Elder Head in the Philippines - Busy.

Hey Momma!

So our schedule is super weird this week because we went to the temple and we don't have a lot of time. Plus I just found out that Sister Simkins had to go home early because she got a stress fracture in her femur. So she wrote me a letter and I wrote her a decent sized letter in return, plus I wrote President Tanner a decent sized letter as well. So I don't have much time. I sent you some pictures from this week so I hope that'll make up for it. We baptized Derick this past week and his family will follow him now soon. Love you Mom. almost 11 months now! WHOO!

Love,

Elder Head

Hey pops!

I'm glad you all had a good time celebrating Grandma Alice's life. Sad I missed it, but I'm doing some stuff that's PRETTY worth while. We had another baptism this week. His family will be baptized soon after as well. They are now investigators with a baptismal date. So that's promising. I love the temple. We went earlier. Make sure you and mom are taking advantage of having so many temples so close to our house. Go once a week with her. Don't miss that bonding time with your wife. :) Also, our family history on family tree.org is looking pretty skimpy on the side of Grandma Vonnie.. Just saying.. Haha.

Love you POps. Miss you. :)

Next package, send me a little paperback book of mormon with some of your favorite verses marked and your testimony written in the back. I think that'd be SUPER cool. Tell Mom and Ryan to do the same. Extend the challenge to the kiddies so they'll start to read the book of mormon too. Love you.

Elder Head

Super sized w/ Elder Head & Elder Foote

Elder Head in the Philippines - Grateful for the plan of salvation:)

Hey Momma!

So President Tanner gave me a call on Saturday morning and told me the news. He received your email but wasn't able to read it until Saturday morning because we had zone conference for all of eastern Cebu on Friday. I'm pretty grateful that President waited until Saturday to read that and tell me because at zone conference they also gave us flu shots. I hate shots. Sister Tanner gave me my shot and laughed pretty hard at me because I can't take a shot like a man for the life of me. If those two things had both been told to me on the same day, the death of a loved one AND getting a shot would have made July 17th, 2015 the worst day of my mission right there. Haha

But on Saturday I did my personal study and received a call from President Tanner, so naturally I thought "Oh shoot. What did I do". We talked for all of maybe 2 minutes. Then right after I hung up the phone I was sad and was sad for a little bit, then turned straight to the scriptures. I read all of the Plan of Salvation chapters I could think of. Then I turned to True to the Faith and read Plan of Salvation. After that I turned to Preach my Gospel. I made it through my personal study with minimal tears and then we started our companionship study through a song like normal. I chose hymn 142 "Sweet Hour of Prayer" I made it through the first verse just fine. But when the second verse came around I kind of lost it. Once I sang "Thy wings doth my petitions bare" (Of course I'm paraphrasing because I'm in an internet cafe which weirdly has no LDS hymn books.) and just the whole second verse hit me right in my spirit. Then I recomposed myself and since I chose the hymn, I got to pray. I started my prayer and that's when I really lost it. I truly just pleaded with Heavenly Father for comfort for you guys, comfort for me, strength to get out and work, answers to our investigators questions, and the gift of tongues for Elder Sapla and me. I'm gonna tell you right now that that was probably the best thing I could've done. I truly have never felt as close to our Father outside of the temple than when I just cried and poured out my soul to him. I truly received so much comfort from Heavenly Father and I'm so grateful that the Almighty, All powerful God of our souls cares about us enough to just listen to our problems and then talks back to us. I'm so grateful that we are important enough to him that he made a whole plan for us to learn of him and to become like him. I'm even more grateful that our Savior was perfectly obedient to his role in that plan. That through His obedience He overcame all so that we might as well if we follow his will for us. I'm so grateful for the knowledge of a Redeemer through whom the bands of death that bound all the sons of Adam were broken and we will all be brought back to the presence of our Father and our Savior. I'm grateful that He took upon himself death that we might in turn live. I'm grateful for the life that Grandma Alice lived. I'm so blessed that I was able to spend as much time with her as I did. I'm sad I won't be able to attend her funeral but please just send me some pictures.

After that, whole ordeal, my Saturday was a breeze. We went and got our baptismal candidate interviewed (He was supposed to be interviewed on Friday but zone conference went WAY late) and he was baptized on Sunday Morning and confirmed right afterwards in Sacrament meeting. Anthony is the bomb. Haha. Then yesterday we had 7 investigators at church and committed 5 of our new investigators to baptism on August 15th, to which they all accepted. The only thing that can keep you from getting sad or homesick is just working hard. That's what we've been doing and I can testify that it works.

Well that's about it. We committed 5 of our new investigators to be baptized on August 15 so we'll start to focus on getting them to that point as well. So I love you guys, I hope you can give my love to the fam. Don't worry about me. I'm going to be working harder than ever. Love you.

Elder Head

Hey Pops,

I'm sorry that your car sucks. You should just buy a new one and give that piece of crap you've got there right now to me. I'll take care of it for you. Haha.

I'm glad that even though India kicked your butt, you still had a slightly not terrible time. Haha. Some of those pictures look similar to where I'm at now. Just a ton of sweaty people everywhere. Haha. You just kind of get used to it. At least most of them are speaking English over there, when I got here I was so freaking lost. I was drenched in sweat, hot, and confused. Haha.

I admire you for taking your call so seriously Pop. I remember at first you were overwhelmed but I'm glad that you are kicking it's butt now. Haha.

Yeah you'll hear from my letter to Momma about that.

I'm now in Mosiah with the people of king Limhi in bondage. One thing that helped me on Saturday when I heard the news was Mosiah 21: 14. That's what I did when I heard the news and I can testify that it works. Haha.

Keep up the good work Pops! Love you!

Elder Head

Elder Head in the Philippines - Good & Bad :)

Hey Guys!

So this week we got punted a lot which sucks, also our baptism fell through this last week. We have one sure baptism this week though. As far as stories go this week....while we were teaching a less active this week, she got super mad at me and then started to then mock everything that I said. The gift of patience is real because even though I was REALLY REALLY REALLY frustrated and felt like she wanted to smack me, we just got through the lesson safely. No punches were thrown. We're safe. Haha.

Also I finished reading the New Testament this week which was super good. We had a lot of good, but then we had a lot of not as good happen this week. Good, Brother Anthony is ready to be baptized this week. Bad, we haven't seen or heard from Brother Lauron and Brother Noland all week. Good, we're finding some new less active members that we can teach. Bad, half of the less active members on our list are either passed away or moved out. We're still working to get it all figured out though. Haha. That's about it for this week! Sorry about the shorter letter this week! Love ya!

Elder Head

Elder Head in the Philippines - Working hard on the 4th of July :)

Hey Momma!

So my 4th of July was a lot less fun than yours. We got punted almost the whole day until the evening when we had 5 lessons all in about 30 minutes from each other. So that was hectic but we figured it out and were able to teach all 5 with ACTUAL lessons. Since I've been here on the mission, I've learned that there's 2 ways to teach a lesson.

1) You teach a lesson, but you just cover the points of the lesson instead of actually teaching the people. Which is good, I mean you taught a lesson and at least talked about the doctrine. But they might not see the importance of that thing for them, but they could potentially if they are super golden.

2) You really teach the people. You teach them a lesson. You don't just cover the points but you actually teach them so they understand and can relate that into their loves. So that they can see that it actually will have something to do with them. That's the way that they can actually learn and progress. This is what I mean when I say an ACTUAL lesson. Haha.

In my mission so far, I can unfortunately say that I've had both kinds of lesson. But lately, I've been focusing and praying and doing my best to only teach the second type of lesson. Because I've come to truly see the effect that living he gospel can do to someone. It can change you. I've been able to see in it my own life. I now have a true desire to see that in the lives of the other people around me. I now see the WHY we were given the gospel and not only that but why it's important that we do live it. I know know that this is the only way to live with our families so that "Families can be together forever" is now not just a primary song but it's a potential reality for all of us if we can truly follow and love the gospel in our lives. Sometimes we lose sight of that reality. There have been plenty of times in my life that I've thought about the here and now, as opposed to the what could be. I hope we can all find that out for ourselves.

This week we taught one of our new investigators who looked very promising, as of Saturday he now has a baptismal goal for August 1st so if he can come to church consecutively, then he can be baptized on that date. Arnie (Our new investigator, the one I'm talking about right now) has a real desire to know and to learn which I love. Also, we are keeping with Brother Lauron and Noland to be baptized this Sunday and Anthony to be baptized next Sunday. Then it's be all wrapped up with our investigators with baptismal dates and we'll have to start finding some more new ones to replace them as well. Haha. So pray for us that we can find some new investigators.

Elder Sapla and I get along really well and can understand each other now. I just want testify that the gift of tongues is real. I know this because I can suddenly understand Tagalog, which I couldn't say about last week. He has a real desire to learn the language so we're going to go hard on the language study, which I'm excited for.

Lastly, your 4th of July was a lot funner than mine. That night we just ate some leftover keso (cheese) ice cream (It tastes about as bad as you would think...) and I later played with some matches. So that was about all from this side of the planet for me. I love you guys, I'm jealous that you got to do the roman candle war. But I will be a part of roman candle war 2017 with my wife. Heh heh heh. Just kidding. But yeah. I know the church is true and I hope you all will renew that knowledge for yourselves as well this week. Love ya.

-Elder Mitchell Jeffrey Head

Filipino 4th celebration??

Happy 4th of July :)

Elder Head in the Philippines - I'm a trainer now! :)

Hey Mom. Sorry it's been like 2 weeks since I was able to write :) However, you do have your calendar and should know that this week is transfer week. But I wasn't able to write yesterday because I was picking up my new companion/trainee. I'm now a trainer. Haha. It's super weird because it feels like just yesterday that I was waiting in the mission home for my trainer. Time is truly flying. Elder Foote is training too, so Heavenly Father definitely has a sense of humor. All the trainees thought it was was the funniest thing too. Elder Head and Elder Foote. They liked it even more when they found out that there is an Elder Espiritu (Spirit) and a Sister Nalawas (Lawas is "body" in Visayan).

I'm kind of nervous to be training. I feel kind of inadequate, but I guess that's how everyone feels their first time training. Haha.

My trainee is Elder Sapla from Luzon and he's a native llokano speaker. Which is SUPER different from any of the languages I kind of know. He can speak Tagalog but he can't understand Visayan, but it's also kind of hard for him in english as well. I can understand Tagalog, but I can't REALLY understand it. I can pick out what he means, but it's a work in progress. So you could say there's a bit of a language barrier. Haha. We're kind of working out a middle language, like I say whatever Tagalog word I know and point at it, then translate it into Visayan for him, then English. It's a process!

He's super awesome. He's the only member in his family, they weren't super excited for him to serve a mission, but he went anyways. He went to college before his mission studying culinary arts so he says he can cook pretty well (SWEET). I was typing this a lot earlier this morning until about here, but then there was a brown out at our internet cafe, so we just left and shopped and stuff. Then we decided to try it again so here we are.

I'm glad everyone seems to be doing well and I'm also glad to see that Stevan looks like a Brazilian "James Franco".  I think that's the actor's name at least. I've been out in the field so long all the performers and artists and stuff are starting to mix together to me.

I've been hitting the New Testament pretty hard. Especially considering that I was at Galatians last Wednesday and I just finished the Epistle of James this morning. So that's been really cool just to read what everyone else is reading throughout the world, but I can never leave my studies without reading at least a little from the Book of Mormon. It truly just ties everything together. It states the doctrines of the Gospel and the Plan of Salvation so clearly. We've been preparing Anthony for his baptism on the 12th and Brother Lauron as well. We're also planting some seeds that hopefully will go somewhere in the next few weeks as well.

I will hit my 10 month mark tomorrow so that is also cool. Okay so that's about all I can think of saying right now. Just be sure to send me some pictures of the new dining area and office with desks and stuff. Tell Grandma I love her and will see her soon. Well. Love ya Momma. Have a great one. :)

Love,
Elder Head

Elder Head and Elder Sapla