Monday, April 28, 2014

Fourteen Baptisms in ONE DAY!!

Sounds like you had a good week! With court going through the temple and you guys going to SLC and going to see war horse and also seeing family while you were up there! I love the selfies haha! It makes me laugh seeing you guys taking selfies! And it sounds like the play was really good! It also sounds really cool! Will they be playing Les Mis any time soon haha? And if you do you better go to it! haha! I still have not received mail, for some reason last week our entire district didnt receive mail so I think some thing went wrong I dont know. But hopefully next week I will receive letters! Also I need stamps too so if you could send me stamps in a letter that would be great!! You put the package on a boat haha? Thats going to take months to get here.. How big is the package? Is it huge or something? I guess I will just have to wait and see!


This week was an alright week for elder Rama and I, we did though have the lowest numbers we had together but thats okay we still worked hard we just had stuff happen that made it so we weren't able to go and teach as many people as we could. We had a lot of appointments scheduled but we didn't have a lalakai with us and a lot of people that we have teaching right now the husband isn't home or its just a female.. So we didn't teach as many lessons as we could cause we couldn't get a worker to work with us so then we could enter into these houses and teach! But we were able to find a few new investigators so I guess that was good. Also about the Madike family.. There baptismal date is onMay 3rd and we teach them on Saturday and Sunday. But elder Rama was busy on Saturday with interviews cause he is the DL so I had to go with another missionary to teach them. Which was fine but its better when your with your actual companion who knows these people and stuff like that. But we taught them and then we were going to kind of recommit them to be baptized because Nanay and Sarah hadn't fully committed to be baptized so we were recommitting them to be baptized with Shane and Sheryl on Saturday, but they declined but Nanay had a perfectly good reason why she didn't want to. She said she wants her husband to be there and witness her get baptized and also for him to get baptized himself. And she knows that its true too, she just wants her whole family to be baptized together and not be any conflicts which I can totally understand why she feels that way, so her husband is coming to the Philippines in the first part of May so we are really hoping and praying that he will be accepting to the Gospel! But as of now we have Shane and Sheryl scheduled for baptism for May 3! So at least we have two of them, and I am really positive that we will get the others as well, so lets keep praying for them and their family!!!(: So this upcoming Saturday there are 14 baptisms in our district!! How cool is that!! 14!! President Sperry said how cool that was that our district has 14 baptisms in one day! So we are getting props from the president! haha Well I think that is basically my week, my Tagalog still sucks and I am still trying hard to get it. At times I feel like I will never get it! So keep praying for me!

Monday, April 21, 2014

Brother Mike is DOPE and BRO MIDEKI is LEGIT!




Little Shopping and Possibly FIVE Baptisms!

Hello my Mother! It seems like you have had a fun week going up to Logan and seeing Grandma and Grandpa! You will have to tell me how their talk was! But you might be at the luncheon now or driving home so I dont know if I will get a response today! But I bet you are excited to get into the new house! Do not forget to send me a million pictures of the house so I can see every thing!! I want lots and lots okay!!! Also how would you feel if dad got the job at SC middle, honestly? Would you want to move schools? Wouldnt that kind of suck? I feel like that would be a pain? And I feel like dad is so happy at Pine View with all his friends there plus he has been there for ever! Thats where our roots are! It would be sad if he left Pine view dont you think? And like I said I feel like he is happy with his job now! Basta! haha seems like logan was fun! But thats cool that you are doing the weight loss program thingy! I hope you win so I can get some of that money hahah joke lang!(: I heard you are helping court a lot with her mission stuff! Thats really nice of you mom! Thats very Christlike of you! Do you guys still do little girls dates? Or not really any more? Another package haha? What are you putting in it? I really dont need any thing! just your support is all I ask for, and money every now and then haha! But i hope to hear back from you!

So my week! This week was actually a good week for me! I enjoyed this week a lot actually! First off last pday, we went to SM(those huge malls in our mission) and elder Guard was there too! It was good to see him again! He is so close to going home! He goes home in June! Crazy how fast time flys! But we just hungout together and talked about him going home haha! So it was good to see him! And then on Wednesday and Thursday we went on exhanges cause my comp is the DL, and every transfer he is suppose to go on exchanges with all the companionships in his district. So he went to the other areas both days so it was basically like I was the Senior missionary these days cause I had to lead my area lead the lessons and also decide what these people needed to be taught! It was nice doing this cause I got to decide things my way and all that stuff! And on thursday I was with another american which was nice to be with him, but we both kind of suck at tagalog haha but we still had a good day and were able to teach a lot of lessons! So that was good! Then Friday me and elder Rama were back together. Then saturday we taught my favorite family the Madike family that I always tell you about! They are progressing so much and on saturday we taught them the Gospel Of Jesus Christ, and we expesially focused on the importance of baptism cause they hadnt all accepted a certain date, cause their father still lives in Nigeria and they didnt know if he would be okay with them joining another faith. So this week elder Rama and I had been praying so hard that the father wouldnt be a hindrance to them getting baptized and when we were following up with them if nanay had talked to her husband and she did, and her husband said "if it makes you happy then do it, also if you belive it to be true then of course you can do it." WOW crazy huh??!?! How awesome is that the Lord answered all of our prayers!! And I asked her if she believed and she said yes and she said she would like to be baptized!! Also one of her daughters Sarah told her experience too, and she got really emotional about how she knows this is true and they all just shared experiences with us of how it seems like they have been guided this way their whole like and how maybe they werent ready before but now they are!! How cool this family is! And we are hoping to baptize them The first week of may!! I am so happy for this family! Actually I was reading my Patriatichal blessing and it says I will bring individuals and FAMILYS to the church! And every time I see this I think of this family! Also yesterday we taught the Word of Wisdom. And they were so opened to following it even tho they had a few problems but they knew it was a commandment from God so they said they will follow it!! I just get a huge smile just thinking about this family! And how much the Lord has prepared them to recieve the Gospel! I love this work so much, it really is tuff but its worth it bringing souls to our father in heaven! And I know how important prayer is that God does hear and answer EVERY CHILDS prayer! Just like the primary song states! But thats basically my week! I learned a lot this week and one of them is my tagalog still sucks haha! Love you!

Monday, April 14, 2014

SPLATTED FROGS, ERKEL ST. GEORGE FOLK AND A LITTLE AIR JORDAN!!







More Baptisms set!!

YAYYYY!! I am glad you sent me the LES MIS SONGS!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! Also I am glad letters will be coming my way!!(: I haven't gotten a letter from family in a while haha... But how was your week? How is school? Yeah the person has like vanished off the face of the earth.. We havnt been able to contact him at all or any thing. Its actually really sad to see this cause he was doing so good and coming to church and reading the BOM and now we have no idea we havnt heard from him in a while.. And yes I got to bap both of them! And it was really cool. I have done bap for the dead where I was the actual baptiser but this was just different but some what the same. But in all a really cool experience! Yeah keep a list of all the good movies that come out! Did you get me my queen size bed??(: I sure hope so! THats my one request haha! When you say heather ovard you mean ansly right?.. Thats cool tho!


So this week was kind of a struggle a little bit. Since we just got those people baptized we didnt have as many investigators to go and teach but we still had a lot of LA. So elder Rama and I made a goal that we would do a lot of finding this week.. This goal didnt go to well. We are having a hard time finding in our area cause a good portion of it is in these nicer nebiorhoods where its Bawal to tract so we only have a small area where we can go and that area is all squaters and really poor area. And in our mission we try to go for people who have a little more money so we can continue to build the church and also it helps a lot with them staying active members if they have money for pamasahe and for tithing. So we kind of got shut down trying to find this week! But on the bright side we gave my favorite investigators a bap date!! And its a family! Its the half Nigerian half Filipeno family I was talking about! We gave the three kids bap dates (ages 14, 18, 26) and the Nanay said that she wanted her husband to get taught before she makes her descison so we are hoping he will come to the Philippines this month so we can teach him! And I aslo am hoping he will be accepting! But I love this family they are so great and I can see them changing their lives cause of this gospel! And its also a bonus that we can teach them in English haha!(: Also conf was really good!! I loved all the talks I heard expesilally the Prophets how he used the quote from the LDS basket ball player. "be the same person in the light and in the dark" Also for me what stood out to me were Chrislike Attributes and also serving others. We can all improve trying to be more Christlike and also serving other people. So for me I am going to try and really devolpe these christlike attributes and serving others! So lets all take the goal to serve others and be more christlike!!(: And I promise as we do we will bless and help the lives of others! So this week numbers wise kind of sucked but we commited four more people to baptism onMay 3! So lets hope and pray that they may all be able to be baptized! Also funny story the nigerian INV he is 26 and he his like a black kid from america, not trying to be racist but he his so he is just this big black guy who talks like a black guy haha. Any ways after conf I was talking to him and he was like " so thats the propeht?" and I was like yeah thats the Prophet Thomas S. Monson! And he said thats really cool! then he said I wanna be a prophet! hahaha this made me chuckle! I then explained to him that thats a good goal to have, but we dont choose who the prophets are only God himself calls someone to be a prophet! So thats my week!!


I love you mom so much! Thanks for always supporting me in every thing I do! I love you so much and miss you! 

Love elder Howell

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Wedding Pics





Baptism AND NO BAPTISM AND WEDDING...OH MY!

First off I havnt watched Conf yet. We dont get it until one week later here.. So do not give me spoilers I am really excited for it!! And that lady where in Fairview does she live like address and all that stuff I need a lot more than Fairview haha.. And why is my car being driven?.. And will you do me a favor when you get this. To send me ALL of the Les Mis song lyrics please.. Just the lyrics! THANK YOU! But it does sound like conf was good! I will let you know what I think of it next week! But do you have more pics if the house yet? You were suppose to have them this week! SO I am following up on if you completed your assignment! haha To answer your questions... Yes my companion and I actually get along really well and I like him a lot. We actually are not bugged by eachother at all and we never get into disagreements! No new food actually today this member took us out to eat at this Chinese place that was really good! But thats not weird or different but it was good! I love you too mom! I hope you are still awake so you can do those favors for me!


Any ways this was a good week for me and elder rama! We were gearing up this week for our three baptisms which we had planned on Saturday and also the wedding. So we had to clean the chapel, prepare the program, make sure the font was working, and also preparing our candidates for baptism. Usually we aren't suppose to do all this on our own but the ward wasn't wanting to help us to much with the baptism.. So it was just me and elder Rama. But that's okay cause we were able to get every thing done in time for this very important event! So Saturday was the wedding at 3 and it was at the chapel. Every one was there and on time and it was so cool to see these two get married and having me be apart of bringing them together! It also made me trunkie cause they were getting married and I was like ahhh I wanna get married haha. But then they got married and then the baptism was scheduled for 4 so it was kind of a quick change from a wedding dress into baptismal clothes haha but it was awesome to see her ready to make a covenant with God at the baptism. Like I said we had three scheduled to be bap right? Well satan got ahold of one of our candidates and wasn't able to come he didn't even show up!! LIKE WHAT THE HECK?!?! And we told him that we could just do the service on Sunday morning before church but he didnt go to that or church on Sunday either! So I hope and pray that he is still interested in being bap and joining the church! And then the other one Nash was suppose to be there at 4 also just like everyone else! But they weren't there at 4 and everyone was ready to go so we called them like 100 times and nothing. And this continued until 5ish and the bishopric said hey we need to start i have things to do soon. So we started and I bap our INV Sheryl the one who just got married and still nothing from Nash! Then at 6 oclock 2 hours later they roll up! And the service was over and I had already changed out of my bap clothes and was getting ready to leave but we talked to the bishopric and they said they had time to do it. So I quickly changed back into my bap clothes and back into the water I went and we bap Nash and Sheryl that day! It may not have gone how I thought but nothing in my mission has gone "according to plan" I also learned a good lesson this week after this. That we need to trust in the Lord in all times, cause that morning during comp study we prayed that our Inv would be able to show up and be bap and that every thing would be okay. Cause at that moment was when our third inv Abien said he couldn't come. So we prayed hard that the other two would come and sure enough they came, and it was so awesome to baptize both of them and see how happy they were after they were baptized! So this week was really exciting for me! But that's about all that happened this week for me, well the most important part of the week! Love you!