Linggo (Week 33)

Hello hello,

This week was pretty good, lots going on and we are just now starting to find our groove in the area. Lots of finding still to come both of new people and places in our area. 

My spiritual experience for this week was when we were teaching our investigator family. Their name is the Caintic family (Kai-in-tic). They are super great. Its brother and sister and then they have 4 kids. They have an insane story of their past and where they are in their lifes right now they never thought they would be. However we were at there house the other day and we had an object lesson for them. We had a cup of clean water (representing our life) and then we had Beta dine (our sins). We slowly dropped 1, 2, 3 drops into the water and eventually the whole glass was a dark brown color. We then taught about the Atonement of Christ and how through the atonement no matter how far you think you may be gone and how lost you may think you are there is always hope. We then pulled out Xenrox (Atonement) and slowly dropped it into the water. Slowly but surely the water was turning clear again. No matter how dark we made the water first we could always turn it back to clean and clear. It was such a powerful spirit filled lesson. Brother opened up to us and told us all about his past and going to prison and all these crazy things but told us how real the atonement was for him. That he knew its not an easy fast process but if we have the faith and desire we all can be made clean again. I know that no matter how lost and far gone you think you have gone the Atonement is sitting wating for you. Jesus Christ has done what he has done and it is up to us to accept it and apply it in our daily lifes.

Love you all thoughts!
Elder gsack

Went to Tagaytay this past week to Sky ranch. It is deifintely a must for anyone and we got to see Taal Valcano which i believe is the worlds smallest valcano.


Pic in the back of a trike





Read the book. nuff said


Madden Tanuvasa I understand it was your birthday this past week so I searched long and hard to find you this special one for your birthday!


 got my first nose bleed since I have been out! 5 blood clots and tons of blood later I was better! Didnt get one drop on my white shirt too!

Week 32

Hello to all my people,

Welp this week has been one for the books and I am just glad it is over. However I really love this quote and this is my spiritual thought for the week. "The greatest thing I have done in my life is give up something/someone I love, for the God I love even more." As we make sacrifices in our lifes, As we turn off the tv to read the scriptures or ask for work off so we can go to church I know the Lord will truly bless us and our families life. I would challenge you all to make sacrifices in your life and see what blessings the Lord gives to you.

Now for the random philippino story that make give you the chills and gross you out bad. So we were talking to two kids on the street and were about to go into lesson 1 when i noticed a man passed out drunk on the road right next to us. I could see he was breathing and seemed to be oaky so we continued on teaching there. Right as we got to Joseph Smith and the first vision when the spirit was at its highest this drunk guy wakes up and stands up. He then proceeds to pee right there next to us, look at us and smiles and then laid back down in his on pee and fell back asleep. Needless to say the spirit of the lesson was gone and we were just left laughing and not knowing what to say.

Hope you are all doing well, I miss and love you all lots!

Elder gsack

Looked like the second coming

We found this place on accident. We got lost while finding and took a nice long break here. Reminds me of the gorge :)

This girl in the middle is getting baptized on saturday. Her name is Kristine and she is the best!

Some members in the ward 

and our district! the whole top row are the trainers and every one sitting is brand new to the mission

he second one is just a funny song that our WML gave to us. its our "pump up" song

first one of the kids dancing is a dance here and they lost the game at fhe so they had to dance

Week 31

Hello!

This week has been absolutley nuts full of phone calls from president, 4 trips to the dentist, 3 trips to the office, a new companion and a new area. 

First off spiritual. I thought I was going to be transferred far away from San Gabriel and Donna wanted me to be at her baptism so we moved to baptism to Wednesday at night. It was a great experience. At the start of the program she leaned over to me and whispered "Elder Sackley I just want to cry and I dont know why" and it stuck me hard because right there I realized how strong the spirit was. It was almost tangible. Right before her baptism as well,we were about to walk into the font and she grabbed my hand. She asked if we could pray first. I dont remember what i even said but i felt such peace and comfort. Both Donna and I knew this was the right thing for her and it was almost a re confirmation that this was the right thing to do. The baptism went wonderful with no issues or anything and I am beyond happy for Donna.

Now dentist. Elder Labrum a couple weeks ago thought it would be smart to go to the denitst. which wasnt a bad idea but when they said he had cavities, that is where it went bad. This "dentist" absolutely destroyed his teeth so this week we had to travel over an hour 4 times to go to a good dentist to get his teeth fixed. however it was soh so worth it because every time he walked out from the back he just looked furious. Made it all worth it to me :) 

Now Transfers. After lots of calls from president changing his mind and changing it back it was finally settled. I am training a new missionary, His name is Elder Gascon. He is 25 years old. He is from the Angeles mission up north so he is from the philippines. We are in the San Gabriel area still but not the same as Labrum. So I am white washing an area and training! Woohoo! It should be a fun transfer and I am excited about the work in this area. 

Sorry my camera isnt working right now I am going to try and get some pictures from Elder Labrum. However if not next week na lang. 

Love you all lots!

Elder gsack

Donna!

Donnas Baptism!!!

New companion! Elder Gascon! (Excuse my nametag, Its one I got from a member and I put it on to confuse him and then forgot I had it on) 

random kids on the street that dabbed so i love them

 Some coconut tree forest 

This is the Ward Mission leader brother Devis. He is dope.

Donnas Baptism, THis is Bishop Cornista. He is sweet and super helpful!

more of donnas baptism

Week 30

Hello! 

This week was really good. We had lots of fun experiences and our investigators are getting better and better week by week. However we got a call yesterday from president asking both Elder Labrum and I to train this next transfer. So one of us is transferring which sucks but we will see what happens. There is a chance one of us could just transfer to the other side of the ward. 

This week though the most spiritual thing that happened was Sunday night. After church we stayed and taught a lesson to Donna at the church. Donna has accepted all of our lessons with no issues and so we decided to just sit down with no lesson plan and whatever the spirit told us to say we were going to roll with it. So she started off with a question about prophets and that just led straight into a large discussion about everything. And what stuck out to me the most was she said "Elders you left your families, friends, sports, college, and everything in between. Just the fact that you are sitting in front of me right now, on the other side of the world, in the philippines is your testimony that you know this is true. You dont need to say anything to me. I know you two know for a fact it is true" and it really struck me hard because no matter what we said to her she knew we knew for a fact it was true. Our actions were speaking louder then our words. We continued with our lesson and its was just a spiritual lesson. Everything she asked about or had concerns about we were able to answer and the answers we had were things i had never thought of in my entire life. And elder labrum and i talked for a really long time afterwards about the lesson and we talked about how we really relied on the spirit. How we were truly mouth pieces for our Heavenly Father. How neither of us knew what to say or how to answer her questions but the spirit did. Its just amazing what we can do if we rely on the Spirit and our Father in heaven.

i miss you all lots!

Love you all lots!

Elder gsack

 Some cool bridge we walk on a lot

 Daily pictures... we failed this week

 Chapel at the church, after church they asked us to stack all the chairs so we had some fun with it... keep in mind i am 6'2 and no philippino is over 5'5

Hot dogs, eggs, rice, breakfast, lunch and dinner

Straight from America. I got a plug.

Week 29

hello!

well this week was pretty good. Not a lot happened but we keep moving forward. our biggest focus right now is Donna. She is the women who came to church by herself. She is so great it is amazing. She just earlier this week enrolled in institute. Well the class is in Alma 40 right now and she feels the need to catch up so last time we checked up on her she had read 17 chapters in one day and her goal is to be in alma 40 by sunday. There are some questions she asks us that we have to truly think and find scriptures to ask. She truly studies the scriptures and really wants to know what is true and what is not. Its amazing.

another experience Elder Rasband. Elder Rasband from the quorum of the 12 apostles came and visited our mission. It was an amazing. When he first got there we were all waiting to take the picture and him and his wife were so happy to see all of us. Then we went back into the chapel one by one and we all got to shake his hand. THat was a really cool thing to do. But he didnt speak to us very long. You could tell he was super busy and had lots to do but two things that he did say that stood out to me was "Dont be complainers" and "Dont be Whiners" and it sounds so stupid but it really stood out to me. It made me think of working at Chemdry. Yes scrubbing cat pee and dog poop out of carpets is awful but complaining and whining does not help anything. At some point you need to realize that no matter how much you complain or whine it isnt going to do anything. So i like to think of it in mission terms. A lot of missionaries complain about walking around in the hot sun and having to speak monkey language and lots of other things. But the more I start to realize complaining doesnt help anything the happier i get. I try my best to look at the positive in things and just have fun with it. 

So if something is bothering you or you dont like it just stop complaining and have fun with it because whining is not going to help. 

 random thing that happened this week: there is a college that is right behind our house and they have parties and dances quite often and our whole house literally shakes from their bass it is so funny 

Love you all lots!

Elder gsack

daily pictures, elder thomson is featured in one

fighting spiders is super popular here so we fought some and then thought it wasnt fair the big spider won so we put a lizard in there and it ate the big spider

dope sunset with flowers

San Gab Zone! The top row is my district and the ones sitting is the other. The one dead center on the ground is Elder Brimhall our district leader. His cousin was logans companion

Splits with Elder Pratt 

Devis, our WML he works with us tons

speaks for itself