Merry Christmas! 

It's great to be at this time of year again! And people here in the Philippines love it too! I'm grateful to have the opportunity to meet these people. A few cool things happened this week. 1) our mission got together to have a Christmas Party, and that was super fun. We sang songs, danced a bit, ate roasted pig, and other foods, had a bit of training too. A great time, felt like a missionary family. Not the same as your actual family, but we still made it fun. 2) My Tagalog is getting to the point where they can understand me, and I can actually contribute more than 10 seconds worth of lesson in a lesson, which is just so awesome because I want to share with these people, but the language was a small barrier, and I'm not yet fluent, but it's just nice to know I'm speaking the right language. So our lessons overall have been getting better, becuase 2 teaching is more powerful than 1 teaching. I'm loving it here, it's way hard, but as soon as we have a good lesson, or meet someone new who is interested, the joy overcomes the sorrow. That is the truth of life. or at least a truth. There are many hard times in this llife, but having a joyful experience makes it seem worth it, and worth moving forward. Especially this time of year, when there is a lot more goodwill than usual, I would encourage you to take advantage of that. Make someone's day better. Smile more, laugh more easy, and really focus on reaching out, so that you can find yourself. Spend time with your family, for they will be with you forever. I love this Gospel, because it has turned my family into a place where I want to be for Eternity. Merry Christmas!

Elder Miklich

Happy New Year!

Hi guys! 

This has been a pretty crazy week, (this is coming from a missionary). We ate a lot of food, shared Christmas messages, a bit more, and then shared a bit more. It is interesting how everybody seems to become more nicer around this time of year. We will go up to people to talk to them, and they offer us some of their alcohol. People here are super nice, but they don'tseem to know quite yet that we don't drink. Still super nice people, just a few problems, but don't we all have them? One of the things that I'm learning here is that most people don't want to sin, but they don't know that they are. It's our job to help them learn and grow and change. I say most because there are a few wacky people out there. it's sad, but true. Anyways, one cool experience I had this week is one of our investigators, Ronalto, started to cry during a lesson we had with him, because we keep stopping by, wanting to teach him, even though he is drunk most of the time, and he never keeps his commitments. So we committed him to Church on Sunday, I even wrote it on his calendar for him. He didn't show up, but it was still nice to see that our visits, even though they don't seem to go anywhere, are impacting him in some way. (He is the guy that made the altar\shrine with our pamphlet a while back) So i guess that is my commitment I leave with you this week. Try to go out and visit someone you wouldn't normally visit. Just for a few minutes, it doesn't have to be long. make their day better, leave them smiling, something. I know that by small and simple things great things can come to pass. You might even surprise yourself. Don't worry, I'll do it to. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and a happy New year!

Elder Miklich