Still Waitin' . . .

Well we started the week off pretty rough. So that guy that I mentioned about last week, Brother Conrad. Well we went back to him a few days later. I saw him outside his house first, and then he looked and saw me. His face dropped into a frown immediately. I came up to him and started talking to him, seeing how he was. Then he began to tell us how he didn't want us to teach him anymore. He said he had changed his mind about it. He said the reason was he didn't want to waste our time, and then said that there was no hope left anyways. His life is miserable I won't lie. His can't work or do anything. His wife hates him, she actually beats him and ignores him! We tried and tried to explain to him about everything, how he needs us more than ever right now. But he refused. He asked that we keep coming by and sharing maybe a scripture verse to lift him, but he doesn't want us to teach the lessons or be baptized. I was so shocked! He started crying, and I teared up a little as well. I couldn't believe it. We left in kind of a dazed state, I had to sit down for a little while I was so stunned and saddened. In the end I couldn't even focus so we just went home and I went and laid down. It was one of the weirdest/saddest things I've ever seen and experienced. I guess its true that there needs be opposition in all things. Bad Experiences with the Good ones. Poor guy, just pray for him I guess. Well keep trying though. Well I guess we better switch over to all the good stuff that happened this week then. First off we had Interviews with President Guanzon, which as always was great! We talked a little about what I'm gonna do after the Mish and stuff. I'm still trying to pull in everything, so I told him I'd be Praying and Fasting and be searching for an answer at the upcoming General Conference. I put in work when all 8 of us had a competition for Push-Ups using the Perfect Push-Up equipment thingys. Me and Elder Tevaga, the big Hawaiian kid, both hit 42 so I was pretty proud of myself. I'm seeing the blessings of the Mish for sure right now, its all that Rice and Chicken haha plus my 40 Push-Ups a night. Also we layed out all the mattresses in our Living Room thing and I wrestled my comp haha sealed the 3rd Round with a nice Body Slam to make sure he wasn't gettin' back up! Haha we have a lot of fun out here for sure. Life's good being a MIssionary. And the best thing thats happening right now is our Investigator Family, the Magallon's, are really going strong right now. The father and the 2 girls are all in Jacob now in the Book of Mormon. The mother is a little tougher nut to crack, but she is reading a little. They believe its all true. Tonight we talked about Adam and Eve in the Plan of Salvation. Lots of Questions...and lots of Answers. It really helped to have our Bishop and his family there. They have 2 girls too the same age as the others so it works perfect! And Bishop is an RM and way good so he helped us a lot. I'm so happy I'm in a Ward, man Branches get kinda tough sometimes haha. But I love this work no matter what! So happy that I came out, wouldn't change it for anything! Love you all, you are always in my Prayers. 

Love Elder Akins

P.S. Heard about Swiss Days, man that stinks. Next year I'm going to beat Dad in the 5K anyways so I can't wait for that. Then maybe snag some nice Navajo Tacos and a big ole Texas Twister. Oh ya.

Mount Mayon's Gonna Erupt

Alrighty so the background for this week is that we got 8 Elders living in a 4 Elders apartment. Due to the fact that Mount Mayon is going to erupt here pretty soon, but its all good we are far enough out of the danger zone stuff. We might get hit by some ash though, which from what they said happened last time, it'll be like shoveling snow haha. Whatever happens, we are in for another Wild Ride of Calamity. As if Earthquakes and Typhoons are enough ha. But its all good, I guess its just some of those things God wants me to go through, thats alright with me. So basically they've just been doing Exchanges with us this whole week, which really bumped our Key Indicators up. We found some awesome new Investi's and the what not. But we've been having lots of fun too. Man its kinda crazy haha but its kinda like being back at the MTC with all of these dudes running around. I actually found something funny out too from one of them. His name is Elder Lesatele, and he's ironically from Compton, LA. But he played for BYU's ghetto football program before he came out, and he says he was good friends with Adam Hine back then haha. I told him how Adam was like the Legend of Snow Canyon for Track and Football, and he agreed. I guess hes reppin' kids right now as a Senior there. Lesatele's really cool, but I creamed him and Tevaga in PingPong this week like nothing... shoutout to my boy J. Sarge, I'm coming for you bro in like 11 months ha. I also saw some pictures of Southern Utah this week, many of them being my stomping grounds. Man I got so dang Trunky I won't lie haha. That my friends is truly God's Country, nothing compares. I'm so blessed to have grown up there, wouldn't have it any other way. We taught this really nice kid named Neal this week. He's really interested in the Gospel and is really a good kid, he's active in Service Projects all over Bicol Region here and stuff, the only problem is he is really into Philosophy and its really got him all messed up. We are trying to help him understand the importance of God in our lives and stuff, but man I don't know he's gonna be a tough nut to crack. I invited him to pray and ask God if He is really there...that outta work. Heck, who better to ask than the Man Himself! I saw this sick poster of Allen Iverson that night while tracting, almost asked the guy if I could have it ha. And Sunday was amazing! We all attended out Ward here in Daraga together, me and my comp ended up teaching the Gospel Principles class which we managed to do well. I got my Package from the AP's! Oh man that was awesome. The only problem is how do I keep the 2 Poly kids out of it ha. But we shared some and listened to my Enya CD, that thing was the best part! That night me and Elder Decicio, an American Elder from Oregon, went on Exchanges. We were getting rejected by everybody and we had come to the end of the street. There was like 2 houses left then he told me that he and my comp had tracted these houses the other night so I was just thinking oh alright well lets get out of here and find some better Hunting Grounds. But then he stopped me and said that we should try the last few houses, so I just turned and agreed with him. Not 10 steps after that I saw this guy and introduced myself to him, and before I even said that we were Missionaries he told us to sit down and share what we had. This guy was one of the most prepared people I've ever met on the Mish. Brother Conrad Peralta has Terminal Pancreatic Cancer. He was diagnosed back in March and is only suppossed to live 6 months after that...do the math. Hes beyond that now. After jumping around about some of the Church's beliefs and some simple doctrine, I invited him for Baptism for October 25, which he accepted. But he said this,"I'm willing to be baptized, but I don't think I'll be here anymore on that date." I then felt impressed to tell him he would be, and that the reason he was still here was because he needed to hear this and that his family needs to hear it too. So we will be returning to him this Tuesday, I hope that his family is just as prepared as he is. I'm very excited to help this man and his family come into the Gospel, we are really going to try and hurry it too. I feel he is very interested and is very willing to follow our Lord and Savior through Baptism, just hope that my feelings are aligned with God's Plan. So well give er' a shot! And I won't lie, I did do work in PingPong today. Still holding the Champion's Belt here in Daraga, can't wait to work the Frei Boys over when I get back, you guys got nothing!!! And we also had a DARAGA vs. Santo Domingo Basketball Game, Daraga won of course whoooo! All in all, life is good here in Daraga, the Work is Progressing, and I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! Love you all, shoutout to the Clowards for including the Peach Penguins in my package, they were a big hit!

Love Elder Akins

Training Elder Navarro

Alright so I got my new Trainee, his names Elder Navarro, really nice kid. I got him workin hard and we are having fun. Ha the first thing he noticed when he looked at my Pictures when he got here was Ally...they always have something to say about her. But we closed that conversation pretty quick with no resistance ha. But in all honesty I'm excited to Train. The first few days I had no idea what to do, but I got him tracting houses now so I think he is really progressing. He actually served a Short-Time Mission before this so that really helped out ha. Our first lesson went really well though. We taught the Magallon Family about the Book of Mormon for like the 2nd or 3rd time ha. They have a lot of questions and we are trying to get them to really gain a testimony of it. They all read except the mother, she is kinda busy sometimes but we'll keep trying with her. We also had our Bishop and his wife there so that really helped in the lesson. Oh and they did accept a Baptismal Date for October 18, but thats not the for sure date, but hopefully it is! Like I said I do have him tracting now. We tracted this one neighborhood and I saw this car next to this way nice house with its lights still on. So I thought it would be good opportunity for us to share the Gospel. So we yelled from outside their gate and this lady came out. So I told her "hey your car lights are still on." But I think she figured me out because right after that she awkwardly and slowly closed the door. It was one of those ones were I tried to say something to get her to stop but she was to committed on closing it in our faces...so we tracted the next house. And it just so happened to be (Tribute-Jack Black) that we found a new investigator who let us teach her! So it turned out to be ok after all, even if her neighbors don't like us ha. Other than that not much happened. I did work at the PingPong Table this morning. I beat everyone including Elder Tevaga. Its definatelly helping me improve my Christ-Like Attribute of being Humble haha. So ya, pretty good week I guess. Love you all!

Elder Akins

Mr. Trainer

Hey sorry this is a day late but I've been runnin errands for the APs and stuff. I had to watch over Elder Poe, he's the kid from St. George. He's got Dengue Flu which really ain't fun...and this is his 2nd time. There are 4 different strains and you can't get the same one twice. Its some crazy stuff. I watched him yesterday afternoon until this morning. Man the AirCon felt so good, haven't slept in an AirCon'd room in a year. I'm gonna make this the short story of the week because I gotta get to some Meetings soon so here we go. Last Tuesday I went on Exchanges with Elder Lilo from my Batch. It was raining way hard and we were looking for some Referrals, but due to some way close lightning and way loud rain no one could hear us yelling at them haha. They all thought we were tracting so they all just waved us to leave and stuff haha we ended up finding the Referrals though. Our Magallon Family that me and Torrano found are doing great and really progressing in the Gospel! The father has a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon, we will be teaching about it for the 3rd time now haha. On Thursday I climbed this muddy hill at night near our area to see the city at night...Torrano didn't want to but I finally got him to come up. But he slipped, twice haha he was pretty ticked at me. But in the end the view was great and I ended up slippin myself. On Saturday we got the Transfer Announcement. Torrano is transfering and I will be Training. Sorry this is the worst email I've ever sent because my thoughts are going mach chicken and what not. Our Missions going through some crazy stuff with money problems from the Typhoon and between Training and everything else my mind is just tired. So I can't wait to just start Training and get back to work.

Elder Akins

1 Year

I've made it! I'm right at the Peak, now I just gotta slide my way back down the Mountain! Well we had a pretty decent week I'd say. We had a Zone Cluster Conference with a few other Zones here Legazpi on Tuesday. President Guanzon gave some really great talks. I love listening to him, I always feel his love when he speaks. I pulled some great stuff out that I will be applying to myself and my area. Its kinda wierd that I'm the "Official Senior" now, I'm used to the "Leading from Behind" kind of thing. But its all good. That night we had someone steal some stuff from off of our deck. They snagged my comps nice Jeans, our neighbors shoes, and my American Umbrella which is worth its weight in Gold. Then they stuffed it all into my plastic bag that I left outside with all of my Laundry supplies...gotta love Thieves. Its cool though, I got a free Umbrella today that works just as well. We taught a pretty funny lesson to an old Less-Active Tatay who's having trouble with his wife. The topic was on "Loving Your Spouse", ha ya they aren't getting along well right now. But he came to Church on Sunday so something went right! I also went on Exchanges this week. I'll admit I hit McDonald's 4 times through the week to celebrate my victory of making it 1 year. Ya that won't be happening again for awhile. My Package from home made it this week as well, so I was so stoked for that! My new Brown and Tan pants are the sweetest! Thanks Mom, now  I don't look like a Ronny wearing Black all the time. I'm gonna try to keep them nice so I can wear them at home too...nearly impossible but its worth a shot. We held a 1 Day Mission this week for all of the Members, to try and help them get more active in the work. We had a good turnout, and we did a lot of good. Lots of Referrals and New Investigators! It really made our numbers look good thats for sure haha. We got hit with some rejections in our tracting though, not unusual. I hate that people reject us, but I always get a kick out of some of the ways people react to us and stuff. I guess it helps to keep me up and positive. My favorite is when they see us and just wave there hand as they walk away..."Oh ok...thanks?" Ha or the all-time-classic "I'm Catholic...". "Oh well I'm Mormon...can we share a Message with you?" A lot of good laughs thats for sure. Well I love being a Missionary. Its sad that its half way over...but its good at the same time. Hope it doesn't go by to fast, but I know it will. They all say it does. Love you guys!

Elder Akins