Elder Logan Spackman ~ Philippines Legazpi Mission

The title is a phrase I have maybe heard a million times in the Philippines, and it means something to the effect of "How's your living" which makes no sense in English but yeah, I didn't know what to title my email so I picked at random. Anyway let's get to the life updates! Living like a mission in 1937: Well my phone's been broken, like not actually but the software's been cooked. So I've had no phone for the past five weeks, which is okay. I say that but it's not, because I think what happened is that Elon Musk realized the Filipinos were using Starlink for their wifi here and not paying royalties to Tesla, so as of last week all of the internet  has gotten cut off. The internet still hasn't returned and we are living in probably for my money, the most rural place you can possibly get assigned as a missionary anywhere in the world. Like the ZL's visited our island and one of them told me "Elder I couldn't do this. I'm only ...

I've been so tired lately, but that doesn't stop the work from progressing. My new comp is great, he is like 10x better then I was coming out of the MTC. They do a better job now and he also has a brand new cell phone I'm jealous of. But he is super matibian (amazing in Bikol). He will become a good missionary in this mission.  

Time is flying by, and it's crazy because this cycle is up. I'm staying here in Batan, and my companion is transferring. I'm training again, so please pray for me as i embark on an endeavor.  You know, training is a lot like being a parent, I realized that the first time I trained last July. You have to be responsible, be the driving factor and suffer the burden of leading constantly. But at the same time, it's rewarding because you get to see the growth of a new missionary and help them become the person God wants them to become. It might be a foreigner, because in this batch there is three Papua New Guinea (I think that's how you spell it) and one American. The rest are fillipino, so we will see what ends up happening.  Anyway time is flying by, because by the time i'm done traning i'll only have 12 weeks left in my mission. The mission is so fast, I'm 18 months in and it's just flying by. It's weird because at the start of my mission I struggl...

A lright ladies and gents, I heard that every American elder assigned to Batan has gotten sick. I am no different, and I think I got food poisoning.  So what happened was Sunday morning my stomach hurt, but you know it's fast Sunday so that's normal. After church my body just felt worse and worse until I threw up. I haven't thrown up in more than 5 years, so I'm sad my streak is broken. But anyway just recovering, there was also a black out that night so our apartment was so hot. Literally consistently there are blackouts on the island, every day for hours and when that happens there is no Wifi or Data so you just gotta pray you are going to be good. A member told me if you have a medical emergency on the island just pick a place to die - on land or on the 2 hour boat ride to Legazpi.  Anyway let's get into the good that happened: We finally had some new friends come to church for the first time, two part members then another friend who is a part of the LGBTQ commun...

I think my highlight of the week was I was accepted to the University of Utah so Go Utes!!!! It's a great day to be a ute. Anyway for other news we have had a lot go on in the island.  I've had a lot of spiritual experiences where I've had to use the priesthood recently. These experiences are special and sacred to me so I won't put them here, but I would like to affirm that the priesthood has been restored. I literally saw it with my own eyes, becoming a witness to Jesus Christ. I testify with my whole heart that it's true, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was restored by the prophet Joseph Smith. To me, there is no other greater truth than this. I know I'm an imperfect person, and I am a sinner. But I know through the atonement I can become clean. Read 3 Nephi 27 18-21, it's a beautiful verse.  Also we had Zone con which was pretty awesome. We talked about sometimes you're a pusher or a puller. Whatever your role is, you need to ...

Alright everybody week two on the island, and we have some good news. So if you go on google maps and see Batan Island, to the right side of the island is another island. This island is called Rapu-Rapu and pretty much the missionaries have never been there. This is because travel is expensive, and people can't usually afford it every Sunday. So the thought was back then, why send missionaries there if the people can't go to church, or get baptized? There are a lot of members there, maybe around 30 but most of them come to church one time every month because of the travel.  Well this week, Elder Garcia and I had permission to go to the island. We saw that there is a lot of potential there, and so when we talked to our mission president, he was open to the idea of opening a group there. I'm telling you, if we had a group there, 20-30 non-members would go to church. So our goal is now to obtain permission from the stake president to start a group. It's been exciting but r...