August 30, 2011

Mom,
I am so grateful to be a missionary. I had such a great week. We were able to go to zone conference on Friday with President Schmutz and Elder Teh, the area 70 assigned to the Philippines. I learned so much and came out with new spiritual direction. Elder Teh had asked for all of the missionaries to come fasting, so the spirit was especially strong. The conference was in Mandaue, about two and a half hours away. We were so tired by the time we got back. We went down Thursday evening and slept at the elders apartment in consolation, so I knew everyone there.
Then on Sunday we committed a family for baptism, Liza, the mother, and her 3 kids, McHard, McLyn, and Ward. They are all teenagers. They are amazing investigators who have so many questions and understand the doctrine so well. McHard thinks so deeply about things and then asks us some deep hard questions, most of which we have never even asked ourselves. So that is a new experience. But on the second visit he asked what the urim and thumim were and where the Hill Camorah is. We are really excited for them.
We also have the two younger sisters of Lovely, our recent convert, committed for baptism. They are Juvy and Michelle. There is also another part member, Daniela, committed for baptism. She is only 9 years old, but comes with her aunt and grandma to church. That makes a total of 7 investigators with a baptismal date! We are so grateful for the blessings we are having here.
The branch here in Polambato is struggling though. About half of the active members walk to church, which is a lot to ask. Lovely and her sisters and aunt walk to church, so on Sunday we walked home with them. It took about half an hour to get to our apartment, and they live another 15 minutes away down a dirt trail that is often muddy. The actual Polambato aria is another 30 minute walk further from the church than our house, and one family lives a loooong ways past that, and they walk every Sunday with their 1 year old child. It is so hard to ask of them, as many are malnourished, especially the little kids. We were teaching an inactive member last week that said they could all get a ride to church, but then on Monday they would have no food. They have to choose one or the other. Seeing their trials is strengthening my faith.
We were able to do a csp (community service project) for a member in the San Remegio aria on Monday. I learned how to weave palm leaves to make a roof. That was fun. We also cut down their weeds with machetes and helped them take the kernels off of their corn. They dry their corn until it is hard, then take off the kernels and grind them up. They eat that sometimes instead of rice. You boil it in water and make it into a hard paste, kind of like cream of wheat. That makes your thumbs hurt real bad. We had a lot of blisters. It was a great opportunity to serve. They also have two children who are going to be baptized. One is 8 and the other is 9, Johnly and Rose-ann.

I also included the letter I wrote President Schmutz. Its easier than writing it all again.
Sure love you all!
Elder Schenk


President Schmutz,
I had such a great experience at zone conference. It was a spiritual feast and I learned so much. I am grateful to be in Bogo zone with such inspired leaders and missionaries. Thank you also for your letter, I will study and apply what you have taught. We had a lot of success in our area on Sunday when we committed a family of 4 for baptism. The Lord is really pouring out blessings on us right now.
Yesterday I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Swicegood. He is a great leader and missionary. We both learned so much from the exchange and had immense success. It truly was a faith building experience to literally see both of our prayers being answered all day long. In the morning we tracted and taught two lessons, one a family and extended family of 10, who listened very well. They all have potential. We also committed a family to baptism, the two children first, and the parents later. The parents want to be baptized, but are not married and the wife has pension because her previous husband died. If they get married then the pension stops, and they are very hard for money. But they said that they want to be baptized, and when their income increases enough, they will cut the pension and get married so that they can be baptized. The entire day the spirit was so strong, and the two of us spent the entire day in amazement of the blessings the Lord had given us. By the end I didn't want to sleep, just sit on my bed and bask in the spirit and be grateful for the tremendous success we had had. The Lord is so generous with us. When we give Him the crust, He truly gives us an entire loaf.
I am so grateful to be a missionary President. I know without a doubt that I am where I am supposed to be surrounded by the people the Lord has prepared for me and prepared me for. Thank you for your never-ending support.
Love,
Elder Schenk

August 23, 2011

GOOD MORNING AMERICA!
A lot has happened in the last week, so I'll give you the load down.
Last Wednesday I found out that I was transferring at our last zone basketball game. My district all had new matching jerseys, so that was fun. Thursday I picked up some shells that I got specially made by an investigator there. They were supposed to have the temple on them with "Philippines Cebu Temple" printed underneath. Well they though I wanted my name on there too, so in nice big bold letters they wrote "Elder Schen's" on all of them. So I am getting the name removed and I'll pick them up from Elder Casio when I see him this Friday at zone conference. Friday was transfer day and I woke up sick with a sinus infection. I talked to Sister Schmutz there and she said to pick up some amoxicillin. It was a great meeting. The talks focused on loving your companion and being obedient. Then we had the 4 hour bus ride to Bogo. My companion, Elder Laboson, didn't come because he didn't have an extra 300 pesos to get there and back. I got a blessing that night from my companion and just like sinus infections don't do, it just went away. That was a great blessing. I was still really tired though and not all the way better, so on Saturday we had weekly planning, and I slept quite a bit of the rest of the day. Sunday I met the branch, all 28 of them. We meet in the Bogo church building that is only about 15 min away, but it is too expensive for most members. There used to be a meeting house in Polambato (It is just one street going from the highway to the ocean), and the plan was to renovate another building and got to church there, but somewhere something fell through and nobody knows what is happening, but nobody has started working on the new meeting house. As the result many members went inactive. There used to be 100 who attended. I absolutely love the area. My companion is great. He is quite a joker so we laugh a lot. He is from Manila and has been out almost a year. The Polambato area is bigger than my last area, but there are a lot less people. There is a lot of sugar cane though. It’s everywhere! Sometimes as far as the eye can see in all directions. The people are all really poor. In my last area, if someone died, they would rent big tents and gamble and drink under them for a week, and then have a big feast at the funeral. We went to the funeral of the wife of one of our members on Monday and all they could do was give out 2 peso muffins for a snack with a little bit of juice. Everyone is so poor. I love it though. Yesterday we went to visit a recent convert and had to walk down a muddy path through the woods, and sometimes you had to walk right through the water. My pants were so muddy by the time we got home. It is like going on a hike just to get to their house. It’s fun. The mud here is really sticky. It’s more like clay than mud. The mud builds up until each foot weighs about 10 pounds. It’s fun. I am going to be washing a lot of pants by hand here. But it is worth it because the people are amazing! Everyone is so kind. We have 3 investigators committed for baptism and another 4 who know the church is true and for one reason or another, sometimes social, sometimes financial, they don't want to join the church yet. There is no real town or city center or location where you can say "this is it", there are just some little stores here and there and little places where you can eat. Right by our house is probably the largest place. It is a store full of canned food about the size of our kitchen. But it is enough.
I am so glad to be assigned here. I have so much I can learn. In my last area I was the most obedient missionary in the entire district. We had district meeting here on Monday and I felt like I was one of the most disobedient. It was such a great feeling to be surrounded by so many great spiritual people. I have never seen this much faith in a district before. I am so excited! Both the zone leaders and the district leader are amazing missionaries. It is going to be a great transfer.
So to wrap it all up, I love my life. It is great here. I thought the city was great, but being out of the city is way better!
Love you all,
Elder Schenk

August 16, 2011

Mom,
I've got some news this week. First, we had a great baptism last Saturday, and for the first time I was able to confirm one of my converts a member of the church. That was great! And then second I am transferring to Polambato! It is one of the furthest north cities on Cebu and might be the furthest north area in the mission! It has a lot of mountains in it, so bye-bye city life with all the rich people. I am really excited. I am replacing Elder Newfield, who got here one transfer before me. He is way hard working! That means I am transferring into a good area and won't have to start with nothing! that is always much easier. I have had 4 of the 5 people in my batch serve in Bogo Zone, so I will be following in their shoes. So far I am just staying on Cebu island, but I am excited, and am grateful to still be able to attend the temple, even though I live probably 4 hours from it. Friday is going to be sooo tiring. Probably 5 hours of travel with all of my luggage.
We played basketball today as a zone, and I am pleased to report that I am improving! It was a lot of fun.
I have included part of the letter I wrote to President Schmutz. I thought you would be interested in reading it.

President,

Thank you for your email. I will give your congratulations to Sheila when we see her tonight. Her baptism was a success as her husband came, and then came to church the next day. He has been an inactive member for many years. I was able to confirm her on Sunday and was prompted to bless her with the guidance to lead her family with Kevin, her husband, to the temple. That is what she wants, and what a great blessing that is. Her husbands sister-in-law, who lives right next door, is now interested int he church. She was taught by missionaries long ago, and I taught her one before, and she was not prepared. She had no desire to grow. But now she wants to join the church, but is not married. I can see the blessings start to flow to their family.

We followed up with MJ who we found last week. He is definitely prepared for the gospel. He has such an open mind and is willing to follow the answers he receives from the Lord. I feel like he will be baptized, even just after the two times we have visited with him.

I am also excited about the transfer. I have heard good things about Bogo Zone. And replacing Elder Newfield will be great, he is a hard worker. I think we can have a lot of success there. I feel at ease with that transfer. Thank you.

Love you all,
Elder Schenk

August 9, 2011

Hello Family!

This has been an exciting few weeks. We had 3 baptisms 2 weeks ago, a child of record baptism last Monday, and then this Saturday we have a convert baptism, Sheila, and her 8 year old daughter as well. And then on Sunday they will be confirmed and her 8 week old son will have its naming and blessing in sacrament meeting. And then next week is transfers. We have 2 elders in our zone that are going home, and I think I am going to transfer, probably off island.

On Monday we were going to visit Mhean,. an investigator that we haven't visited in a long time. She lost her motivation to learn. And even though we didn't think she would be home from school yet, we went anyways. She was still at school, but her cousin's boyfriend was there. We talked with him for a bit, and then asked if we could share a message. He was at one point schooling to become a baptist minister, but before he was done got offended and returned to the catholic church. He was born in the catholic church, but doesn't believe it is true. So when we taught about Joseph Smith, he had a lot in common. He really is looking for the truth. He knows a lot of doctrine, but is hungry to find out more. At the end we showed him the Book of Mormon. He said that just the night before he had been looking through Mheans Book of Mormon and didn't think it was any coincidence that we had come the very next day. He said the odds were 1 in 1000 and it wasn't just chance. He said that he would sincerely pray about Joseph Smith, and wanted us to teach his girlfriend as well. That was a great success! He has a lot of potential.

We also had the opportunity to do a service project for a family in the ward last week. Their house burnt down and we helped them pack up all of the burnt stuff into rice sacs. We are going back Saturday to help clean up the rest. That was so sad. They lost everything, and they had a nice house. And to make things worse, her husband left 3 days before fire to work for 6 months out side of the Philippines. But the ward is taking good care of them. They live in the Mormon neighborhood so there is a lot of support.

August 2, 2011

Whew! I had some long emails to read, but it was a good read, so thank you for that. We don’t have a lot of time and just got back from a cool zone activity where we rode a 400 meter zip-line over the ocean and onto an island and back, so I am a little tired and probably won’t write too long, but I’ll try to pack it full of excitement. Thanks for the slideshow. It is sure good to see my family, especially Diane Katie, Eleanor, and grandma. I don’t get to see too many pictures of them. I’m glad you all had a good time and that the boat is working better now with its new water pump and I hope Dad is recovering well from his sore bum from his bike ride and that pifford is recovering from his long runs with Diane and Eric.
We had a great success this weekend, three baptisms! That was a great experience. We hopefully have one more, Shela Tud-Tud on the 13th. She didn’t come to church last week because her husband ended up having to leave and I think her baby might have been sick. If she comes this week she is still good to go, but if not, postponed... And that’s no good because I think I am transferring the following week. In response to dad's question, I would be happy to be assigned anywhere, off of Cebu has some great beaches and different experiences, but you don’t get to go to the temple if you go off island. I’m not so crazy about that. But, "Ill go where you want me to go, Dear Lord..." It is great to be placed where you are needed.
Yesterday I went on exchanges with my district leader, Elder Babia, in his area. We had a ton of success! We had taught 5 lessons before lunch! Alot of times we don’t even get 5 lessons in a day! All in all they ended up with 9 lessons. That’s great! The weekly standard is 20. As I was with him, I got to teach a lot of recent converts and other members. In each of the lessons I felt the guidance of the spirit directing me to the scripture verses that each one specifically needed, and I was able to fit it to their needs, even though I don’t really know them. That was an amazing blessing. I have been working on being more obedient, and the blessings just flow when you do what you are supposed to do. I was so grateful for that.
I am also grateful for my mission president. He is an amazing person and teaches me so much. He wrote me over a page long email today talking about my specific needs. That is amazing. Each word feels like scripture to me. It’s like getting a new patriarchal blessing every week! I am so grateful to be able to serve under him. He is going to help me reach my full potential. I love that man.
Well, it turns out that I did get a little long winded. I got excited.
Take care! I love you all!
Elder Schenk

July 26, 2011

Mom,
It’s great to hear about all of your experiences as a family. I’m glad you all had a good time. Surprisingly I don't miss it too much. I am super excited for it when I get back, but for the time I am content to hear about your stories. I forgot to write last week about you coming to pick me up from the Philippines. I think that would be great! It would be tons of fun to be able to revisit members and converts and such and to be able to help you see a little of what the Philippines really is. It’s something you can’t describe or catch in a picture. It is about the people and the lifestyle. So I would be happy for you to come.
The little monkey that Sister Robison talked about is only found in Bohol, the island just East of Cebu. I haven't seen one, but they are smaller than the palm of your hand. There are tons of t-shirts from Bohol with them on it. There aren't many animals where I live now. It is too close to the city. We do have some cool lizards though. I have seen quite a few in the tree just behind our house. Today we found a great place to buy little souvenirs for cheap. In a mall a little Cebu key chain is about 50 Pesos, but there they were only 10. There are also cheap pearls here in white, pink, and black, so if you want some I could pick them up for you. I hear they are really cheap in Negros too.
It’s good to hear that so many people are going on missions. There is nothing like it that can change your life the way it does. What a great blessing. I can’t wait for you to get your mission call to the Philippines Eric! Then you too will understand the greatness of the Philippines.
WHAT!?! The Richesons are moving? What is the ward going to do? Seminary... the Corn Bust... What are we going to do? Where are me and Eric going to play racquet ball? Well you better help them move. They've been helping our family since Diane was in seminary.
We are very excited about our baptisms this Saturday! I get to baptize Mark and Andrea and Elder Casio is going to baptize Jameson. We also have another baptism on August 13, Shela (Lit-Lit) Tud-Tud. Great name eh'. Lit-Lit Tud- Tud. She is such a great investigator. We committed her to baptism on our second visit after teaching the Book of Mormon. She has been taught before in 2008 and the missionaries just stopped visiting her, probably because they weren't married. But since then they have been married. Her husband is an inactive member and they live right next to his member mother. After teaching her I asked her if she believed the Book of Mormon was true. She said she did. So I asked her if she believed that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. She said she did. Then I asked her if she believed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was true. So I committed her to baptism. She accepted and came to church the next day with her four kids. Her husband Kevin is off on business.
Well I love you family. Take care. Tinuod gud ang simbahan.
Love,
Elder Schenk