It’s about to rain super hard. 

This family of 5 just got baptized last weekend. They had suuuper good experiences with the baptism and confirmation. We've also been able to teach the sister of the Branch president’s wife once during church and another girl 2 times now during church. It’s a really fun way to do church since I've basically memorized every lesson now from the Gospel Principles book. 

This Pilippino guy reminds me a lot of Davis, just in his mannerisms not so much the way he looks -_- :). 

Hey!! I'm hecka tinatamad right now soooooo here’s a little funny story: 

One of our missionaries who lives in our house is from Kiribati.  It’s a small group of even smaller islands but they are some of the humblest and funniest and most talented people on earth. We were at a FHE (Family Home Evening), a program of the church where families designate one night a week (usually Monday) to do fun activities to become closer and stronger as a family.  Right as we were about to leave, Elder Tumera went back to back with my companion Elder Fenn and farted super loudly!! At the same moment he ran away yelling and pointing at Elder Fenn as we all took in what had just happened. Of course everyone thought it was Elder Fenn cuz that is what Elder Tumera had said, basta it was suuuper funny and a really perfect way to end the already great family home evening. 

We also baptized a family of 5 but my Card reader wasn’t working so I don’t have the pics. Here is a nice pic on my Mom’s phone, feel free to join the movement.

Elder Hennessey

Pumayat daw at gumanda sa mukha

84 days left

This week had some memorable things happen. 

We teach this blind guy. We've taught him probably 3 times now and he asked us, the last time we went, if we were the same 2 guys. We said yeah and afterwards we told him our names again. He said he could kind of recognize us by our voices. We asked him what we sounded like and he said that my voice sounded kind of "Macho" and Elder Fenn’s voice was more kind of "malambot" hahaha meaning soft or kinda feminine or gay. He said that the one of us is "Macho macho" ~"manly manly" and the other one is "macho lang" ~ "macho only" hahaha it was just really funny especially since Elder Fenn started silently asking me if his voice was soft in front of this blind guy. Brother M has a ton of great questions and potential besides the fact that he’s gonna have a hard time getting to church. We’ll probably come get him the first couple of times.

Second thing what happened is that ALMA GOT BAPTIZED!!! For all of you who don’t know, or don’t remember, Alma is the girlfriend of a member in Agoo Branch 3 that I taught when I was serving here over a year and a half ago. She finally finished college and, forever, she’s been saying she would be baptized after she graduated. I don’t know why she waited but hey, at least she stayed true to that goal. It was super fun to go to the baptism and see old members. It has been a real Tender Mercy that I was able to come back to my first zone. If not in the exact area, I still see people I know from my first area on the weekly. 

One of those pics is a bunch of kids eating mangoes. It is officially mango season here in La Union. Before we taught the Santa Cruz Family we went out to the field behind their house and picked probably 40-50 mangoes. They’re green on the outside and kinda hard still but they’re still really good. I just think its funny how much skins there are on the table and poor Tintin had to skin all of them for all the little kids. After she was done though I was shocked to see a 9 year old with a big ol kitchen knife skinning a mango… I guess that’s just how it is here. 

The last thing I wanna share is about a girl who I originally met on a bus. We were coming from Agoo to Demortis and I sat next to Elder Fenn. About halfway through the 2o minute ride I felt I should talk to this girl in the seat behind and across the aisle from me. I kinda pushed the thought away but it came back again and again. I finally grabbed a Plan of Salvation pamphlet with our name and number on the back and gave it to her with a brief explanation. She said thank you and was honestly probably just a little weirded out that I'd waited so long and then kinda suddenly just gave her a little book with a picture of Jesus on it. After we got off the bus I waved at her in the window and went on my way. About an hour later, to our surprise, she texted! She asked if this was the right number and just kinda small talked for a while. Elder Fenn said I should just tell her if she has any questions to text and to leave it at that, not to text-mate her haha. I agreed but then our conversation got really focused on the message. What is our belief about Jesus Christ? How is He a god if there’s only 1 God? We answered her questions simply and clearly using scriptures and short testimonies and she said "I want to try your church, I'm INC (Iglecia Ni Cristo)" She said she would come to church and that the sisters could come teach her over where she lived. It was a real testimony builder about finding and promptings from the spirit. I'm just glad that I listened to the Spirit and extended the pamphlet to her so that she could have a seed of Faith and curiosity planted in her mind and heart. I will try to keep up about her progression to see if anything really comes out of following that simple prompting. 

Hopefully we'll all try to be sensitive to the promptings of the spirit and worthy to be used as His hand in the lives of those around us. It'd be a shame if someone has been prepared to hear the gospel, but they miss that opportunity because for whatever reason, we fail to act. 

Elder Hennessey

 

 

Hey Everyone!!!

Something cool that we did this week was I came down to Demortis to be with Elder Fenn! He is my second companion from my batch. We had a fun time this week getting accustomed to each other even though we’ve been friends for a long time.

We taught a guy named Robert; he was really cool and really is seeking for the truth. After a lesson about the Book of Mormon and Brother George committing to read it every day, he said he had to harvest his peanut crop. We offered our help but of course he said no. We went to some other houses and when we came back we passed Brother Robert harvesting his peanut crop. He was just pulling them out of the ground and of course we were in our White shirts and ties, but we had never harvested peanuts before so we set our bags down and started pulling up these peanut bushes? Plants? I was super surprised to learn that peanuts grow under the ground!  All my life I thought they grew on a vine like grapes or something. After we pulled them up, we pulled them from the plant for him to sell later that day. He disappeared for a sec leaving us to work and came back about 5 minutes later with some of the peanuts we had just harvested! He had boiled them and salted them like they do here. It was a fun experience harvesting peanuts, and gaining the trust of our investigator. We have high hopes for Br. George.

I also have to mention the Solemn Assembly that we all were able to participate in as we sustained President Russell M Nelson as the 17th Prophet of our dispensation. It was so neat to see all of the organizations and levels of the church stand to sustain the Prophet in our time (although admittedly rather weird as only the 3 first presidency raised their hands the first 4 times). I could feel the love that He must have felt as he saw our commitment to follow Jesus Christ through his inspired words. Elder Fenn and I talked a lot about the differences in conference this session with the change of Prophet. Change is sometimes avoided, or even feared. But it was a sign to us that this is not just any church, this is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints because it has all of the original set-up. Nothing lacking and nothing added except it was commanded through Revelation.

I hope we all had a fun time watching conference and are ready to live the things we have heard from those we sustained. 

Elder Hennessey

Packing...again!

 

Heyooo so I've been here in Baguio for 2 transfers. 1/8 of my mission and now I got transferred again. These are special transfers which means they aren’t regular...(seems kinda obvious no?) Any way’s, I will be transfered back to the Hot Lowlands to.... Drumroll Please* AGOO ZONE!! DEMORTIS WARD as a zone leader again. If I'm there until I "die" or end the mission, I will never have had a time in the mission as a regular missionary. I was in a leadership calling from the time I left my Training. I'm super excited because I will be able to go back and visit in my very first area, Agoo 3. I'll go back and show them that I actually know how to speak Tagalog now haha. 

Another cool thing is that WE HAD A BAPTSM!!! It was nanay Virgie Dis-Ing. She’s a sweet heart and kinda like a mom/gramma to us. Her family is slowly converting to LDS, 3 of them are now baptized. I'm sure there will be many more but it will take time, like a steady trickle of baptisms rather than 10 people all dressed in white at once. She asked me to Baptize her except...  there is no heater here in Baguio and the water is very cold! But when I began to say the baptismal prayer I didn’t really feel the cold; it was as if it was heated all of a sudden. I'm sure it was cold for Nanay though when I dunked her haha. 

She also asked me to confirm her the next day at church. This was my first time to do so, so as I confirmed her a new member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints my knees were shaking so bad, like super super bad. But I was able to finish it and did a good job. 

Love you all, it’s mango season here in the Philippines, I'll have a couple for yalls :)

Elder Hennessey