SAAN ANG SAPATOS KO??

Well this week was absolutely crazy! I hope you all had a great thanksgiving and are having fun in the cold weather! It's still an infernal pit here in the Philippines!

So this week was good, we visited less actives, did a lot of finding, and were just having a great week. Then we went to visit Sister Pepper. Sister Pepper is probably one of the nicest old ladies I've ever met. She lives out in our far area called Biaan (close to Abel). Anyways, we are only in Nanay Pepper's house for like 5 minutes to see if she knows any less actives in the area. It was around 7:00 so it was pretty dark out, and we needed to get to our next appointment. I walk out the door onto the steps and start picking around with my toes, trying to find my shoes. But guess who got they're shoes stolen last Friday? That's right, Elder Furniss.

 But the next day we got to go to Balanga to buy me some new shoes, and we got to eat at Mcdonald's which is always a blessing. We stopped at an ice cream place cause Elder Wilcox was being good and I decided he deserved a treat. No not really, he just really wanted some bubblegum ice cream haha. So we stopped there and got him some. I got cheesecake. That was a terrible mistake. It tasted like they just pulled a block of cheese out of the freezer, put it in a blender and added the word "cake" to the end of it.

Elder Wilcox and I had a pretty awesome Thanksgiving! We just decided to get a good ol' Angel's footlong, and some street food. We also had a zone thanksgiving this morning and it was DELICIOUS! I made an awesome hand turkey hehe. Holidays are kind of hard away from home, but they're still great! I'm thankful for the gospel and how it unites all of us. I'm thankful for this opportunity to be out here on a mission in the Philippines. Even when days are hard, they are always worth it. Not every day is good, but there's always something good in every day! I hope you all had a good week! I'm so excited for the Christmas season to begin. It's the best time of the year! I'm thankful for you all! Love ya.

Elder Furniss​

Go With Him Twain

This week was pretty good! JV was baptized (We actually found out his name is JV not JB whoops.) That was a really awesome experience. I couldn't stop thinking about my own baptism and how I felt that day. JV was also ordained a priest so we're planning for him to baptize his siblings in a couple of weeks.

 I was reading in 3rd Nephi during personal study last week and I found a scripture that I really liked. "And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." I don't know why that verse stuck out to me so much. Maybe because we're close to thanksgiving, and it's the season of giving, and we all know that serving others serves God. Generosity is one thing we can do that will bring us closer to Christ, and increase the happiness of our own lives in the process. (dang that sounds like I copy and pasted that one). We should always be looking for ways to serve our fellow men.

We taught the Bumanglag family the plan of salvation and that was awesome! The dad, Brother Gary was spot on when we explained the three kingdoms. He pretty much said "Yeah that makes sense that people should have a place to go based on their works. It wouldn't be fair if we all just ended up in heaven or hell." Well sadly Abel didn't come to church, but we were able to teach him again. We actually went to a few of our investigator's houses to pick them up for church, and they all hid. Next week na lang I guess. We went hiking this morning and took some pretty sweet pictures. It was a fun time! Well I hope you all have a good week. Thanks for all your support!

Elder Furniss

Elder Wilcox, JV, Elder Furniss

We become what we want to be, by constantly being what we want to become." - Richard G. Scott

This week was pretty great! We found 20 new investigators and it looks like quite a few of them have great potential! We were able to visit Abel and his family, and they are great! They were truly prepared to hear the gospel. Abel has a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and he hasn't had coffee for quite some time now. The only problem, is that he has only come to church once, and it's required that our investigators come to church at least 4 times before being baptized. It's hard for Abel and his family to come to church  because they live kind of far away and it's expensive to take a trike that far. I know that the Lord will prepare a way for them though.

We have a baptism next Saturday for a kid named JB. He's really nice and he's a great big brother. Our goal is to have him be ordained a priest after he is baptized so he can baptize his siblings. We have 2 more investigators that were supposed to be baptized next Saturday as well but their parents won't give them permission yet. We found one awesome kid last week named Joshua. He's from Manila and is staying here with his uncle. He was just sitting out on his porch playing his guitar and we decided to talk to him. It turns out that he had taken the missionary discussions before, but was never baptized. This was awesome for us because he already knew everything! He's going to start coming to church again this next Sunday and will be baptized in December! December should be a good month!

 We are teaching a lady named Nanay Delacruz. She is a die hard Catholic, but she has a testimony. She knows the church is true but is afraid to leave the catholic church, partly because she has a calling, and she's scared of what her family will think of her. We aren't quite sure what to do with her. We have been teaching her this whole transfer, and we are the third set of missionaries that have taught her. I hope we can know what to say to help her, but I feel like we're running out of stuff to say!

We found the Bamanglag family last week and they are straight crazy sauce! The mom is Roman Catholic, The dad has joined the Methodist, Born again, and Iglesia ni cristo churches, but doesn't believe they are true. Their daughter is Iglesia ni Cristo. Their son however (he's 13) has quite a few LDS friends and wants to learn more about the church. Their family is seriously so fun to teach. Everyone starts sharing different beliefs and then we get to share ours. They thought the first vision was awesome so I can't wait to blow their minds with the Plan of Salvation.

Anyways, my companion is way awesome. His name is Elder Wilcox from Salt Lake City. He's been here for 18 months and he's a straight baller! We have a pretty fun companionship. He laughs at everything and his laugh makes me laugh so it gets pretty wild sometimes. He's 21 so whenever people ask our age, it blows their mind that I'm only 18. For some reason everyone thinks i'm like 30. Anyways Elder Wilcox got dear Johned in January (poor guy) and his "girlfriend" is serving in Korea. The EXACT same thing happened to his friend that served in the Philippines as well! So I guess the moral of the story is, if you get called to the Philippines, you better pray that ya girl don't get called to Korea.

Well I hope you all have a good week! Thanks for all the support you give me!
Elder Furniss

P.s Ampalaya does not taste like pickles.