[sent March/April]
Mar. 17
This last week 7 of my investigators were baptized. I only
baptized 2 of them myself. The baptism was awesome. We got there almost 3 hours
early to prepare, but it only took about an hour or two to set everything up.
There were 3 special musical numbers, and I wasn't part of any of them. But
while one of the groups was practicing I walked over to them and tried to read
the music and it was in English, but it was a song I'd never heard before. But
I was trying to sing it. First the soprano part then the alto part a little
bit. Then I realized that there was a Tenor part so I tried singing that and of
course by this time they asked me if I wanted to sing with them and I said yes.
So we practiced it for about another 20 minutes and then we decided that I
should sing the bass part. So I looked over it and I figured it out. It wasn't
too hard; part of it was unison. So then towards the end of the baptismal
program I sang it with them. It was fun. :)
Mark Partosa says I baptized him like a mop. I'm not sure
what that means. Sister Dussel was the other person that I got to baptize. :)
Mar. 24
In our apartment we have a new missionary. He's been out for
7 months, but to us he's new. His name is Elder Merrill he's from Bountiful,
Utah. It's been really nice to have another American in our apartment. Thank
goodness for him.
Today is my 96th day in the Philippines. I don't want to
count the days that I have left, so I'll just count the days that I've been
here. :)
The Filipinos are an amusing people in many ways. I find it
very amusing every time I see a license plate that says 'for registration' or
'no plate available' especially when this plate is actually just a piece of
cardboard on the back of their vehicle. When I ask my companion about the
legality of this he just says with a smile: "It's the Philippines, nobody
cares."
Btw I
tried doing a hundred pushups in a day and it's really hard. I did about 32 and
that was 5 days ago. If you're still doing that, keep up the good work. I
expect that you'll be bigger and stronger than me when I come home. I just need
to accept that. :)
I told my first joke in Tagalog last week. We were
scheduling a return appointment with one of our investigators and she said we
could come back at six the next day and I said: "Sa umaga?" (in the
morning?) It wasn't that good, but I got a laugh out of it.
Everyone who sees my family picture says Trevor is their
favorite. They call him pogi.
Apr. 6
I suppose a lot has happened
since I last emailed. I do a lot of interesting things as a missionary. I only
recently realized that most of my experiences and all of the lessons that I
teach, are between 1 pm and 8 pm, or 10 pm and 5 am, which is when you people
in America are sleeping.
When I'm riding around on
Jeepneys you're sleeping. When I'm giving high fives to the Filipino kids
you're sleeping. When I'm teaching people about the gospel and committing them
to follow his commandments you're sleeping. And when I'm walking about the
streets of Manila in the heat of the blazing sun you're sleeping.
You get to sleep the whole time
I'm working. I hope you're enjoying yourselves. :)
I can't believe how big Jonah
is. I almost didn't recognize him. I bet Isaac is 6 ft tall now. How about
Kelvin? What did everyone get for their birthdays? I heard about the tablets
and the bike. However, I haven't seen pictures yet. You can always send more
pictures. When I get pictures I put them on my mp3 player. Pictures really help
me to feel what it's like at home. Someone send me some pictures from around
the house. Does the Family room still look the same? What about Kelvin's Room?
One of the Elders in our
apartment is named Manny Ramirez Rosario. I'm trying to figure out if he was
named after Manny Ramirez the baseball player. He's 25 years old. Was Manny
Ramirez playing baseball 25 years ago??
Yesterday, at church two of our recent converts got up and
bore their testimonies. They were amazing. Sister Dussel Colis and Sister
Partosa. Sister Partosa is the single mother that's raising 7 kids and was
relocated here by Yolanda. Her testimony was about how when her family didn't
have enough money to go to church in Tacloban she prayed and asked God if He
would provide a way for them to go. She and her family were able to go because
of 500 pesos that she found the next day in some old jeans.
I'm not sure why, but her testimony really touched me. It was the second time I'd heard it, and it was in Tagalog, but the Spirit was really strong and I could understand what she was saying. I cried a lot. Some of my other investigators asked if I was okay. It was the strongest I've felt the Spirit since I got here.
Apr. 14
Thank you for your emails and for all of the pictures. I'm
putting them on my mp3 player. I'm really glad that you guys are doing so much.
I miss having sports games to go to everyday. William and Jonah are cute in
there baseball uniforms and they look big. I guess you're feeding them
well.
I've had a very exciting and full week. On Wednesday we had
MTC exchanges, which means the normal missionaries get paired with the
missionaries that are still training in the MTC. I got to work with Elder
Pickford, from Australia. I was the leading and I was the senior companion. I taught
most of the lessons by myself and I was actually okay at it. We taught our
recent convert families about prophets and invited them to watch General
Conference. I had a great time teaching and being in charge. It was fun. I feel
like Elder Pickford really looks up to me. I tried to teach him things that
would help him and I tried to be a good example. I hope he learned as much from
me as I learned from him.
After that, on Thursday, we had exchanges again, and I was
again leading my area. I had exchanges with Elder Rosario. I was glad he was
there to clarify some of the things I said. I didn't teach as much that day as
I did on Wednesday, but I was glad to see that I could teach much more than
just a small part of a lesson.
After that we had a few normal days, and then we had General
Conference. I love and appreciate General Conference so much more now. I love
being a missionary. I took notes like I never have before. I think there were
15 pages of notes from all of the sessions. Some of the notes took up a page
per talk. I received a lot of revelation as to how I ought to be teaching and
what I ought to be teaching. I was thinking of my investigators during most of
the talks. I was really pleased with Elder Holland's talk, and I felt the
spirit most during Elder Bednar's talk. But they were all great, and I took
something from each of them. Even the Primary General President said things
that I can apply in my life.
I never thank you enough for all of the things that you've
done and are doing for me. You brought me into this world and along with Dad
you raised me from a frail baby to the man I am today. Thank you. Thank you for
all of the sacrifices you made so that I could be happy. Thank you for all of
the patience you had with me. Thank you so very much for not ever giving up on
me. I've always had you to lean on and I don't know where I would be now
without that. Thank you for your guidance and your love.
I was at a dinner at a member's house when they started
looking for me on Facebook. I told them my first name and they searched for me,
but there were many Daniel Southwicks and we couldn't find me. So I told them
to search for Isaac Southwick, that's my brother, and you can find me in his
friends. His name is more unique. The same thing happened. There were so many
Isaac Southwicks that we couldn't find the right one. Then I said try Kelvin
Southwick. There was one result. :) Thank you for giving Kelvin such a unique name. He's the
only Kelvin Southwick on all of Facebook.
Today has been an awesome day. We had the great privilege of
playing tennis today near the mission home. It was really hot, and we played
for an hour. I was sweating so much that I felt like I was going to collapse.
Anyway, I have to go. Thank you again. I'll talk to you next
week.
