Monday, March 26, 2018

Another Great Week!

Everything is just starting to really blur together honestly hahah! This week was a great week though!! This week we had a baptism, and our zone had a zone baptism this where 11 people were baptized including our investigator Dwyane Placer. His mom has been a member for about 20 years and hasn't attended church in quite a while. Ever since Dwayne wanted to get baptized their whole family starting coming to church and now Dwayne's dad will be getting baptized this May! It's been really great and we have grown close with them. The family we had omyd a couple weeks ago "Alex", we have been going to their house every week but they are always busy and don't have time to talk with us. But that's ok, I know we did what we could and maybe in the coming months they will come to the truth of this Gospel :)

Things that happened in our area:
-I was asked if I could be a Godfather for our investigator's baby ðŸ˜‚😂
-People thought I was Filipino ðŸ˜‚
-We have seen less actives come back into activity because of the Book of Mormon ðŸ˜Š
-I gave a talk again this week (maybe the best I have given on my mission haha)
-We recieved a 21 of 21 on our apartment cleanliness check ;)
-Helping our investigators get married (It's quite a process especially when you yourself have never been married before! haha)

This week I was so blessed to recieve many many revelations through the Book of Mormon. I was truly edified by the spirit of the Lord. Just something quick I learned that I want to share. I came across Alma 57:10 this week and I ALWAYS laugh at that scripture. It says
 "And we, instead of being Lamanites, were Nephites;". I just thought how obvious that was that they weren't "Lamanites" and laughed at the scriptual language. But I felt like it's in there for a reason, so why was that sentence worded like that? I came down to the conclusion that they "remembered who they were". They could've killed every single one of those Lamanites and destroyed them and their provisions like savages, something the Lamanites would do, but they remembered who they were as Nephites, of the knowledge they had of God and were still in the moment, good examples. They took them as prisoners and took provisions probably I think in the kindest manner possible. I'm thankful for something my mom always used to tell me "remember who you are", and that's what the scripture means to me :) (A little long pala sorry)


Elder Cody Aguiar
Philippines Quezon City Mission
Stake baptisms



Old Zone Reunion



Sunday, March 18, 2018

Tag-init na!

Sooo it's definitely summer here in the Philippines!! The funny thing is that ALL the filipinos think America is really cold. And I always have to say, "Wellllll... its a different story. Especially in Las Vegas.." haha they are always so surprised.

Things that happened this week:
-I ate some fried liver (I have no idea what animal it comes from) hahahaahahaha (sorry mom)
-I ate some fried chicken neck (sorry again..) Here they use EVERY PART of the chicken (or any other animal for that matter), and I mean every part. They don't let any of it go to waste
-Ate some fried pig foot (and some vegtables don't worry)
-I was the "foreigner tour guide" yesterday for our "Half Day Mission"
-MTC exchanges

So yesterday we had a "Half Day Mission" in our ward and in our group. There was the Stake Young Men's President and counselor that attended our group and then afterwards 4 Stake High Council members came with us, along with members to go visit less active members as well as investigators and members. Me and Elder Cagnayo split to show the houses to the members and stake counselors and they were cracking up that an American was their "Tour Guide" in their own country, it was the best hahah!

We also had MTC exchanges and my companion was Elder Moala, he is from Tonga, and will be serving in the Legaspi mission here in the Philippines. He just started learning English in the MTC and he was quite good at it for the 3 weeks he has been there. He was so generous and humble. He bought this huge thing of water as we were proselyting and said "Here, you drink!" We found 4 new investigators as well. The little kids went crazy, I might add, because they saw a "Giant" and an "Amerikano". It was a really good day. 

This week and all these last weeks have just blended together. Honestly this is all I remember! haha I don't have any pictures because I left my camera at home. Hopefully the description I left can help all of you make a mental picture this week;)

-- 
Elder Cody Aguiar
Philippines Quezon City Mission

(Pictures are from Mom.  They came from a sweet Utah family visiting the Philippines.  They ran into Cody and his companion and spent some time with them.  I'm so grateful for kind people)



 







Sunday, March 11, 2018

PQCM

So all I can say with the time I have is I know that Jesus is the Christ, He is totally and utterly perfect. He is our advocate with the Father. Because of the Book of Mormon and the records it contains we can all know more clearly God and Christs relationship with us here on earth. Just "fear not, only believe."


Elder Cody Aguiar
Philippines Quezon City Mission

Some cute kids playing baseball with a stick and tape :)​

Monday, March 5, 2018

March (I've run out of headlines!)

So this week was just a really solid week. 

The last couple of weeks we have been able to find a lot of families that have been interested and we were able to teach them! (did that make sense?) hahah. It's fortunatley  very rare, but we have been totally unnoticed by people as we tried to talk to them. Sometimes when I just ask someone's name they tell me what religion they are, I always have to ask that question (what their name is) 1 or 2 times for them to realize that I'm just trying to get to know them. We always offer to help, either to wash their clothes or to clean around their house or sweep outside. Almost everytime that softens their hearts, to help them realize that our purpose as missionaries isn't at all just to convert people or make them come to church, or make them change religion, even though that's what they suspect when they see us. We are here to serve others and help them come closer to Christ through faith, repentence, baptism, recieving the gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end.

So this week we are helping one of our investigators get married, and her name is Rose Canete. And she is so awesome!!!  We are working hard so she can get baptized on March 17! The same with Christian Silva which we have been teaching since November! So that will be an exciting moment when he has more time this week to meet with us so we can get him prepared to enter the waters of baptism this month :)

I have so much more to share about this week but I dont have time.. So next week na lang
 ha? :)




We treated ourselves for the first time with pizza, I was disappointed about the shape of it though :(



Our favorite ward missionary