5/7

We had a Family Home evening with some members and ate this huge fish.   It was really good.

A giant fish head!  the members had already sold the rest of it.

Me with the other elders at the top of Bakers hill.

Last P day we went to a tourist spot called bakers hill.  There were a lot of statues and things to take pictures of.  There was also a really good bakery there.

This past week was transfers.  I am still in Puerto Princesa but have a new companion, Elder Arpon.  He only has three months left or two transfers.  That means either this will be my last transfer here or I will be here in this area for a long time.  Elder Arpon is from Leyte.  His language is warai warai.  One cool thing on my mission is that I have never had a companion who's native language was the same as another companion.  1st companion Bisaya, second companion Pangalatok,  Third companion, Ilocano, and now my fourth companion's native language is Warai Warai.  There are so many languages in the Philippines. 

    Because transfers were this week it was pretty long and lots of missionaries stayed over at our apartment which of course resulted in sleep deprivation.  One cool thing was two missionaries that were serving in Quezon, my first area were being transferred to Manila and I was able to follow up what has happened since I left.  The 22 year old sister that we baptized is still active in the church and wants to serve a mission.  Her 18 year old brother that was baptized the week after I left is now the young men's president and also wants to serve a mission.  The family with the mother and four girls that we baptized are still active as well.  I was really happy to find that the people we baptized in my first area are still active and going to church and that some of them may serve missions.  

     As for this area it is a lot more tough but we have been seeing some success.  Last Sunday some new investigators that we only taught once happened to show up at church and seemed to have a good experience.  Another investigator that we have been working on also showed up with his family.  We are working on getting him married.  I think we should be seeing some success in this area over the next few months.

       

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Love, Elder Harkness

4/30

This is the fish head that another missionary made me eat.  He ate the other half.  It was like a super salty fishy chip.

An awesome sunset from the window while doing studdies.

We had a baptism this last Saturday.  The girl in the middle is the one we baptised.  Here mother is the one on the far left and the father is the one kneeling in the blue.  Here parents aren't members but the rest of the people in the picture are her extended family members who she always goes to church with.

Some kids were catching these sea critters in a bottle and it was pretty cool.  There's a jellyfish some squid, a long worm fish thing and some other really small fish.

Thanks mom.  Sorry this is late but I found out that skyping is next Monday (Sunday night in Provo) and I realize you guys will be in Korea.  I will still try to skype you guys.  It will be on monday morning because you are in Korea.  It would have been Sunday night in provo.  I realize that skyping might not work out this time and I won't be able to email you all again until it is time to skype.  If it all works out I will be skyping to you guys next Monday morning between 8:00 and 10:00.  It is okay if you guys can't Skype. 
This email will be really short because I don't have much time left.  This last week was really good.  We finally got a baptism in this area.  The first one in Months!!  Transfers are this week so I don't know if I will have a new companion, be transferred or stay the same. 

    Things are going alright in the area.  We got one investigator who doesn't believe in any religion after searching for years.  He told us if we can convince him that our church is true then he will join.  I told him that depends on you.  I really does.  As missionaries we can teach, bear testimony, and invite but if the investigator isn't willing to do anything nothing will happen.  Hopefully he will keep his commitments.

     The baptism last saturday was good.  My companion baptised our 8 year old investigator Kayla.  Afterwards we all had pizza.

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Love, Elder Harkness

Love, Matthew

4/23

We cleaned up these streets

The view out our window.

This past week we have gotten a lot of new investigators.  I have found that in this area we have to work a little differently than I did in my last area.  This last week I told my companion that we were going to a certain area and we were going to knock on every single person's door.  There just aren't enough interested people here for us to walk until we see someone like in my last area.  It has proved effective and we got a lot of new investigators this week.  One of the investigators was an old man in his 80s.  He was really nice and we taught him a little bit about the plan of salvation.  We also gave him a plan of salvation pamphlet and when we came back to him and asked him about it he said "I don't have any problems with it."  Some other investigators we found are friendly but the worst is when you get to the end of the lesson and think they are golden investigators and then find out that the husband in a fisherman (they are gone too often to come to church enough times to be baptized).  The fishermen here go out on their boats for days to weeks.  One fisherman I talked to told me that the best fishing is down in Malaysia.  I asked him how long it takes to get to Malaysia and he said it takes a week (and that is traveling on one of those boats that I have sent pictures to you of). 

     This last week we also had interviews and zone conference which was great.  Interviews and zone conferences are always so motivational. 

     This Saturday we will have the baptism of our 8 year old investigator Kayla.  I am excited at last to have a baptism in this area after almost two transfers.  This area hasn't had a baptism in many months.   

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Love, Elder Harkness

Hidden homes

 It was transfers this last week but Elder Paguigan and I are still companions.  That is pretty normal though.  Usually you are in an area for four transfers and have two companions there.  I expect to be here until July and get a new companion next transfer on May 3.  Today is another mile mark on my mission because today I have exactly one year and three months left.  

     Last week we found a lot of good new investigators.  In our area I have found that there are places where people live but they are kind of hidden.  For example, the access to five or more houses may only be a small pathway between houses and buildings that could be easily overlooked.  We found one of these places and found some good investigators inside. People are more willing to talk to a foreigner like me than if both missionaries are Philippinos.  It helps us get lessons because people want to hear me speak Tagalog because foreigners here almost never speak Tagalog even if they live here.    

      As for our investigators that we already have they are dong pretty much the same.  We will have a baptism for an 8 year old girl in the next few weeks and one for another once we get him married to his living partner.  I am exited to see the area progress in the next few months.

     Last Saturday when we were out working in the morning we had been able to get two lessons and were going to try to get another when we noticed the people in the streets were very distressed.  They were saying that there was a fire.  I could see a big cloud of black smoke rising and we decided it wasn't a good idea for us to go over there.  On Sunday we went to the area where the fire was.  There were about five houses that were completely burned down.  One of those houses was the one we would have gone to on Saturday if the fire hadn't happened.  When I think back, if we had gotten one less lesson on Saturday morning we would  have been at that house just in time for it to burn down.  I am glad we weren't there for that to happen.

     Sunday night we also had a good dinner with our branch president at his house.  People asked me questions about the United states like what we eat.  They were surprised when I told them that we don't eat the same thing every day like rice.

--

Love, Elder Harkness

We live on the second floor of this apartment.  It is a pretty nice apartment.

I took this picture out of the back of a trike.  The trikes you see are what we ride every day  to get places.

Dinner at our branch presidents house.  Spaghetti, rice, crabs, and pork.

Me at the apartment to go out on a pday.

New Area

  This last week we had some good lessons with some good investigators.  Kyla Bonette is an 8 year old girl who should be baptized in a few weeks.  We just have to finish teaching all the lessons.  She is a very easy investigator.  No problems just lessons. 

     Gaciento Echore is also a great investigator we are working with.  He always comes to church.  We are just working on his marriage and then he will be able to be baptized.  I really love teaching lessons at his house because he is happy to see us and always accepts everything we say.  When we taught him the word of wisdom he lived it immediately.  We had a fun lesson with him last week where I gave the analogy of commandments to a string on a kite and how the kite can't fly if it doesn't have the string.  I was surprised I was able to do it in tagalog.  I did have to learn the words for kite and string though.

     Last night we had a family home evening at the branch president's house. We gave a lesson on prayer and it was good.  The dinner was also really good.  They had a pig head.  I didn't get a picture though.  The members here are really friendly and good.  

     One weird thing about being in a more modern place is how much more English there is.  I think the members here think English might be the celestial language.  When they give talks some of them want to give it in English.  The sacrament prayers are also in English.  Some tagalog words are always replaced with English words.  I actually can't really blame them for wanting to use English so much because frankly it is such a better language than tagalog in terms of being able to express yourself and also English is a lot shorter.  The Book of Mormon in Tagalog is 777 pages long.  They can also get better jobs if they know how to speak English.

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Love, Elder Harkness

Thanks for all of the recipes.  We don't have a real oven but I think I will try making things in a rice cooker and see how that goes.  I don't think it can burn in a rice cooker right?  I will have to try it.  I miss St. Patrick's Day.  Nobody in the Philippines even knows about it which is actually a good thing because these people don't need another excuse to get drunk. 

     It is weird that me and another missionary just switched places.  It would be a big shock for a Philippino to come to the US because they really have no idea what it's like.

Thanks, Love,  Matthew

My area is the red line and down.  Sorry it isn't a very clear picture.

We had a service project this week. We just pulled weeds but it was fun.  In this picture there are missionaries from America, Tonga, Samoa, India, Australia, and the Philippines

This is a guya bano.  I know I spelled it wrong.  It looks kind of weird but it is SO good.  It is white on the inside and has black seeds. It tastes a tiny bit sour but is super sweet and juicy.  This is one fruit I will miss after my mission.


Love, Elder Harkness

Awkward Baptism

This last week Elder Paguigan and I have been working really hard in the area.  These last few weeks have been really hard but our work is paying off.  We now have three progressing investigators.  One of them is a girl who just turned 8.  Her father is an excommunicated RM.  That is why she is an investigator and wasn't just baptized right when she turned 8.  We will try to get him to come back to church.  The girl will be baptized for sure in April.

    Speaking of baptisms, our branch had two baptisms for two kids that just turned 8.  A boy and a girl.  As missionaries we attended even though they weren't our investigators.  The girl was baptized first and then the boy.  He did NOT want to go under water.  He was thrashing and crying and it was pretty awkward.  The father eventually was able to baptize him.  The father almost went under water when he baptized him.

     Our other investigator is Gaciento Echore.  He is a really great investigator.  He got out of jail in 2016 after being there for 15 years.  He murdered 6 people back in the 90s.  He always comes to church and is working on his marriage papers.  Marriage is a big problem with investigators here. 

     The last one is a man who was an investigator before I got here.  He wasn't progressing but is now reading the Book of Mormon and came to church.

     This last week we were able to pick up some other investigators that I think will be good. 

This is a bit of an update with pictures because it has been so long.

This is the baptism Elder Ramos and I had in January.  The woman on the left is the mother of the four girls that were baptized in November.  Everyone in the family was baptized that was old enough except for the father who is always out fishing.  The woman on the left was a golden investigator that we found and was baptized about a month after we found her.  Her 18 year old brother was baptized a few weeks later after I was transferred to Puerto Princesa.

This was one of the families that we visited a lot in Quezon.  The girl on the left was an eternal investigator and was taught for over a year.  She was baptized a week or two after I was transferred.  The guy in the purple shirt is Rodel.  He is 19.  He worked with us a lot and was a life saver because we need another man present in every lesson.  He was a super great help.  The sign he is making with his hands means "bogie" or "guapo" (handsome).  The father is in the green shirt.  He was baptized before I got to the area back in July I think.  He always went to church every Sunday even though it is a bit of a walk from the church.       The house we are in in the picture was build while I was in the area because it burned down before I got there.  We helped make the cement floor for a service project. 

This is in our house in Quezon just before I was transferred.  We had to get one last picture all together.

The banana I told you all about.  It doesn't look super huge in this picture but it is the length of my arm.  It didn't taste very good.

This is a fruit that grows inside of a coconut.  If a coconut is left to grow this is what grows inside until there is no more milk.  It tasted good but was really small.



love, Elder Harkness 

Missionary work

This week we spent a lot of time visiting the same people and trying to get new investigators because we are a little low on those.  We had exchanges and I worked in another area one day I saw a practice cock fight while walking around.  It was actually really cool to watch.  When they fight they are like ninjas jumping over each other and dodging.  The roosters didn't have knives attached to their feet so they weren't hurting each other.   

     I am really happy about one of our investigators we got a few weeks ago.  He has come to church every week and has a really strong desire to become a member.  I am really excited to see him progress. He just needs to be married and get all the lessons.  He has come a long way in his life.  He has spent 15 years in jail and now really wants to change.

     This last week in the bay I saw an enormous cruise ship and also a battleship come in.  There is also a really good view.  It is awesome to have an area near the ocean.  It is also nice because the constant breeze makes the heat more bearable.

Sorry for no pictures still.  There are lots of viruses on the computers here so I won't put my card into the computer.  I used to use a DVD player to copy pictures from my card onto a USB and send pictures that way but it stopped working and I am not sure what to do.

   

     One thing I liked about what Elder Bednar said is how we are in control of how we feel.  Nobody can make us mad.  We let ourselves get mad.  If someone could make us mad then we wouldn't really have agency.  It helps me on the mission because sometimes I can let myself be frustrated at my companion or be negative about the area.   

     Teaching is probably very unique here.  I haven't ever really had a scheduled appointment on my mission.  We kind of just show up and if people can be taught we teach.  A lot of the time we walk around and talk to people in their houses and they just let us in.  It sounds great and like missionary work is super easy and good but a lot of times people just want to belong to a religion without doing anything.  My favorite thing to teach is about coming to know for yourself if the message is true.  I always tell people "if our message is true we have a living prophet, Gods own church, priesthood authority, etc.  If everyone really understood our message they couldn't not want it to be true.

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Love, Elder Harkness