Benito Soliven
Everything is great here. I having a great time with Elder Domingo and we are killing it. Of course we have struggles with investigators this week, but we decided to focus more on LAs this week. Everyone thinks that I'm going to get transferred next month. That would be AWFUL though, because I wouldn't have my package so I couldn't give stuff to all the people here. The weather is exactly the same as it's always been. We see the DL once a week. He's from Ogden. He's cool. One of our ZLs is from Cali the other is from the Phillies. The language is still hard. The people are still nice. No weird stories today. I think I'm going to try to send a package home once I get all the things for you guys. From what I here it's not too expensive. I'm trying to not spend much money, but I have a chance to buy one of those nativities you wanted to if you want it you need to let me know so that I can buy it. For Christmas, once it gets closer you should add the money grandma will give me so I can buy a couple things for the people here. So I've lost a ton of weight I had to get all my clothes refit, so that cost a lot of money. I also Gave a lot of my clothes away to people that needed it. So I only have 3 shirts, 2 pants, 4 ties, and 2 pairs of shoes. Of course we wash by hand here So I have to wash basically every 2 days. It's hard, and I was starting to doubt my decision when my knuckles started to bleed from washing, but last Sunday I saw almost every person in the chapel wearing one of my clothes and it was a good feeling. The bloody Knuckles were worth it and I guess the Elder Holland Talk inspired me to do it I'm not sure if it was this last session or the one before that, but it's a good one. That's all this week.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Week 13 - New companion in Benito Soliven
Benito Soliven
Elder Domingo is my new comp. He's awesome we talk a lot more than me and Bautista. He's from Bacolod. He's 1 year and 4 months into his mission. He walks a lot faster than Bautista too. I don't know if that will really help us get more lessons though. Elder Bautista is right next to me. He's in Naguilian. So he switched stakes but his area actually touches ours so that's kind of weird. There was other transfers in my zone some people are training and some just got new companions. We finally have investigators coming to church now. It's getting better, I'm not worried.
Elder Domingo is my new comp. He's awesome we talk a lot more than me and Bautista. He's from Bacolod. He's 1 year and 4 months into his mission. He walks a lot faster than Bautista too. I don't know if that will really help us get more lessons though. Elder Bautista is right next to me. He's in Naguilian. So he switched stakes but his area actually touches ours so that's kind of weird. There was other transfers in my zone some people are training and some just got new companions. We finally have investigators coming to church now. It's getting better, I'm not worried.
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| New Companion, Elder Domingo (picture from the mission blog) |
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| Panoramic of Elder Swensen's Apartment. Needs to do some cleaning1? |
Monday, November 3, 2014
Week 12 - Old Saints Day (Filipino Halloween)
Benito Soliven
Well I just found out today that Elder Bautista is getting transferred. And everyone has this bad feeling that Elder Llacona is getting transferred here. From what I've heard he's straight up crazy. He was a cosplayer before he came on a mission and I've heard that he has a costume here too. So I don't know what's going to happen, but I know I'll be okay. This week we said a lot of good-byes on behalf of E. B. and it was pretty sad. We have some picture this week though. It's weird they have Halloween here , but the day after Halloween is bigger. It's called Old saints day and it's basically like a Filipino Memorial day. It was pretty fun we just went to the local cemetery with some ward members and ate food. Everything else is pretty much the same. No investigators still, and a lot of inactives, but we have a lot of fun looking for investigators and trying to bring back members. Dad, I've been listening to that talk a lot now (Elder Holland - The Cost and Blessings of Discipleship). It's a good one. I've also been listening to the one he gave in 2011 priesthood session and even though you guys aren't old yet, I think you should start preparing for a couples mission. It's awesome there's this sister in our ward, who was Mrs. Isabela, which is like Mrs. Utah back home, but anyways just this last Sunday she told us she was preparing for a mission. It's awesome. That's all I have this week. I'll upload some more pictures later.
Well I just found out today that Elder Bautista is getting transferred. And everyone has this bad feeling that Elder Llacona is getting transferred here. From what I've heard he's straight up crazy. He was a cosplayer before he came on a mission and I've heard that he has a costume here too. So I don't know what's going to happen, but I know I'll be okay. This week we said a lot of good-byes on behalf of E. B. and it was pretty sad. We have some picture this week though. It's weird they have Halloween here , but the day after Halloween is bigger. It's called Old saints day and it's basically like a Filipino Memorial day. It was pretty fun we just went to the local cemetery with some ward members and ate food. Everything else is pretty much the same. No investigators still, and a lot of inactives, but we have a lot of fun looking for investigators and trying to bring back members. Dad, I've been listening to that talk a lot now (Elder Holland - The Cost and Blessings of Discipleship). It's a good one. I've also been listening to the one he gave in 2011 priesthood session and even though you guys aren't old yet, I think you should start preparing for a couples mission. It's awesome there's this sister in our ward, who was Mrs. Isabela, which is like Mrs. Utah back home, but anyways just this last Sunday she told us she was preparing for a mission. It's awesome. That's all I have this week. I'll upload some more pictures later.
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| Last week with Elder Bautista. |
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| Eating with Ward Members |
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| Ilagan Zone - October 2014 Top: Elder Taer, Back: Elder Morrison, Elder Poulter, Elder Bautista, Elder Swensen, Elder Enuake, Elder Bacle-an, Elder Wengreen, Elder Lee, Elder Thorpe, Elder Williams Front: Sister Elivera, Sister Funaki, Sister Crystal, Sister Borja, Sister Nambengu, Sister Lange, Sister Dela Torre, Sister Karavanua, Elder Padilla, Elder Sison, Elder Cantero |
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| Zone Conference |
Monday, October 27, 2014
Week 11 - Missing the cold weather.
Benito Soliven
Everything is good here. After I got over my sickness, I feel better than ever. This week really nothing happened. We don't have any investigators, so our whole day is tracting, RCs and LAs. I'm still having a blast, but really missing the cold weather. I had my first Zone Conference this last week. It was fun. We played minute to win it, but my team did not win it. We had some American food. Finally something without rice. We also had a testimony meeting. It is one of my zone leaders last cycles so of course he bore his testimony. Really that's all I have to say. I'm all caught up on pictures too. So not much else to say.
Everything is good here. After I got over my sickness, I feel better than ever. This week really nothing happened. We don't have any investigators, so our whole day is tracting, RCs and LAs. I'm still having a blast, but really missing the cold weather. I had my first Zone Conference this last week. It was fun. We played minute to win it, but my team did not win it. We had some American food. Finally something without rice. We also had a testimony meeting. It is one of my zone leaders last cycles so of course he bore his testimony. Really that's all I have to say. I'm all caught up on pictures too. So not much else to say.
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| Tanner's 1st Baptism - Brother Mark Elmo |
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| Baptism of Ashley Naval |
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| Members of the Benito Soliven Ward |
Monday, October 20, 2014
Week 10 - Dengue Fever
Benito Soliven
Hey everything is going great over here. You guys definitely need to come visit here after my mission. I'm pretty decent in Tagalog right now, but Ilocano is a killer. It's much harder. I just barely bought some old Vietnam bolo knives from an old Vietnam Vet. I figured that it was second best to a machete for Britt. They are pretty sweet I'm not going to lie. This last week I had Dengue fever. So unfortunately we had to stay inside for some of the week. I will never complain about a normal headache again. I went to the hospital, because sister Rahlf wanted to watch my blood count, and all they really wanted me to do was come back so they could make me pay more. Luckily we only had to go for one visit. Now I'm doing pretty good. Just a small headache. We had our Baptism this week and it was great. Sister Princess is awesome. I will try and upload pictures later. Everything else is fine.
Hey everything is going great over here. You guys definitely need to come visit here after my mission. I'm pretty decent in Tagalog right now, but Ilocano is a killer. It's much harder. I just barely bought some old Vietnam bolo knives from an old Vietnam Vet. I figured that it was second best to a machete for Britt. They are pretty sweet I'm not going to lie. This last week I had Dengue fever. So unfortunately we had to stay inside for some of the week. I will never complain about a normal headache again. I went to the hospital, because sister Rahlf wanted to watch my blood count, and all they really wanted me to do was come back so they could make me pay more. Luckily we only had to go for one visit. Now I'm doing pretty good. Just a small headache. We had our Baptism this week and it was great. Sister Princess is awesome. I will try and upload pictures later. Everything else is fine.
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| Baptism of Princess Cacayuran |
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| Helping with the Dried Corn Harvest |
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| Tanner with his broom! |
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| At the hospital for Dengue Fever! |
Monday, October 13, 2014
Week 9 - Members are Awesome!
Benito Soliven
Its still hot here basically 95 degrees from 12 PM to 8 PM and the humidity makes it feel a lot worse. I finally got sick for my first time. I don't know what it is yet. I have a fever of 102 and I've had it since yesterday. Other than that I have inflamed joints and a raging headache constantly. We couldn't even work after conference yesterday and it doesn't matter how much I sleep I always feel tired.
I finally got my package. I kinda gave it all away. Haha I couldn't just eat all that candy so I gave some of it away to other missionaries after conference and then to all the kids around our apartment I gave the rest. In my next package you should send me my old contacts and maybe 2 real shirts. Maybe more physical things that I can give away. I want to leave something with our converts here. and if you could get it here before I'm transferred that would be awesome.
Members are awesome. On the way up here we were on a jeep and a member from the San Mariano ward was on the jeep to, and she had a bunch of native oranges and of course she gave us some. I love it here. The work is great and even though we haven't seen much progression these people are so amazing here. I've been thinking about maybe spending a year or two here after my mission. Maybe to study at on of the universities. Other than that our next baptism is October 18. After that we don't have any and I'm not sure if we will for awhile. We've been getting punted quite often. As for conference Jörg threw it down. He was even dissing on fat people. Gotta love those chastisers.
Its still hot here basically 95 degrees from 12 PM to 8 PM and the humidity makes it feel a lot worse. I finally got sick for my first time. I don't know what it is yet. I have a fever of 102 and I've had it since yesterday. Other than that I have inflamed joints and a raging headache constantly. We couldn't even work after conference yesterday and it doesn't matter how much I sleep I always feel tired.
I finally got my package. I kinda gave it all away. Haha I couldn't just eat all that candy so I gave some of it away to other missionaries after conference and then to all the kids around our apartment I gave the rest. In my next package you should send me my old contacts and maybe 2 real shirts. Maybe more physical things that I can give away. I want to leave something with our converts here. and if you could get it here before I'm transferred that would be awesome.
Members are awesome. On the way up here we were on a jeep and a member from the San Mariano ward was on the jeep to, and she had a bunch of native oranges and of course she gave us some. I love it here. The work is great and even though we haven't seen much progression these people are so amazing here. I've been thinking about maybe spending a year or two here after my mission. Maybe to study at on of the universities. Other than that our next baptism is October 18. After that we don't have any and I'm not sure if we will for awhile. We've been getting punted quite often. As for conference Jörg threw it down. He was even dissing on fat people. Gotta love those chastisers.
Monday, October 6, 2014
Week 8 - My Mother's Lucky Machete!
Benito Soliven
Love Tanner.
Dear Family,
Not much has changed and there hasn't been any crazy
experiences so I really don't have a lot to write about. I'm having a good time
and the work is hard and tiring. Something interesting I found out. The songs
'Bebot' and 'The APL song' by Black eyed peas are in Tagalog. So that's pretty
cool. Of course everyone loves them here, because Apl is Filipino. Our next
baptism is Princess Cacayuran which her baptism date is set for October 18.
Yesterday we were down at Maluno Sur and it was about to rain and they were
drying corn so we had to hurry and sweep all the corn back into the bags. I
think I have pictures of it. We also cooked a dinner for that former bishop but
he still hasn't attended church. We reactivated 2 members this week.
Yes one of
my zone leaders were transferred and the new one is just fine. I get along with
all of them. This week I asked this guy, Brother Pete, if he could get me a
machete.(Brother Pete is basically the black market dealer for missionaries he
gets you anything anything you want authentic Filipino) He said that we still
has one from back when he was in the Vietnam War and I could have it if I liked
it. So next time he comes to our district meeting I'll have my machete
officially. Happy Birthday mom.
Love Tanner.
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