Merry Christmas from the Legazpi Mission

Dear parents of Legazpi Mission,

We wish you a merry Christmas. Thanks for giving us the gift of your sons and daughters.  They are the best and are serving the Lord well. 

With love,

President and Sister Kotter

you can find me in the bottom photo far left middle row :) 

CHRISTMAS DAY SKYPE 2017

Conference with Elder Hayne of the 70

Last week was great! On Tuesday we traveled to get to a Conference with Elder Hayne of the 70, and it was really a great conference! He talked about the gathering of scattered Israel, and how it is our job and calling as missionaries to find this "scattered Israel." As of now, he said, our mission is doing a pretty bad job at finding, but he gave us some great ways to find the elect in each of our areas. One of the problems that this mission is having is that all of the missionaries are wasting a lot of time teaching people that will NEVER progress, and we are just trying to force them to change. Elder Hayne made the point that, "when you find scattered Israel, everything is easy." Meaning that they accept all of our invitations to read the book of mormon, go to church, and to be baptized, because they were already prepared before we even met them. He told us that simply FINDING these types of people is the hardest part, so we need to commit ourselves to finding through the members of the church and finding through referrals.

To be honest, if you're not a member of this church, the above paragraph probably made ABSOLUTELY no sense, and even if you ARE a member, it's probably confusing, but hey, I'm just giving updates on what I'm learning. Elder Del Pilar is really getting stronger desires to be obedient and work hard all day, and for that I am very proud of him. He has changed so drastically in just these past two months that I've been companions with him, and I really look up to him for that. We got home from the conference really ready to go out and start finding those who are prepared to receive us, but literally that whole day was just met with pure rejection. We actually thought it was really funny because we were SO pumped from the conference and had such a fire in our hearts to just get out and teach everyone, but we just fell HARD on our faces. But we aren't even a little discouraged, we are working just the same and will continue to work just the same until our last day.

Saturday there was a huge tropical storm that came through our island of Masbate, so we were kind of on lockdown that night and weren't allowed to leave our apartments. There were a lot of areas that flooded, but everyone was safe for the most part, nothing to dramatic happened. Oh and I'm sorry because I actually got some really good pictures this last week, but I LEFT MY SD CARD AT THE APARTMENT AGAIN. Oh well, ya'll will get those next week. But until then, take care and have a merry Christmas!!

I don't believe that there are "difficult areas," I just believe that sometimes we are just looking in the wrong places, and therefore not finding those who are wholly prepared to receive us.

We were really able to get a much stronger, renewed vision of our are this past week. I don't know what it is, but Elder Del Pilar and I got much more motivated and dedicated to the work, and now we are very set on reaching new goals and finding more people to teach. I don't believe that there are "difficult areas," I just believe that sometimes we are just looking in the wrong places, and therefore not finding those who are wholly prepared to receive us.

The Ramos family is progressing as usual. We are visiting them literally every day in order to prepare them for their baptism on the 23 of this month. They are really great and by far my favorite family, but our struggle with them is the fact that they are all very uneducated. It's not a bad thing, but we have to teach them VERY simply, and even when we do that, we still have to repeat some lessons two or three times; hence the daily visits we have with them. They might be slow to understand all of the doctrine and such, but they understand what we say through their feelings, not so much through their minds. Even though they can't read, they all know the Book of Mormon is true because every time we read it to them, they say they can feel that it's true and that it can change their lives. It's true that you don't need to be educated in order to be considered the elect of God.

Jingky on the other hand (I'm not sure if I've written much about her) but she really wanted to change her life when we first met her and she said many times that she really wanted to come closer to God. Well just the other night she texted us saying that her schedule is so busy that she just doesn't have the time to fit it all in one day, so she has evaluated and decided that she no longer has time to meet with us. She said she will still continue to do the things that we have taught her, like pray and read the Book of Mormon, but she no longer has time for us to teach her. We tried our best to tell her that she was making a mistake, and she is very sad about it, but her mind seems set. It's really sad because she was one of our most progressing investigators and now she's just gone. But we hope and pray that she will realize that she needs God in her life again...

Missionary Leadership Council in Legaspi

 (which is like a meeting for all of the Zone Leaders) 

AND I SAW ELDER CABALLES THERE

OH GOOD NEWS! Last week I was able to go to an Missionary Leadership Council in Legaspi (which is like a meeting for all of the Zone Leaders) AND I SAW ELDER CABALLES THERE!! If you don't remember, he's the missionary that I trained. I was so surprised because he's only been on the mission for 6 months and he's a Zone Leader now. It was so great to catch up with him. I love that kid like a brother.

So this week is exciting because we have a general authority, Elder Hayne, coming to visit our mission, and we as the Zone Leaders get to have a special leadership training with him this Tuesday at the mission home. I'm kind of nervous for it because I feel like he's just going to chastise us. But I'm sure it'll be great either way!

And that's all for this week folks! Sorry if I don't send many pictures in my emails, we literally just don't have time to take pictures in our day because literally every minute counts here and we are trying to work as much as possible. But I try to take at least a few!

Elder Austin Cook

Elder Del Pilar, Elder Caballes and me being a nut

The Ramos family is my absolute favorite family here in Masbate!

So as the first week of the transfer, this week was pretty disorganized. I feel like I say that every week though... Oh well, guess it's just a part of being a missionary. Anyways, we got two new missionaries in our zone, and they seem super excited to be on Masbate Island and we are very grateful to have them here!

Our last week was spent teaching as many people as possible, but our most progressing investigators are still the same: the Ramos family, Jingky, and Christian. The Ramos family is my absolute favorite here in Masbate! Jimmy and Angelica go to all of the church activities, and any time there is a baptism they come to it as well. Their baptism is on the 23, so we are very excited and hope that nothing gets in the way so that they actually get baptized on that date.

Most of these people are VERY uneducated when it
comes to world history, but at least they have
fun decorations on their homes

I am so sorry that this email is so short, but we just got informed yesterday that we are going to Legaspi today, so we get to travel on the boats again! And then next week we have a huge mission conference in Legaspi again where of the 70, Elder Hayne, is coming to speak to all of the missionaries here in our mission. Busy stuff, so we are very excited for all of it! Again, sorry for the short email (and next weeks might be short too because we have to travel again) but I got some good pictures to send! But I'm still happy and Elder Del Pilar and I are doing great! Love you all!

WATERWORLD! I just like taking pictures of these houses
because the construction is so interesting.