One year in the Philippines 7/30/2018

Well the rain has finally stopped...and now its back to blazing heat!!!! It was a HOT ONE today, and I am not gonna complain about it because I like the heat way better than the rain. 

This week was pretty good. Im gonna include a couple highlights from the week hopefully it gives you a pretty good idea of how I am doing. So the first thing was my baptismal interview with A.J. Baptismal Interviews have now become my new favorite hing to do here on my mission (other than baptizing of course haha) A.J. is a 10 year old investigator from Santa Monica ward and our interview was great. We went up onto his roof for the interview and this kid was super humble and I could see he was nervous and really wanted to get baptized. As I usually try to do, I talked about the NBA for a minute to help him feel comfortable and it was great we both share a hate for GSW and a love for LeBron haha. Also he like Donovan Mitchell so I was pretty happy about that. The interview itself was awesome, felt the spirit super strong and he passed with flying colors. His family was so nice to us and fed us after. 

Another good thing was our lesson with the Dela Cruz family. We have taught them before but they have not been coming to church and so we decided to give it one last go and hope they come to church. The lesson was maybe the best one I have ever had on my mission to this point. It was not really anything we said but the feeling in the room was amazing, everything flowed and our switch offs were so natural, everything about it was awesome it was a lesson I wont ever forget. We answered some of her questions about Ang Plano ng Kaligtasan, we were able to help her understand kung saan tayo pupunta pagkatapos ng buhay natin dito sa lupa. It was great and we got free ice pops (filipino otter pops) afterward. 

We practice taught our mission president this week for our interviews and it was kinda funny because he doesn't understand Tagalog so I dont know how much he actually understood but spirit was there and it was awesome to see the progress I have made with the language and with my teaching. I asked him a question in tagalog and he stared at me for a couple seconds haha, then i realized i had to ask it in English haha. Today we also played tennis...it was dope. Im not good though so im gonna stick to pickle ball. 

This week went fast! I have now officially been in the Philippines for a full year now. I love this country and the people in it. I love my mission. 

Pictures: 

1. This is wat kids usually look like when they see their first white person haha 

2. my area

3. basketball courts are everywhere here 

4. Tennis

7/23/2018 Ulan Pa More

This week has been sooooo rainy. There is a tropical storm near the coast of the Philippines so the rain is pretty crazy and it has been raining every day for the past week and a half. We keep getting text warnings about flooding, thankfully our house is on a small hill and we live on the top floor so we dont really have to worry about our house flooding :)

This week we did lots of member visits following up on the referrals they gave us, the only problem is with the rain it seems like every one is too busy to help us. We were able to find some families though this week and the lessons went great. Again it was pouring on Sunday so the attendance was very very low...but there is always next week right? On Saturday night i woke up at 1 am and i could feel that my legs were wet, i was confused so i got up and there was a huge rain storm and the wind was very strong, it was crazy loud too it was the strongest storm i have experienced so far on my mission. anyways we (being the smart missionaries we are) left all the windows open i the whole house haha. the rain was coming in the house and it was getting everything wet. All four of us woke up and ran to go shut all the windows of the house, there was already some water in our house but nothing too bad. Our clothes outside on the clothes line were soaked haha and we had to get them off so they didn't fly away. sad to say we lost a few socks that night. after it all we were all wet and there was nothing we could really do about it so we just went back to bed. In the morning some of the roofs of the houses close were damaged and like i said before the church attendance was not the best. 

 Thankfully we do have some progressing investigators and one of them came to church and we have a bap date set up in August....transfers are on Aug 8 so i really hope i stay here in Deparo so i can be here for that. Also because our house is huge and really nice...we are lucky haha. I am loving my mission, the time goes faster and faster every week and the mission truly gets funner every week as well. This country is awesome, the people are the nicest people in the world. I could fill a huge book of all the acts of kindness i have experienced from these humble people. I wish i could just baptize all of them haha. Love you guys have a great week! as my unlce skee always says "remember Jesus loves you!" 

Pics

1. some pics of the area

2. my beloved APs stole my camera   

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Elder Hunter Munk

MERICA 7/10/2018

well folks the week of the 4th of July is always a good week. Elder Quilloy my zone leader was really sick pretty much this whole week and so this week was a little slow, but it was great too. The 4th I was on exchanges with Elder Slade and we mapped all day, we were working with the Rodgers who are Canadian so they had absolutely no excitement for the 4th like me and elder slade did haha. They did however have a car and have air con in their car so that was awesome, and it made it really easy to get around to the far places and map them. We came up to one house and it was pretty far out in the bukid, we left the Rodgers in the car. It had a dog out front and here in the Philippines dogs are primarily used to protect the house from pretty much everyone and anyone who is not the owner. We noticed it did not have a rope or anything holding it back, so we quietly and slowly walked past it and we had our umbrellas out to protect us. It got up and walked toward us barking and barring it fangs at us but we got passed it without having to actually hit it or do anything. We got to the house and mapped it and on our way out, the dog was pretty pissed at us. We went back to back with our umbrellas out and jabbed at the evil dog until we thought we were clear. Somehow me and elder slade got separated and as i turned to go back on the main road there were 4 other big dogs right in my way and I looked back and saw elder slade having his own little battle with the original dog, it was crazy and he almost tripped and got bit haha. I jabbed my way through the mad barking dogs and sprinted outta there, slade caught up to me and we both ran until the dogs gave up and went back to the house. It was nuts, it got my heart rate up for sure and we both felt bad for the next set of missionaries to go back there. Anyways we made it through the day and on our way home we bought a bunch of soda and ice cream for the fourth celebration. We bought big macs and fries from McDonalds and some sparkling grape juice that we found. We had a good time although elder Quilloy was sick in the room. 

I am proud to be an American, I am also very grateful for the founding fathers of this nation who, with the help of God, made it possible for this country to have religious freedom creating a way for the true church of Jesus Christ to be restored again. I love the mission and all the craziness and challenges it brings. I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is the way we can return to the presence of God after this life, and I am grateful for that knowledge.     

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Elder Hunter Munk 

Binyag, Templo, One Year Na Lang 7/2/2018

Well, this eek was just a great one. 

We started off with mapping again because there were some people that moved in and some people that messaged us on Facebook and told us that they do live in the ward still so we had to go map them. We experienced miracles ion order to find them. Countless times we were prompted to ask random people things and stop and turn around or to walk down certain streets, it was very clear that the spirit was guiding us to these people. And the craziest part about it all is that we found all but 2 in the span of three days, we also found one nanay who is the only member in her family....another part member! Always remember to follow and recognize the promptings you get every day, the more you follow the promptings the more guidance you will get and the stronger you will feel it. 

We had the baptism of Mark Salaverez this week! It started 30 minutes late...but it happened and at the end of the day it was a really good time. It was actually pretty funny to watch his face as he went into the freezing cold water in the baptismal font haha. Mark is awesome and hopefully we can get the rest of his family on board and baptize them as well! We had two referrals come to church this week and one is from Georgia....he sounds like a gangster and I was really excited to hear someone talk like that haha, I have not heard it in a while. Today is temple p day and we were able to go the the Manila temple. It was amazing! It was so nice to be there and go through a session and feel the spirit that comes with temple attendance. All people, especially those who live in Utah, should really take advantage of the many temples you have. This country only has 2 and some people will do anything just to get to the temple. 

It was a great week of teaching, mapping, baptizing and of course, walking. I love you guys thanks for the support. Tomorrow is the 4TH OF JULY (my fav holiday) so party hard and have fun and be safe...MERICA. Also today is my one year na lang mark, the time has flown and I still have so much to do here. Masaya talaga yung mission, I am loving it! 

pics:

1) broken mirror 

2) MARKS BINYAG

3) a lil shake and bake with Jazz

3) our zone at the temple

4) we buildin the kingdom

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Elder Hunter Munk