1/20/2014

I was just informed that we are going to have to leave for a dinner appointment in like ten minutes or so, so I am really sorry that this email is going to have to be so short. We do use the same book as you guys do for Elders Quorum and Relief Society. I am super excited for you guys and the temple open house. I think it will be a really neat experience for the girls.

 I think I will tell you about the rats in our house. We actually caught like three of them in the last two and a half days. One was almost as big as both of my fists put together. We burn them with our alcohol that we use for cleaning our hands. 

The work is going really well in this area too, and I love my district. The activity up at the falls was amazing. I had the opportunity to baptize someone for the first time too, which was really neat. I really felt like almost out of time, like away from the whole concept of it. I am so thankful for the opportunity to serve the people here. I hope everyone at home is doing well. I miss you guys tons and I love you so much. I apologize again for the short letter.

Love you all tons!!

Elder Benjamin Merrill

Do You Want to Eat Fire?

I am now in.... Calabanga, about a 20 minute ride from Naga City, right on the bay! My new comp's name is Elder Nebeker from American Fork Utah. We are continuing to live the dream out here in "The Best Mission in All the Land" (daw)

The subject line is a direct quote from our bishop. This was my second time meeting him, because we actually had a dinner appointment with him my first day here. We were walking up to his brother's house to confirm on another dinner appointment, and Bishop was working in the yard. He looks at me and says, "Do you want to eat fire?" (in English of course.) Turns out he was taking care of some hot peppers. Our bishop is quite a character. By the fact that I am using the word bishop, you may have guessed that I am in a ward now. We are actually part of the Naga Stake, so that is pretty cool. The ward, however doesn't really seem that much bigger than the branch in Libmanan. The church here is really nice too though. It is two stories tall, and has a nice big chapel. All of the chapels here have windows on both sides, which seems really different to me, but it is also really nice, because it gives us a lot of natural light.

Everything seems to be going really well in Calabanga. I have been a little under the weather this week, but I didn't let it get in the way of the work. Elder Nebeker and I actually just had a really neat experience last night. We were walking along the road to go home after getting "punted" from a good number of lessons and we both noticed two people standing on the side of the road. We both had the feeling to talk to them, even though we really didn't want to. We talked to them and set up a return appointment to teach them, and they actually seem pretty interested. The cool part happened  after we were done talking to that family. One of our investigators came by in his car and offered us a ride. It turns out he had a relative in the car who has never been taught by the missionaries, but who will be staying with them for a while. We decided to have them take us to their house instead of ours, and we shared the message of the restoration with all of them. I really felt the Spirit, and our new investigator even prayed while we were there. It is really wonderful to be a part of little miracles like these out in the mission field.

We are just doing really well here in Calabanga. I'm living the life.

Here is one of my favorite scriptures from what I read this week (Helaman 5:10-12):

"10 And remember also the words which Amulek spake unto Zeezrom, in the city of Ammonihah; for he said unto him that the Lord surely should come to redeem his people, but that he should not come to redeem them in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins.

 11 And he hath power given unto him from the Father to redeem them from their sins because of repentance; therefore he hath sent his angels to declare the tidings of the conditions of repentance, which bringeth unto the power of the Redeemer, unto the salvation of their souls.

 12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

I actually really like the part in verse 10 where it says that Christ will come to save us from our sins and not in our sins. The story of Zeezrom has always been one of my favorites.

I would also like to say thanks to the ward for the mail at Christmas. Sorry this is a little late, but I really appreciated it. It was so neat to hear from everyone back home. 

I love you guys tons!

Elder Benjamin Merrill

12/29/2013

I think I will tell you about a family here.   The dad  had a stroke (I'm not sure how long ago) and lost feeling in and the ability to control the left side of his body. Because of his stroke, his wife now has to support the family by working in the palayan (rice field) every day so they can have food to eat each day.  On top of this, their oldest son (They have 3  sons and two daughters, yata) is on a mission. They have such amazing faith, and the daughters come to church almost every week, but the parents can't come because of working and the stroke. It is really hard to see them in such a sad situation. We had the privilege of bringing a letter to them a few weeks back from their son who is on a mission. It was really neat to see how happy it made them. I can tell that they really love each other a lot in their family. We also visited them last night. For my last message with them, I shared 1 Nephi 3:7 and they shared with us the experience of getting their son on a mission. They said that everything just started to work out just fine as soon as they started trying to figure out how they were going to support their missionary. I know that the Lord provides a way for us to follow all of his commandments, and that he gives us commandments for our protection and happiness. 

I will tell one more story I think, the story of one of our newer investigators. He is actually the roommate of one of  our less active members. He is about 20 years old, I think. He really didn't seem very interested in what we had to share at first, but we had a really neat lesson with him one day that really changed things around. He told us that he came from a broken family and isn't really proud of  all of the things that he has done in his life.  And we shared the story of the conversion of Alma the Younger. When we talked about the Atonement, I felt the spirit so strong.  It is so amazing to see people's hearts softened by the spirit and  testify of the truth to them. The next lesson, he offered to say the opening prayer. (It totally caught us off guard.) He is doing awesome, so I hope that Elder Acidera and his new companion can help him to continue to progress.

I've also been just tearing through the Book of Mormon these past few weeks. I've gotten through the first 50 chapters of Alma this week.  I really love the Book of Mormon, and I can't even put it down sometimes. There are so many different topics and so many different kinds of stories in it. I have gained such a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon as I have studied it over the past few weeks. I know it is true, and I know that it contains the word of God, and that we really can become closer to Christ  by reading it and abiding by the precepts in it.

Before I go, I wanted to mention one more quick connection that I made about the Book of Mormon this week. It is probably pretty obvious to everyone else, but I thought it was pretty neat.  I was thinking about how there are two people named Moroni in the Book of Mormon (Captain Moroni and Moroni, son of Mormon), and I was wondering how they ended up with the same name. I then read the verse where Mormon talks about how if everyone were as righteous as Captain Moroni, Satan would have no power over us. It was at this point that I remembered whose son Moroni is. Of course Mormon is going  to name his kid after Captain Moroni, because he wants his son to be just as righteous as him. Maybe that was really obvious and I am just slow, but I thought it was pretty neat.

I just wanted to say one more thing about the skype session. I have been thinking a lot about the question, "Are you happy?" especially because I got the same question from President Reeder in my last interview. I have realized that I always end up thinking about myself a lot when I am asked that question. And I tend to focus on the hard things, but when I think of all the people that I have met and taught here, I immediately know that I am happy after all. It really isn't about me. It is about all of the wonderful people that I get to help while I am here. I am always happy when I am thinking about others.

I love you guys tons, and I miss you a lot, but I am loving it here in the Phillippines as well.

Elder Benjamin Merrill

Another Great Week

Sounds like everything is going really well back home. Sounds like it has been pretty cold there lately. I can't imagine temperatures below 70 degrees anymore... I am probably going to get cold easier than mom when I get back. 

The answer about Christmas lights is yes. There are actually a lot of Christmas lights out and about. There is even a huge Christmas- tree -shaped formation of lights near the big Catholic chapel here. I don't know anything about a lot of other Christmas traditions, but I will let you know if I experience any.

It has been a pretty good week, and we are super close to having a baptism on the 21st of December. The name of the family is the B family. We will just be baptizing two of the daughters  who are 11 and  12.  We found them through a somewhat less active member, who is like their grand-uncle or something like that. He is really great, he is even endowed and has a super strong testimony of the church.  They actually live in the same house, so we always get a member present when we teach them. They have had some trouble getting to church in the past because they live kind of far from the church, and they don't have a lot of money for their pamasahe (I can't think of an English word for that...), but they will be ready for baptism if they come to church this week, and I would be really surprised if they didn't come this week.

One more story for this week. I got to meet another normal American. He served here in Libmanan in 1983ish. He doesn't know any Tagalog. He came here and visited a lot of the people he taught while he was here, and got a few of our less actives to come to sacrament meeting. He is actually really good friends with Sister C, and his son is serving in the mission where Elder Acidera is from (Laoag). Elder Acidera has actually met his son. Isn't it such a small world sometimes? Another crazy part of this story is that as we walked to Sister C's house, where we were going to meet this guy for the first time, Elder Acidera was telling me how he needs a vial for consecrated oil. It just so happened that this guy had brought some extra oil vials for us. Isn't that amazing?

I thought of something else. I have actually had the opportunity to give a lot of blessings for the sick while I've been here. It is really neat to be able to serve people in this way. I have seen so many people benefit from the power of the priesthood here. It makes me want to always be worthy to be able to help others with the priesthood. 

I love you guys! 

Elder Benjamin Merrill

12/2/2013

My Tagalog is coming along pretty well.   I've actually learned a decent amount of Bikolano too.

We got three investigators at church this week! It was so wonderful that they were all able to be there. It is sometimes hard for Edmond to go to church, because he often has to ride the skates by himself. Sometimes his older sister is able to go with him though. The other two just don't have money sometimes, I guess. We feel pretty confident though that we will be able to have a baptism on the 21st of December.

So, I think it is time for the Thanksgiving story. We didn't get a single key indicator on Thanksgiving. We just got punted over and over again. We did hand out a few pamphlets, but none of our planned appointments were there/available when we tried... I was probably the most tired I have been in my entire life that day. We decided to visit Sister C before we went home though, and we talked to her for a little while, but we couldn't really teach her because wala kaming kasama na lalaki. We needed another male member with us. We decided that we should go get some bulastog ( hard-boiled chicken egg dipped in orange-tinted batter and fried in hot oil), because it is super delicious. As we started to eat our food, this old lady with pigtails came up and started speaking crazy English to us. I accidentally left without paying for my bulastog because I wanted to get away from her. I did pay for it the next day though. My companion thinks it is so funny every time I say, "I stole an egg."

My cold is almost gone now, which is nice. It certainly decided to hang around for a long time. 

It is the wet season right now, which means it is a little cooler. (It still seems pretty hot to me for the most part. I am a little worried about how hot the rest of the year is going to be :P) 

That is about all I have for this week. We did buy some ice cream at 7-11 yesterday. Pretty interesting flavors... Mango and Cashews, and Ube keso (keso means cheese) pretty good, but I don't really like the cheese one that much... Ube is that purple flavor, I think it is like yam or something.

I love you tons and miss you too!

Elder Ben Merrill

Thanksgiving Day Sprite

11/17/13

Things are going well this week. I hear that they (all the missionaries) are all ok now. I hope that is true. It was a crazy storm.  I think we ( in our mission) will just stick to our regular work for the most part.

Here is a little about Sister R who we are meeting with.   The other day we went over to visit Sister R to ask about another sister who is in Legazpi right now. She told us about how she has a lot of siblings (I think they are all sisters), but how none of them are members and how she really wants to share the gospel with them. She talked to us about how, even though she is the only one of her siblings who is disabled (she is almost completely blind and always needs one of her kids with her to guide her around), but that she really is the lucky one, because she has the true gospel in her life. It is really humbling to me that she can have the perspective that she does about life. I am so thankful that I was able to meet her here. 

Last week at church we had the primary program. I thought I would mention it, because it really was pretty great. The primary program was pretty much the same here as it is anywhere. Plenty of screaming, singing, and everything else. They actually did it almost all in English, so that was cool too. The only thing they didn't do in English was the last song. Yesterday we had Branch conference, so it was a regular day at church.

We had dinner at the branch president's house this week too (I think it is a last week of the transfer tradition). We had pancit and chicken curry. It reminds me so much of the chicken curry that we used to eat at home. The food here really isn't that different from what we used to eat at home (at least when we had rice) They just eat rice with chicken, vegetables, pork, or fish on top. The branch president has a super cute baby named Nigel.

We also went on exchanges with Elder Sorensen and Elder Kaumaitotoya this week, so that was pretty cool too. 

I love you tons, and I miss you so much!

Elder Benjamin Merrill

                                                        Ben on a "tricy", a motorcyle-like taxi.

                                                         Ben's district

                                                      Riding a jeepney to Naga

11/10/13

We had a typhoon. The power in our barangay was out all day, and we had to stay inside all day. I felt really lazy. The storm really wasn't too bad in our area, fortunately. We just lost power for ~40hours, which was actually pretty rough. Everything was back to normal as soon as they got the power back on in our part of town.  The storm hit much harder down far south of us though. I really hope that no more people get hurt. It sounds like there has been a lot of flooding, and that very few buildings are even still standing.

This week was a pretty good week. We had a CSP (community service project) on Tuesday. We pulled out like a million weeds from someone's field, so they could use it for farming again. We actually used machetes, or what they call 'itak's to do it, so that was kind of cool.

The work here has been good this week too, except for the bagyo of course. We have been teaching Edmond a lot, but he is living kind of far from the church now. He didn't come this week, which was really dissapointing. However, one of our other investigators that we were having a really hard time getting to church actually came this week which was really amazing. We are probably going to visit him tomorrow to find out how he liked it (and why his sister didn't come). 

We also had a trainer/trainee workshop, which was kind of cool. We taught one of the AP's for one of our practice lessons, and it actually went really well. I feel pretty confident about my Tagalog when it comes to the lessons (especially the first few), but I feel like I am still very lacking in Tagalog skills when it comes to everyday situations. I think it will all come with time. 

I thought I should tell you about a few of my  favorite things that I have eaten here. There is sinigang(sp) which is like soup kind of, but you put it on rice. It is kind of sourish, and it has pork and vegetables like asparagus in it. Also, siopao is really good. It is like those little bao things from Costco, except way better. They are like little toasted rolls, filled with delicious meat of some sort (probably pork) and a hard boiled egg.  Soy sauce and rice has in a way become my bread and butter.

Not too many dull moments here. It is really great. Even the haircuts are an experience. My schedule keeps me really busy too. We get up at 6:30 and then have time until 8 to get ready for the day, exercise, and eat breakfast. We then have an hour of language study and an hour of personal study. At 10 we leave the apartment and proselyte until we return to the house at 12 for lunch and then companion study from 1-3. We then proselyte from 3 until 7:30ish at which time we go back to the apartment for dinner and planning. We then have from about 9:30 to 10:30 to write in our journals or get stuff ready for the next day. We sleep at 10:30 and then start the next day. It really is going by fast already.

Sorry, this letter is going to have to be kind of short. 

I love you guys all so much!

Elder Benjamin Merrill

  Ben on a "skate," which moves on railroad tracks.

Sister Edna, the lady who cooks for the missionaries, her kids and Elder Acidera.

Ben by the railroad tracks.