I Was PARCHED Just a Bit!

First week as a Trainer!!

Hey what up mamma!! How is it going! First off I wanna say how awesome it was to skype you on mothers day! I hope that that was a good mothers gift from me to you!! It was so great to see and talk to you!! Crazy how fast that time from christmas to May was! Now just think that the next time we skype I will be kinda closish to going home!! CRAYYY!! Its going wayyy fast!! Like woah!! But how has your week been?? How is good ole St Geezy?? Is it nice and hot like it is here?? Cause it is full on summer in the Philippines!! So enjoy the nice 80 weather and I will enjoy this 105 degree weather with 100% humidity! haha. So just to say its just a little warmish! What is the familys plan for this summer? Any thing fun planned or not much cause we just bought a new house! But just dont do any thing to fun with out me there!! And I will try not to do the same here ahah if thats possible joke of course the Philippines is fun, like there slogan "Its more fun in the Philippines!" But It sounds like every thing is good in Utah! Love you mom!

So my week has been a good week for me! I have been working my butt off in my area making sure that my trainee understands the importance of being masipag and also obedient. So we have just been going HAM! Like we are just finding and teaching and going to get people baptized! We have 2 bap this Saturday which I am pretty stoked about! We also have 2 investigators with BAP dates next month and hopefully we are going to add one to that too! So lets keep our fingers crossed and hope this work keeps getting better in Mapayapa ward!! But every thing is going good with me and my anak! He is a really nice kid but I cannt really say kid cause he is 24 years old but hey, he at least looks like he could be a kid haha! But he is really nice and really willing to learn how to teach and speak better Tagalog! Which is hard for me cause I feel like I am trying to do the same thing as well! haha But it has helped me a lot having to do every thing and just speak Tagalog like all the time. So I can feel that my Tagalog has gotten better from the start of the transfer! Also we have found a lot of inv this week so right now we have a pretty good teaching pool with a lot of people to go to that all seem to be progessing and all the investigators I could honestly see get baptized! So I will say I have really liked training so far! Also on exchanges me and this elder who is my kabahuay went on exchanges and he is American and his name is elder Peery! He is dope and we just opened up a big old can of Whoop... Here is the Gospel... in our area and dropped down 10 lessons in one day! Most I have had in one day on my mission! But it was nice to work with an American and also someone who is on the same page as me who knows more about whats going on! So it was nice! And he is way cool! But this week we are mainly gearing up for our baptism on saturday and are really excited for the Madike family! Cause Nanay and the other daughter are getting baptized!! So I am just so happy for this family and cannot wait until I get to see them get baptized cause they really are my favorite family I have taught in my mish!! I will deffinatly come back and visit them if I have time or money haha! But yeah every thing is going good! I am trying to be the best trainer that I can be it tough and really stressful but it really is a huge blessing and a big trust that the President and the Lord has on me! I am going to try my best to train my kid the way a missionary should be! So lets hope he heeds my council! But our area is doing great and my mission President told us after our zone interview on Monday that how our companionship is, is how missionaries should be and stuff like that and he always tells me how I will do great things in this mission! Maybe he is prophesying about me being future AP hahaha joke lang well maybe...(; 

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!

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!

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