Walk to Tala 3/26/2018

Thiss week was pretty much AWESOME! we did some good things and were blessed because of it. Also this week is my brother Haydens Birthday!!!!!! he will turn 17?!?! holy crap thats weird haha and my other brother Maxs Birthday (shout out to chaudds) 

This week we decided to spice things up a bit, change some things. We decided to just go beast mode this week and literally talk to every single person that we saw, no matter if they looked busy we were gonna go up and talk to them. And since there are a ton of people everywhere it worked out very well. We have this area named Tala and it is pretty far from phase 5 our other area, we usually take a trike ride down to Tala so we dont have to walk a long ways. On wednesday we decided to walk to Tala and we hyped it up all week so when the day came we were screaming it out in our apartment and trying to get hyped for it and also keep the spirit at the same time haha. We then proceeded to walk and talk to everyone we came across, we invited them to church and if they gave us their name and address we asked if we could visit them sometime in the future. We counted the invitations we gave and at the end of the walk it had taken us from 10:00 until 4:30 to get to Tala, we had talked to about 300 people and given out like 350 ITA's which is pretty crazy because the average companionship gets maybe 210 every week. After we were pretty tired and hungry because we had not eaten yet so we ate a ton of rice and adobo and then went home and did our studies. The next day we were still pretty hyped about it and so we decided to do it again, but on the other side of the road. We did the same thing and it turned out to be even better. We were able to find some really good investigators and we found one lady who lives in Oregon and she started speaking to me in english, i kinda froze and was totally caught off guard but it turned out to be a good convo about Jesus and living prophets. We used up 200 pass along cards and 50 lesson 1 pamphlets on thursday it was awesome.   

So yeah wednesday and thursday were exhausting but really fun and it helped a ton with my language which by the way is coming much faster and smoother now (thank goodness). On sunday a man that we talked to came to church, his name is Eugene. He brought his daughter with him and then after church he was just beaming and so happy, he invited us over to teach his whole family. We met everyone and he had something come up so we could not teach him but he asked us when he can be baptized! he asked us! and his wife was totally on board as well, so was the daughter and the mans sister! we were so happy to finally have some solid investigators who want to listen to us. Hopefully they can keep coming to church and also we have about 15 people who are "promising" to come to church next week and we found all of them on wednesday and thursday. This week was exhausting, fun, and it felt so fast, and I am glad that the spirit was able to touch Eugene into coming to church. The gospel changes lives, and blesses families. Im so happy I am a missionary, we all have weeks that suck and weeks that are awesome, the trick is being able to bounce back after a bad week and soak in the good weeks. 

Love you all, someone please update me on the Jazz and march madness....thanks!    

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Elder Hunter Munk 

3/19/2018 Plano ng Kaligtasan

Hello, hello everyone hope you all had great weeks

This week was a pretty good one for your boys Elder David and Elder Munk here in Bagong Silang. So this week we were challenged by our zone leaders to teach the Plano ng Kaligtasan (Plan of Salvation) first instead of the Panunumbalik (The Restoration). The thing about teaching here in the Philippines is that the teaching here is very simple. Simple enough that you can teach the whole Plan of Salvation lesson in 15 minutes. We tried it all week and it turned out great. It keeps them interested and is great when you ask them, "Where are you going after you die?" or "Where did you come from?" Becasue they just look at you with a blank face and then say something like "Oh, Panginoon siguro" (Oh, the Lord maybe...) It is cool to see their faces light up when you talk to them about eternal families and the spirit world. At the end of almost every lesson we were asked how we know this plan of God, it is awesome to watch their reaction when you say "Let me tell you about a little boy named Joseph Smith." It almost makes me laugh sometimes when their eyes get big and they get really interested. 

Most of the time when I OYM someone I ask them if they know who the living prophet of God is, the always say, Oh of course, Moses, right? hahaha Its a good experience telling them about Russell M Nelson and about how he is the prophet for all of us today. While teaching this lesson this week I felt really grateful for this plan that we all have. I am so grateful for the atonement, so that the plan is possible. I am grateful that I know what exactly i going to happen to me and to my family after this life. I am also grateful for modern day prophets and modern scripture that we have. 

Anyways our week was good, full of teaching about the great plan of happiness. Missionary life is the life. Hope you all have a great week, read the BofM and go to church. Thats all I got. Mahal kita, mahal kayo ng diyos    

--

Elder Hunter Munk 

Prayer Burger 3/13/2018

Hello everyone! 

This week was a pretty good one. We had zone interviews this week on tuesday and because we now live so close to the office, i did not have to wake up at 5! It was good and I got to see Elder Morris there for the first time since training. He goes home in June and i was excited to see him and talk to him again. The rest of the week was just finding, teaching and visiting members. The struggle for us right now is finding good investigators, ones who want to come to church and who read and pray. We finally found one this week while we went finding. Her name is Joy and she had three kids, her husband is a sailor and is currently in Peru right now working. She let us in and we talked for a while and we were not able to teach her but she said she would come to church. We went and visited her on sunday morning and she said she was too busy to come....but.....after the sacrament we were walking to class and she came up to us and said that she was sitting in the hall with her kids, but SHE CAME TO CHURCH!!!! finally we have someone who came to church. It was a really good tender mercy from the Lord and we were both relieved and happy that we finally have someone to work with. 

Another thing that people here struggle with is prayer. A lot of the people here dont know how to pray and because they dont know how, they dont do it. One thing I learned this week was the prayer is like a big, juicy, delicious, 'Hires Big H' hamburger. Of course your hamburger has two buns, and your prayer should have two names. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are like the two buns, and in between the buns you can put anything you want in there, bacon, cheese, lettuce. Just like in prayer you can ask for anything and be thankful for anything, you can say anything thats on your mind. We try to teach the people here this concept and it seems to work sometimes, the problem is now everytime we say a prayer i get hungry and want a burger. And its funny to joke about, the philippinos find it really funny when, after a prayer, you say : "Oh sarap ang burger nyo" that means: oh that burger was delicious hahahahaha. Yeah good times. 

Well, masaya ang mission talaga. Ang bilis yung panahon pero minsan mabagal talaga din. ANyways, I love you all and i hope that you all ahve a great week! remeber to read the BofM everyday and pray......remember the burger.....haha. There is power in the Book of Mormon and it is the most true book on the face of this earth, why not read it everyday? I love you all talk to ya next week!   

--

Elder Hunter Munk 

Appointed son of God 3/5/2018

Hello everyone hope your all alive and well! 

This week was pretty interesting. For some reason we came across a lot of preachers this week from a bunch of different churches. They come up to us and start asking us questions like they are interested, then we set up an appointment with them and then when we finally get the chance to teach them...BANG.. they start throwing out a bunch of questions and then they tell us all about their church and about how we are wrong. Elder David my companion happens to be very knowledgeable in the Bible and fluent in Tagalog so that helps haha. At the end of the day all we can really do is testify to them because if we start arguing with them the spirit goes away and it is pointless to teach without the spirit. 

One of the people we tried to teach was a preacher for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ church. They believe that a guy named Quiboloy is the "appointed son of god" and that jesus' spirit is in his body...weird. They also believe in only one god. SO after and hour of him telling us about his faith we started asking him about all the verses in the bible that mention the father and the son. Of course there was no progress but I did have some good laughs while he was trying to explain the doctrine to us. Long story short we left and now he texts us bible verses every morning so we can be "spiritually filled" every day. Awesome.

The other man was a preacher for the message of christ church. His big concern was: "what was gods name before he became god?" We both kinda looked at him for a couple seconds and than tried to explain that we dont know but we then told him all the names we could think of that explain our Father in Heaven. Long story short he got up and walked out of the room while i was reciting the first vision and we had no idea where he went. After like 5 minutes of us sitting in his house with no people there we decided to leave, and maybe not come back. 

Someone came up to us this week in the street with to big sign that said "The Church of Mary Christ of Latter Day Saints". We started to ask him about the signs and he said it was the mormon church. we tried to explain to him that it was the wrong name and than he said that his son Nephi gave him the Melchizedek priesthood and that mormon was going to meet with him later that day at his house......I had no words. I couldnt help but bust up laughing. I asked who Mary was and he said "Joseph Smiths wife, of course. I should have known that. 

So yeah this week was very interesting and it made me realize just how many churches there are in the world. It makes me feel really lucky that I am part of the true one, and that I do not have to rely on a preacher or a bishop telling me what is and what is not true I can ask God and receive revelation for myself. I know with all my heart the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the one true church upon the whole face of the earth. That we have a Father in Heaven who loves us and sent us his son Jesus Christ to the world for us. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a true prophet. If you do not have a testimony of these things yet...please do what it takes to get one. 

I love you all and hope you all have a great week!!!!!!!! Also on march 6th I have been in the field for 6 months!      

--

Elder Hunter Munk 

Back to the basics 2/26/2018

Well hello everyone! I love you all and hope you had a great week! 

So i arrived here in Bagong Silang on wednesday and it was sad to say goodbye to Malolos. Yes it is very very very city here haha. So this place has a really bad reputation but so far nothing too crazy has happened. No i have not been robbed yet. We have heard some gun shots and on the news someone died in our area. but dont worry we are on the Lords errand we are gonna be fine. Anyways my new companion is Elder David from Cebu. He is awesome, pretty quiet and not very good at english but he is really good at oyms he has a way with words haha. So our ward is actually not a ward it is a branch, and a very small one at that. We are currently working on mapping everyone so we can see who is moved out and who is new. We had another Blitz on saturday. It is cool to see how the blitz has evolved. the first ever blitz was in my first area and me and Morris had a huge workload. Now it is so much simpler and easier. It was fun to work with the members and finding the less actives that are not mapped yet. Maybe someday we will get smartphones so it will be a lot easier to map. 

This week was good, we worked hard and it was good to be able to get comfortable teaching with elder David. We do not have much to work with but the Lord has us here for a reason and im confident that we will see some baptisms before we leave the area. I taught Lesson 1 probably 20 times from wednesday to sunday hahaha its good for my language though. Although it is tough being back in the city, im glad i am here. Hopefully this branch can become a ward and we can see the fruits of labors. Its gonna be a grind but im ready for it. The time is going so fast i cant believe that its already March! wow i feel like i just graduated last week hahaha. I hope you all have great weeks. Shoutout to all the homies on missions! keep grinding. Love you! sorry....still no pictures. 

Alma 26:12 

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Elder Hunter Munk 

Bye Bye Malls 2/20/2018

Well well well, oh how the time flies. It is funny how the good times always seem to fly by. I am transferring back to the city..... sobrong pangit yung city talaga, grabe. Anyways I am really going to miss it here in Malolos. I am going to miss the open rice fields and the mountains and the long jeepney rides and of course the people I have met and the zone that we had. This has been the best time I have had on my mission by far, I loved it here. Elder Basa will no longer be my companion and he is staying in malolos to train. He is awesome I will miss him for sure. We have some baptisms coming up in March and a wedding for our investigators next week, I wont be able to see but I am happy they will be baptized and become members of this church. We had a great run together and hopefully he can continue that success.

My new area is going to be really fun...! It is in the Camarin Zone in the Bagong SIlang Ward. This is the most populous area in the entire country. It is considered the "ghetto" of the whole mission sooooo yeah its gonna be wild. Back to pollution and dog poop everywhere. Hopefully we can get that ward baptizing again and build up the area. My new comp is gonna be Elder David he is pinoy and he is only a transfer ahead of me in the mission. I am a little bit dissapointed that I am going back to the city but I know that there is a reason I need to be there with Elder David, hopefully I can find that reason before I leave again. 

This week was a really great week. We finally got one of our investigators to church and he had a really good time. We had a big stake conference to re-organize the stake here. Elder Bowen of the 70 was there and he gave a great talk about the sacrifice and atonement of Jesus Christ. One thing he said that was really cool was that no man could kill Jesus, he was the son of God and no man could kill him. It says in the scriptures "he gave up the ghost" Elder Bowen said that he was not going to die from the efforts of the evil men, he died when he knew the atonement was done and he died or, gave up his ghost, when he knew it was time. It was pretty cool and deep I did not really know that before. The entire talk was in english obviously and not alot of people could really understand him so it was funny to look around and see people sleeping and not really paying attention but hopefully the spirit carried the message into their hearts. Monday we said goodbye to sister Barrie and Va'atuitui becuase they are going home, we all went to Robinsons to eat and it was pretty good. Yeah so that was my week, The second I get a cord that works I will send a ton of pictures I promise. I love you all! I miss you all as well! Goodluck with everything this week hope its a great week. Remember, if you are committed you will learn from every mistake and you will learn from every dissapointment. Even your fears will make you stronger.

Thats all i got for ya today. Love you very big

--

Elder Hunter Munk 

Ang Aking Patotoo 2/12/2018

Sorry I dont have any pictures....I really tried but my cord is not working, next na lang! 

I wanna just share my testimony with you all this week

Alam ko po na totoo yung simbahan na ito, yung simbahan ni jesucristo na mga banal sa mga huling araw. Alam ko na totoo yung Aklat ni Mormon at may kapangyarihan sa Aklat ni mormon. Alam ko na mahal na mahal tayo ng diyos at tayo ay yung mga anak ng diyos. Alam ko na tinatawag ng diyos ang mga propeta para bawat isa sa  atin. Sa pamamagitan yung mga propeta malalaman natin yung mga salita and patnubay ng diyos. Alam ko na nakita ni Joseph smith ang ating ama sa langit at si jesucristo. Sa pamamagitan ni joseph smith ipinanumbalik yung totoo na ebanghelyo at simbahan ni jesucristo. buhay pa si jesucristo.  Sobrong nagpapasalamat para sa yung opportunidad na ito bilang isang missioneryo. Mahal na mahal kita. 

Love you all! have a great week 

-- 

Elder Hunter Munk