Dear Mom and Dad,
-I have not gotten that box yet, but I probably will on Thursday at our Zone Conference/Mission Tour
-I should be able to Skype here, and I'll definitely be in this area for Christmas
-We found out that our release dates are being moved up a week, meaning I should be getting home on July 3rd! We better have a Rockin' 4th!!
-Typical P-Day is relax!!! We usually just kind of talk, do laundry,
shopping, and read.
shopping, and read.
-My companion is about out of money, so until the 1st of the month
we'll be walking everywhere! He's starting to budget and he's
surprisingly loving it!
Well I'll start with some pretty cool news! As you know they changed the ages for missionary service, and believe it or not, we're already starting to see an effect! A few weeks ago President Peterson called the zone leaders in the Cabuyao stake (about 8 units), and told all the missionaries to go to their bishops and draw a line where they can split every area in half, and also prepare all the apartments to house 4 missionaries. Here in the Batangas Zone we have 7 areas, and 5 of the 7 have been told to do the same thing(mine was not one of them)! From the sounds of it, a TON of new missionaries are coming in within the next few months. I'm so excited to be here and to see this all happening. As I've thought about this, I've started to realize how they've been preparing for this for a long time now. If you remember when I trained Elder Jones he had only been in the MTC for 6 weeks, and apparently that was just a trial to see how it'd work. All the foreign language MTC missionaries will be there for 3 less weeks than they were before, and all the missionaries speaking their native language are getting knocked down from 3 weeks to 2. It certainly is an exciting time to be a missionary and to see this all happen!
By the way congrats to Tanner Hatch on getting engaged!! Also congrats to the Oakton Cougars football team for beating Westfield for the N. Regional Champs!
we'll be walking everywhere! He's starting to budget and he's
surprisingly loving it!
Well I'll start with some pretty cool news! As you know they changed the ages for missionary service, and believe it or not, we're already starting to see an effect! A few weeks ago President Peterson called the zone leaders in the Cabuyao stake (about 8 units), and told all the missionaries to go to their bishops and draw a line where they can split every area in half, and also prepare all the apartments to house 4 missionaries. Here in the Batangas Zone we have 7 areas, and 5 of the 7 have been told to do the same thing(mine was not one of them)! From the sounds of it, a TON of new missionaries are coming in within the next few months. I'm so excited to be here and to see this all happening. As I've thought about this, I've started to realize how they've been preparing for this for a long time now. If you remember when I trained Elder Jones he had only been in the MTC for 6 weeks, and apparently that was just a trial to see how it'd work. All the foreign language MTC missionaries will be there for 3 less weeks than they were before, and all the missionaries speaking their native language are getting knocked down from 3 weeks to 2. It certainly is an exciting time to be a missionary and to see this all happen!
By the way congrats to Tanner Hatch on getting engaged!! Also congrats to the Oakton Cougars football team for beating Westfield for the N. Regional Champs!
Things are going pretty well here for us. We had a very busy week and it was so hot this week. We walked so much this week and I've been pretty physically beat! This Thursday we have a mission tour with Elder Ardern of the Seventy(is in the Area Presidency for the Philippines). I've been asked to conduct the meeting! Elder Ardern and his wife will be there, and there will be 50 missionaries or so from several zones. They emailed me the program today, and I was pretty excited to be asked to conduct until I saw "Elder Yost" right underneath "Elder Ian Ardern". Yikes! I pray I don't pass out and that my knees don't knock too hard while I'm up at the podium!
We've been focusing a good bit of our time on two Melchizedeck priesthood fathers that we're trying to help come back to church. Their families are super active, but they've just fallen a little bit by the wayside . They've come to church a little, but it's been a little on and off. One of them just lost his job, so we're trying to help him as much as we can. The Branch is doing pretty well.
There's an awesome family here that got sealed in the temple a few months ago! The parents and their 7 year old daughter are hilarious! When they got sealed, one of the temple workers told the girl that her first kiss should be in the temple when she herself gets sealed. So when they got home, they tucked their daughter into bed, and went to give her a good night kiss and she said "No don't! I can't kiss anyone until I go to the temple!!"
One of the coolest people I've met here is a recent convert named Nonoy. He used to have an awful drinking and smoking problem. He's been struggling to find a job as well. He's about 55, and lives by himself because his family moved away. He is the sweetest and most gentle man I've met. We showed up to church on Sunday, and he was early, and had a new pair of slacks, clean white shirt, new tie, haircut and glasses. As I sat down next to him, he told me that he just got a new job, and for the first time, he has income to pay tithing on. He then said to me with a sweet smile on his face, "Elder Yost, these are the blessings of the Gospel." May we all have faith like this wonderful man, and always recognize the constant blessings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Love,
Elder Yost
One of the coolest people I've met here is a recent convert named Nonoy. He used to have an awful drinking and smoking problem. He's been struggling to find a job as well. He's about 55, and lives by himself because his family moved away. He is the sweetest and most gentle man I've met. We showed up to church on Sunday, and he was early, and had a new pair of slacks, clean white shirt, new tie, haircut and glasses. As I sat down next to him, he told me that he just got a new job, and for the first time, he has income to pay tithing on. He then said to me with a sweet smile on his face, "Elder Yost, these are the blessings of the Gospel." May we all have faith like this wonderful man, and always recognize the constant blessings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Love,
Elder Yost
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