"Mabait Ba Siya" "Is He Nice?" (YIKES)

kamusta family! well first off i want to wish a very happy birthday to the best mama bear in the whole entire world! happy birthday mom! i hope you have the day that you deserve! your the greatest and i can't even explain how much i love you! mahal kita mama bear! Well this week was a good one! and a very fast one! it was crazy! but a lot of cool things happened this week! first off i should probably warn you (speaking from personal experience) not to mess with a 1 ton bull in the middle of a field. not a smart idea hahaha. it's real scary! well so this is the story. we had a lunch appointment and to get to this house we always walk by like 4 carabou and this big bull cow. well we had 6 of us elders and we were walking home and decided to take some pictures with the carabous and the bull. haha some little filipino kids came over and were helping and laughing at us haha. so the elders said elder machen go get a picture with the bull. so of coarse i'm not going to say no. so i start walking up to it.(luckly it was roped up) and i was going kind of slow so i didn't startle it. it was like i was in a safari or something. i was one with the wild. so it was a stare down between me and this bull. he puffed a few times but i wasn't about to back out of challenge. i got a little closer and another elder came around the back a little to fast and i didn't see him coming. at the same time i looked at the little kid and asked him "mabait ba siya" which is is he nice? so right when i turned my head the bull found his opportunity and charged at me full steam! some one yelled and i was shocked as i saw this massive bull come after me! i felt like i was dodging a fret train! i jumped back and to the side, it was a pretty nice juke move if i do say so my self. stiff armed his horn with my right hand and got out unharmed! his head jerked back as his rope tightened up and he couldn't go no farther! oh man my heart jumped for a sec and then we all just started busting up laughing! good times here in the philippines! so that was a funny experience but of course we also had some neat spiritual ones. this one that really struck me was i was on exchanges with an elder from an other area and we were working in our area. it was kind of dark outside and we were walking through this field. for some reason i don't know why we both stopped and turned around and saw this lady and this girl walking kind of behind us and so we said. lets go talk to her. so we approached her and started talking to her. come to find out she is a member! a less active! oh man we both got so excited and she told us her daughter really wanted to get baptized and so we scheduled a time to return to teach her! i want to testify that the hand of the lord is in missionary work! he leads and guides us to the people that need and are ready to hear our message! it was such a testimony builder to me to know that that was truly inspired by the spirit and it lead us there. it was a great experience for the both of us and left me speachless as we walked away! this work is amazing family! words cannot describe my joy here and how much i love it! the philippines sure do keep you on your toes all the time but thats what makes it so great! i love you family and don't worry i'm fine here, kind of skinny, but im fine and surely protected by the lord! love you so much and hope you have a great week! Love Elder Machen

"I Don't Understand Why I'm So Happy"

Well family this week was one of a kind for sure! ill start off with one phrase. "I don't get why im so happy!" i'll tell you what this week was nuts! i have never been so stressed out in my entire life! it seemed as if everyone of our less actives had some huge problem and we both just felt overwhelmed! everynight coming home and being completly exhausted! oh man, but i have to say despite how stressed we were and how many things were happening this week was "sobrang masaya!" i can't even explain haha. the lord was just blessing us with good attitudes because we were always laughing and having fun and getting the work done! haha it was so fun! haha just little things we learned to laugh about and just keep pushing forward! that's one big thing i've been learning out here in the mission! is despite rough days and challenges, just continue to be happy! and laugh and smile through the thick and thin! we had some amazing things happen this week and as i write this i'm trying to remember them haha! it just seemed this week we had a new and uplifting attitude for the work and it made all the difference. Yes mom we got to water the old mans plants again! haha about twice a week and on friday it was so funny! we were laughing again and i have never seen him so happy haha. it was great and at the end of the lesson we said alright well we will see you on sunday and he said...like he does everytime "i dont know elders i have no money and its so far" we told him to trust in the lord and he can do it and low and behold he showed up! haha i was on exchanges and i told my companion dont worry he says that everytime and he always shows up! and he did! it was great! oh yeah i had "first" here in the philippines. i was asked to speak in sacrament meeting! and i was a little nervous just because it was in a different language! because i usually don't mind talking i kind of like it but i made it a goal in this talk not to speak any english. Well it was a little difficult for me at first but i was able to speak in straight tagalog for my talk! it was pretty neat because it was a blessing from the lord. I had some members come up to me after and ask how long i had been out and i told them about 5 and a half months here in the pilipinas and they said they enjoyed my talk and were impressed so it was neat and i was very grateful for the lords help! And on church on sunday, we had more less actives show up then i had ever seen! some that we have been working on for a very long time finally showed up! it was such a neat and amazing feeling! i just want to tell you how happy i am here! i was thinking about it the other day and i thought to myself, "i don't understand why i am so happy?" because i'm always tired, it's so hot you sweat whether your working or just sitting in the house. there was a million things i could have been bugged about or upset but none of that stuff matters! this is the lords work and like everybody says the best two years. i think i'm really just starting to realize that. how much i enjoy this work and the joy that this work brings! it's amazing! i thank you for your support and prayers! they help and i feel them everyday! this week was just filled with hard work and laughter! i love you family and hope you guys continue to do well back home! If you truly want to be happy in this life you have to be obedient and follow christ! that's what we tell everybody because its true! Continue to feast upon the words of Christ daily! i promise you, you will find peace and answers to your everyday life! I love you guys so much! Elder Machen

"Elders Share With Me Some Gospel"

Kamusta Fam! Well i wasn't expecting to get transfered and i didn't think my comp was either....and we were right hahaha we didn't get transfered! hope i got ya there for a second! anyways it was good we got a new roommate at the house elder slaughter from utah. he brought with him a football so i'm pumped! we actually went to the beach today and played catch on the sand it was way nice! it's always good to play and get rid of some stress and have some fun once in a while! my comp goes home in 6 weeks! it's crazy i've ended up killing 2 out of my 3 compions on the mission so far haha. so things went good this week it was a hectic week though because of transfers and we did lots of traveling so it was exhausting but again went by way fast! so lets see what happened this week? well so much happened i want to tell you a cool and neat experience i had the other night. so before our dinner appointment we went and taught a lesson to this family that is kind of less active. so we were teaching and after the lesson we asked if there was anything he wanted to say and he said well actually elders would you mind giving my kids a blessing? they are leaving tomorrow and i want them to be safe. so of course we said we would be glad to. so 1st off instantly my mind shot towards conference and how many talks were on the priesthood and how special it is that we use it only for rightousness and so i said a quick prayer in my heart that the spirit would help me give this blessing and i had the most comforting feeling come over me and i knew the spirit would be with us, well that was my experiance but then we asked brother if he had the melckezidek priesthood and he said he did and so we suggested that he give the blessing. he looked down and said so humbly elders..i don't know how. my heart melted for this father but i was so excited for the opportunity to teach this father how to give blessings. we went over the steps and and with our help he was able to give his children a fathers blessing. after that i really pondered of what he had just done. Here was a man that held the power and authority from God but didn't know how to use it. I thought wow, we truly our just intrusments in the hand of the lord helping these people in any way possible. as i thought of conference and the talks that were about the priesthood and how special it is i couldn't help but smile knowing that from now on this father is able to use his priesthood power for his family. it was a great and humbling experience for me to know that what we our doing is truly the lords work!!! another cool and funny experience we had this week is we went out to our member out by the beach. he's 70 yrs old and his wife died in January and he always says he thinks he's going to die soon and so he doesn't have much hope for life. i love this guy. every time we get to go teach him i get so excited because we help him water is plants cause he has a lot haha. and he always tells us he doesn't know if he's going to be able to eat cause he has no food and says he can't come to church cause he has no money but week after week he shows up! its amazing the faith he has. anyway so when we teach him we usually try and boost his spirits and help him out and this time he was really down in the dumps! it was so hot outside and his arthritis was really hurtin him so we helped him water his plants and then he was like "alright elders share with me some gospel." we all started laughing and for some reason the whole lesson we were just laughing! we had no idea why but we could barely talk because we were laughing so hard! slowly this man started to lighten up. we saw him start to joke and laugh with us and he even started doing magic for us and telling us stories about when we was young and "macho" haha after we left we asked each other haha "elder why were we laughing so hard there?" haha we honestly didn't know but i couldn't help but think it was for us to help him and lift up his spirits a little. it was a great week with things that just testified to me that this is where i should be and doing the lords work! i love it here in the philippines. you remember how i always used to say at home if i could live in any time era it would be the 1950's. haha i think i said that haha but that's what i feel the philippines is like. life is just simpler here and i love it! and that's a blessing from the lord for sure! i love you family and hope things are going well for you back home! i love and feel your prayers for me and thank you so much for them! oh bytheway conference was way good but i won't really try to expound to much on them because the Prophet and apostles do a lot better job haha. President Uctchdorf's talk was amazing and that was truly inspired!. well i love you guys and can't wait to share with you my experiences from this next week! love you! Elder Machen

"Speechless"

well howdy fam! sorry this computer didn't save my email and so i have
to start over! this week was a really good one with lots of challenges
and stepping stones! so a cool experiance we had this week is we were
teaching our investigators and i didn't have much hope for them because
their pretty stuck on there religion but my comp said dont worry
they'll come around. so when we went and taught them this week oh man
it was powerful! we had a plan but when we were walking there we
thought we should change it so we followed the prompting of the spirit
and WOW! so they said they won't read the bom until they finish the
bible so we thought if they won't read by themselves we'll read with
them to get them interested! we read 2 nephi 27 about the coming forth
of the bom! oh man and it was a an exert from isaiah from the bible so
it was kind of hard to understand but the spirit was so strong and i
know they felt it. the look on there face was they were really
pondeing it! it left me speechless at the end of the lesson how
powerful it was! so that was a neat experiance and then yesturday at
church we had a bunch of less actives show up! man i'll tell you it is
the greatest feeling when you see the fruits of your labors and feel
the saviors love when we see those less actives come back to church!
so this week was a good one and it went by so fast!!!! i can't believe
how fast this transfer went by! we find out on wednesday who is
getting transfered. there's rumors flying that my comp is getting
transfered but we doubt it cause this is his last transfer and so it's
not likely but you know the rumors on the mission they fly like wild
fires hahaha. oh and freak dad you got me so bad on your april fools!
freak i had the biggest pit in my stomach reading that!!!! haha that
was a good one. about conference we don't watch it until this coming
sunday because of the time difference so haha i hope it's a good one!
and mom my favorite food here is....well almost all the time i
honestly don't know what im eating so i couldn't tell ya! but there's
this stuff called "pancit" its like spagetti with veggies and the
noodles are super thin and its way good! but other than that i don't
really know haha. hope you guys have a good week and know that i love
you so much! oh and i started reading D&C this week! oh man i can
hardly put it down! its so cool! it really made me realize the weight
of our calling as missionaries and how important it is! so it was a
good week! love you guys and hope you have a good week! Love Elder
Machen April 2, 2012