Here comes the bride.....s..

This week was a miracle.

We didn't really get to work in our area, we were in Bacolod a couple of days this week finalizing everything for the marriages. We were lucky to be able to collect their information needed to process their paperwork and I was surprised when another couple in the family gave us their paperwork because we were only planning on the one but they also qualified for the free marriage so we had 2. We went to Bacolod and did a bunch of different things and there are still more things we need to do but we finished it! This is the first and last time I will ever help with a marriage here in my mission!

The Kasal (marriage) was awesome. It was all free because the church has so many hook ups here that a lot of bishops and stake presidents just happen to be lawyers and stuff and can help sign things and process the paper work. We had a bishop from a nearby ward come and he did the wedding, he was great, super funny and efficient! haha we had the baptism right after the wedding and they both asked me to baptize them so it was great!

We also were blessed this week because I thought we might not have a baptism my last week. And that has been my goal since I started to at least have a baptism on my last Saturday. But we might end up having 2. One of them told us yesterday that she wants to be baptized and she has been going to church she just needs to get the okay from her husband. The other one is the owner of the church. She sold the house to the church that we use for church and she is a super awesome lady but has never really listened to the missionaries or gone to church but she came to church! We have been able to share to her recently and she just needs to commit!

Sadly our investigator Nita won't be being baptized soon, she is the one who was involved in the NPA and has been involved with murder. She is one of the strongest investigators I have ever had but I got the word that she needs to keep going to church and it will be a while until she gets the OK from the first presidency. I'm sad about that but I am excited for the day she will be baptized.

Well I think I will send a small email next week and that will be it! I
-Elder Warnick

Sorry my card really gave up the ghost.. it's completely dead so I don't think I will get to send any more pictures home.

It's just not normal!

The weeks just go by so fast.. Life in the mission is just so different than anything else!

We were extremely blessed this week. We were helping to prepare the two Hagupars to be baptized. Nanay still had some doubts but they both passed the interview and Tatay was 100% for it so of course Nanay wanted to follow him. And it was awesome! Elder Liad Baptized Tatay and I baptized Nanay and on the way up Nanay wouldn't stand up haha she was just floating there and I was kind of carrying her.. haha I kept telling her to stand up but she was just floating on her back so I got her to the bank of the pond and helped her out.

I realized this week though we needed to get some more stuff going because if we don't things are going to stop by the time I go home so we were really searching for some more people that could be ready by the time I leave.

I think one of the best parts about going home is you become a lot more bold with your teaching because you don't really want to hear the same old excuses. We have been teaching the Banguanga family for about a month now and they always tell us they are going to go to church. It got to the point that we almost stopped visiting them because we were so sick of the disappointment. But we decided to go again this week and all that basically was said was GO TO CHURCH. "You said you wanted to be baptized but you need to go to church first to find out if our message is true" and sunday came and they weren't there.... So that was it for me, I wasn't planning on visiting them again. And then I went into the Relief Society room and one of the Sisters was there that we had been teaching! I was shocked! And halfway through Priesthood class the dad came walking in! It was awesome! And on top of all of it even more Hagupars came to church! haha let me explain how many there are:

The Hagupar family consists of Tatay Restituto Hagupar and Maria Rita Hagupar (the 2 we just baptized) and they have 11 kids. And each of their kids has on average 7-10 kids as well. If you add up everyone, you get close to 100 people. And the best part of it all is because Tatay is now baptized, he wants every. single. one. of his kids to be a member of this church as well. Like I said last week. Whoever replaces me when I go home is SET with baptisms as long as they keep teaching the Hagupar family.

SO MANY MIRACLES!

I think it's all because I'm training. There are blessings that come from a trainee that don't happen in a regular companionship!

The week was great! I'm going to see if I can finalize the wedding papers this week for one of our candidates if not we might not have a baptism this week.. But if not this week it should be good to go for next week!

Thanks again!
-Elder Warnick

Sorry no pictures.. they wouldn't load..

Batman

This week was great. It was a struggle but the blessings were awesome.

So for most of this week we haven't had Electricity and it's been an ongoing battle with the owner of our house for him to fix our wiring and fuse but he still hasn't done anything about it so for now we have power but you never know when it's going to go out again.

We were working hard this week to try and get Sis Hagupar to commit for baptism. We have been planning to get another one of the sisters in that family married and then we will have her baptism but they wanted to have their baptism on the same day, but we felt she was ready for this weekend and the marriage isn't 100 % certain so it would have been better to just do her's now and do the other one later when it is 100% ready to go. We got her interviewed and explained how we shouldn't procrastinate the day of our repentance but do all we can now to prepare to return to god and she agreed to be baptized! She asked me to baptize her and we had the baptism close to their house at a waterfall! It was a really nice baptism and on sunday after church we went back to them and the two grandparents accepted to be baptized this week! Bro. Hagupar used to be a leader for the catholic church and he even reenacted the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and he was acting as one of the Thieves that is crucified with Jesus. Honestly all our progressing investigators right now used to have a big part in the catholic church! So it's cool to see that they are seeing the truth!

We had our Zone Training this week and it was my last zone training.. It was weird but in all honesty I didn't feel it. I still don't feel like I am going home and they had the departing missionaries give their testimonies it was weird, I kind of just felt like I was ending a Zone Training but I guess the work goes on.

So I have a weird story from this week and MOM don't freak out because it's not as scary as it is going to sound and I am 100% okay! haha Worried? Well here it goes: So we were coming home from work and I knew we didn't have any gas at the house for our stove and that we didn't have any electricity either so I bought some rice and some canned tuna haha wow this sounds worse than it really is anyway and we were at the little store trying to buy the food and this drunk guy who is already pretty crazy when he's not drunk yelled at us "diin ta magkatdo? sa langit o impeirno?" Which is "Where are we going? Heaven or Hell?" and he was pointing a machete at us. I just ignored him and tried to buy my tuna but he came up to us and started asking a bunch of questions and the owner of the store started getting mad and he was yelling at her too and he put his arm on the counter and what's on his arm? A bat. He just had a bat clinging for dear life on his arm and then he followed us until we lost him on the way to our Branch Presidents house. So don't worry we are okay it was just so weird like honestly it was a lot weirder than scary.

That's about it for this week! We have been having so many miracles with our investigators and this area! Whoever is replacing me when I go home is going to be set up! haha

Thanks for everything! Hope you all have an amazing week!
-Elder Warnick

It's a zoo

This week was good. I wanted to work really hard but everything just felt like it was in slow motion.. I'm not sure why but we didn't do as good as we could have.

So we had our follow-up training this week for Elder Liad's batch. I don't know why it was a week after he got in the mission but I guess that was what president wanted. It was good though, I had heard most of the trainings before haha but it's okay.

Sadly a lot of our baptisms that we had planned for this July 30 aren't going to happen because we just found out that their parents are okay with us teaching them but they don't want them to change religions. It's okay though, and I realized that I have never baptized a kid unless that family also ended up getting baptized or was already baptized. I think that is just how it has worked out for me.

ANYWAY the baptism this week was awesome! We had 2 again and it was two of the older sisters from the Hagupar family! And we are trying to get their mom to commit for this weekend! We had a family home evening at their house yesterday to try and get them more comfortable with us and the members! I think it was good, everyone was laughing-I ended up having to sing in front of all of them.. so yeah 

It's still raining almost everyday! And I gotta hand it to Elder Liad. He doesn't come from the Bukid he comes from the City and our house is really run down, it's clean but you only clean so much when the house is just nasty to begin with. This week our house was a zoo! We woke up and there was a snake on our counter, once we finally got it out of the house we saw a huge frog.. like HUGE and i kicked it haha (literally) out of the house. On top of all the animals we have had problems with electricity and water.. haha I feel bad for him but he's doing good and it will make him tougher.

SO MANY BLESSINGS! July is going to be such a great month! I mean it already is! We have had baptisms the last two weeks and if everything works out we should have baptisms every week until I go home and hopefully it will keep going once I leave. 

The area is doing great. Honestly the Branch doesn't really know what they are dong but they help out where they can and they do what they are told ;) haha 

I'm excited to make this month the best month of my mission!

-Elder Warnick

Soup #5 - I will tell you about it when I get home

Snake on the counter

Baptisms for the older sisters in the Hagupar family

Miracles of Minoyan

This week was great! It was definitely nothing that I have experienced before!

So on Monday me and Elder Clarke were companions for 3 days. We are in the same district and  we are both training so while we waited for our trainees to arrive we worked in both our areas. With training President wants the new trainees to have a baptism on their first weekend so we had to finalize some stuff and get interviews done for baptismal candidates. Mine was really last minute which was terrible planning on my part but the original candidate for us wasn't allowed to be baptized because her parents don't want her to.. So we tried our luck with another family the Hagupar family and two of their kids Marits and SunnyBoy were ready to be baptized we just needed to see if they could pass the interview and they did! We ended up interviewing two more of the Hagupar kids-two teenagers and they will be baptized next week!

It's actually working out nicely! I would have preferred to baptize the whole family at once which would have been about 8 but they all are progressing at different rates so still have problems with coffee and some need to go to church more so the way it works out is probably going to be every week about 2 of them will be baptized! I am just hoping we can help our other candidates to get baptized as well. And I need to make sure that they area is all good still when I go home.

Ay! So my trainee's name is Elder Liad (lee add) He is from Quezon City, Manila and he's awesome! It's been so weird being on the other side of things and I have never been with a filipino who didn't know how to speak illango so it has been different teaching someone and last time when I was follow up training Elder Baldwin I didn't know as much as I know now so it's been a lot better the second time around.

It's been non-stop raining! I gave my umbrella away to a member because yeah.. just getting home when I picked up Elder Liad was so crazy! We had to take a bus for about an hour to get to our area and then we had to hop on motorcycles (carrying his luggage) and speed up a hill while pouring rain. The first thing Elder Liad told me when we got to the house was "I am never going to forget this day" haha he has been good! He's trying really hard to learn the language and I think this week I am going to push him a little more to teach more. It will be good!

I just want to testify of miracles! And I think there are miracles when you are working with a new missionary! They don't know as much and so the spirit helps out a little more than usual! He's blessed as well to be in such a great first area! And the members are helping out a ton I think they think of him as their little baby, even though he is taller than most Filipinos. haha

Well this week was great and I am expecting this next week to be great as well!  Even better! We are going to do some finding, work out marriage papers, find out if one of our investigators who killed people can be baptized and try and stay dry haha who am I kidding you'll always be wet in the Philippines.

Palangga ko kamo!
-Elder Warnick

*Pictures:

-First Baptism for Elder Liad- Marites and SunnyBoy Hagupar

-The boys (some of the batch going home, Elder Paskett, Clarke, McCracken, me and Ehninger)

Happy Fathers Day! I'm going to be a Dad!

Changes naman.

So this week was a funny one! I was super pumped to be with Elder Tacuban because he such a good missionary and I was excited to get everything going in the area. And we did! We helped invite a lot of people for baptism and got things hopefully set up for this weekend to have one baptism with the possibility of another one.

Okay I will just get down to the good stuff, I am not an assistant anymore! After one week with Elder Tacuban HE transferred.. Yeah I was super surprised, but I was even more surprised when they told me that I will be training! Which means I will be a "Father" haha I am going to train a new missionary from Manila so this will be interesting because he won't know Ilanggo and I don't really know Tagalog but I am excited it's just crazy to think that this is going to be my 4th companion in this area and I have only been there for about 2 months.

We had a lot of miracles though this week. The Hagupar family from the very top of our area went to church! A couple weeks ago a few of them came to church and then every week there was more and more of them coming and yesterday we had almost the whole family there at church! We are just going to help them get rid of their coffee problem and we should be good to go!

So this last part of my mission is going to be the best! I am excited to see the miracles that my trainee will bring for this area!

I love you all!
-Elder Warnick

Dasig lang ha

Well I don't feel like I will have a lot to write but I AM able to send some pictures this week so that's good.

It was a fast week because we were doing so many different things we had MLC on Tuesday which took a lot of time out of the week but it was another good set of trainings. We worked in our area on Wednesday and we were still getting hit by the rain like crazy, that sadly was one of the only days this week that we were able to work. Thursday we attended the Zone Training in Sipalay which is the bottom of the island and I had never been there before! It's known for its white beaches and known for being super super far away. We woke up at 2 am and left Bacolod at 4 and ended up getting to Sipalay at 9... It was so long but I was able to see the whole Island and it was so awesome! Tiring but it was great! 

Elder Welton is going home this week and my new companion is Elder Tacuban he is actually from my batch so this will be the first time that I am with someone from my batch! It's going to be a lot of fun and I am really anticipating the success we will have because he is going to do such a good job!

That's probably it for now. This is probably the worst email I have sent but we need to get back to our area and we have just been stuck in meetings/running errands all day so we need to get back! 

Thanks! 

-Elder Warnick

Chillin at the Mission Office late at night

Apple's baptism

Sipalay white sand beaches

Top of our area

101

I guess I can still send this email now even though it's pretty late in the evening. THIS WEEK WAS A WEEK! 

So we beat our goal. Yay... after one week of hiking through the mud and rain and getting an ingrown toenail and cold a long the way we taught 101 lessons and had over 130 new investigators. The best part of the whole thing was because we had challenged some other missionaries to do 75 it kind of started a fire with people and everyone started to have a new desire or I guess a new understanding of what their capacity is. It's awesome!

We found a lot of awesome families this week but none of them came to church. We didn't really expect them to come right away because usually the pattern is after the first Sunday if they are interested they will go by the second Sunday. And the members helped a ton! This area is so amazing, I am really blessed and grateful to be able to end my mission in this area.

We had our baptism! It was great! The day itself was crazy because we had planned to teach 20 lessons but we do our baptisms in the next town over, so long story short we took our branch presidents tricycle down the mountain through the rain and had our baptism. There was literally no one at the baptism because all the YSA had a activity and it just didn't work out but our investigator Apple seemed perfectly fine, I don't think she wanted a lot of people there. I was able to confirm her on Sunday and she was super happy so overall it was a great experience.

Elder Welton goes home this next week so it's going to be weird but everyone seems to be getting ready for it and then I will be starting my last transfer here in the mission. It's been such a crazy time here in the mission and I have loved every moment of it, it's just been weird to see how fast it has gone by. But that doesn't really matter right now I am just trying to finish strong.

Well we have another MLC tomorrow I missed the last one because I was no longer a Zone Leader but I am excited to be back and it's just going to be different being on the other side of things. It will be fun though! 

The week was great, thanks for everything. Sorry my emails aren't great I just feel so much more busy lately! 

Palangga ta kamo!

Elder Warnick

Let's Go!

Heads up again... I can't send pictures.. I'll just keep taking them and shoe them to everyone is a couple months.

Well this week was busy and crazy but it was good. I think what I learned the most this week is that we can't keep doing the things we have been doing because the Lord expects so much more from us. Like honestly I felt like we had worked so hard this week but was disappointed when we only had one investigator at church. Our Branch is made up of about 250 members with usually 50 that go to church. This area has only been open for about 2 years so everything is fresh and untouched. The branch relies on us pretty heavily because they still do n't really know what they are doing. EXAMPLE: Sunday we got to church and they hadn't started yet and it was already 9 am and then they wanted us to speak in sacrament, and teach both hours of class.. So yeah the main reason we are doing it is so that we can have a good relationships with them. They help out a lot they just need more experience.

It rained SO much this week. I'll try and paint a picture of how the rain works.. So we were going to one of our areas that is kind of far away so we have to ride a little ghetto bus which basically just cruises down the mountain super slowly trying to pic up new passengers and once you get to where you need to get off you say LUGAR LANG and and they stop the bus and you get off. So we got off basically in the middle of no where and then we needed to go through the sugar cane field to get to the houses but when we stepped off the bus it was like we had stepped under a waterfall.. We got pounded! But because we have to do so much more in this area we decided to just work through the rain, we figured even more people would take us in if we were soaking wet! haha

We were able to go to a few Zone Conferences this week and it was nice to not have to train. The trainings were good and it was nice to see a bunch of different missionaries.

We are looking forward to having our first baptism this Saturday and we are pretty excited because it has been a while but we should be good here on out. We are gong to do something crazy this week and try and teach 100 lessons. We just figure that if we do that much we will have to do so many lessons where we just talk to someone on the street and teach them right there meaning we would have so many new investigators. We also challenged about 10 companionships throughout the mission to try and do 75 lessons this week I guess FYI the mission average here for lessons a week is about 30 so it's going to be a big push for them. And us!

 I love you all we are going to go crazy this week!
-Elder Warnick

Kapoy

We had a good week this week and we were able to work a lot in our area. And we had a lot of members work with us so we are getting to know the area pretty well. I am not actually sure why they worked with us haha because they are pretty lazy young adults and it was either super hot or rainy but they still wanted to come we actually had one of their friends work with us and she wasn't even a member but she helped us find.

We were supposed to have a baptism this week but it didn't happen which was basically our fault. It was going to be a 9 year old who lives right next to the church his name is kyle and he has been going to church for a long time but he hasn't been baptized yet. We have been teaching his family as well and last week his dad told us that it would be okay if he got baptized so we were just preparing everything for Saturday and then about Wednesday kyle's dad told us he didn't want him to be baptized so yeah.. we couldn't really do too much so we just told them we would keep visiting.

But we did a ton of finding this week! We were so lucky we found a new family almost everyday! And now that we have been building the relationships with the members they are starting to give us referrals!! And the referrals that we contacted this week are literally right by the church! Which makes it so much easier! BLESSINGS!

I guess I should just say now that I am super sorry about my emails! They aren't going to be super exciting because it is so hard to write about the week! So I will just keep trying to email about all the good stuff that has happened.

I'm super tired but I still feel great about all of this work! 

-Elder Warnick

I Didn't Know

Well it has been a super busy crazy week! I had no idea that this is how it is! haha but on the good side my companion is great! He is really hardworking and he should be because he is going home in about a month!

We had a lot of miracles this week! We were finding a ton of people and had some good success with making good relationships with the members in the Branch which was actually pretty easy because they didn't seem to like the past missionaries and so I think they are happy and surprised that we actually want to work and do something with the area.

So we don't have a car. we don't have to be in the office we just get to be up on the mountain and work! It so much better than anything else! Unless President calls us down for a meeting or we have training but that usually isn't that often. We did have to train the new missionaries this week and their trainers! I trained on the importance of companionship. It was fun and scary but the best part was being able to see the new missionaries. It's so different!

The area is doing good though it is such an amazing area! The members are awesome. We are on the top of the mountain right by a super beautiful resort (that i can't go to) haha and there is just so much potential we just need to keep finding!

Sorry I am sure my emails have been getting worse and worse but I just really don't know what to write anymore and I just feel so busy! I'll do it right next week.

Take care!
Elder Warnick

Happy Mother's Day

Well lot's of changes!

My area is amazing! It is so cool! We are up in the Bukid (mountain) above Bacolod City the best part about going home at night is you can see all of the city lights!

When I first got into the area I was thinking that it was was going to be super hard like my last area super far and high up in the mountains BUT when I got there it is ALL cemented and the houses are pretty decent! There is a lot of potential for the area.

I was only with Elder Lacdao for one week! The fastest companion I have ever had! Luckily I think I learned the area and I know most of our investigators. The truth is I went into the area with the expectation that my companion was super disobedient and that I needed to fix him. BUT what I saw was he was just tired haha he was exhausted and we worked super hard! We were out all day until 9:30 every night! I loved it and we didn't have any problems as a companionship!

So. I was really confused yesterday when the APs called us and told us that Elder Lacdao would be transferring. My first thought was that I would be training. I hadn't trained yet and I did transfer into the area a week early before the real transfer. We said goodbye to members and then we went home. We went to Bacolod this morning and that was when they took me behind the desk and told me that my area was now the Assistants area (AP's). TOTAL SURPRISE. But I am excited to get the area going and my companion is another American who goes home in 6 weeks. It's going to be great!

I will definitely have more to say this next week and hopefully someday in the near future I can send PICTURES! Anyway I am taking them I just haven't been able to send them.

Happy Mothers Day again!

-Elder Warnick

Mother's Day 2016 Skype with Family

Bukid to Bukid

I'm leaving one mountain and going to another! Transferred.

I actually wasn't expecting it. Probably because my whole mission all my transfers have been on the actual transfer day and this one wasn't so it was really unexpected. But after church and work yesterday we made it home and started getting ready to call the District Leaders to get their numbers for the week, but before we were able to the APs called and told me that I was being transferred. And with 3 months left in my mission I would say it's safe to say this is my last area. I am no longer a Zone leader and I am not a District Leader either! I think I might go my whole mission without being a district leader! I am now assigned in the Bacolod South Zone in an area called Minoyan! Which I have only heard good things about so I am pumped because I just want to make these last 3 months awesome! I probably won't be able to send pictures this week but I will take a ton of pictures of the area this week.

So this past week was good it rained every other day and when I say rain it POURED. We got soaked! We didn't have any umbrellas so Elder Cagampang climbed over a fence and cut off two pig leafs from some big plant and we tried to use it but it really didn't help at all. The days that it wasn't pouring rain it was soooo hot! I need to buy a new umbrella. That's the only solution. And through it all there was a bunch of crazy fiestas and everything that comes with fiestas.

I don't really have too much to say for this week because I just really don't know what to think right now. It's always so weird to transfer because there is so much adjustment. I am really excited to be in a Bacolod Zone again though! I'll just start taking requests now of things everyone wants. Souvenirs?? haha

Thanks for all the support and I hope that everyone has an amazing week! I plan on it! :)
-Elder Warnick 

100 days kuno...

Someone told me I only have 100 days left on the mission... really? Probably just s short email this week and the computer isn't letting me send pictures again. I'M SORRY. This computer shop is awesome.. *sounds of screaming rats in the ceiling and walls*

So we held a Emergency Zone meeting this week because we really wanted to tackle some problems that we saw in the zone. Our zone is still improving great but E. Cagampang noticed something that happens every month: Everyone plans their baptisms for the month and our vision of our mission is to have weekly baptism.Yes its hard but with the right planning and finding it is possible. But the problem that we saw was people had baptismal dates for their candidates for the beginning of the month but because they weren't completely prepared they would get pushed to the end of the month or get lost and maybe not even baptized. It's kind of hard to explain because I guess it's only a thing here in my mission but we tackled the problem and helped the other missionaries to understand about proper planning and finding everyday.

The next part of the week was Elder Cagampang's birthday! It's pretty hard to do anything here on birthdays but we still tried to make it fun. We went to 7-11 and got some food and that was basically about it. The sisters gave us some cupcakes so that was awesome.

The work was hard this week though because they have been preparing for fiestas in almost every area of the zone. Which means investigators are making floats, practicing dances and setting up the plazas which basically means less lessons because no one is home. But it was still could because it kind of forced us to find new people! And it is finally getting close to the rainy season it's been pounding rain randomly everyday. I love it. :/

The baptisms on Saturday were awesome. We had 2. One of them was Irian who is the daughter of two of our recent converts and we baptized her daughter Inovelyn last month. Our other baptism was Veronica who we actually OYMed and she just happened to be the sister of the second counselor of the branch he was able to baptize her! It was a great day and everyone was so happy and their testimonies at the baptism were great. The only problem was after the baptism me and Elder Cagampang went home to eat and we got sick like right after we ate. It was only for a day but man we got wiped out.

Hope everyone back home is doing great!

-Elder Warnick

Your Mom is calling you!

I almost didn't even send an email! Sorry! Hopefully this is a good one!

So me and Elder Cagampang kind of did an evaluation of what was lacking in our area/companionship we realized we are obedient but we could do better-being exactly on time for studies and praying more as a companionship. Little things like that, that make a big difference. Like we were able to see small things happening, little blessings.

We had exchanges this week with the APs. It was kind of all of a sudden kind of thing but it was good. Elder Derecho and Elder Cicon are our APs right now and I was looking forward to get to work in the APs area with Elder Derecho because I have never got to work in their area and It's always fun to get to work with former companions. But Elder Cicon wanted to work in our area with me, which was still fun because he is super chill and hes a great AP. WE FOUND SO MANY PEOPLE. A typical question leaders ask when they go on exchanges is "what do you want to learn?" I told him I wanted to get better at OYMing (open your mouth-approaching people and sharing a quick message and asking for a return appointment) and help with focusing on a new part of our area. We just talked to everyone we would just walk past people say hi and see if they would respond and if they would we would stop for a little bit and talk to them. The trick was to make them laugh or even in someway get them to do some kind of little service for you like let us in their house out of the heat or get some water. Because according to the APs people are more likely to progress and be baptized if they serve you (helps them develop christlike attributes) It was super fun. Elder Cicon is super chill, he's like a hipster kid from California! He's half filipino half american-we had a good time.

We finally got a referral! It's just not a very common thing for our area but we got one and it was super close to an area where we usually work. We went to there house and asked for Jerlyn and she came to talk to us she seemed super nice and really willing to talk! BUT as soon as she came over to us her old nanay who was showering at the moment (they shower outside with their clothes on haha don't worry) started yelling at her "your mom is calling you" was what she was saying and NO ONE was calling her.. so we were frustrated because the old nanay didn't want her to talk to us so we just gave her a pamphlet and left. BUT we are going back because yeah we still see some potential AND I had a dream last night that we were at their house teaching the whole family SO it's probably revelation or something. :)

But when we left that house we had someone come up to us and tell us her aunt wants to listen to us so we went over to her and she was speaking English! She is from Sacramento and her husband died a while ago but she is originally from here. She told us to come back so that we could teach her I guess she was taking the lessons back in America! So we will see how that goes!

Yesterday was awesome! We had a lot of people come to church and our 2 candidates for the 23rd got interviewed so they are all good to go. One of them had her husband come with her and he had a stroke a while ago so that was super hard for him to make it to church but he loved it!
We also had another FHE last night way up in the mountains it was fun and we walked all the way home again.

I'm tired but I feel good.
Thanks for everything!
Love.
Elder Warnick

BTW the picture is some native kids running around throwing carabou poop at each other. haha I love this place.

Kids throwing Carabou poop at each other

Stone steps in our area

You are worthy to rescue.

This week was pretty much the same as usual. We had MLC on Tuesday and it was great. I think the APs really tackled the problem of what the mission has been facing recently which is we aren't the mission we used to be and we need to come back to where we were at. We need to get better. All of MLC was great it just was super crazy hot in the apartment we stayed at.. It was probably the hottest night of my life so I didn't really sleep and I was super tired for the meeting the next day. But I didn't fall asleep!

After the MLC we were hoping to get back to our area and to be able to work because usually they go all day and this time they made sure to have it end early enough that everyone could go back to their areas and work. But Elder Cagampang had a check up for his side where they took out his appendix. We ended up waiting like 2 hours and then the check up was only 5 minutes. Go figure.

Zone Training was great as well! The APs decided that they wanted to attend ours and they gave a 15 minute training to the zone which really helped a ton. Basically all the things that we forgot to say or weren't able to get across to the zone they were able to deliver. The Zone is definitely improving. We went from "the worst zone" to according to the APs maybe the highest baptizing for this month! BUT the month is not over yet and it's pretty dependent on the next 2 weeks!

Part of the zone training was about becoming more efficient and not teaching non progressing investigators but letting them know that we love them we just can't hang around with them if they aren't willing to take those steps in their lives to change. So basically we only have half of the investigators that we used to.. it was hard but it's going to help so much more.

General Conference was great. It was my last one here in the mission. And it was a great one! We always have our general conference a week late. But it's still just as good! I loved President Uchtdorf's talk about how we all have been lost. He hit it. And he always has sick ties! :)

So we were able to have a Family Home Evening last night at the Deramas home. That's where 3 of my Recent Converts from this area live and we have been working with Tatay and Nanay's daughters and NOW there husbands to hopefully get them all baptized. It was so simple but so fun last night. We had a great lesson by their son-in-law who is an RM and then me and Elder Cagampang were in charge of the games. And they cooked a lot of food even though they are super poor! It was great!

Thanks for all the support! Hope everyone is doing great! If not, take a nice bucket shower to cool off! :)

-Elder Warnick

Fish Wallet

Fish Wallet

Eye to eye?

This week had it's ups and downs but through everything you can always see the miracles.

Truth is this week was just work, work and work. And my SD card broke. I still got all the pictures I just can't take any more with it. It's cool though we are going to Bacolod today and I will be getting a new one. But I did take some sick pictures.. I'm just not sure if I can send them.. I'll work it out for next week. Promise.

This week was a week of Fiestas. Which means less work because less people. BUT we got some sweet souvenirs from the "Banana Festival" haha how cool is that?

We started teaching the older sister of our second councilor. And she has been golden! Her husband had a stroke so he isn't really able to come to church but they love listening to the missionaries and sister went to church on Sunday she also accepted a baptismal date right away. :) We are still trying to find out a way that we can help brother get baptized as well even though he can't really get around. It will all work out.

After Baptizing Tatay and Nanay Deramas and most recently Inovelyn it really has made the rest of their family really want to be baptized! Inovelyn's mom has been coming to church and this April is going to be a good month for the zone and our area. Or we thought... for us but we had a meeting with our branch president which was supposed to be a good thing but he went all crazy on us and was concerned that our investigators weren't meeting the standards of HIS mission. We tried to explain that qualifications for baptism are different in our mission but he isn't going to let some people be baptized until next month..... patience...... he still is a good Branch President but sometimes it's hard to see eye to eye with RMs.....

Sorry I don't have too much write for this week because that was about it. The area is great we just need to do some more finding and the zone is amazing!

-Elder Warnick

It all works out

Well Holy week is over. Not too much of a celebration for Easter. We didn't see any crucifixions but we heard a lot about them, a lot of our investigators went and watched them? It's weird.

We were everywhere this week making sure that everything was going to go well for our baptisms on Saturday. It was a lot of work because we had some problems with nanay Linda.... so all her kids are members and 2 of them are RMs but we realized this week that they had been telling her that she wasn't ready to be baptized! So we were kind of frustrated and confused.. and even now we don't know why her kids were telling her that. Anyway the interview was done and everything was good to go but she told us that she wanted to wait until next month.. long story short we talked her through it and helped her to realize that she is ready and that you don't need to know everything to be baptized. We were hoping one of her sons would be able to baptize her but I was the one who ended up doing it, it was still a great baptism and she looked really happy.

Our Recent Convert Jose was able to baptize his granddaughter on Saturday. When we asked him if he would be willing to do it he told us that he already had memorized the commission. In Hiligaynon. It was his first time baptizing someone and of course it was his granddaughters first time being baptized so little to say they were nervous and he had to do it twice, she wasn't too excited for the second time but it was still a great day to see Tatay Jose baptize his granddaughter.

Well even though we had all of those small trials this week we were still able to see the miracles! So many investigators went to church and we have almost all of April set up for baptisms and we are now working on getting May set up.

I sent a lot of pictures so hopefully that can do a better job of showing my week than my email.

THE MISSION IS GREAT!

-Elder Warnick

Tricycle Rides

District Meeting

Inovelnyn's baptism - She is kind of scared of me. Haha go figure I am white.

I'm clean (Nanay Linda baptism by Elder Warnick)

Zombie Dog

Haircut (Filipino Version)

Coke (You drink it out of plastic bags)

Skinny?

Ruins

Home

Happy Holy Week

It's holy week... which means they have legit crucifixions.. yeah I haven't seen it yet.. just signs and stuff.. anyway---This week was great! We didn't really get to work but we got to have an awesome experience at our mission tour!

We worked in our area on Tuesday and we were able to talk to our 2 investigators that are going to be baptized this Saturday. They live in completely different areas so we had to go from one part of the area to the other so that they would be ready for their interview and then we had to go to Bacolod for our MLC again.

The MLC was great because we actually didn't have to do any training! We got to go to Bacolod with all of the Zone Leaders and STLs and hear Elder Haynie speak. It was awesome! He had a sweet training about the history of the Philippines and how it was being prepared for missionary work. It was super interesting. And he explained about the importance of participating in councils and stuff like that, it was sweet!

The mission tour itself was also great. I got to spend the night in Bacolod and we were in my old area TALISAY. So I decided to make a surprise visit to the Buslay family! It was just the same as if I had never left-meaning Sister Buslay went all out and made us a bunch of food. I also got to meet her husband for the first time and he is now a Recent Convert! So they should be able to go to the temple next year after her son gets home from his mission.
It was good to see a lot of the missionaries and to receive more training from Elder Haynie. Me and Elder Cagampang actually go to sit with him at lunch and talk to him. He was really humble about the fact that he is a General Authority and explained if the Lord needs you to serve he will make it happen haha he was never expecting to be a General Authority but he's great!

When we got home from mission tour we needed to get the interviews done for our investigators and that meant that we needed to go from one area to another which was sooooooooo far and there was nothing to ride so me and E. Rivera walked the whole way. We were wrecked but we had dinner with our Branch President and we downed the juice.. We weren't even hungry just thirsty! haha

The week was great but this next week will be even better!
Thanks for all the love and support!
Palangga ko kamo!
-Elder Warnick

Visiting Sister Buslay in Talisay

Holding a snake

The Result

This week was amazing!
Miracles.
Success.
Sounds like the beginning of a movie or something.. anyway
We were able to get a good full week of work in this week and it was awesome. We kept working in Haguimit which is the area closest to our meetinghouse with NO SUCCESS. Not really none but very little. Everyone always says that the people closest to the church are the hardest people to teach. So we have been trying to teach or at least talk to as many people as we can in that area. We found one person who wanted to listen so that area is just going to come slowly.

But something that I think I have said before is in those moments when we are walking around and talking to everyone and trying to get something to happen those were the times when nothing was really happening. But because we were working so hard that's when the blessings come! Example: We were working in Haguimit and trying to make something happen there and nothing was happening but because we were working so hard we started to see miracles in other areas! We went to a Less Active family and we found out that everyone is baptized in their family except for one of their kids and a grandchild so ages 9 and 14 so if we help that family come back to church we can also get the other 2 baptized.

The Zone is doing amazing! This week everyone's key indicators (investigators at church, lessons, etc) DOUBLED! I love my zone! They are so pisan! (diligent) even though we are the smallest zone everyone is doing great! I guess you could say everything is pretty fulfilling right now.

What else happened this week....
-our house is infested with birds because we don't have a ceiling just a tin roof..
-I ate squid again
-truth is I am pretty used to everything around here so I can't really tell when something is weird or out of the norm.. haha I'm filipino now!

We get to have another Mission tour this week so we will be going to Bacolod to have a meeting with Elder Haynie and his wife and then later in the week the rest of the mission will meet up for the trainings. It's going to be a good week.

We are also getting everything good to go this week for two baptisms for the end of this month and we have April set up pretty well for baptisms!

AND I still can't send any pictures! just keep building the anticipation!

I love you!
-Elder Warnick

Bacolod Mission - March 1, 2016. Zone Leaders, STL's, AP's and Office Staff

 

 Elders:Paskett, Christensen, Tacuban, Ehninger, McCracken, Warnick - Departing August 3, 2016

Sisters: Silos, Lozada, Jasareno, Narisma - Departing March 30, 2016

I held a snake!

This week was a lot better. Mostly because we were actually able to work!

We went to the zoo again today and I got to hold the nasty huge snake. It was chill. And this computer shop doesn't let me send pictures so... dasun na lang ah (I'll just do it next time)

Another MLC this week and it was great. There actually weren't very many trainings but I still got a lot out of it, like a lot of impressions on what the zone and missionaries need and that is what we tried to apply in the Zone Training. I would say we have had a lot of good trainings before but this past one was great, like I really felt like the zone got it. They understand what they need to do! It's going to be sweet!

Part of what me and Elder Cagampang took away from the training was that we needed to keep in mind that our area will be inherited by other elders as well. So we decided if we kept doing the same thing that all the other elders before us were doing, everything would just get worse and worse so we decided to start finding closer to the church and even though it will be slower withing a month it should start having success. Just this week we already found a lot of people that we probably would have never talked to if we didn't change our work style and schedule.

This week wasn't really crazy! I don't have anything cool to share.


The other Sister Mesobre is still coming to church and her son is also going to baptize her at the end of this month :)

We haven't really been doing anything new just doing a lot more of what we are supposed to be doing. We are going to be having another Mission Tour in a few weeks so if I am still a Zone Leader that means that I will get to have a special dinner/meeting with Elder Haynie. :)

I guess we had a cool experience before I send this email. There is a family the TAYCO family and they have been members for a while but ever since I have been here they have never gone to church and we have been to their house but nothing has really came from it. The mother had a stroke in 2014 and hasn't come to church since. I am guessing due to the fact that she can't really walk or talk but we actually were able to teach her on sunday. And we could feel it. She wants to come back she couldn't really speak to us, just king of grunt. But now that she hasn't been able to come to church and the lives of her family members have become too busy. But we hope to help them come back soon.

Love,

Austin

Shaking hands with President Russell M. Nelson (President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles)

Hospital... Again

So last year  I remember staying a night in the hospital for someone in my district that was sick. But this time it wasn't someone in my district... it was my companion. Yeah it wasn't me again! Don't worry. So what happened was last week Elder Cagampang was feeling a pain around his bellybutton but we really didn't think too much of it and by Monday it was gone, but Tuesday morning he couldn't even get out of bed to get ready and study. But he eventually did and then we went to district meeting. But you could tell he was in a lot of pain. We texted the nurse and she asked for all the symptoms and before we knew it she told us to come to Bacolod for a check up.

We made the trip and met the nurse at the bus terminal and she took us to the hospital we went in for his check up and the doctor was pretty sure that he had a appendicitis so we went to the ER and they did a bunch of tests on him and he got a ultrasound but they couldn't see his appendix because he's too fat! haha We laughed about that but of course it hurts for him to laugh. We spent one night in the hospital and the next morning the doctor came in, checked up and told him that he needed to have the surgery. So before I knew it I was alone! They drugged him up and took him away! I was able to come down and see him when the surgery was over and they showed us his appendix-he was so out of it he sad "kaonon naton" which means lets eat it! hahaha yeah for the next two days he was recovering in the hospital and I did exchanges with one of the District Leaders so that we could get everything ready for our baptism. Because even though E. Cagampang was bed ridden, President still wanted our baptism to happen. And it did! E. Cagampang came home on Friday and we had the baptism on Saturday!

The Baptism actually was one of the best ones I have ever had.Sister Mesobre was reallly excited for her baptism and her son was the one to baptize her! It was his first time baptizing someone so he actually had to do it 4 times. But it was really good and we read a letter from her son on a mission, so it was a really great service.

We haven't really been able to work this week obviously so it hurt our area but it's expected when one of us had surgery! E. Cagampang is doing good now, we are just taking it easy! We actually are going to Bacolod again today for MLC and we have to go back for his check up on Friday so it's going to be another rough week for the work.

But all in all we still are seeing a ton of miracles and the zone is still improving.

-Elder Warnick

Sister Mesobre Baptism

Elder Cagampang at Hospital for Appendix Surgery

Food - When you are in the hospital

I was hugged..

I shook hands with an Apostle of the Lord! :)

I guess I could end my email right there?

Nah I'll share a little bit. Where do I start? So Monday we were supposed to get our support. The money that we get every two weeks to use for groceries and transportation but it was late which wasn't that big of a deal except for the fact that the next day was presidents day and our cards are from America... long story short we our support was delayed 3 days and most of the missionaries in my zone weren't able to travel! They couldn't work because they had no money! But the day before we were all supposed to go to Bacolod, the money arrived! We were saved. The office told us it was a good lesson to have an emergency fund. haha thanks?

The mission conference was awesome! We went to Bacolod early in the morning to practice our seating arrangement and the picture. Pre. Barredo wanted it to be perfect, we were able to eat lunch afterwards and then the whole mission had to be back at the chapel at 12 for the real picture with Pres. Nelson. The moment he walked in was amazing! It was so quiet and you could feel the respect and of course the spirit! Elder Haynie of the 70 was with him as well. When the picture was done we were to sit down but on the way to our seats we got to shake their hands! I didn't realize how old he was! 91! But he was glowing! haha He still had a lot of life in him. The talks were great! Pres. Nelson focused on who the savior is and who we are. It was so good! Most of my take away from the conference was how much more I need to make the most of every moment here on the mission. It's extremely fast!

We had exchanges again because we are going to be having another baptism! Sister Mesobre! We actually emailed her son who is on his mission right now and we are hoping that he replies because we asked him to send us a short paragraph of what he would want to tell his mom on the day of her baptism. And we are going to read it at her baptism! :) It's going to be one of the best baptisms!
But something weird about the exchanges was that I GOT HUGGED!? It was so weird. The other elders have an investigator that is kind of enthusiastic I guess? She is really all over the place in the lessons and everytime I said something she would place her hand on my knee.. and then after the lesson we got up to leave and she said "tani makabalik ka di kon mangranan ka" which translates to "hopefully you can come back if you're rich" haha oh and she hugged me when she said that... she's like a mom! It was weird!!!

But all weird things aside, It was a good week and pretty productive. The Zone is getting better and I think it has to do a whole lo with the fact that we have been raising expectations! Everyone is great!

Valentines Package from Home

It is oil ... or is it?