June 25

Hello Everyone!

We have had another good week here in Santa Ana!  We have seen God's help in our lives again.  Even when things don't always turn out the way I thought that they would, they still turn out right, and in God's way.  The biggest news is that we will be having a baptism this saturday!  His name is JM, and he really was supposed to be baptized a couple of months ago, but his father (already a member) stopped coming to church right before we were supposed to have his baptism, and so we haven't been able to continue the baptism for a long time. But recently he and his father have started coming to church again, and so we will have his baptism.  I'll make sure to send pictures next week.

This week we also had zone conference and interviews with President Andrada.  It was really good.  I always feel blessed when we get to meet with President Andrada and be blessed by his spirit and knowledge.  We learned lots and lots that will help us be better missionaries.

As for our other investigators, we have been feeling God's hand in our efforts to help our current investigators, and in our efforts to find new investigators.  One that stands out in particular is Rolly Galope.  We found him the first week that I was in the area.  He is seventeen years old, and was always interested in listening, but he always had a hard time understanding the lessons, and he never followed through on his commitments.  But this last week while we were on exchanges, Elder Murillo felt that it was time to visit him again. So they went by his home and taught him.  He promised to read and to come to church, and when sunday morning came around, he was there!  He came with one of his neighbors that is a member.  Then in the afternoon we went by his home to teach him again, and it turned out that he had read in the Book of Mormon as well!  Then the biggest miracle (for me) was when we were sharing with him.  We talked about faith, and had him read from Alma 32:21.  One thing that was always hard for Rolly was explaining the scriptures after he had read them.  We after he read in Alma with us, without being prompted by us, he gave a wonderful explanation of the meaning of faith, and then went on to add a little more of his own.  It was so cool to see that as he read from the Book of Mormon, his understanding really was opened up.  It is so wonderful to see him really start to progress in the Gospel.

I know that this is the true church, that the Book of Mormon is true, and that if we follow the principles taught therein, we will find happiness.  Not some fake happiness that will leave us after a short time, but real true happiness that will continue through this life, and into the eternities.

Have a wonderful week.

Elder Childs

June 18

Hello Everyone!

We have had a really good week this week.   We did a lot of praying, and it came out with a lot of miracles!  The biggest day that we saw the miracles was on Friday.

In the morning, one of the members had invited us to eat breakfast with them.  This particular member is a less active, and for a job, he fishes.  These last three weeks almost no one had been able to catch any fish.  As in the most they would catch was 3 or 4 kilos, which is obviously not enough for all the expenses of a family.  But brother was insistent, so Friday morning we went down to the river where they dock their boat.  When we got there, it turned out that they had caught over 200 kilos of fish!!  But the weird thing was, they were the only ones who had caught anything.  They were very kind about it though.  They gave some fish away to some of the other fishermen who hadn't been able to catch anything, and then we barbecued some fish there at the riverside.  We ate lots of fish, and had a great time.  I'm not sure why they were able to catch fish on that day, but I believe it was help from our Heavenly Father.

Then after that in the afternoon came the second miracle.  As we were planning for the day, we felt that we should go visit a man that we've been teaching sometimes.  So we did go and visit him, but when we got to his house, he wasn't home.  So we thought for a little bit where we should go, and we decided to go to the house of a less active family that we knew was there, but still hadn't been able to teach.  Well what happened is as we were walking towards their house, the children were coming home from school, and one of them walked up to us and said, "Are you guys going to visit the Areola family?"  And that was the exact family that we were going to!  He turned out to be their youngest son.  So he walked with us to their house, and when we got there, the parents weren't home, but one of their daughters, Vanessa, was there.  Vanessa hadn't actually ever been baptized.  She had been taught, and gone to church multiple times, but for whatever reason, she hadn't ever been baptized.  She was super receptive though.  She will hopefully be baptized in the next month or two.

The third miracle was when we went to visit a different less active member.  Her name is Lobell.  When I first got into the area we were teaching two of Lobell's nieces, and we were sure that they were going to be baptized.  They were so receptive and excited to learn and go to church, but they had moved outside of our mission boundaries, to an area where there aren't any missionaries yet.  Well what happened is that when we got to Lobell's home, she said that those two were moving back to Santa Ana!  So we were able to teach them again, and hopefully their progress will continue!

There were lots more miracles, but those were the ones that really stood out to me.  It was a really good week, and at the end of the week, president Andrada came and attended church with us here in Santa Ana.  It was really good to have him here.  He gave a talk in sacrament meeting that was perfect for the members, and then he gave a training to all of the auxiliary leaders after the church services that was really good.  Hopefully they all take it to heart and apply it in their life.

One thing that I really liked from his training though was about our callings.  He based it on D&C 107:99, 100.  He talked about how there are only two reasons why people don't magnify their callings.  The first is that they are slothful.  They are too lazy to do what they are supposed to.  The second is that they haven't learned their calling, and so they don't know what they should do to fulfill their calling. So us as members of God's church, need to make sure that we first know what we are supposed to do.  We can find help in the church manuals, and from our leaders.  Then once we know what we should do, just go out and do it!  Don't be lazy.  All callings come from God, and we have something to learn from it, if we do our best to do the calling.  

Another thing that he said that I liked was about magnifying your calling.  He said that the way to magnify your calling is to do things that aren't written in the handbook.  We aren't supposed to just do the bare minimum.  God wants us to find ways to help those under our responsibility, and when we do that, that is when we will really see the miracles happening in our lives.  I know that that is true because I have seen it in my mission.  When I try to just get by on the littlest amount of work that I can do, we seem to run into barrier after barrier, but when I try and do more, do everything I can, everything just seems to work out perfectly.

Thanks for all the prayers and support, I hope you have another wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Childs

June 12

Hello Everyone!

We have had another good week.  We have just been trying to catch up on time lost to travels.  It has been a lot of fun though.  We have continued to work with sister Jessabelle.  She is doing really good.  She is growing ever stronger in her testimony.  We have been trying to help her just become a lifelong student of the Gospel, so that even if we are gone, she will remain strong in her testimony.  Jessabelle's mother did talk to her father about being baptized, but her father's first reaction was that he didn't want her to be baptized.  But to be honest, I think that the biggest problem is that her father doesn't have any background on the church.  He has never met missionaries before, and he said that he doesn't have any friends that are Mormon, or at least that he knows of, so he may just be a little afraid.  But as me and Elder Murillo talked, we decided that we ought to try and talk with her father, and give him some time to ask us any questions that he wants to.  Jessabelle asked him before if it would be alright if we shared with him, and he said that it was, so hopefully this week we will be able to meet him.  And then obviously, our goal is that sooner rather than later, the whole family will be baptized.  It should be fun to work on.

Other than that, we have been working with a part member/less active family.  The first is the Ebuenga family.  Sister Ebuenga is 23 years old, and is a member.  She was baptized way back in 2006, but went less active shortly after that.  She recently came into contact with the missionaries again, and now she is returning to activity.  She is really good, she has been trying her best to come closer to Christ, and has done a lot to make it back onto the covenant path.  Her husband is also really nice, but sometimes is a little bit shy to talk about religion with us.  But we are working on building a relationship with him so that we can eventually share with him about the Gospel.  We are also working with Sister Ebuenga to help her help her husband.  Last Saturday we brought a copy of 'The Family: A Proclamation to the World' and read that with her.  It was a really good lesson.  I love that family so much, they are so very kind, and their two little daughters are so cute.  Hopefully they can be sealed in the temple in the coming years.

On Sunday we had a special broadcast for the Philippines area.  We traveled to Gonzaga to hear the words of our area president, Elder Bowen, Sister Oscarson, the general young women's president, Elder Ardern of the Seventy, and Elder Bednar, of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles.  I really loved Elder Bednar's message.  It really hit home with a problem that is common here in the Philippines, and in the whole world.  He talked about how there are many people who are baptized and confirmed, but fail to live up to the covenant that they made when they were baptized.  The answer that he gave was 3 simple things that we can do on a daily basis.  The first is faith.  When we have faith, we believe in Christ, and we are moved to action.  We don't just merely believe that following the commandments is the right thing to do, but we live the commandments, because we know the blessings that come because of it.  The second thing, that naturally follows real faith, is sacrifice.  Sacrifice is giving up things that we want, for things that God wants.  When we sacrifice, we align our will with God's will.  We should always pray, as the Savior did in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Not my will, but thine be done".  Elder Bednar taught that sacrifice, in and of itself is still not complete, but sacrifice is only preparatory for a higher law, consecration.  If sacrifice is being willing to lose your life for God, then consecration is being willing to live your life for God.  When we are consecrated, we build up our talents, we follow perfectly and willingly.  When we are consecrated, we do everything in our power to build up the kingdom of God here on the earth.

So the question that each of us must ask ourselves is this, "Am I fully honoring the covenants that I have made to God?"  If we can look at our lives and say that every day, and every hour, we are honoring the sacred covenants that we have made, then we can be assured that we will one day return to the presence of our Heavenly Father.  But I believe that most of us, if we are truly honest with ourselves and listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost, we will see things that we are doing that do not measure up to what God expects of us.  In order to fix those lapses in faithfulness, I would advise that each of us go back to the basics.  We go back to these three simple things that Elder Bednar taught.  Do things that will build your faith, sacrifice worldly things for things that are of much greater worth, and consecrate your every day to building God's kingdom.  When we do that, we will see that we are slowly coming closer to the person that God wants us to be.  We will see that our lives are full and meaningful.

I love you all!  Thanks for all the prayers and support!

Elder Childs

June 6

Hello Everyone!

We have had a really good week this week.  Its been a busy one as well.  We did taught a lot of lessons this week.  I don't know how it goes in other missions, but here, we rarely run out of people to teach.  We have our focus investigators, and then we have some back up investigators (ones that aren't really progressing yet) and then if both of those fall through, you can basically talk to anyone you see and they will let you share with them.  I am blessed with my mission.

This last week we have been focusing on a sister named Jessabelle.  She is doing really well in her testimony of the Gospel, and her baptism should be this next week, hopefully.  She just needs to get up the courage to ask her father if she can be baptized, and then she should be all set!  Pray that she can speak with him.

We also had exchanges with a couple of elders this last week, which makes time go by quick.  I always enjoy exchanges because there is so much that I learn from the missionaries we get to work with.  It is always a pleasure.  We were also able to help find a lot of new investigators with some real potential.  One thing we have been focusing on this week was a challenge from Elder Bowen.  He challenged us to have 30 of what he called 'testifying contacts' every day.  Testifying contacts means that we talk with someone new, and bear testimony of the truths of the gospel with them.  Getting thirty is kind of difficult between all of the teaching appointments and such, but we have been doing our best to give time to just talk with people as we go from one lesson to another.  It is fun!  I have really grown in my testimony of the Lord's hand in this work as we have been doing this. I'll give a quick example.

We had exchanges with a couple of Elders in Laoag yesterday, but before we went out to work, we stopped by macdonalds first for lunch.  As we were waiting in line, one of the Elders we were with, Elder Basa, began to talk with one of the workers there.  As we talked with her, it turned out that the worker's father was a member of the church, and that she had been taught by the missionaries before, and she was more than willing to be taught again.  She was very kind, and for me, I think that the Lord has been preparing her, and placed her in Elder Basa's path because He knew that Elder Basa would talk to her.  We see stuff like that again and again.  I have a testimony that as we show that we are ready to share the Gospel, God will place people in our path that are ready to hear the Gospel as well.

So that was the highlights of our week.  But I have been thinking a lot about one thing this week.  Faith.  It all started with Elder Maroket sometime last week. I don't remember what day.  Elder Maroket is still a trainee, and is a very good missionary, but was having some doubts.  He was wondering if he could really every become the kind of missionary that God wants him to be, and if he could really achieve some of the goals that he has set.  So we were talking and as we were talking, we came up with the answer to everything.  This is what we decided it is: 'just have more faith'.  No matter what we are feeling, what we are going through, if we increase our faith, we will also increase in peace, joy, and every other good thing.

When we increase our faith, we will begin to see the grand scheme of things.  Through our faith we will see past our limited, mortal view of life, and understand what God's plan really is for us.  Our doubts and fears will flow away as we realize that with God, we really can do all things.  We will grow in our motivation to do our best, because we will understand that that is all our Heavenly Father wants, is that we do our best.  Through our faith, we will come closer to God, and that is the greatest blessing.

So for anyone who ever wonders how they can grow in faith, the words of Alma the younger in Alma 32:27 are the key.

    But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea,               even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a       portion of my words.

All we have to do is try it out.  Repeatedly God has invited His children to try Him, to test Him to see if He really will follow through on His promises.  I testify that He will.  He is reliable.  He will pull through and give us the blessings we need right when we need it.  I have seen His blessings repeatedly in my life, and I know that every time that each one of us follows His commandments, if we watch with eyes of faith and humility, we will see so many blessings that come as a direct result of our faith and obedience.  And wouldn't that increase our faith?

I know that God lives and that He loves us perfectly.  I know that He speaks to us through the words of the scriptures, and through the words of our living prophet, Thomas S Monson. I know that this is God's church that was restored through Joseph Smith, and that if we abide by the precepts taught in this church, we will find hapiness and peace in this life, and exaltation in the life to come. I love you all!

-Elder Childs

May 28

Hello!

We have had another good week this week!  We have seen the Lord's help as we have been striving to help others come unto Christ.   We have had some success in helping people come out to church, but a lot of the less actives are still off and on.  But we're working on it.  We are seeing improvements in the branch as we work hard.  It's good!

One thing that has really helped me this week was from a book by President Eyring called To Draw Closer to God.  It is a great book, I would highly recommend it!  One of the biggest things that I have learned from President Eyring in that book was about the Spirit.  Over and over again President Eyring talked about how important it is for us to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost, and that we can obtain it.  Not at some later date or time, but today.  It all comes from us being ready and willing to hear, and ready to follow whatever the promptings are.  It takes a measure of humility on our part, and a measure of being ready to do things different that we would normally do it.  Just like Nephi in building the ship, sometimes God's way is different than our way, but we know that God's way is always better than our way.

So this week I have been striving to be ready always to hear the voice of the Spirit. As I have kept that peace and quiet inside, and done my best to act on the promptings of the Spirit, sometimes even if I'm not sure if they are from the Spirit, that is when I have received the confirmation that what I am doing is God's will, and that I am blessing others lives.

Each one of us can feel the Holy Ghosts guidance and influence in our lives, if we only make ourselves ready for it.  So to make ourselves ready for it, there are a few things that we can do.  The first starts with simple obedience.  Humbly submitting our will to God's will, and following His commandments.  The second step is found in our prayers.  We can pray sincerely and with gratitude.  Giving thanks for blessings received is often more important than asking for added blessings.  The third thing that we can do is look for opportunities to turn outward instead of inward.  As we try to find opportunities to serve those around us, we will see the influence of the Spirit in our lives.  The final thing that we can do to feel the Holy Ghost guiding us is to follow through courageously on every prompting.  The Holy Ghost is rightly called a 'still small voice' and so often, if we are not ready to hear the Spirit's voice, we will miss the promptings that are given to us.  But if we follow through on all promptings, big or small, we will show our dependability to our Father in Heaven, and He will increase the influence of the Holy Ghost in our life.

When we have the Holy Ghost guiding our lives, we cannot expect to see huge miracles happening every day, but what we can expect is an increased sense of peace in our lives.  We can feel God's love in our lives more fully.  We will do much good, but for most of the good that we do, we will not be recognized for it, and we may not even know ourselves what good we have done.  But despite that, we will never regret living a day guided by the Holy Ghost.  The blessings of quiet discipleship are real, and they are available to all of us, if we just make ourselves available to the Holy Ghost.

I love you all!  Have a great week!

Elder Childs

May 21

Hello Everyone!

We have had a great week this week.  We have seen some progression in a lot of the investigators that we have been teaching, and hopefully there will be some baptisms coming up here in the next few weeks.  One investigator that we've been working with lately is Jessabelle Areola.  She is really good.  She really wants to know where God's church is, and she's been searching.  We met her just a couple of weeks ago.  She has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it, and she says she feels like this really is God's church.  Our goal for her baptism is the end of July, but the way her progress is going, it may end up being sooner than that.

Another one of our investigators is a sister named Jessa Umbay.  She has actually come to church a lot, but I guess the other missionaries thought that she was already a member or something, because she has never been taught by the missionaries before.  She is really receptive as well, and always comes to church with her boyfriend, who is a member.  She is also pretty close with the branch president here, which makes things a little bit easier.  Our biggest challenge with her is finding a time that works for her.  She plays volleyball, and they are competing in a tournament right now, so she isn't around a lot.  But hopefully these coming days and weeks we will be able to share a little bit more with her.

And then there is Alden and John.  These two are friends of one of the YSA here that is going on a mission.  They are both super nice, and receptive.  The only problem is John's family.  They are really active in the Seventh Day Adventist church, and we're not sure how excited they would be about John being baptized.  So pray for them that his families hearts will be softened.

Those are our focus as far as investigators go.  We also have some less active families that we've been working with, and a couple of them were actually able to come out to church!  It was good to see. There really is a change in these people's lives when they start to make themselves worthy of the Holy Ghost again.  They just seem happier, and more at peace, which are two of my favorite fruits of the Spirit. Hopefully more and more will keep on coming back so that they can receive all of God's blessings again.

And that brings me to what I've been pondering about this week.  I actually gave a talk about it yesterday.  Obedience.

Some people look at us members of the church and say, 'You are so restricted!'  They see the commandments as a big prison that keeps us from having joy.  But as members of the church, we understand a little bit more.  When God gives commandments, it is not to restrict any of our freedoms, but to allow us to exercise our agency to the fullest.  Remember that in the beginning, God's plan was to give us freedom of choice, and Satan's plan was to take it away.  To this day, those plans have not changed.  When God gives commandments, it is to keep us away from traps that will take away our ability to choose, and our ability to enjoy this life.

Following Satan's temptations may seem fun at first, but after time, the true color of those temptations will show, and we will be disappointed. Remember that Satan does not love us, and does not want anything for us but misery.  Our loving Heavenly Father on the other hand, wants nothing for us but to be happy.  He wants us to become like Him and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.  As it says in Moses 1:39, God's "Work and [His] glory [is] to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."  Everything He does, every commandment, every action, every trial, is to move us towards that goal.  We just have to trust in God and follow Him.

But is the only blessings of obedience found in the eternities? Do we have to wait for eons to feel the joy of following the commandments?  The answer is no.  We do not, because God's promise is that he will bless us every time we follow His commandments.  There is never an exception to that.  Just like 1 + 1 will always equal 2, obedience to God's commands whether large or small will always bring blessings.  Time and time again I have seen people here with nothing, who wonder if their children will be able to eat three times a day, who decide to change their lives around, and put God first.  And every time that they do this, they are blessed.  Opportunities start coming out everywhere for them, and they receive not only enough, but more than they need for their family.

A perfect example of this is the Tapaoan family.  Sister Tapaoan is a single mother, with two children studying currently.  For a long time their family really struggled financially.  Then one day, the missionaries showed up at her door.  She let them in, and in the following months she was baptized. After she was baptized, she found a job selling fish from door to door.  As time progressed, there were other women who also wanted to sell fish, and they wanted to get their fish from her. Sister Tapaoan now is a successful dealer of fish, with more than enough for her family.  Whereas she used to always need to ask for help from her family, her family now comes to her when they have financial problems.  Some people may say that this is just a coincidence or the result of hard work on sister Tapaoan's part, but I don't thinks so.  I know that it is blessings that come from a child of God, following their Heavenly Father, and I know that these same blessings are available to all of us, in equal proportion to our obedience to the commandments of God.

Have a wonderful week!

Elder Childs

May 10

This week has been a good one.  Sorry we're just emailing.  We had Elder Bowen from the Seventy come visit our mission this week, and so we were in Laoag Monday until last night.  We thought it was going to be on the 23rd, but it got moved up for some reason.  Whatever it was, it was a really good couple of meetings.  Monday afternoon we got there and went and bought some stuff that we needed that you can't find in Sta. Ana (Shaving cream, a new long sleeve shirt, etc) and then we had dinner, then went home for the night.  Tuesday morning we spent getting ready for Elder Bowen to make it.  We helped out a little bit in the office in the morning with some stuff they needed done, and then at 3:30 we had a meeting with President Bowen at the mission home.  He gave a lot of really good advice for us, and addressed some of the problems in the mission.  But one thing that he kept on repeating and focusing on was 'Honor, Integrity and Character'.  He talked about how those three things are what should always be present in our lives so that God can trust us.  He talked about how each one of us missionaries had made sacred covenants to the Lord, of our own free will, and it was our obligation to follow through on them.  He shared a scripture that I really liked.  It was in Ecclesiastes 5:4-5

    4 When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.
    5 Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.

I think that it is so very important that we follow through on our promises to God, so that he can follow through on His part.  The promise is sure that if we do our part of the promise, the Lord has said that he is even 'bound'.  But when we do not follow through on our promises, God cannot give His part.  We talked a lot about covenants and the importance and power of them.  It was really good.

Then the next morning (Wednesday morning) we had a meeting with Elder Bowen again, this time with 3 other zones of missionaries at the stake center.  It was also really good.  He is definitely inspired.  He shared a scripture from Abraham Chapter 2:8  It reads, "My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning; therefore my hand shall be over thee." And then he asked the question, why is it important that we know that God knows all?  The answer is so that we can trust Him.  If God did not know all, His promises would no longer be sure, because there may come a time where He learns something new, and our covenants to Him would be made void.  But because God knows all, we do not need to worry that there will be any changes of rules, and changes of promises.  When God promises, we know that it will happen, because He knows all.  He knows the end from the beginning, and He will be true.

It is so important that we understand the true nature of God, and what he does for us.  This is the only way that we can obtain real faith in Him.  Much of the Christian world believes that God is a mystery, incomprehensible and unknowable, but we know that through knowing God, we shall be saved.  I have seen so much joy and peace come into the lives of those we teach because of them coming to know the nature of God.  As we understand who God is, we will understand who we are, and as we understand who we are, we will have a greater desire to follow God and His laws.  I know that that is true.

Other than that, I don't have tons to talk about.  We have some really good investigators here right now.  Hopefully we will be seeing some baptisms in the coming weeks. I'll try and tell you a little more about them next week.

Have a wonderful week!

Elder Childs