August 29, 2015

August 28, 2015

So I have some interesting news... last Thursday Elder Valencia and I were doing our companionship study when we got a call from President Revillo. I was a little bit scared to answer and so I made elder Valencia answer. He talked to President for a few seconds and then his eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped and he said "yeah here he is President". He handed me the phone and I say hello president. President says "hello elder hows your sore eyes?" etc etc. he asks me how im doing and things like that. then he says "Elder, the reason I am calling is because I have an extra calling for you" (I'm already a district leader so I guess I'm going to have an additional calling???) I said ".. uhhh sige po president what's that?". he responded by explaining, "so as you know the new couple missionaries - Elder and Sister Condie - came in two weeks ago and Elder Condie was to be my new office secretary. However they are not working out. I want you to be my new office secretary. Can you do this for me Elder Van Slooten?" ... haha I didn't know what to say. I probably sounded very awkward as I responded, "umm yes president.. I can do that for you". "good", President Revillo responded. "this means that you will be helping me run the mission from behind the scenes. Are you familiar with Microsoft word? excel? do you have a drivers license? you will need to get a drivers license, you will be driving all over the mission" President continued to explain some of the other responsibilities I will have and some of the many things I will have to do and what will happen in the next few days. "Elder you have my complete trust. I need you to learn fast. Elder Brewer will be training you and as you know, he goes home in eight days. Can you get your bags packed tonight? I want you to be in Quirino in the office tomorrow morning early to start your training. Elder I am relying upon you. can I trust you"? umm at this point I was speechless with about a thousand thoughts running through my head. I don't want to drive in Manila I'll die! I don't know how to be a secretary? I've never organized and planned the affairs of a mission! why me? I'm the least qualified! haha I responded and said "President I will give 100% to this calling. you can trust me". President simply replied "Great. be ready tomorrow by 8 am. thank you Elder". He hung up the phone and Elder Valencia and my kabahays - Elders Barenno and Scoffield - were all yelling "what happened, what was that"!! it was a pretty funny experience. so there ya go. I got emergency transferred into the office as president's secretary. My new ward is Quirino 2 at 1 in the afternoon (in case I have any prospective visitors) my pday is now on Saturday so you guys will be emailing me on Friday night.

This is a picture of me and my kabahays before i got transferred. My first night in the office was nuts.. we had to go pay the rent that the couple missionaries had before they left and we dropped by their apartment to get their key. Elder and Sister Condie are awesome and they looked pretty sad to be going home so i offered to give them a blessing if they would like. They accepted and it was very spiritual. Elder Condie was all teary eyed and he told me that he feels like he has known me his whole life. After we collected their key he offered to walk us out to the street. Elder condie told us "We had dinner with the President Revillo and his wife last night and they talked about you elders a lot". He then looked right at me and pointed at me saying "especially you Elder Van Slooten. President Revillo really depends on you and he sees a lot in you" (gulp) hahaha jeez talk about pressure!! I'm sad to see the condies go though. they were only here for two weeks

August 23, 2015

We had a baptism this week! his name is Jericho Bibon 15 years old and he reminds me of Ryan Barnett. we have a super solid friendship. haha! he's one of my favorite converts because he's super funny and we're always sitting next to each other in sacrament meeting and having fun together.

After i baptized Jericho i wanted to yell into my towel. I was so stoked! Then the         

following Sunday the bishop told me that Jericho wanted me to confirm him. I was so  

scared haha! I've never confirmed anyone before in my life! It worked out well                                  though.

 This is our last baptism. Mariella May Ramos Cruz. I baptized and confirmed  her.      And that's our bishop crouching in the front. He's the old mission president of               the Tacloban mission!                                                                                                      

 This is a view of the neighborhood that I live in. If you walk along the   
 river,  you'll run into our street and then you turn left on our street and you'll find our house! Isn't that funny! haha! it looks so uninviting from the outside (and from the inside too) but it's a pretty cool neighborhood. it's always flooding and pretty often the river will flood over that wall and were stuck hahaha!

Me and Mister Buddy Reyes!! He gave me 1000 pesos haha! I told him not to but he forced it on me.

August 2, 2016
Hey family!! I got your package! it was so nice to get it and the timing was perfect! also the shoes fit me perfectly and are really cool! I wrote you guys a letter so hopefully you get it soon. I will send it tomorrow so it shouldn't take too long.

 

My new companion is elder Valencia from Bicol and he doesn't speak a lot of English.. which is a bummer because it's hard to talk to him for a long period of time but! he's super cool! we teach so well together. also a huge bonus is he's really good at cooking. He made Bicol express and chicken curry with fresh coconut milk we bought across the street. SO good! and now I know how to cook it too so hopefully I can somewhat emulate what he created the other day. I really hope that I remember all these cooking things. I want to cook for you guys when I come home! although it won't be as good as mom's cooking it will be better than my cooking before my mission haha!

It was so hard to have Elder Salisbury go. He was my best friend on the mission, and it's not like I'll see him in the future at mission meetings or anything. He's home now so I'll have to wait for when I'm home to see him again! It was pretty sad the first few days without him but I'm adjusted now. He's going to study at UVU right next to BYU so I bought a little coin purse here, wrote Sam's number inside of it, and told Elder Sals to give Sam a call when he gets home and deliver her the coin purse. haha! We'll see if it gets to her! 

 

Mom, that book by Elder Groberg is an amazing book! Brother Olsen gave it to me to read before my mission. It helped me a lot actually and there are a lot of passages from that book that I remember that are very applicable to life right now in the field. I wrote you guys a letter kind of about that. pray that it gets to you! because I think I have sent some letters in the past that didn't get to you!

 

 

August 9, 2016

Hey family! I hope you guys had a good trip to Mex. That'd be cool if Jolie got some surf all on her own to try and shortboard. What board is she riding btw? Did you guys put a leash plug on my longboard yet? Also I hope this coming school year goes great, mom! I pray for you every night crisscross on the floor in front of my fan haha. It'll be nice to be so close to school.

 

 

August 16, 2016

hey family! this week was great! I had a visitor in the Quezon city third ward!!! Buddy Reyes!!! it was so cool to see him!! oh man if you guys ever see him in the near future make sure to tell him how good it was to see him!

 

Sounds like you guys had a great trip to Mexico. I wish I could have been there haha oh well I'll get there in 2 years.

I also wish I could get more done on pdays too, dad. Time is so fast on Mondays. We're not really allowed to go on hikes in this mission at any time so I don't think I'll be going on any hikes any time soon. If we want to go to a zoo or anywhere cool it has to be in our area,  then even if it is in our area we have to text president for permission before we go do anything like that on a pday. hahaha he rarely allows us to "waste time" on pdays. Missionaries from the Philippines say that President Revillo is the most strict mission president in the Philippines haha.  I don't doubt them but I also think it's good in some ways. We get a lot done and missionaries really learn to grow up with his strictness and we really work hard. although yes, dad I'm with you. I wish I could go on a hike too. Once a missionary asked him "President, can I read 'Jesus the Christ' by James E Talmage?" President said "Elders and Sisters, once you have 100 percent memorized the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel front to back, inside and out, you can read whatever you like" hahaha! it was his way of saying, read nothing except for the bom and pmg. Hes' so funny. Yeah I honestly learned to go with the flow. I love the scripture in the New Testament "Don't kick against the pricks" I try to remember that and accept things as they are.

 

Also our stake president surfs and he was telling me about Siargao and how there's

always surf there year round. I think we need to make a trip  back someday

 

This week we had another baptism! I'll try and send you guys a lot of pictures but it was awesome. every time I baptize someone, and I dry off afterwards in the bathroom I wanna yell into my towel from excitement haha. And yes Jericho is so pumped on being a member now. almost every time I see him he says "Elder van! magmimisyon ako sa inyo. sa lugar ninyo ha!"(I will go on a mission and I'll be going to your place) haha He reminds me so much of Ryan or Jacques Barnett. We have our own secret handshake and we're always joking around with each other. I hope he serves in the California San Fernando  Mission! Chances are slim but I'm hoping.

 

July 27, 2015

Hey family!!

this week was another good week. I feel bad because every single week is exactly the same. study. work. walk. sweat. be tired. teach. work. eat. study. work. work, work. sleep. study. walk.. but one thing that's pretty cool is were going to get about three baptisms in august.
elder Salisbury left! he went home to Utah which was really hard because he was definitely my favorite companion so far. I miss him, but my new comp is an old comp of elder Salisbury. his name is elder Valencia from Visaya I think. we'll see what happens I'll meet up with him tomorrow.
I got called as district leader which was really surprising because I'm still so new in the mission. its not too hard though. I just have to go on exchanges with every elder in the district, give workshops every week, and interview the baptismal candidates of the elders in my district.
this last transfer went by so fast! I cant believe its already over. probably because my comp and I had so much fun.

anyways this next week should be cool. ill have a new comp and I think we might get three baptisms. I'm really proud to say I haven't had any baptisms on my mission that I didn't work really hard for. a lot of the times elders will transfer into a new area and baptize people that the previous companionship taught. its still a baptism but I can see how it would feel unfair.

anyways ill talk to you guys next week. my pday is on Monday again this week.

I love you guys!

July 12, 2015

This is a watermelon shake that costs 20 pesos. i don't think I've ever had a more refreshing drink in my entire life. sometimes my comp and i just sit down and drink one of these and take a break. its so nice cus you can buy them pretty much anywhere. very convenient for when you're super hot and super sweaty ( April, 2015, really hot summer months in the Philippines start in March to about end of May. Rainy season starts about May, typhoon season about June to about October)

  my kabahays! (housemates/companionships) except for elder de dios. we had exchanges so elder tampac (far right) worked with me today. we couldn't go out and work the rain outside was too heavy so we decided to stay in and have a kabahay picture (May, 2015)

 this was our most recent baptism! Jaime Cariaga. we baptized his wife a few weeks ago. definitely one of the coolest guys ever ( April, 2015)

 this is Jeslyn Bada Chua our most recent baptism woo hoo!!! shes from the tacloban mission and her native language is waray so sometimes its hard for her to understand some of the words we say to her but shes super awesome. (May, 2015)

on the rooftop of one of our recent converts house. its super tall and the view (as you can tell) is super cool. you can see all the way to the buildings of pasig and manila and you can even see some of the mountains in morong and rizal waay off in the distance. i was super scared in this picture and thats probably why my smile is a little nervous hahaa! (May, 2015)

 i dont know if you can tell but im super sweaty in this picture. also there are a lot of weird animals here (May, 2015)

 me at the temple! im frowning because my face was about to melt off in this picture haha! (May, 2015)

these are my kabahays! no one really knows how to speak english except for me haha. (May, 2015)

  also i hate chickens. they always peck your legs when you walk by. im gonna try and pick one up someday (May, 2015)

 had to say goodbye to elder nawaia last week :( we were in the same zone but now were probably going to be in different zones. btw in the picture im wearing a long sleeve and i almost died from heat stroke. ( ran out of clean short sleeve shirts or hung shirts outside to dry and got rained on, which you never do when rainy season comes) (June, 2015)

 outside the house of one of our investigators. the little boy in the middle is probably one of the cutest kids ever. his name is lawrence and his parents recently got baptized. (with his new companion, Elder Salisbury, who's going home in a couple weeks) (July, 2015)

kids playing in the rain. it may not look like it but it was raining so hard. the place where they were playing actually flooded. we left right before it flooded but jeepneys couldn't pass through it. (July, 2015)

 

we get to play bball a lot. its funny because the rims are sometimes just 7 ft high and pretty easy to dunk and people are so amazed when two American missionaries come and dunk a couple balls haha i have a funny picture of that actually, the dunk isnt that good but the people watching me on the side look so funny (July, 2015)

July 12, 2015   (Henry's latest e-mail. apologize for the lack of updates)

Hey family,

     this week was just another week of work.  sometimes i feel like every week is the same and i have nothing new to tell you guys but it has been raining a ton this week and it flooded near our house pretty bad. if it had floodeed just a little more it would have reached our house. most of our neighbors couldnt get to their houses.  there was a guy with a canoe taking people to their houses for a few pesos. i wish i could send a picture but the computer here doesnt have an outlet for camera cords! oh well hopefully next week ill be able to send some pictures. 

     i dont know if i told you guys this but in my ward right now (qc 3rd) theres a member that used to be the old mission president of the tacloban mission! his name is president malit. (the missoin president before him - president trask  - helped the tacloban become the highest baptizing mission in the world! just a random fact) but president malit is so good at missionary work.. obviously haha but he works with us a lot and really helps us out. were so lucky to be able to work one on one with an old mission president in the philippines. in a way we have a huge advantage over other elders because it's almost like we receive twice the training. hes super awesome and were really lucky to have him.
     i'm learning a lot about how to live with someone 24/7. when you and your comp get along well, mission life is good. so the mission has been really awesome for the last transfer becuase elder salisbury and i get along really well. 

     also uncle jeff and aunt laurie sent me girl scout cookies! my comp and i were very thankful for that! tell them i say thank you! a few nights ago i was talking to a lady in our ward and shes been to indonesia before! (the philipines is so close to indonesia) and i was asking her about the language and she said that she could understand some of the things the people were saying. indonesian and tagalog are very similar in structure and even a lot of vocabulary words are the exact same she said. she told me if you know how to speak tagalog, itll be easy for me to learn indonesian. i was clearly VERY excited when she told me this. when i get home im going to do all i can to learn indonesian haha i want to be able to speak it! that would be so cool if we go there some day!! but well see if what she said is true haha. 

     anyways that was my week basically. oh and btw my shoes are all falling apart and the biggest size they have here is size 11. i might have to get shoes made from some guy but ill figure it out! i love you guys!! 

 

 

EASTER SUNDAY - April 5, 2015

                               Sister Zenny! my very first baptism

                        at the Manila Temple. It's really pretty there at night.

 This is how I react when our investigators say they're too busy to be taught.

 

These are the elders that live in our apartment. Elder Sia (from Bacolod, he's been out 7 months) Elder Connelly (from New Zealand, he's been out 2 months) and of course my trainer Elder de Dios from Toronto, he's been out 9 months.

 

March 15, 2015

 

I saw Sam's pictures! They look so cool!! I'm emailing her right now and she said she just landed in Seattle. I'm so jealous. She's going to Europe again!! and Jolie told me she's going to see  Best Coast with Sam and then Mac Demarco! I'm also jealous of that. But still there's no place I'd rather be than right here. These people love me and I love them. I feel like I have such a major obligation to them... the other day we were tracting and I started talking to this lady.. she rudely slammed the door so I said "Naiintindihan nyo ba kung ano ang tinatanggihan ninyo? Ate, ito ang kaligtasan ninyo!" (I usually don't say things like that because it gives people a bit of a weird view of missionaries but I felt prompted to say that) She reluctantly came back to the door and opened it the slightest bit and I said (after collecting my thoughts a bit more) "Ate, kung meron kayong oras sa amin, nais po namin na ibahagi isang magandang mensahe tungkol kay Jesu Cristo, ang  kahalagahan ng mga pamiliya at yung plano ng Diyos para sa inyo at para sa inyong pamiliya"... she let us in. She's now being taught and I hope more than anything that she takes this seriously and gets baptized! If you know how heavy and how important this gospel is, you start to realize how much everyone needs it. When you realize how much everyone needs it, you start to get a little bit more bold in inviting others to come unto Christ. hahaha maybe saying "sister do you understand what your rejecting?" was a little bit too bold, but it caught her attention. Anyways that was just a cool experience I had this week. 

 

I love you guys! take care!

 

Also, read the book of mormon every day. it will answer questions that we need answers to if we study it prayerfully. mahal ko kayo!

 

 

March 22, 2015

 

Marami akong gustong sabihin pero for now I'll just tell you that my week consisted of riding on the back of jeepneys, hanging on to tricycles with five elders on them and eating balut. haha we had a temple trip and another baptism! the first person I ever baptized! It was so cool!

 

March 29, 2015

 

Hey family!! Have fun in Mexico!!! I'm so jealous.. Take a bunch of pictures and send me some!! My week wasn't that exciting although I feel super confident in Tagalog now but my biggest fear is that my growth  will plateau.. I've been working so hard and feel that I've grown so much.. I dont want to stop growing at this rate so I'll just have to keep working harder. haha! My week was pretty good although we struggled to teach   many lessons this week. We had a few investigators drop us and it was super sad.. We're really working on trying to get investigators to understand why this is important to and for them.. we actually went back to a couple of the investigators that dropped us and we were like don't do this. This is important for you because... and we explained lesson two and now they're being taught again!! I feel like my teaching skills are improving so much and I'm grateful to my heavenly father who has helped me so much.

 



March 9, 2015

    Elder Henry Van Slooten and companion Elder De Dios

  with President Carlos G Revillo Jr. (mission president) and wife

 

hey family! that's so cool Mario Bambo is back. I always remember him as being so nice. Don't worry about me. I'm eating healthy and exercising and sleeping well every night. but yes the little kids here are so funny! they always come up to us and ask for hi fives. they say "hey what's your name!" they're pretty funny but they can be a little overwhelming sometimes just because there are so many of them! the bugs here are massive.. the cockroaches are massive and they can fly, which is terrifying haha! the spiders are the size of the palm of your hand.. the other day in church I heard a girl yell and she said there was a big spider in the chapel.. my companion and I laughed because we thought she was overreacting. we went up to see how big it actually was and it was about the size of a cheeseburger.. so gnarly haha! one of the young men just got a broom and swept it out.. you see some pretty funny things here often. its not uncommon to see someone fully clothed on the sidewalk but dripping wet.. a lot of people don't have showers in their homes so they put on clothes and do a bucket shower on the sidewalk.. took me a while to figure that one out.  Its not uncommon to see 5 kids on one bicycle at a time or to see a man holding three live pigeons in one hand and a dead chicken in the other. People here are so kind though and I think I'm finally starting to understand them more. A lot of the time people will speak in church in English and I'll think "how did I understand that so well?.. oh it was in English" haha!  but this past week when people speak in pure Tagalog I'll think "was that in English?.. oh no it wasn't, I can just understand them". That always gets me so excited  and yes mercury drugstore is the best!  I always walk down the street thinking about how you used to walk down these streets as a little girl. I love you guys so much!! I'll talk to you next week, I hope everything is going well for you guys! tell Jolie I miss her too.

March 2, 2015

HEY family!! this week has been great! a lot of our investigators are in pinyahan which is the neighborhood that we live in so its nice being close to all of them. one of our investigators - jonathan o'dell is super funny. he's definitely our favorite investigator. whenever we give him an invitation he says no.. but we tell him every time we're not leaving until he says yes. he talks about why he can't/doesn't want to and we tell him about how he can and should. anyway every time he ends up saying yes and every time he says yes we know he's going to follow through. he's awesome, super honest and so nice. we can tell he really likes us and respects us. he's about 30-35 years old and his family lives in iloilo. he's just here working. we really think if he gets baptized he can become a leader in the church. he's really great. he makes us laugh every time we teach him.

 

the other day we were teaching this one lesson and my companion, elder de dios, was trying to get contact information from  three people that we were teaching when this little girl tapped me on the shoulder. she was probably six and she just started talking to me. she asked me where i was from and i said "america, siguro iyan ang dahilan kung bakit ang pangit ko" just as a joke and she said "hindi..pogi ka" ;') hahahahaah it was sooo cute! she reminded me of bo.. anyway i gave her a restoration packet and told her to take it to her parents and have them read it.. we haven't heard anything from them yet.

 

everything is great over here, i love being a missionary! i feel like im learning tagalog and how to teach effectively really fast..

this is one of the people that we baptized this week! we had one other baptism. this lady's name is editha enolpe and the other baptism we had was sister evelyn cariaga. the other picture is just typical street view of where we walk around all day