come to find out i have pneumonia‏

so just as my title states, i have pneumonia. i dont know how, or why, but ive got it. so for the past 5 days ive been at the apartment, mostly sleeping and reading. IT IS SOOOOOOOO BORING!!!!!!!!!!! i dont think ive ever been this bored. but anyways i finally get to go out and work on wednesday, so im excited about that. lets see...last tuesday we had mission conference with elder edwards, he's the area president here in the philippines. it was way good and i got a chance to visit with president. he's been reading my weekly letters and can tell that im frustrated and getting discouraged, so we had a little chat and he gave me a blessing. i love president! he is such a great man and i love being around him. so the day after that i went to st lukes hospital and the doctor said pneumonia after i went to the PBO(the presiding bishopric's office) and got a chest xray. we had a baptism yesterday, so that was pretty sweet. so on friday i went to the drugstore to get more drugs. to get more drugs i needed much needed funds. so i went to the atm to take out support money from the mission and im waiting and waiting for my balance and it kinda restarts itself and ate my card. i was just a little bit upset. it was a good thing that i thought to bring some personal money just in case. the meds were way expensive. the drugs cost almost 3000 pesos. so thats the interesting stuff until today. so today we missionaries had a little devotional with ELDER BEDNAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was so amazing! i dont think i have ever felt the spirit that strong. he truly is an apostle of the Lord. but it was amazing! we had a q&a session with him and he taught us. we were truly edified. afterwards we all shook his hand. so thats my excitement. hope all is well. oh btw im down to 200 lbs, im pretty exited about that. well have a good week.
mahal ko kayo
elder b

i think my body HATES the 2nd week of the transfer

but before i get to that, funny story. so we went to teach this couple the first lesson. the man pushes me a plastic stool and i sit down. not soon after i sat down, i found myself sitting on the floor as id broken the stool in half. so yeah, im pretty sure that this country isnt made for me, or maybe just a crappy stool. anyway so the reason why the second week of the transfer is so bad is, both transfer ive been here, ive been sick in the 2nd week. last time it was vomit and what not, this time it is crazy fever. for the last 4, going on 5, days ive had a wild temperature. im not sure if im sick, dehydrated or what but it hasn't been too enjoyable. it ranges between 97 and i think the highest ive seen it this week is 103.5. oh it has been good times. it didn't help my mood this week. this week was not a good week for me. some of the investigators we are teaching are so rude! i will be teaching and either they wont listen or interrupt me constantly. also a lot of them wont even look at me when i teach. if i ask them a question they answer it to elder monilla. and i sit there and just want to say, I AM THE ONE TEACHING, not him. I asked the question, please give ME your answer. i dont know its just frustrating, but i was talking to elder pardus on sunday and he's had only phillipino companions and apparently you get used to it. it even happens to missionaries that are about to go home. they are fluent in the language, but the people just dont want to listen. one will say something, the people wont understand what he said, and the phillipino companion will say the exact same thing in the exact same way and theyll understand. ok thats my rant about some of our investigators. other than that theres not to much exciting going on. we have a baptism on sunday morning and i will be preforming it. its for kim, he's 9 and is the nephew of my favorite member, JoJo. so thats something. but other than that not much to tell. investigators come up with new challenges and problems daily, so thats always fun.
well hope everything is well.
mahal ko kayo,
elder b

Greetings from soggy Manilla

Well its been another fun and interesting week here in manilla, and incredibly challenging. its still being quite an adjustment to elder monilla's style. maybe this is why president told me to study and practice patience....but anyways its been a real adjustment for me. but im working on it, i really feel that my language skills have and will continue to improve while im with him. he's just not scott sorensen and im trying to remember that and focus on his good qualities, cause he is an excellent missionary.
well let's see...its been raining here a lot lately and my shoes have spent a lot of time behind the refrigerator drying out, yeah wet socks!!! but we have worked incredibly hard nonetheless, we taught 38 lessons last week! but the greatness of all that hard work was we had 13 at sacrament meeting! yeah fasting! we are projecting 12 baptisms this month!!!!!!!!! so im pretty excited about that.
well what else is new...not really a whole lot; just have been struggling to adjust, but he's very understanding and willing to adjust whenever i bring up a concern. i dont know, its just hard sometimes. other than that, i really dont have much to tell you. keep praying for me and i think about you often, mail is always nice even though it takes 3 weeks or so to get here. dearelder.com sends for free and if so inclined to hand write, send it to the mission office so you can use an envelope. well thats about it for this week, hope all is well.
mahal ko kayo
elder b

greetings from the best mission on earth!

Hello everyone! Well its another hot and humid filled day in the mission field, in the greatest mission on this fine planet! I don’t care what anyone else says. Anywho its good times here in the pasig zone. It was very sad saying goodbye to elder Sorensen, but as we were at the mission office at the butt crack of dawn yesterday, elder s saw the transfer board and said I’ve got a good companion, elder monilla. It should be fun times with my first pinoy companion. We are staying here in the signal II area and for right now im senior companion cause I know the area and investigators.
But lets see, the last week with elder Sorensen was great! We really worked hard to finish his mission off right. It finally hit elder Sorensen on Monday night when he was teaching the Moriles family and testifying about the atonement and the greatness of this our message of the restoration of the gospel that it was finally over. That was the last time he was going to testify to investigators sa tagalog as a missionary. It finally became real. It was really hard to say goodbye to my tatay, he is a great missionary and person. He will be greatly missed in this mission.
One of the great things we did to end his mission was to have his last and my first BAPTISM!!!!!!!!!! It was amazing to finally to see the fruits of our efforts. We baptized Noemi on Sunday morning before church, it was great! It was a small baptism cause it was at 7am, but we didn’t even start till almost 8; pinoy time is great. Anywho that was such a great experience and im really excited for our next baptism on 8/16! Really that’s all my excitement for now, im just in the grind of missionary work. We really need to find more people to teach cause our investigator pool is really going to dry up quickly. Oh, one that is really good. Elder Sorensen and I have been teaching a dalaga (single young woman) almost everyday and at first she was really scared about being the only member in her family, even when she lives with members right now; they're all related somehow, even though I have no idea how. But last week we came to teach and she had this big smile on her face and elder s and I were like she’s going to be baptized! Which she is, we gave her 8/30, but we are going to wait till the time is right. The work moves on. This transfer should be interesting, good thing elder monilla speaks good English. Should be an excellent chance to grow!
Mahal ko kayo
Elder b

Greetings from Dasma

so let's see...what's been going on. well on thursday i went on exchanges with elder pardus in the taguig area. that was an interesting experience, but good times. it was fun being with him and trying to find appointments, he doesnt know the area very well even though he's been there for over a month. anyway we had some good times, but also some frustrating ones. we went and OYM-ed this house and they let us in. we taught began teaching and the one nanny was like english na lang, which means just do it in english. i've heard that before, but that day i just wasnt having it. i looked at elder pardus and said if she isnt willing to try to understand, im not willing to teach so i didnt. so that was something intesting. we didnt even try to set up a return appointment.

anyway the next morning we got up and elder sorensen and elder talal came and met us at the apartment and we went off to interviews with president. that was way fun. president is awesome! you can totally tell that he loves and cares about you. as we interviewed he told me to be patient and to keep trying. he also counseled me to treat myself to wendy's or MacDo(that's McDonalds pinoy style) cause the food is still an adjustment. on the bright side i've lost about 15 lbs and should be under 200 for the first time in years by zone conference in three weeks, im quite pleased about that :) so thats good times.

on sunday morning we're having a baptism! its of course my first and elder sorensen's last. its way early in the morning, should be interesting who all shows up. let's see..what else is new..oh the ward wants to have a "ward family home evening" or what the really want is a farewell party for elder sorensen, but farewells are bawal (forbidden) although FHE arent. elder sorensen isnt to hot on the idea and neither am i for that matter. but anyways, today we are on memory lane for elder sorensen. we got up early this morning and with president's permission we are in his first area, visiting converts and the like. im just kinda along for the ride this morning. we're in dasmarines and i have no idea what we are doing today, should be interesting nonetheless. well thats all my news and excitement for last week. next week, transfers are on wednesday so thats when i'll be writing next.

hope everyone has a good week.
talk to you later.
mahal ko kayo
elder b

temple+p-day=AMAZING!!!!!!!

So hello to you all. This week has been a pretty dull week, just working and working and working. i'll try to hit all the highlights of the last week and a half. Oh and bytheway, not next week, but the week after is transfer day so pday is on wednesday. sorry mom for not telling you that this weeks pday was on wednesday, hope you werent to worried. But anywho...last tuesday was amazing! we had zone conference with pres howard. he is pretty freaking sweet! im excited for our interviews with him on friday. zone conference was amazing! totally spiritual and all that jazz. one funny thing that happened...pres howard knows each and every missionary in the mission by name and where they're from. except me, he was like elder beckstead you're from cedar hills right? and im like, no pres im from seattle. oh whoops. not that big of a deal, but then he was like where's elder sorensen? im point over at him and he leaves. im like nice talking to you too president. but it was funny, the first thing he says to elder sorensen is you're going home soon! and elder s is like thanks for reminding me president. elder s is really trying not to be trunkie and he's doing a really good job. im going to seriously miss my walking dictionary. at zone conference they said they were raising our support money to 8100 pesos a month because they want us to eat better food. so elder s and i went nuts at the store and bought a whole ton of junk food. it was so great! anywho that was about it for last week. nothing too exciting. the work moves on. we're going on exchanges tommorow, that should be exciting. i wont be with elder s for thursday or friday. it should be interesting none the less. so what else happened in the last few days...well our members are amazing! we taught close to 30 lessons last week and all but 4 or so of them were with a member present, it was awesome. and not only are they willing to help us, but its not just the same person everythime. we've got five or 6 that go with us frequently and it really helps(thats my plug for helping the missionaries, help them! it really does lead to lasting conversion and helping the investigators come to church, which makes our job a whole lot easier.) anyway back to the members..they love us! they feed us so much! i think last week we had 5 or 6 dinner appointments (some for 2 in the same night :) anyway that was most of the normal grind. so today we got up at 4 to go to the temple! i am so glad that im in this mission, it had felt like so long since ive been to the temple and its only been a month. it was so amazing. i felt so at peace. it was really nice. im pretty sure that once every transfer isnt enough! well thats all the excitement i can think of. so ill write again on monday with some more interesting news. hope everyone has a great week!
mahal ko kayo
elder b

the theme for the week....sakit!

hello everyone! so the theme for this past week, sakit or sickness! oh it was oodles of good times. so monday afternoon we come back and im not feeling to hot. i started to have some LBM's and that wasnt fun. elder sorensen was making dinner and i just laid there on the couch. as he ate i took a little nap and woke of shivering. thats a bit unusual since that day was probably 85 or 90, just like everyday. i was like uh oh, this does not seem good. i thought to myself youre probably running a fever, which i was, of almost 103. oh was it good times. elder sorensen asked me if i wanted to go out and work and i did. so we went to our first appointment at 6 and began to teach. we were teaching Kim, he's 9 and lives with his uncle while his parents are in austrailia working. his uncle's a member and he has two different colored eyes, but that's beside the point. anyway we taught the lesson and i was having a hard time. we finished teaching and were just sitting there talking and here came trouble. whatever little was in me was coming back out. i made it about 2 steps when the first batch came out on the floor. i made it outside and got some on my shoes. the third time was just on the ground along with the 4th, 5th, and 6th times. man was i feeling good. the member went and grabbed a tricycle for us and we rode home. we got home and it was almost 7 and i just went straight to bed. i was one hurting unit. that night was just LBM all night long, it was bad. the next morning i woke up at around 7 and continued with more LBM's. oh i was in pain. i slept most of the day though, which was nice. the other elder's came back from district meeting and brought me a 1.5L bottle of gatorade and i was happy. i would just wake up to LBM, but most of the day i just slept and slept and slept, it was kind of nice. i woke up at around 9pm to go to bed at 10:30. so that was tuesday. wednesday, thursday, and friday were just normal working days. we've had kind of a disappointing week. we are now in the process of cleansing our teaching pool cause our investigators will just not keep commitments. we've still got a couple that we have high hopes for, but i dont think we're going to have a baptism before elder sorensen leaves. but thats not our fault, we can only bring the gospel unto the people, not make them accept it. on saturday we stayed in cause elder soresen was sick. so this week we did not work for the glory of our stats, cause theyre horrible. it was not that great of a week. but we keep pressing on. the work is hard. i knew that coming out, but i didnt realize just how hard it was till i got here. its incredibly hard when you cant understand people and they cant understand the things im trying to say. its incredibly hard walking around in the heat and trying to find those willing to hear our message after getting next time na lang-ed all the way up the street. its just hard and trying to have a good attitude, but its just plain hard. im just waiting for the day when it becomes easier, when i finally can understand people and they can understand me. but thats a ways off so im just working hard and doing what i can with what ive got. hope all is well and would really like to hear from all of you more often.
mahal ko kayo
elder b
herews 6:1