 3 baptisms a month. We are working hard and have a lot of prime investigators,
Ritchie and Irene both are being baptized on the 25. We got permission from her father last Saturday. That is a cool story. Apparently he is crazy and a drunkard and chases people out with machetes, but he ended up being really receptive after we talked to him. We are going to go back and talk to him and hopefully teach him how to read and write. He lives in one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is down from the waterfall about 1.5 miles. It’s a good hike. It took us 1.5 hours to get there the first time because we took the long trail around. We took the district back there today for p-day because it is so beautiful. I love it!
We have 2 sisters who are committed to baptism, but they still need their father’s permission. Their mother referred them, and she is inactive, and now they are more active than she is. Doesn’t really make sense to me. But I think they will be baptized. Their names are Kelly and Esmey.
We also have another couple who are very receptive and are willing to be 100% if they find out it is true. Melinda and Luey Uzah. They would do so well with the gospel.
We also have one more who says he will be baptized if he finds out the book of Mormon is true. He is all about the bible though and doesn’t think we need anything more. We will see. Brother Jerico.
Also Archie, Maria, and Erwin have a good chance at being baptized. They all are possible investigators, just hard to catch up with. It is hard when their phones don’t work and they don’t have answering machines.
Did you get the TV from Wal-Mart? If so I know the exact one it is. It will look nicer with HD cables, but we don’t have anything that is HD, so don’t worry about it.
I love you all, Take care!
Love,
Elder Schenk
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Hello!
September 1, 2010
Dear Family
That was a short one! But thats ok. Sorry I havent sent any pictures yet, I dont want to send them by email because I might get a virus on my sd card. Elder Clark has gotten 2. Ill mail them when I get them developed. You can still dear elder me. but it is mailed from salt lake, and probably doesnt get here any faster.
So good news! I got my first sunburn today! we went on a hike to a waterfall up in busay. It is small, but the area is so beautiful. It is all hills covered in trees and plants, and off in the distance between hills you can see Cebu. So beautiful! And I get to see it every day! I love it here.
We have one investigator with a baptisimal date, Richie. He is 13 and lives with his uncle who is in the bishopric. Irene is 16. She really wants to be baptized but her father hasnt allowed her yet. She ran away from home because her father is crazy. He lives 2 hours down the trail from where she lives in the mountains. hopefully we will here back soon. Our other investigators are Eric, Archie, Erwin, Chilito, and Kelly and Esmay, sisters. We have more that we are working on, but those are the progressing investigators.
You should send me pictures in your emails! I love you all! take care! The Lord is watching over me here.
Love you all!
Elder Schenk
Hello!
I tried a new fruit the other day. It is a little red ball that has long tenticle things coming off it. you pull really hard and the skin splits open exposing a clearish white fruit with a seed that look like an almond, but definitely doesnt taste like one. It is good! we bought squid today. that will be fun to eat. I ate dugot dugot at a members house last week. Dugot means blood. They boil pig blood till it gets hard and chewey and then put it over rice. verry tastey. It smells like poo.
Love you,
Elder Schenk
Dear Family
That was a short one! But thats ok. Sorry I havent sent any pictures yet, I dont want to send them by email because I might get a virus on my sd card. Elder Clark has gotten 2. Ill mail them when I get them developed. You can still dear elder me. but it is mailed from salt lake, and probably doesnt get here any faster.
So good news! I got my first sunburn today! we went on a hike to a waterfall up in busay. It is small, but the area is so beautiful. It is all hills covered in trees and plants, and off in the distance between hills you can see Cebu. So beautiful! And I get to see it every day! I love it here.
We have one investigator with a baptisimal date, Richie. He is 13 and lives with his uncle who is in the bishopric. Irene is 16. She really wants to be baptized but her father hasnt allowed her yet. She ran away from home because her father is crazy. He lives 2 hours down the trail from where she lives in the mountains. hopefully we will here back soon. Our other investigators are Eric, Archie, Erwin, Chilito, and Kelly and Esmay, sisters. We have more that we are working on, but those are the progressing investigators.
You should send me pictures in your emails! I love you all! take care! The Lord is watching over me here.
Love you all!
Elder Schenk
Hello!
I tried a new fruit the other day. It is a little red ball that has long tenticle things coming off it. you pull really hard and the skin splits open exposing a clearish white fruit with a seed that look like an almond, but definitely doesnt taste like one. It is good! we bought squid today. that will be fun to eat. I ate dugot dugot at a members house last week. Dugot means blood. They boil pig blood till it gets hard and chewey and then put it over rice. verry tastey. It smells like poo.
Love you,
Elder Schenk
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