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

Week 28

Hello!

THis week was amazing. Its just like the grand ol times! Elder Labrum and I are just having a ball. 

The deal with this area is 2 missionaries came into this area and shotgunned it. Like the area was white washed and these 2 were put in. They didnt last very long and now both of them are home with honorable releases. 

So, Last friday and saturday were a little rough and getting used to the area and people. Elder labrum has only been here 2 weeks and barely knows the area. And so we turned to the area book to try and find a starting point and the area book was destroyed when the apartment flooded about a month ago and was never restarted. So Elder Labrum and I are legit starting from complete scratch. However this week got better starting on Sunday. As soon as I got to church I just felt loved. SO many people came up to me and started tlaking to me and wanting to know about me. At sacrament meeting we couldnt sit with any investigators becuase they were already with ward members! this ward is so passionate about missionary work and its just amazing. They were a huge help in helping us find investigators houses and making sure no one was forgotten. I was the first speaker in sacrament meeting and I was asked to bear my testimony. It went pretty well to my knowledge because they didnt laugh or anything so i think that is good.

 After sacrament we had a women come up to us and asked to take the lessons and this is every missionaries dream. So we started taking down her information and we realized she knew quite a bit. Now fast forward to Monday afternoon. We went to teach Donna (that is her name) and as soon as we sat down to start teaching we knew she was golden. She told us she had already read all of JSH and 1 Nephi twice. She started 1 nephi for the third time earlier that day because she wants to understand the book of 1 nephi before she moves on. We tried teaching her the first lesson and she already knew everything. She had met missionaries from Vermont on facebook and had already learned a ton about the church. She is awesome. So we extended for baptism and her date is March 17th.

 We have a ton more investigators we are teaching and its a way good pool. If everything goes perfectly we will have weekly baptisms all of March and as of now the start of April. So this area has a ton of potential we are really excited about. At this point we are just trying to make sure no one is forgotten or lost and we dont lose investigators. 

Big shout out to now Sister Monson and Elder Broberg and their respective mission calls! 

Love you all lots,

Elder gsack 

Daily pictures before we go out

random kids on the street that wanted to take a picture

 us on the jeepnee earlier this morning

Our apartment

Investigators Maria isabel and Mary jane, they will be baptized at any time just waiting for their moms approval

Us messing around with kids in the street... its harder then it looks