Keeping Up With Alex- Anislag 2.4

Hello everyone! 

This week was good! I think?

We found a turtle! My companion is from Manilla, and he have never seen a turtle that was at the wild before, so he is excited. We took it back home and named it baho (the bikol for turtle) (also something funny in tagalog) I don't know where it is now.

Our landlord next door is building a sari sari store, I'm soo dead️.

I am just chilling right now, glad to be here. 

Small mirical, we start church at 9:30 here, but it's supposed to be 9, kaso everyone late, so we don't. But a quick prayer before we left and there were members there! But not the branch president so we still started 930.

I read an article about praying for spiritual gifts, so I started praying for spiritual gifts that I really want or just personality traits I desire, and God has provided!...ways for me to learn them. He really is willing to give me experiences to help me change myself, but I just wish He wasn't so obvious about it. And incessant. But it's like He knows what He's doing or something. So I recommend praying for spiritual gifts. And then get ready, because you will need His strength for the next part.

I took to many pictures of the Bukit this week(that you drunk tatay for teaching me the Bikol of . )

 The one, the only, the sapat na, Elder Lutz

Graduation Announcements

I can't believe the time for Annie to announce her high school graduation is actually here.  The time is flying by entirely too fast.  Annie has always been the best of my fake smilers, so getting a good picture of her to display to all our closest friends and family was easy.  It was kind of fun to pick on her for being so very pale when the rest of our family tans fairly well.  We got some beautiful pictures of her.  I'm so proud of all the things she's learning and all the things she's going to accomplish in her future.

Happy Birthday, Max!

Happy Birthday, My Max!  You're a teenager! Your whole kid-hood is flying by.  It's been fun to see how responsible you are and how you always put the things you need to do ahead of what you need to do.  But in the long run you have a lot more time for fun.  You have become a little more particular with food safety this year.  You are very careful not to eat things that don't strictly conform to the government guidelines.  I don't know where you inherited that.  You are super helpful on grandma's farm, but not as excited to sign up for chores around here.  You have become good friends with Brandon and you guys like to play Minecraft together.  I've been so impressed with the care and attention you show your Deacon's quorum as you strive to magnify your calling.  You are growing up to be such an impressive young man in all the areas of your life.

 

Now that Max is 13 he likes: video games, all his stuffed puppies, candy of any kind, waking up early, eating like a 12 year old, Panda Express, Dominoes Pizza, playing board games, teaching people when I'm bored, and swimming.

He hates touching yucky dish water (he must have gloves),  LEMI, getting new clothes, LEMI, most foods these days (hamburger, beans, most vegetables),  LEMI, being late, doing anything he doesn't see value in, and chores.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Keeping Up With Alex- Anislag 2.2

Ok 8 mins let's see what happens. 

This week was good. We started with exchanges on Tuesday. It was pretty chill, I went with elder Jornalero, and we visited people in legazpi. All of the people we visited were members, but at least we were able to do some good in our visits. That night we also set up for Zone Con the next day(nakakapagod). 

The next day was Zone con! We had a wonderful confrence about a lot of different topics that didn't really stick together, but were good. One that struck me was about baptism, and how to introduce it to people.

Then we worked. Yay! Nothing really interesting happened in our work, it was fairly run of the mill spiritualy fired missionary work, but we saw a lot of people do little things to bring them closer to Christ.

And that's my insight this week. It isn't the big things we do that will make us happy. This 2 year service trip will not tide me over spiritually for the rest of my life. It is the little things that do that. Read. Pray. Keep the commandments. Go to the temple. That's what will really give us the power that we need to be spiritual forever.

No time now, 

Elder Lutz

No pictures today

Cherry Blossoms

It's crazy how many people crowd into the city of Washington DC every spring to see the iconic trees in blossom.  They really are gorgeous.  I swear it was busier this year than ever.  We ended up parking kind of far and walking in, but that just gave us more of a chance to look around.  Quite honestly, my favorite part of the blossoms are driving very slowly through Haines Point and seeing all the trees complete with their "popcorn" covered branches.  We got a couple of beautiful pictures with Annie and everyone together.  We could have easily skipped this year, but I'm glad it's a tradition that we kept alive. 

Keeping Up With Alex- Anislag 2.2

Goooooooooooooood morning as the wind comes sweeping down the plains.

Becaaaaaaaause, it's been soooooo windy this week. Thaaaaats why aaaaall of my letters are bleeding bloooooown away.

Spititual thought: Exodus 20:27, thou shalt not eat salt because it is a-sin. The one commandment everyone forgets

I also had a very enlightening time studying Mark 17, I highly recommend it to everyone who didn't just look it up.

Just kidding, but this week was very good. We had exchanges on Wednesday with the batan elders, the most isolated elders in the mission, and as they prepared to leave thursday morning after DCM, there was no boat. So, we just took them back to anislag, making half of our week full of exhanges. My companion was Elder Zapanta, all you in Naga might know of him, but he was super fun and trunky and is probably the reason that my head is full of jokes right now. Ah well, it was fine. We played uno alot at night, but because there was two of us we had to really mess with our strategies, and it got to the point where we had about 20 cards in our hands normally, and to win you had to play 5 cards at the same time.

I'm very thankful for electricity, the Word of Wisdom, and the Constitution this week, as well as Isaiah.

Random insight this week. Self Reliance is a commandment. God will provide a way for us to follow the commandments He gives to us.

Therefore, there is a way for everyone to become self reliant. I don't think this is fully understood by the people here, and maybe even by some in America. But of course, it's not automatic. From the Church's self reliance program, there are things that are important, like choosing a needed salary to be self reliant, budgeting, eliminating debt, picking a job that will allow you to be self reliant, and then doing the required work to accomplish this. Sounds fun, and I look forward to trying this when I return. The purpose, therefore, of the fast offering programs of the church is to facilitate this, if training is needed to achieve a certain required salary, then it can be arranged for. If you lose a job, it can tide over the few months before a new job can be located. But it is not to be used, as it is here, as a way to supplement food. Insight lang.

Elder Lutz

Saying Goodbye

The day before the funeral, we took my dad's ashes to the river to scatter them. Mom had originally planned to just walk out to the water and scatter them.  Annie made the suggestion that we do a Viking funeral.  How that was going to happen, we weren't really sure.  We made a little wooden pyre that floated on his favorite river and lit it on fire.  As the box that carried his ashes burned and got a hole in it, it scattered ashes behind it as it floated on the water.  He always did love his time on the water. 

The next day was his funeral.  I was kind of surprised by how many people came to pay their respects to my dad. He had the whole Stake Presidency, a Temple President, and a member of the 70.  Even his baby brother, John, came to say goodbye. The funeral was lovely.  My mom chose dad's best friends to come and speak and they did a great job; telling funny stories about his sports and church adventures.  The Relief Society had a light dinner afterwards.  There were so many people that I haven't seen in ages that we got to catch up with.  We saw life long friends, and new friends.  We heard lots of anecdotes of funny things my dad did.  There were teenagers who were touched by their time with Dad.  I don't think we could have planned it any better.  It was a perfect send off.  I'm thankful for the gospel that gives me the knowledge that this separation is only temporary and we will all be together on the other side someday.