New apartment, coconut tree, and investigators

•Padulong transfers usab!‏ 5/29/2013

It's another bright sunny day in Danao!  Me and my companion continue to get along pretty well and learn a lot from each other!  It's weird to think that transfers are coming up in a week - it went so incredibly fast!

We've been working pretty hard here, trying to get everything together for group sacrament service for all the people that're far away and the plete has become too expensive for them.  There's so many families up there!  when we do splits and try to get to all of them, we pretty much get to those that we know where they are, but there's still more where we don't know where they are!  We definitely could really use some Elders assigned up there, because with that coming up, there's going to be a lot of people interested in being taught and a lot of returning members needing strenghthening and with all of that, we wouldn't get all the needed work done up there even if we went up there most every day!  

I've also been trying to keep a good study journal like my mission president told me too;  I've been trying to find the balance between avoiding lightmindedness while being cheerful and getting along with people.  I've realized recently that you need to be their friend in order to have their trust and so I need to be able to joke around and establish a relationship without that interfering with our purpose there and also being able to have them focus as we teach the spiritual.  My whole mission, I've been searching for balances, and that search will continue beyond this life.  In the meantime, I will study it out in my mind and in the scriptures and seek the guidance of the spirit.

Exactly one week ago, we had some major progress with one of our investigators - she had finally prayed to know if the church was true, and we could definitely see that she had gotten an answer! She was more attentive than any other time we had taught her, and she was asking about what she needed to do to get baptized, what she can do to better follow all the rules, and all that stuff.  I'm hoping that we might be able to get updates on that from missionaries over there in Bacolod where she lives and will continue taking the lessons.

looks like I'm out of time - Hope everythings going well up there!

og kakugihang misyonaryo sa Ginoo, 

si Elder Dallin Carlson

•Temple! 5/22/2013

kamusta tanan!

It's been a awesome day here - got to go to the temple!  The spirit was so strong - I felt so close to God!

anyways, I've been learning a lot about the eternities lately (particularly the Plan of Salvation).  It's interesting to think about how since God is our Eternal Father, we can eventually grow to become like him just like any child becomes like a parent.  However, at this mortal stage, as Dieter F. Uchtdorf described, we are like awkward toddlers compared to him.  He wants us to continue to progress and grow, despite the times we trip and stumble and fall.  However, they congratulate us when we get stuff right and do not scold us for tripping, but instead encourage us on as we learn to progress in the spiritual/eternal perspective.

So for now, I'm going to continue to strive and improve in the language and everything else.  One thing I'm trying to do better on is why/how to obey the things which have been commanded.  To do that I studied about the "higher law" found in 3Nephi12 and 

hope all's well with you and yours!

~si Elder Dallin Carlson

•Hapit na Zone Interbiews!‏ 5/15/2013

Kamusta, tanan!  It's another nice stifling hot warm-season day in the Philippines :)  it just means that I have to bring a handkerchief or small towel with me, or I’m likely to get drenched in sweat :P

Things are going really well here in Danao - we've got plans going to build a small meetinghouse up in the bukid part of our area!  There was one awhile back, but it burnt down and since then, the members couldn't pay the 80 pesos to get to the church here in the city and so they went inactive.  But we've been going up there every week (really expensive) because there's so many that want to be taught - if they start the group sacrament meeting up there, we'll need a pair of missionaries to be assigned up there (in our ward) because of all the people wanting to be taught/baptized up there.  It'd be perfect, because that one other house would be perfect for 6 missionaries!  We'll see what the revelation for that is though. 

Anyways, Elder Benjamin is learning a lot and working hard when we're outside of the apartment - whenever we go on splits, between the hours of 3 and 8PM, he gets about 10 lessons or more!  It's not too hard up in Cahumayan because it's filled with eager saints who don't have the plete to get to church anymore. 

It's been really good to go over the material again that I did in my training - as I teach it to Elder Benjamin, I seem to learn even more about it, and realize what I need to work on. 

One thing I found out I'll always need to be working on is my language - I just found out that whenever there are two English Elders teaching an investigator, the investigator tends to not really understand, but since they're foreigners, the person is too shy to ask what on Earth the missionaries just said.  We're trying to figure out how to remedy this situation, and I just realized that no missionary will finish learning the language and should always be doing language study.

so yeah - that's about it! Hope everyone’s doing well and everyone is feasting daily upon the words of Christ and praying often that ye may come off conqueror and following the spirit that ye may be filled with it unto the rejoicing of your souls!

-usa ka kakugihang misyonaryo ug sulugoon sa Ginoo,  (-a diligent missionary and servant of the Lord,)

~Elder Dallin Carlson

•Bagong tudloan!‏ 5/08/2013

kamusta tanan! (hello all!)

This message might be a little shorter with that PMG survey we had to take for Elder Ardern before his mission tour.  Hope that comes up soon!

Anyways, as for our mga tudloan(people we're teaching), they haven't been progressing enough so we've kind've been searching for new people to teach.  It's hard to get people to come with us though, because they always say there's not enough time or money or something like that.  So then we tried getting people from that area to come with us, and then we realized that most of them who are less active live farther away, and most of our active priesthood holders are in the city, so that makes a problem.  In the meantime, we'll just keep working hard.  We've got a new investigator!  She's staying with relatives (members) and being their househelp - she's 16 and has a lot of questions.  We'll be meeting with her tonight, and trying to answer some of those.  It's sort of an interesting situation - we're supposed to set a baptismal date in first lesson, but there's also the standard of 6 months of going to church or getting permission from president and there's also the part that she's going to an area in Bocolod to return to her family, who aren't members.  My companion wants to baptize her here and now because he heard she has a lot of questions.  I want to wait so the missionaries over there can find out what she'll do when she goes home at the end of this month.  We'll see if we can figure out a bit about that.  But in the meantime, I'm going to go now and wash my laundry.

talk to you all later!  love you all!

og misyonaryo sa Ginoo, (a missionary of the Lord,)

Elder Dallin Carlson

•Maanindot nga adlaw karon!‏ 4/30/2013

kamusta tanan! mahal kita!

It's going pretty good here - beautiful day, there's a fan here to keep me cooled off  :)

Anyways, as for our area, we're still trying to refocus our efforts, but we're struggling in the area of investigators.  They don't seem to be progressing enough - if we baptized them now, they'd think that what they're doing now is ok, but it's not.  I think we  may put more of a focus on the members and getting referrals from them, because the referrals tend to do a lot better, especially since they already have a support and an example.      We're also still trying to search if there's something wrong/lacking with the way we work with them.

On another note, one of the things I've been teaching our investigators is about the straight and narrow path going towards the Celestial Kingdom - one time as I was teaching it, I received a flash of inspiration (an apostrophe/epiphany :)  and as I was teaching it, I realized that it's like a narrow current that's hard to stay in - it's really difficult, and it may be easier to be outside of it, but you don't make much progress unless you're in it.  If we liken it to a highway, those lines on the sides are like the commandments - it may seem to be a burden to stay inside of them and follow them, but they keep you safe and on the better path where it's better going and you can progress instead of off roading which may be fun at the time, but then later you wash the car and fix dents and if you went off in a bad place, you have to heal the wounds and deal with a totaled car.  But we receive help, strength, blessings, etc. if we follow all the commandments/rules/standards.

My companion and I are doing well; we're learning a lot together.  How to work, how to compromise, how to work with others, and much more.  He's been trying to learn the language, but it's not coming very fast.  So what he's doing right now is learning how to be patient, slow down, and "use what little I know"(Elder Benjamin)  he's working hard to learn it, and so we're just going to go at a turtle's pace, and later when the other missionaries stop doing language study and feel comfortable with where they're at, he'll catch up and maybe even get ahead of them!  

Oh yeah - good news, we got a new Ward Mission Leader!  He's been in that position before, so we just have to teach him about the new program where we visit everyone.

that's about it!

 Hope all's well with you and yours!

~Elder Dallin Carlson

•Diri sa Danao gihapon!‏ 4/24/2013

Hi Everyone!
Just found out Monday that I get to stay in Danao with Elder Benjamin!  I get to continue with training my "anak (son)"  we call them that here because I'm basically the father figure as I teach him because he's brand new in the mission field.  This will be interesting - he might end up being the first ever missionary to be my companion for two transfers in a row!  Even my MTC companion and trainer were with me for a transfer and a half.  But on another interesting note,  a previous companion of mine, Elder Cunningham, was just made a zone leader!  I guess the effects as the "Refiner's fire" (as nicknamed by Elder Woods) was delayed by 2 transfers :)
The work here in Danao is progressing, but we don't feel that any of our mga tudloan are progressing enough.  We are going to try and figure out what is missing - if it's them or us or the ward.  It could be that they just aren't that elect, or it could that there's a lack in our teaching, or it could be that they need fellowshipping and/or not getting enough support from the ward.  Either way, there's something lacking and so we're going to do our best to find it - it may just be that they lack commitment and so we may need to put them on the backburner and maybe focus on the members because there's many of them who need some extra nourishment by the word of God - it's so tiring to try and bring people back to have them fall away again - as a mission, we're trying to find the lacking in each area and each tudloan.  If we look at the numbers, it's obvious even though we're trying to bring people back, there's still more falling away - it's like trying to fill a cup with a huge hole in it - you need to find the lack, or the holes in it, so they can make it as a ward and not just the small number who are keeping covenants and reading every day and doing everything to the best of their ability - if they don't do that, they will have regrets.  when they have the first partial judgment as a spirit, and await the resurrection, if they have any regrets, it's not going to be a paradise for them - it'll be a prison.  Remembering all they could have done, and wishing they had done more;  we should all strive so we can avoid that!  I encourage all reading this to seek the pathway towards eternal life, and follow it!
g2g - hope all's well with you and yours!

og kakugihang misyonaryo sa Ginoo,
si Elder Dallin Carlson

More Pictures from Elder Dallin