Awesome Zone Conference!!

At the first of March, Elder Booth and his Zone were able to have an awesome activity at a resort in the Philippines. The name of the resort is: Mambukal. It is a beautiful place, and as Elder Booth mentioned in his letter below, he would love to go back. Here is a picture of the entrance:



Here is Elder Booth in front of some amazing scenery. It's so green there!


Here is a collage of all of the scenery. You can see lots of green, of course, and a really cool tree.


This is some of what Elder Booth had to say about the resort: "My favorite was the bats. They were huge. It felt like Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom." Here's a glimpse of some of the bats he saw (Creepy!):


Here's what Elder Booth said after talking about the bats: "Next were the waterfalls at the resort. There are seven in all, but I only went to the first five." Here's a collage of some of them:

Here are some people hiking down to one of them:


Elder Booth and Elder Hamblin posing in front of a waterfall:


Elder Booth and his companion in front of the same waterfall:


There were also some fallen trees that made some neat bridges. Here's Elder Booth with Elder Hamblin again:


There were also some nice rivers. In this collage of the river(s), it looks like Elder Booth was pretty close to being right in the middle of the river...

All in all, it looks like the elders had a fabulous time hiking and sight seeing. Hopefully they get to go back at some point!

Here's a letter from Elder Booth right after the Zone activity:


Date: March 2, 2009 1:01:46 AM PST

Hey everbody. I didn't really get any letters this week or anything, so I don't really have much too write about for home. From what mom said, it sounds like everybody is still keeping busy.
So things here are still good. The work in Paglaum is actually doing really well. We had a really good week in the numbers. We actually got a referral for some kids whose parents are members that work for the church in Manilla and are active. The kids just have not been baptized yet. So we tried our luck and were very surprised in a good way. We found out they actually went to church every single week. We just have not noticed them. Ya, that was kind of a slap in the face, but oh well. We'll press on anyway. They had actually learned a lot from just going to church and primary so they are very easy to teach. Since they are golden, we went back a second time and gave them a date for March fifteenth. That is the last day of our transfers, so if it goes through I will still get a baptism this transfer. I am really excited about that. They are really fun Girls. One is twelve I think and the other is nine. They have a pretty big family and lots of friends too, so it is fun to teach them because it is a big group of kids in the house.

The rest of our investigators are still doing pretty good. We are just having a problem with them going to church. The only one we can get to church every week is the pregnant one that can't get married because her boyfriend does not want to right now. That is a little frustrating, to say the least. We bring it up every time we go to visit though, so I hope some day he will realize that he really needs to just do it.

We are still working very hard to get new investigators outside of the main part of town because we seem to have bad luck there. We are setting aside days to go to areas farther out and work. Hopefully we can find many people that are prepared. We are going to need to if we want to meet the new goal of four every month. Fasting every week should help. That is actually pretty hard to do in the summer here. I get pretty thirsty, plus my companion is kind of big so he runs out of energy really fast. He has to take a lot of rests on fast days. I guess many faithful hardships will come with many blessings.

This week has been pretty busy in doing mission stuff also. We had Zone Conference on Tuesday. That pretty much took up the entire day. It was a little hard to get to all of our appointments that we scheduled at the end of the day. It was fun though. I really like them. They actually brought in real investigators this time for us to practice the new stuff that we learned. I didn't get to do it, but it was still cool to watch. Oh, and I got to go on splits with somebody in my batch again. This time though it was with Elder Headman, who stayed in the MTC for an extra three weeks for an injury so he was a little behind. Because of this, I had to lead all of the lessons. We were in his area so he at least told me where to go. It was fun though. I am not very good at the language but I can at least get around now. I don't feel as worthless as I did when I got here.

Another Mission activity we had was our zone activity. It was at Mambukal resort. That place is amazing. That is one place I really would like to go to after the mission so I can do all of the stuff there. I took some good pictures so you can see them on the next sd card. I just sent the other one today so you should be getting it in a week or two. I would have sent it last week but the post office was closed before I could get there (sorry).

Let's see. I don't remember a whole lot of funny experiences. I don't really remember if I told you about the crying lady. She was really funny. We went back for a FHE and found the husband drinking and she was asleep so she did not start cyring and shaking her hand at us this time. We wanted to take them special sacrament, but I doubt that will happen since we found him drinking. We did have this one investigator that was drunk though. He kept asking calling me very nice and kissing me on the hand during the lesson. He was a old man that is having problems with his family. So yea, other than seeing some more kids poop everywhere, I have not seen too much. Ya, they pretty much do it anywhere. Oh and here they will wash the diapers and hang them to dry. It is kind of tricky sometimes when you have to duck under some diapers on the clothes line.

Well that is about it. I love you all and thanks for the support. The church is still true, I promise.

Elder Booth

Helping the Dentists...

At the end of February, Elder Booth and his companion had the opportunity to help out a few dentists with some dental work. Here are all of the missionaries (in the yellow) with the dentists and those who were helped. It was quite the group...


Here they are getting set up (sorry it's a little blurry):


Here are some shots of the dentist helping someone (sorry the first one is a little blurry):
**Note the Don Bosco shirt. FYI: The Don Bosco Community Center is now comprised of six interrelated centers making it a comprehensive social service agency that works to address the daily issues and needs of the residents of Northeast Kansas City. I am assuming this dentist is from somewhere in that area.



This is how dental work is done over in the Philippines Chad!


What a great day of service!

Pictures with Elder Booth's Batch

Elder Booth was able to meet up with the other missionaries in his "batch". I think that means the other missionaries who came out to the Philippines with him.

Here they are from left to right: Elder Lecheminanv (or Lecheminanr), Elder Hamblin (who's been with Elder Booth), Elder Unsicker, Elder Winegar, Elder Booth (of course), Elder Wade (Elder Booth's MTC comp), Elder Headman, and Elder Potter (MTC DL).

It looks like they are having a great time!

Now that I have the dates to all of Elder Booth's pictures (from about 12/08 to 2/08 they were all under the one date of 12/23/08 because of something Elder Booth did to his camera) I'm going to try to keep the letters with the pictures of the same time periods. Here's the next letter:


Date: February 22, 2009 8:16:51 PM PST

Hey everybody. Wow, this week went by pretty fast. I think you were right, dad. Once I get down the language it will go by a lot faster. That is, until I transfer to a different language (since there are five in my mission accept for the one that I learned in the MTC of course). That is a little frustrating to think about. Hopefully I will stay in Ilango speaking for most of my mission. The majority of the areas just speak that anyway.

Things haven't really changed much from last week. I'm starting to get closer to my companion. Maybe it's because I am starting to understand more and more of his stories. The language comes a lot faster when that is all you try to speak and think. It kind of hinders me when I come home and just speak English to Elder Hamblin though. It is kind of nice though, at the same time. It is a good way to wind down. Plus, Elder Hamblin usually needs to vent a little bit because he is still having kind of a hard time with his companion. He will be alright though. You know what they say, "You don't have to like them you just have to love them." He is one of those people. Actually it is kind of funny. Most of the Filipinos have a hard time with him. Oh well, like I said before, we are just building those patience.

The area is still doing good. The family that we baptized a month ago is kind of struggling to make it to church because of their jobs. They both work for what seems like twenty-four-seven. Whenever we go over there, they are either at work or really tired. I sometimes think they are going to fall asleep right in the middle of our new member lesson. The other girl is having a hard time coming to church as well because her grandma is in the hospital so she is constantly there. I guess the adversary will really do whatever it takes to stop you from coming. The ward is doing really good still. We have a ward missionary work with us almost every single day. Actually, if we don't have one then my companion will kind of freak out and think the day is a waste of time. That is a little wierd.

Well, for spiritual experiences the main one was about two or three days ago. We just got punted so we were looking for something to do. So I said we could go to one family that was close. The last time we went they were not that interested so my companion really did not want to go, but I kind of just started to go anyway. So he was not too excited about going. He really showed that he was not excited either. He would not even come up to the door with me. T hey let us in so we went and sat down. It was a little awkward because my companion would not say a word. So I had to conduct and give the entire lesson. That would be the first time I had ever done that in Ilango. It was weird because I really did not feel all that nervous. I really think it was the first time I truly had the gift of tongues. It was an amazing experience. It was a little hindered by the fact I was not very happy with my companion and the way he only gave a very short testimony at the end. I don't know if we will go back to that family too many times, but it was really cool anyway. That was pretty much the main one.

I had two pretty funny experiences . The fist one was actually kind of bad. We were walking down the street and found out that bamboo was not as thick as the houses at home. I just don't think that would happen in the USA. The second is when we taught this one guy that was really drunk. We ended up just listening to him talk about how he thinks everything about Adam and Eve is not true. Ya, it was really funny listening to him try and speak English to me. Then at the end he kissed me on the hand a bunch of times. I thought that was really funny. Well, I better get going as I am out of time. I love you all and hope everything is going alright back home.

Elder Booth