Bunch'a Boxes

Hello Everyone.

I was unable to send a message yesterday because we were so busy running errands and everything. But I'm doing fine! This will be a quick email. Sorry!

This week we came to the office one day and there were a TON of boxes out back, like hundreds of boxes.... It turned out to be about 300 cases of the Book of Mormon in multiple languages, pamphlets, and paper supplies. Seeing as we were the Supply Elders, we knew that NOBODY was going to take care of it, so we went to work. We moved about 250 of them to our apartment(where we store all of the supplies) and we were so worn out afterwards. While we were bringing them into the house, the big stack we were building was getting too high, so we decided to build a staircase out of the boxes we were still bringing in. We realized afterwards that we could have made a pretty stellar fort, but we unfortunately missed that opportunity... I guess I'll just do that next time. But sometimes we sit up there. It's a good perch.

The work is going well, not a whole lot to update you on this week, but we were able to work a few hours this week and found some good investigators that we are excited about!! Hopefully we will see progress and conversion.

I heard this fable around a year ago and I have often pondered it since, especially this last week. It's called "The Goose with the Golden Eggs." Here it is.

--

One day a countryman going to the nest of his goose found there an egg all yellow and glittering. When he took it up it was as heavy as lead and he was going to throw it away, because he thought a trick had been played on him. But he took it home on second thoughts, and soon found that it was an egg of pure gold. Every morning the same thing occured, and he grew rich by selling his eggs. As he grew rich he grew greedy; and thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find nothing.

--

I find this to be a lot like us and obtaining knowledge. Our society has been conditioned to get things instantly; a phone call, fast food, the internet, etc. We have all become used to information overload all the time, 24/7. We get impatient when things aren't quick enough, which causes a lot of trouble for us when learning spiritual truths. God doesn't give spiritual answers to spiritual questions like the internet gives to our questions about making your own makeshift air-conditioning unit for under $20-- He works differently. Sometimes we just have to wait. But God consistently gives us answers to our questions, just not with the timing we may be expecting all the time. Sometimes we do get a little too impatient and we kill the goose, or we try to outsmart God and start going by what we or the world thinks is right. That's fine, and many people get by in life without listening to God, but they sure don't have golden eggs anymore. So when a question comes and doubts arise, we don't need to kill the goose looking for an answer; we simply need to wait until the right "golden egg" pops out. It always does.

That's all I have for this week. I hope everything is awesome at home!

Take Care,

Elder Welton

Here's a picture of the boxes we discovered

Another of us after moving them all

And then finally a picture of Elder Cicon asleep on a piece of cardboard in the back room of the office. We were like zombies after that...

Also there's a picture of the Sister's baptism on Saturday. Sister Pona and Rosario are the BEST. Sister Pona is brand new and she is so great already! Proud of my district.

Jesus is the Christ

Merry Christmas!

In the Philippines, if you're in the "-ber" months, it's Christmas. September, October, November, December-- They're all Christmas. 

This week was the busiest week ever, mostly just because the Masskara festival was going on and it was NUTS. Our offices is literally like a few hundred feet away from the thing and it was SO hard being so close. We would be sitting in the office trying to get work done and they would be blasting music straight from Babylon. They straight up closed one of the two main streets going in and out of Bacolod and so the traffic was horrible. It was quite an adventure... There was one day that we had to go to the hospital to take a sister that dislocated her knee and it took us like an hour to get there when it normally takes about 10-15 minutes. This is pretty much what happened to us all week and we drove a LOT. There was actually one time, and I think I even got a picture, where the traffic got so bad and so packed that I had to fold in my mirrors to fit through. It really made me feel like a man. I imagine it is the same connection a captain gets to his sea-vessel.

This week was quite a testimony-builder for me-- probably one of the most influential for me up to this point. I am now beginning to better understand grace and mercy and exactly how powerful the love of Christ is... I grew closer to my Savior and am beginning to recognize His voice and the way the Spirit communicates with me. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that He can comfort us because he understands. And His understanding of what we're passing through in mortality is what allows him to take those burdens; those big-- sometimes even small-- burdens that we all have. The insights, knowledge, and pondering I have had this week with the Spirit as my teacher have shown me so much that I didn't quite understand up until now. I thought about his life here on earth; his humility, love, and desire for all to see the big picture that was being blatantly ignored. He was rejected, spat upon, blamed, falsely accused, and condemned for doing the will of His Father. He took upon himself our sins and he died, to save us the pains that we would inevitably have faced had he not pressed forward to the end of his life mission. Christ did all of these things for us, suffered all of these pains for us, and doesn't even ask for us to repay him. He knows we can't and he doesn't want us to; He simply wants us to follow him.

Interesting week for sure... As I had all of these amazing experiences, it was so interesting to watch people as we drove through the festival. I felt as though I saw the world from God's eyes for just a few moments and thought about how trivial the pursuits of our daily lives truly are. All of these people thought they were having the time of their lives(and they sure looked like it), but I knew that they were not feeling the same peace that I had. It was all still tempting (all the food and souvenirs looked so awesome), but I knew that what I already have in my life is so much more permanent than the happiness they were experiencing in that moment.

That's all I have to report on this week. Have a nice day :)

Elder Welton

We went up to Sagay(again) to look at some new apartment option. We got to go up to Alimatoc(Elder Cicon's first area) which is SO far up in the mountains. It was so pretty up there. Here are some poorly taken pictures for you to enjoy.

Jungle Movers and Conference

Hello!

Good week. Good stuff. Good. Good. Good.

We had a baptism this week! Yes!! It was Brother J------. He's so awesome. Such a nice, humble man that has been so patient with us. With our crazy schedule, there have been a lot of apologies from us due to our double-scheduling his appointment with something else, and just poor follow through on his commitments. He is SO strong though, and probably didn't even need us to teach him! We had an interesting schedule with his baptism. We were so stressed about it because the time set for the baptism ended up conflicting with Priesthood Session. So we coordinated with the bishop to move it. The issue was that J------ works a weird shift that means he has to go to work at 12 noon and finishes 12 midnight. Poor guy. So the solution that we came up with was to put the baptism during the 1 hour break in between Priesthood Session and the Saturday Morning Session. It was wonderful. We bolted out of the Stake Center, traveled to the chapel in Alijis and then hurried to set it up. The water was running up until I turned it off right as we were entering the font. We then finished the baptism, he gave a great testimony, and we let him scurry off to work with probably only minutes to spare. We were a little late getting back to the conference, but all was well! That's kind of just how things go in the Philippines! He will be confirmed this coming Sunday, seeing as yesterday was conference for us.

During the second gap of conference on Saturday, we went to this pizza place I've heard of. We got this pizza during my follow-up training a year ago, and haven't eaten it since! In the office, by the way, we have a little saying called, "Sleep less, eat more" however, for the Supply Elders (Elder Cicon and I), that saying is actually "Sleep less, eat LESS." So, seeing as we hadn't eaten in 24 hours at this point, we decided to go big. We ordered two of the second-to-last biggest size pizzas they sold.  I think it came out to only around 5 bucks a person, but it was just awesome because it was so big. They actually had to bring it out the back door and go around through the front door just to serve it to us. I guess it was too big for their service window! It wasn't the BEST pizza, but I think it's pretty hard to make BAD pizza in any circumstance. We actually ate a ton of it! Like, it was almost entirely gone. Missionaries like to eat, I guess.

On Friday, we had an awesome little adventure of moving one of the companionships out of a shared apartment into their own apartment in their own area out in Kabankalan. We drove down there, got to the house and said, "Let's one trip this bad boy." So that's what we did. We one tripped it. Like real men. None of this going back and forth stuff. One. It was quite a feat! We were quite tired after doing so, but it was so satisfying making it happen. So much cheaper than hiring someone to do it too!

As I told Hayden, Mom, I played piano for the arrival devotional. It was bad. I tried to explain I didn't know how to play piano, but nobody believed me. Moral of the story: should have taken piano lessons longer. You were right, mom. And dad. You can celebrate that if you so desire.

CONFERENCE! Conference was awesome. Unfortunately, we were quite tired, so we actually fell asleep. Many times. So we definitely have some reviewing to do... We should have some traveling this week, so we should be able to catch up on that! But I really liked the idea of Ponderizing during the Sunday Session. I imagine that is already a hashtag on the internet. Good idea. (Yes, I've already heard about the whole "monetization scheme" behind that all, I still like the idea!) I really liked how he gave a straight, direct invitation to the entire church, because sometimes we get these amazing, inspiring talks that leave you thinking, "Ah, yes! Let's be better! So... What do I do now?!" and you are just kind of left with a broad road of options to apply it. It's nice to be given a specific, memorable way to become better.

I also really liked the talk by Elder Keetch about the shark barrier. I have been pondering it (ponderizing) for quite a while now and it's so true. It's so frustrating that our human nature is to be disobedient to God's commandments. But there is so much power in learning to overcome the natural man, no matter how enticing or entertaining the disobedience may seem. The one thing that I thought was interesting about this story is that these surfers were so fortunate to have someone loving enough to show them the danger. We, being in our mortal probation, do not have the convenience of looking through the "binoculars" that will show us the dangers of certain choices. We simply have to rely on the person with the binoculars, "the old native local". It's hard! What if that old man had just come over and told them that there were sharks behind the barrier? I don't know if they would have believed him! But they were lucky enough to see through the binoculars when he allowed them to. I think, to a point, we all have access to these binoculars ONLY when were are close to the Spirit. So, naturally, we need to do those things that will get us close to the Spirit. Great talk. Two thumbs up.

Hope everyone is doing great! Keep up the good work!

Elder Welton

Jungle Movers.  This picture will be one of my favorites forever.  These are my two MTC group mates.  We all look worn out.  Weight loss galore. 

Our giant pizzas. Yes.

J's Baptism! We told him he looks like James Franco and he ended up looking it up on the internet and laughed

Vertical Monitor

This was a busy, busy week and I am tired and it's wonderful!

The biggest news is........... WE HAD A BAPTISM!! It's a miracle! It's been really hard only being able to work only a few hours on Saturday and Sunday, but we had some miracles that made it happen! Her name is Regine Ann and she is like the sweetest girl ever! She's so nice. We found her through a less-active family in the ward who were baptized in the early 2000's. It is always a joy coming to their house because they are always ready for us and are so receptive. Regine Ann was so good about doing her own reading and studying and would remember almost everything we taught from the week before, which has been pretty rare for me when we teach so many days apart. She's always been prepared. I was able to sit in and listen while she was being interviewed and she gave these super in-depth answers and wasn't even shy or afraid! Her and her sister even came way early to the baptism because they wanted to help us set up and fill the font and everything! They were so helpful. I'm so excited for her now that she's baptized. Hopefully we can help their family prepare to go to the temple!

We have had quite and eventful week, as I said earlier. We have been trying to find a new apartment for a single senior sister missionary coming soon and so we were looking at this one house. We thought it was awesome. Long story short, we had some communication errors about budget and property value that resulted in us getting quite a verbal lashing from the realtor we were working with. Whoops :) Sorry!  Normally we don't work with realtors, so this was a good learning experience. We won't be getting the house anymore anyway because we had transfers just yesterday and so now we have to leave our house so that someone is occupying the "hosting apartment" where all the incoming, departing, and other missionaries sleep for events in Bacolod, seeing as the previous companionship occupying it was pulled out yesterday. Moving houses will be somewhat of a gradual, little-by-little process (I'm not sure if that's the right term... In Ilonggo it's "amat-amat") because we won't have enough time to move everything this week since it's transfer week. We will then be giving our old house to the new sister, so everything just works out I guess!

Man, so much has actually happened this week, now that I think about it. It's so hard to remember when the week started or what events took place, but when I think about it, I realize how much actually happened! It's so nice working so hard because I feel like I have such a purpose. I imagine that will be one of the hardest things when I get home; adjusting to a life without a specific assignment or responsibility.

I started a trend in the office a few weeks ago, so I guess that's pretty cool! I was looking at our monitors after a few weeks of being here and I realized that the monitors move up and down! So you can move it to eye-level if you want, or have the low-rider style going; it's completely up to you, that's the beauty of it! As I experimented further, I found out that the monitor actually rotates and I can flip it vertically. So I started using it the "tall" way and I am fully converted now. The others soon followed after me and that quickly became the standard for every monitor in the office. The internet looks amazing this way... To my disappointment, however, it seemed as if their conversion was yet lacking; little by little, those vertical monitors went back to their horizontal resting place. I have stayed strong, though the journey's been hard. All is well.

I'll attach a picture so you can see what it looks like while I'm emailing you all right now! (so you can admire my geek-corner)

Other than that, I am just learning a lot. I can't remember if I already said this or not, but I am very grateful for the time I have to serve so closely with my mission president. There have been a lot of times where he has made decisions that all of us in the office have thought, "Oh no, what is he doing?? That doesn't seem like a good idea!" But he will eventually teach us the principles behind his actions, and I have really seen how great of a leader he is. I've learned a lot about what it takes to lead in a way that doesn't seem like one person is just leading from the front. It feels like he is leading WITH us rather than leading in the front; such a hard thing to accomplish.

Another thing that came to my mind while I considered this just barely is how important it is to sustain our leaders. This particularly has become such a BIG issue in the world today, even in our own religion. A principle I have learned in this position and while watching our President make some hard decisions is that you will never understand how truly hard it is to be a leader or how to perform that specific assignment until you yourself are already in that position. I have just barely begun to understand some of the principles taught in the temple about leadership and reporting. I have begun to understand how we must honor the holders of Priesthood Keys in any situation, no matter how bad of a job we think they are doing. And I have began to understand how we must first learn how to become a good follower before we can become a good leader. 

That's all I have for this week! I am so excited to watch Conference this weekend. I hope all of you enjoyed it in America already!

Elder Welton

 I managed to be in the same zone with all of my favorite people in my MTC group for a few weeks. It was awesome. This was our first and last Zone Training all together. Sister Schimbeck just finished training another Sister, Elder Kim was our Zone Leader, Elder Cicon was my companion and I was district leader. Fun time.

A picture of the office team and two departing Sisters. Sister Montemayor (left) was with me in my first area and is one of my favorite sisters. Sad to see her go.

Our baptismal candidate, Regine Ann, with her family and Elder Cicon and I. They are the best.

Geek picture - vertical monitor

Lima Ni Haw?

Dear Everyone,

This was yet another great week. I can't really say I have had a bad one!

Mom and Dad, I watched that Mormon Channel video you all watched! Haha I am glad you finally got to hear what we kinda sound like and how mixed everything is hahaha. It's actually more mixed than you heard, Dad. Believe it or not, he was actually speaking Waray-Waray, which I have never even heard before. Everyone in the office came over when I pulled it up because almost all of us could kind of understand it! We were all confused because it sounded so similar, but didn't match the languages we knew! It sounded like a weird mix of Cebuano, Tagalog, and Ilonggo, which none of us had ever heard before. Super interesting. And the backgrounds and scenes in the video are pretty accurate for what I've walked around in before. Such a neat place.

Just a funny little experience I would like to share. So the other day, there was this super funny little kid. We basically just explored the area a bit today, trying to get familiar with it all. So we end up taking this one road far out in some fields just to see what was out there and got to a dead end. There were some houses around and we saw some kids so we went up to them to ask them if there was a way out. They were so cute! There was a girl and she was 10 years old with a cute name like Marilou or something. Then we had a little guy who, when I asked his name, spouted off one of those Spanish names that has like three middle names. I asked him how old he was and he did the whole, "put four fingers up, double check to see if counted right, and then turn it around to show me" sort-of-thing. I said, "Wow, when's your birthday??" He excitedly shouted, "JUNE!" I thought for a second and realized that he was talking QUITE a bit for a four year old earlier, and that maybe he had just turned five and it hadn't registered in his mind yet..? I said, "Oh, so then you're five, right? Because you just had a birthday!" He looked at me, stared back at his hand with four fingers up, and then looked back at me like I didn't know how to count and said, "Lima ni haw? Wala pa guro ai!" basically meaning, "Does this look like five to you?? I don't think so!" I didn't know what to say because he kinda had a valid point! He, in reality, was only holding up four fingers, so I guess I'm the one who looked foolish in this situation. We exited the way we entered, my ego having been somewhat damaged by the little guy. I guess I should have counted more carefully...

After our little adventure with Toto, we went to visit Bro. R--------, who is one of the greatest guys ever. Such a nice guy. We have been teaching him for the past three to four weeks and he is SO prepared. He was so excited for us to come over so he could talk about what he learned over the past week. He brought out all of these church books and manuals and started going through them. Eventually he started to go through them one by one, saying, "I've read this one, I've finished these Teachings of the Prophets books here, I've started reading the Book of Mormon in Ilonggo, English, and Tagalog, and began reading the Old Testament Seminary Student Manual." Relating what he learned to us, we realized that this man had read SO much in that little time. His excitement for what he learned and the information and knowledge he retained both amazed and humbled me... And this is in addition to his background. Brother R------- is currently living with one of the sisters in the ward and they want to get married, but can't afford the price of the wedding papers because he just lost his job a few weeks ago. This isn't even the first time Radney has planned to get married, either. Not less than a year ago, his first wife passed away, leaving him with three or four children to take care of, one of which isn't able to walk very well due to a disability. He has had many other difficulties in his life that have put him in some hard situations, but he has made it through all of those challenges. His attentiveness every lesson always amazes me, and his questions are always so deep and full of a desire to understand. This meeting with him on Saturday, though, was one of the most special for me because he asked a question that I haven't ever heard on my mission. After he had shown us all the things he had learned, we asked if we could start the lesson with a prayer. When we had finished, we started out following up on his reading and to see if he learned anything in Sunday School the previous week. We then asked him, "Brother R-------, do you have any questions about anything we have taught or anything that you would like to know before we share some more with you tonight?" He began to reply, but was having a hard time figuring out what to say and how he wanted to say it. What he eventually said was probably one of my most favorite moments in my mission. He said, "So, Elders... like... I feel like... You know, after reading this stuff and thinking about it and going to church, I believe it's true... So... I guess my question is like........ What do I do now to follow the Lord? What does he want me to do?" He had so much sincerity and desire to find direction in his voice that I was actually caught off guard! I was so touched to see the man's humility and desire to follow the Savior. We explained to him, as we had discussed previously quite briefly, about baptism and how the only thing left between him getting baptized is getting married to the sister he is currently living with. We were amazed to see that he had actually started the process after we had brought it up on our last visit. As I said earlier, he had lost his job just a week or two before, so he started putting his cooking skills to use by selling doing "inasal" or barbeque in the neighborhood and selling it in order to make money to get married. He mentioned how he's been going back and forth trying to get things worked out for the marriage. His family lives there and whenever he stays with them, he tries to share about the Book of Mormon with them. He said, "Elders, I just want my brothers and my sisters and my family to see the truth that I have found in this church. I know it's true and I want them to know as well. Every time I talk about the Book of Mormon with them, they say, 'Ah you're a Mormon now?? What are you doing??' and things like that. But I hope that they will eventually open up to this church and be baptized."

Basically, this man is amazing and I am lucky enough to be the messenger for him. We are shooting to get him married and baptized the last week of October, depending on the speed of his wedding papers and everything, but I am so excited for him! There is no greater nor more fulfilling work here on earth than this. How wonderful!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day. And week.

Elder Welton

Elder Fraire and I got wet

I think I found someone advertising with the same teeth model, Dad.  Funny!

A picture of Elder Cicon and I.  We got haircuts shortly after this picture.

The wonderful exploding car

Kapoy Gid

Hello!! I hope everyone had a great week!

So, I have some news! Elder Fraire was transferred... It was an "Emergency Transfer," which basically are just normal transfers here... So that's that. BUT. My new companion is Elder Cicon!!! I am so stoked!! He is honestly one of my best friends in the mission. We were in the same MTC group and he is just the best. We never even TALKED about becoming companions because we never thought it was even an option, like, "there's no way that would happen!" ... Lo and behold-- we are now companions! I'm excited. I imagine the Lord expects even more from me now that I've been given such a great companion.

This last week was a busy week! We anticipated Elder Fraire transferring, so we had to do a lot of preparations. He taught me all about the finances that he has to take care of, the houses that need to be negotiated and rented, and all of this stuff so I could pass it on to Elder Cicon. We both feel pretty new at all of this, but we are super excited for all of the memories and experiences we'll undoubtedly have as we learn. There's a lot of responsibility to pick up, so hopefully we can handle it!

I'm so sorry that this email is so short... There is so much happening and it's like 10:00 right now, so I am just going to share a quick thought with you!

I've been pondering a lot this week about obedience and how important it is. With how busy we have been these past few weeks, we honestly haven't had time to study a lot, which I have realized is actually super, super important. For a while, I thought, "We are honestly doing the Lord's work, I can't see how this could be a BAD thing..? Sure I want to study, but if there's work to do, FOR THE LORD, then we just need to get it done." I realized that, yes, I was definitely right about it not being a BAD thing. BUT. I learned something in a talk I read on LDS.org just recently.

---

"Recently I visited a small grove of sequoia trees planted years ago on the BYU campus not far from where this broadcast is originating today in Provo.

A friend of mine explained to me that sequoias are the world’s largest trees and that they can grow to between 164 and 279 feet tall in the wild. They can live to more than a thousand years.

Another interesting fact about the sequoias is that their unique and resilient bark protects the trees from forest fires and also repels bugs and fungi that can damage and kill a tree.

BYU students have walked past the grove for more than fifty years. Sadly, one of the trees died last year; and the dead tree needed to be cut down, leaving only a stump to remind anyone passing by that a tall, majestic tree once stood there.

The campus Arborist wanted to know what killed the tree, as the sequoia certainly did not die of old age. After an examination, he determined that the tree’s feeding roots had died from a lack of water.

How was that possible inasmuch as the tree had flourished there for more than five decades?

The Arborist discovered that the aquifer that nourished the little grove had shifted as an unintended consequence of the construction of the new Life Sciences Building, just east of the grove.

To me this is a perfect analogy of what happens when stalwart Church members, the “very elect,” those who for all appearances seem to stand tall and erect in the faith, but die spiritually.

Like the dead sequoia, these Church members once received their spiritual nourishment from the “well of living water” offered by Jesus Christ, but having been disconnected for one reason or another from that source, their spirit was dulled, and they eventually died spiritually.

Now I ask you brothers and sisters, how can we ensure that our spiritual feeding roots are always connected to the “well of living water”?

These essential habits include the things that seem to easily slip away in the rush of our very busy lives, even when we are engaged in good things like pursuing an education, working to support a family, and involving ourselves in community and Church service.

---

I realized in the last few weeks that so much power and strength leaves when we stop doing the simple things... Just by simply missing that study time, I have seen temptations becoming stronger and stronger, becoming harder and harder little by little. Elder M. Russell Ballard continues on, saying--

"When someone stops doing these simple but essential things, they cut themselves from the “well of living water” and allow Satan to muddle their thinking. Sin and guilt cloud the mind—leading them to deny past inspiration and revelation and causing a “de-conversion” from the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

It's so crazy how sneaky Satan is. Even when we are doing very GOOD things, we can never take the chance of giving up that precious time with our Heavenly Father. Continual and current revelation is one of the foundations of this church, so it would only make sense if it was a foundation in our lives. If the church stopped receiving revelation, it would cease to be true. So I guess we can see how important it is for us to receive that continual revelation as well.

I know I kind of cheated by using a talk as most of my email, but I just really liked the talk. I hope you all learn what I now understand from this!

Have a great week!

Elder Welton

Cars and Manly Stuff

Another day, another dollar!

To be honest, I can't remember what happened this week... Elder Fraire and I were talking this morning about how P-Days are really the only day that keep your mind on track. Every day feels like a Sunday, so the question is always, "which Sunday is it today??"

The work in our area has been going great lately! I was telling my mission president earlier in my letter how I don't feel worthy of the success we are having in our area. I then realized that, "I'm exactly right! I'm not even CLOSE to being worthy of all of these miracles happening in our area, but his children seeking the truth definitely do deserve to hear this message..." I have been continually amazed at how great of an opportunity I have been given to witness people change their lives. I have seen people be shunned by their families, families sacrificing meals to go to church, and just so much faith in these people. Elder Fraire and I have only been able to proselyte in our area Saturdays and Sundays, but the work Heavenly Father is doing while we are not there is making up the difference. It's so humbling to think that Heavenly Father trusts all of us imperfect people to carry out his perfect work. So cool.

We had quite the adventure up in Sagay again! I know I sent a lengthy message about Sagay last week, but interesting things keep happening up there! Here's what I wrote in my journal.

--

Today we had even MORE driving experiences... We have one truck that has had problems in the past that have since been "fixed" so we decided to take it our on a drive, seeing as we hadn't really given it a full test run in along time. Both of us felt pretty confident in it as we had taken it on small errands around Bacolod. About ten minutes into the drive, Elder Fraire said, "Yeah!! This thing feels like it's back to life!" I agreed. It did feel better. But then I quickly countered with, "We better stop talking about this, I feel like these words will come back to bite us..." Then we laughed and kept going.

Upon our arrival in Sagay we noticed smoke started coming out of the hood... "Dang it..." we both thought. We stopped at the church and investigated. We took one look at the billowing smoke coming from the engine and instantly knew, "Okay...well.. I know for sure that this definitely isn't a GOOD thing..." We decided to move it down the street a bit to the Sister's house where there was shade and water. After further investigation, we noticed the coolan reservoir had no more water. Bone dry. So we got a couple pitchers-full of water and dumped it in. Steam immediately started coming out of the opening and a boiling sound started happening. After we let it cool for a length of time, we started it and it turned right over! When we looked at the water reservoir, we saw the liquid shooting out the bottom quite rapidly. "I guess that's why there's no water in the reservoir..." After contemplating and considering our options, we decided to bring a bunch of one liter coke bottles with us and just keep dumping water in the rest of the way home. So, off we went!

The whole way home, I was trying my very best to keep the motor running pretty low in order to keep it from getting unnecessarily hot. No hard accelerations or anything. About 30 minutes in, we stopped to throw some more water in. Elder Fraire went to the bathroom, I put the water in , and we were off. Everything seemed TOTALLY fine when I checked, so we just kept going! Another 45 minutes to an hour goes by - I'm driving, he's fast asleep - and all of the sudden I got a horrible feeling in my stomach that said, "Pull over!" I ignored it of course because it seemed perfectly fine earlier, but after the persistence of the feeling, I decided to obey. As we were pulling over, just as the car had done earlier when we arrived at the Sister's apartment, the engine cut out and the car turned off. We stopped, smoke poured out, and the same thoughts went through my head... "Shoot..." I got out, flipped up the hood and immediately threw water in. We waited ten minutes to see if anything would happen - nothing. Car wouldn't start. A few guys, one without a shirt, ended up walking up to us to help. They just kind of watched me as I was dumping some water in to it. I figured they were probably afraid to speak English, so as they stared at me putting the water in, I said, "yeah, this thing's pretty thirsty," and then they laughed and realized I spoke Ilonggo. They took a look and asked if we had anymore water. I went and got the few liters we had left and we just dumped them in. They were equally as confused as we were, but one of them told us that we were almost at Silay and that we should just try and get it to Bacolod as fast as we could manage without over heating too much. We waited for the engine to cool more, turned the key, and the engine surprisingly started struggling back to life. It eventually turned over and we were all happy. We headed off, worried, but comforted by their reassurance. All we knew is that we needed to get there FAST.

Apparently it was our lucky day because when we got to Silay, they decided to have an unannounced parade... As we were crawling through traffic, I kept saying, "Come on, people! This thing is exploding!!" Not two seconds later, mid-merge, the engine DIES. "NO. WAY." Blocking two lanes of traffic, I desperately turned the key to bring it back. It fired right back up! What a relief! But now we knew that we were on super limited time. Then followed some of the most aggressive, yet least accelerative driving patterns that I have ever laid forth in my life. As we got to Bacolod, everyone was going slower than I had ever seen there. They were crawling... Traffic would be the death of this vehicle, I just knew it. We were so pleased to see little whisps of smoke eventually start flowing out from under the hood. At this point it's safe to say that I was not a happy driver. Everyone was now an enemy. A guy on a motorcycle even came by and pointed at our car hood, essentially meaning to me, "umm, hey sir, your car is SMOKING..?" I replied with an expression and motioned towards the cars in front of me that clearly expressed, "If these 'wonderful' cars in front of me would just MOVE..." He laughed and left. Everything got worse the closer we got to the office. Mid-U-turn, the engine cuts out again, I turn it back on, smoke is streaming right on out of there, and the engine is kicking like a bull. And the bull was not happy. We pulled into the office, me keeping the RPM's high enough to keep it from dying until I finally got it parked. No need to turn it off because it killed itself! I'm not sure if we destroyed the engine or what, but we just threw the hood open and went inside. It was quite the experience. As people came into the office a few minutes after, they started asking what happened. "Hey elders, why is the car smoking?" Not wanting to explain the whole ordeal we had just gone through, we just said, "Oh yeah it broke..."

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Normally, I would pull an analogy out of this story, but I don't quite have a solid one today... It was just a good story :) I'm sure we could find all sorts of stories about being more prepared and stuff like that here, but I will leave that up to you all. I DO know, however, that I had a prompting from the Spirit to stop when and where I did. Perhaps it something bad was to have happened to us later down the road. As I have pondered that prompting since then, I have imagined collisions and loss of control and all of the horrible things that might have happened had I not listened. But there's also a chance that I was meant to stop there simply to plant a very, VERY small seed for one of those men that stopped to help us. The very short conversation we had about the church, talking about who we were, and maybe even just the simple interaction we had, may have been just enough to plant a seed that will grow forth in the future. I may never know why I stopped there, but I know that I will never regret NOT following it.

Have a great week!