Mamatay na ang dapat Mamatay!!!!

Magundung umaga po!!

Well, this week has been messed up, and it looks like the next 6 weeks will be as well. Elder Pring is finally getting transferred (down to Red Dear), So he's super exited. I'll be with Elder Ronquillio. I mentioned briefly last week that we would be receiving another member in our companionship for a short season. Well looks like I'll be with him for at least 6 weeks. 

So it ended up being a terrible Idea to have him come down here. We thought we would need him because we heard he spoke Cebuano, (and we have an investigator who speaks Cebuano) but he evidently forgot how to speak the language. He speaks some Tagalog and hardly any English. He's been out for 11 months and doesn't know how to use a daily planner. during the lessons we've had with him this week, he's managed to inform two people that only men can hold the priesthood, which is true, but totally unnecessary for people to know during our first visit. In short, I'm basically going to have to train this punk. I don't know why, but there have been a lot of disobedient and lazy Tagalog missionaries over the last couple years, and the culture of it has been perpetuated into a lot of the native Filipino Elders. My current companion Turned from the wicked traditions of his fathers after serving with his last companion, Elder Walker and now with me. He wants to be obedient and knows how to be. I'm proud of his progress.
Looks like another difficult assignment from President. Time to forget myself and go to work.

Everything is going well with Christians progression towards baptism. He accepted the law of Tithing with enthusiasm this week and has committed to live the law! And his friend who brought him a church activity in the fist place will be the one to baptism. His name is brother Hues and he is the best Member missionary in town! He drove his bike like a third of the way across Edmonton just to be present at our lesson this week. Salt of the earth kind of guy. 

The stake has become aware of Brother Christians situation and has got involved, so there is some crazy stuff we have to work out. Because of work, Christian can only attend in the mornings, so he can't attend the ward in the area where he lives. so we've arranged with President to have him confirmed and attend in a different ward. The problem is he can't receive a calling unless he attends the ward he is supposed to. The last resort is to move his records into the ward he is able to attend, which will require going through Salt Lake. It doesn't happen often because the church is concerned about people getting lost when they move or if they go less active, which makes sense. We will need to have a definite place for him to attend church by the end of the week.

This is such a pain and I'm doing it all by myself. I don't know exactly why, but maybe it's because Elder Pring is not as comfortable speaking with White people. And now I'll be totally be myself to everything and somehow get the message to Brother Christian concerning what church he will attend, and what he should do with Work. A member of the stake presidency recommend he try negotiate with his boss on the grounds of religious freedom to have time to attend Church on Sunday. Evidently you can do that legally but I don't know if it will work. Employers here seem to abuse Filipinos willingness to work and they don't negotiate well. Please pray for us.

On a positive note, one of our recent converts (brother Jay, who was baptized a week after I got here) Gave a sweet talk in Stake Conference!!!!!!!!!! He talked about his conversion process and he said he almost passed out. Then Elder Stacy of the 70 got up and had him stay while he asked the missionaries who taught him to talk about how the ward helped. The focus of the conference was about how Councils in the ward and stake bless members. It was super great. We'll be celebrating by going to the house of Grace and Jay and they will be feeding us Balute and Turron. Should be good! 

Well, lots of news this week, I hope you are all adjusting to life with School and all the other crazy things :) Love you tons and I'll give a report in a week!

Love, 

Elder Higginson

Good week!

Kamusta Po Kayo! Magungdung Tanghali!

Well this week, we decided to work our guts out and change tactics a little bit. As a result we got 6 new investigators and taught 7 other lessons! We found two roommates - Ruel & Dominic, a sweet lady lalain, a couple - Joel and Joy, and a nice guy named Cloid who really respects missionaries. It was a killer week and exhaustive!

We have been doing a thing with teaching The first Lesson that involves simplifying and intensifying. It's something that I've worked with before and it's based on teaching out of the Pamphlets, but our Zone Leaders have been experimenting with it and really getting it down to a science. So I was on exchanges with my Zone Leader Elder Barber (a good friend of Elder Jennings) and he introduced the idea. Basically you ask people if they have maybe 5 minutes to sit down and talk about Jesus. We don't go into all the details of every principal - we say "we aren't going teach teach you everything in this pamphlet, so you can read it after we leave, we'll just give you the basics and get out of your hair.)  we teach by showing people the pictures in the pamphlets and ask what they know about them. By so doing you can find out where they are at in their knowledge and then you don't have to expound so much. You make it so simple that they totally know what's going on and then you ask them to pray about the Book of Mormon and then ask when You can come back. They are a lot more likely to set a close return appointment when you only took about 9 or 10 minutes for the whole thing! (we tell them five, but it usually takes about 9, but whatever) It's been  super effective.

Our investigator Brother Christian is progressing very well. We taught him this week, he attended church and treated us to some Donaire Buggers at the burger Joint where he works! Isn't he a stud!?!? We were able to cordinate with the Gateway YSA ward to set up his baptism and it looks like everything should work out! We are set for Sept. 5th

Our Other investigator Richard is progressing and reading the Book of Mormon, Albeit a bit slow, but he really wants to understand. He's really Cool.

I've got a cool scripture for you 

 24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.

Basically the motto of our week. It's kindof a joke about us outrunning all the other missionaries but realistically we are really in a race to fulfil the will of the Lord. 

We will be obtaining a new member in our companionship for one week starting tomorrow. I met him in the North. His English isn't to good, but he's proficient in Cebuano, Bisaya and Tagalog. Go figure. Should be a ton of fun and we'll keep working hard!! 

Love, 

Elder Higginson

Hello everyone!

Hello everyone! 

Well, we had a pretty good week here in Alberta Canada. We worked hard and got some stuff done. my memory is a little sparse on the particulars but here's some stuff I remember.

We taught our main investigator brother Christian twice this week in members homes. There are a lot of folks from various wards supporting him which is great. We have moved his baptism date to the first Saturday in September to make everything compatible with his work, but he is progressing along very well and he is absorbing everything that is being taught. We've just started working out the details with the YSA ward where he lives and we are on scheduled to have everything prepared for the baptism.  I'm not sure how many people will attend, just because of the circumstances but we will make sure it is announced in the wards.

We were able to meet with Richard this week and he had read all of the introduction to the Book of Mormon and reported everything he learned at our visit. He's not the fastest or most proficient reader, but he's defiantly making an effort, bless his heart. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon in English and Tagalog. There is a lot of deep Tagalog in the Book of Mormon that hardly any Filipinos know how to use haha, The normal dialect is called Taglish, or Tagalog supplemented with English words.

We met with a number of other people this week, but no tremendous progress to report. Most Filipinos will let you in, but not near as many are totally interested in joining the church, they just want to talk about Jesus. It's a pain trying to get people to understand the purpose of our visits are to help them understand the message and give it a shot so they can gain a testimony of it for themselves. It's frustrating. One of our other investigators who is not progressing, but comes to church, - she just played on her phone during sacrament meeting!! This isn't the Catholic Church! Put that away! The Filipino members are a little frustrated with her too. She doesn't keep commitments, despite our efforts to explain the purpose of our visits, so we are dropping her. It's funny how many of these people say "yes Lord" or "Haleluja" when you are praying during a lesson. A lady asked when an appropriate time to pray would be during the day, so I invited her to read Alma 37:37 and every few words she would say "yes Lord" and "Yes Lord Jesus, Hallelujah!" Elder Pring and myself get a kick out of it haha.

Anyways, I'm glad to hear that Trek went well and it was a good experience for the ward. You guys do a good job of sending me pictures and info on the life back home, and I appreciate it. I may be getting transferred in a couple weeks, or getting a new companion but we will see.

Love, 

Elder Higginson

Men and brethren, what shall we do?

Hello everyone! I am pleased to report that We had a great week!  Ako at ang kasama ko ay pumupunta mitigas sa pintura. (I and the companion mine are going hard in the paint... hahahaha)

We were able to meet with our primary investigator, Brother Christian this week and he agreed to be baptized!!!!!! He says he's ready and that he has gained a testimony of the Book of Mormon! He said that "every time I open the book, I get exited." It's the coolest thing. We have hit a small snag in the fact that we found he has been attending the wrong singles ward and all his friends that he has made are attending the other ward. And that ward for some inexplicable reason just changed it's time to 1:00 P.M. which interferes with Christians Trabajo. So we've got some serious work to do. His baptismal date is the 29 of August.

We found a sweet new investigator named Richard while we were looking for our supper appointment last Friday. We saw a rosary hanging from the mirror of a truck so naturally we knocked the door of the house adjacent to it. It's usually the most surefire way to find Filipino's haha. He let us in and we were able to teach a good lesson and he said that he seriously wanted to read the Book of Mormon to know if it's true. Hopefully he finds time to. He's probably a busy guy, but we will come back this week and see.

Lastly, we went to the heritage days festival in the middle of Edmonton Yesterday to do service. I was on my feet for 7 1/2 hours with a bunch of other missionaries. We just collected money for the food bank at the bus stop area, and told people where to go. It's kind of satisfying when you can actually apply language skills! If I'd see a Filipino family that looked confused I'd just ask "Kailangan mo ba ng tulong? (basically, do you need any help?) And then a big old smile spreads across their face and they ask who taught me Tagalog. "ang kiabigan ko doon!" -My friend over there! And then I'd give them some basic directions in Tagalog or as much Tagalog as I could. It was cool. We got to check out the event briefly as well. Everybody comes to represent their culture and sell food and trinkets and do performances. We were given some tickets for our service and I used it to get some curry chicken, rice and egg rolls. I got some free roasted banana from the Filipino Tent, which was surprisingly really good! And some barbequed pig snout. I'll attach some pictures. Anyway, it was a good week in the work of the ministry. I'm getting a better hold on the language and I'm having a good time and working hard. Love you all tons!!

love, Elder Higginson

Ang simbahan ay totoo!

Hello everyone!  We had a decent week in the work of the ministry and we worked really hard!

 But first, an update on my Tooth:

I went into the Dentist on Thursday morning and he was super cool. He fixed the tooth up quick and didn't charge me a cent. I thanked him the best I could with a numb face and went my way into the highways and the hedges. It looks great great and I'm back in action!

We found a neat little Filipino family last week and we were able to teach them this week! The fathers name is Donde and the mother's name is Bless. Two girls: Alisa and Alisel. We had a great Lesson one and I was able to speak a little Tagalog! They were a little hesitant about being baptized but they seem interested and we got them two copies of Ang Anklat ni Mormon: one in English and the other sa Tagalog. Hopefully they will be able to attend church, but they will be out of town for a week. We have also been teaching another lady named Sister Nene who speaks hardly any English. She has been attending church for the last two weeks but she doesn't seem to understand much. It's kind of a lame deal. She hasn't been reading from the Book of Mormon either but she really likes us. We will continue to diagnose the situation and if she wont keep commitments we will drop her.

Brother Christian is our awesome investigator and we will be inviting him to be baptized this Wednesday! He's been progressing pretty quick, though we were not able to meet with him this week. However he did attend church. But now we have a problem: for some unknown reason the Singles Ward we are attending with him will be moved to 1:00 P.M. in a different building. Our investigator has work at 12:00 on sundays, so I don't know how this is going to work. Not super happy about it though. I still think he will be baptized but he needs to attend church in order to stay rooted in the pananampalataya. That word means faith. Tagalog is crazy sometimes.

Ako at ang Kasama ko ay ayos lang.

(Me and the companion mine are doing fine.)

Elder Pring is a funny Elder with a happy disposition and a good feel for the missionary work here. He's a little slow in the morning but he has an obedient spirit. He was trained by a less than obedient missionary, So Elder Walker (his last comp.) and myself and really been getting him all figured out. It's not his fault, he didn't even speak hardly any English when he got here. But now that he knows all the rules he is determined to obey them. He is a humble servant of the Lord. Well I've written plenty. I love you all tons and I am loving this opportunity to serve the Lord.

love,

Elder Higginson

 Elder Pring