friend to the world that scotty boy

Elder Kearl and Elder Fernando....great companionship

Hello there, Sis. Kearl!

I am Sis. M. R. Glenda Fernando, Mom of your son's companion in the Phils., Elder Fernando. They have been serving together I think since the last week of January. Elder Kearl is his trainor and seems that they have hit it off as companions and Elder Kearl asked if I could email you. I'm really happy to hear that they have good companionship and that they are doing ok.

My son is our eldest of four boys. It took him awhile before he was able to leave to go on a mission. He had a sports injury while he was preparing and had to have an ACL operation and had to recuperate and undergo physical therapy before he was finally able to leave for his mission. I'm just so glad that he has your son as his first companion to train him in the field and that all his enthusiasm seems to be paying off. He is enjoying their companionship and they are working hard despite of the heat this summer. We are also keeping in touch with each other and it feels like I have gained another son :-)

Thank you for sending him in the field and for raising him up that well that he is able to serve in a strange country, and loving our people there that he serves.  I understand that it not easy, but he is doing it. God bless this boy, God bless you and your family.

sincerely,

Sis. Fernando

hard to explain what packages and mail mean to narries, especially me

TRTS!!! my moms the best btw!!

NAY! 

a week with plenty of little funny things that i don't really have time to mention..... sorry nay. journal na lang!!!

so on a super cool note, last sunday we had a LA come to church, first time since 2003! she's been so much happier and sunnier even enough so to bash on my tagalog! love her and then her almost never sober brother came to church for the first time since 1997! amazing. absolutely amazing! he's also been sober since tuesday i think and cried a l'il when we asked him how church was. he's full of hope and a new light! love that. 

also, i got your package and a letter from boston! really cherish both! hard to actually say thank you effectively over email. hard to explain what mail and packages mean to narries, especially me.... you are a trt mom! it seriously changes the whole week! 

so it has been heating up to new "that heat is tremendous" levels. my arms are starting to shine with sweat. my anak, he sweats pretty good and his white shirts get soaking wet like we just swam for 2 hours. it's shocking. he also makes this morning milk that has insane amounts of hot chocolate powder, milk powder and brown sugar. like 1 glass of water and seriously huge scoops of all 3 powders. multiple even. so much so it won't mix any more but when you try to mix it, he tells you to stop so you dont "destroy it". the kids a huge trt. we are talking nutrition and dieting now bc he's worried about his neck fat. it has been getting bigger, poor guy. 

also my camera is suffering to focus so idk if you'll get good pictures anymore..... BUT i discovered my love for the tagalog phrase "exacto lang" which is exactly and the word lang is like just or only. so its like saying "just right". a word for all situations. hows the food? exacto lang or some savages even say there BFs or GFs or spouses are exacto lang. 

no time for a hymn, i am sorry but take a look at D&C 76:26

KEARL 

sidenote:  Scott had asked, or rather told me last week that he wants to have a weekly bonding exercise for us to do together.  we wants us to pick a talk each read that we study and then talk about in the next email.  he picked "He asks us to be His hands" by Cheryl A. Esplin.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/04/he-asks-us-to-be-his-hands?lang=eng

his response was:  yeah the talk seriously affected me and hopefully what i ask my self everyday. those 4 questions seriously open the way to such small and simple service. my favs where how she talks that service is not a burden but an opportunity to grow, and learn of love and what it really is and means. also i'll be honest the whole window and mirrors thing kinda helped me change my whole attitude about my mission. it turns out it's still service to people. kinda shameful. and obviously a great one is even small, boring and mundane tasks are important service.

i'm excited for thew next one from uchtdorf 'Fourth floor, Fourth door'

THANKS MOM, I LOVE DOING THIS WITH YOU.

my response was:  Great talk you gave me to read. number one commandment is to love one another

love the mirror and window analogy.  so important, it’s all about overcoming the natural man.

made me think about one of my favourite quotes by spencer w kimball.  “the Lord does hear and answer our prayers, but it is usually through someone else that He does this.”

interesting that this is the talk you shared with me.  the scripture she shared from 3 nephi is the exact scripture i read every single day that you had ITP when you were 4 years old.  do you remember that.  it’s idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpora, basically unknown origin of low platelets in your blood (helps your blood clot which is necessary or we would bleed out), and causes bruising.

“Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy. …“… [The Savior] did heal them every one."

anyhow, that scripture gave me hope because initially they thought it was cancer…leukaemia.  i was so scared.  then when it was diagnosed as ITP, i prayed so hard you would outgrow it and you wouldn’t have it your whole life.  and you did outgrow it.  this scripture gave me so much hope and faith and eventually peace.  

great talk.  great message.  i sent you an uchtdorf talk i wanted you to read.

love you,

mom

xoxoxoxoxo

the bap

anotha one

remember this legend 

this kid this ha ha ha

chinese $90 canadian bike

teaching the only things that will listen

the cloud

it's kinda like an ocean

smile

secret

some super nice kids

tatay and i

pure gangst

1 day old, still warm

his fruit tho. dont know what it is but i ate it 

ahhhhh

ahhhh

an interesting guy

Ondie...this ones a fav

treats!

i also like fought a baby cow and he almost kicked my butt

no pictures from scotty this week so i have added some instead

he has always been a happy and smiley boy

NAY.

pretty funny and sunny week but i'll start with the funny for you dang skimmers out there.

so my tooth did get "fixed". it took a while and even involved like ancient chinese fire. she would use this cool lantern flame to heat up her tools, stick em in my mouth and then it would smoke and smell good but idk, i trust her. but then she told me i'm pretty much wreckt for the rest of my life bc now my tooth is weak and brittle and if i'm not careful it can crack off and maybe fall out! it's pretty much dead now and also will turn yellow one day... i was pretty upset about this tbh but then another day dawned and i forgot about it. she still goes. 

i also like fought a baby cow. the sucker was strong! so this kids walking a calf and i wanted to try, so he let me, and i went to unwrap the rope leash from his leg and the calf went nuts! for like 2 minutes straight i had to use all my strength to stop it from running away with me still holding on. it just ran in circles with me as the focal point. it fell on the ground once and i was barely holding on but the fear of losing this boys cow gave me some extra determination. it ended up stopping and i gave the leash back and calmly, but being embarrassed, i passed the laughing crowd with very little dignity left as the cow almost kicked my butt. but not this time. 

also fixed that light! just took some fresh eyes and actually thinking, but i even improved it, which was my goal! only problem is there goes the little bit of humility i had! s'all good bc i should be getting humbled pretty soon! 

also hit my 9 months which means i just finished my first pregnancy! 

i'm glad to hear that rice is cheap back home in canada because it's my fuel now.

and with the english investigator i got a huge boost. just teaching something with such deep faith and appreciation for Jesus Christ and christianity is so rewarding. even tho he is still kinda crazy and super catholic, hearing his prayer at the end hit me. he prayed for us so hard and thanked us profusely for doing what were doing. he's so stoked to see such young boys spend so much time and effort to teach of this life saving and needed good news that is the gospel. he is oh so awesome. 

and to top it off we had a baptism!! it was my first where we found the person! it was such an amazing experience but also crazy. so we get to the church and the font is broken so we go to the closest pool but its closed! then we go to a second pool, just in the knick of time! and while changing, Denz, the baptismal candidate realizes his zipper is broken on the suit! so with 2 little key chain carabeaners and the sash thing he barely seals her up and we have a sunset swimming pool baptism for my anak! what is so cool to is the kid fits in so well with the other youth/YSA and is so accepted! he has 2 nanays (older ladies) who look over him carefully and sit with him bc they are like neighbours. really hit me. it's going to be very hard to leave here one day. 

loved your email mom.  i got a fun bonding exercise for us. you have no choice but to participate. so on my email days, you will send a talk for us to study and talk about the next email day. to start us off lets both read "He asks us to be His hands" by Cheryl A. Esplin. then next week we talk about it then from there can you send the talks? let me know what you think.

no pictures this week.  next week na lang! sorry :/ 

hymn 97 "Lead Kindly Light"

"I loved to choose and see my path, but now, Lead thou me on" 

TATAY KEARL 

fun week getting electrocuted but living to tell the tale

selfie with a bb caribou

thanks tay for taking a picture of me

NAY! 

hi mama,

it's been a week with some throwbacks as i celebrate my 1 year anniversary of getting my mission call and also getting endowed with the whole family there. yep. thats crazy. 

also want to share a typical but head scott kearl type sitch. not an elder kearl but a scott kearl.

so in the crib, one lightswitch wasn't living up to its potential so i decided to help the l'il guy out. took him apart and very quickly realized i have no idea what i'm doing. so i took a second one apart for reference and it didn't tell me much. dangit scott. soo i was still trying to figure it out with the exposed light switch and had both my hands in there when i got a super good shock through my whole body. it was nuts tbh! my arms just vibrated like crazy as all my muscles spazzed out and i yelled to say "OW!" but it just turned into a "AAUUUUUUGGHHHHH". super funny, then i stepped back giggling and thinking about how dumb i am. didn't really hurt that much or anything it was just more of a trip than anything. super good times there. but now the 1 not so good light has turned into 2 not working lights and so i now not only have cold bucket showers but pitch black and cold bucket showers. i even dropped the soap once and that was no fun to find. lovin it tho and maybe it will get figured out. 

also some of these kids call me "KUYA (big bro) KEARL!" its nice and i keep telling people that during the great apostsy people started depending on mans mayonaise instead of gods mayonaise bc the words for mayonaise and knowledge are so similar so thats funny. 

but on a more serious not it was a pretty classic week. dropped some investigators, got dropped and have been working out our giant teaching pool. denz our Baptismal candidate passed his interview and is good to go for next saturday! super exciting, super great kid and i'm glad i met him! also we've been having great lessons with Leo and Jayson outside under some bamboo in the thick heat about the plan of happiness. pretty big highlights tbh. 

also heard something cool about faith i'll mention. its from Bednars latest thing about being an agent not object. first you act then the power comes. 

Hymn 252 "Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel"

"the church has need of helping hands and hearts that know and feel."

KEARL

ps. is rice cheap back home? like how much? thanks 

christian things everywhere, this one is in a tricky

look at this guy

yeah so this is a dog....cmon on

when you are with a champ but you don't feel like a champ

check out goliath in this old testmament childrens book im reading. which helps explain the level of tagalog im at 

can't tell if this is deep or not

this is what i look like btw

my boy randy cagnayo 

teaching'

elder delay being funny

i've been rediscovering how to put the scott kearl into the Elder Kearl

my favourite animal is puppies

NAY! 

some pretty fun changes this week. so we lost Elder Castro..... RIP. but now i have an american in the house! a 6 foot 5 wizard, from Fresno, California, who shares a birthday with me! may 28 1997! He’s a hoot, but the distraction is next level. I’ve been a little bit late to studies even.... s’all good, I’ll repent. He’s also chalk full of wisdom since he has been with some of the hardest companions the PCM has to offer. He’s opened my eyes quite a bit to how much i really need to improve. i got a long way to go! i realized that i kinda left some of my good traits at home.. but I’ve been rediscovering how to put the scott kearl into the Elder Kearl. I’ll let you know how it goes tho. Let’s just say i really really like this guy and we are very good friends who get a little too trunky together. 

oh, also in my district we have another companionship! so now there’s 9 missionaries i have to carefully lift, encourage, inspire and bless. i then report to the Zone Leaders who cover the districts and they go to the Assistants who cover the zones. my district is one companionship off of qualifying for a zone! biggest in the mission! more work but i can’t help but love it!

some quick funny things to mention this week is Philippinos love to say your title in almost every sentence. so depending who you are, you get unlimited "yes sir"s or also, elder, nanay, tatay, brother and if your like 18 and up they call you "mum". not m’am but mum lol. 

also these people are also stressin over health and medicine. you got the weirdest diseases out here. like if your hair gets wet from rain you’ll get sick or a thing called "pasma". pasma is when your sweating or hot and you shower you get that disease. apparently it kills people but it’s actually a myth they just don’t know it yet. Also, if you shower while hot apparently water will enter your skin and collect in your lungs and kill you! did you guys know about that? It’ll get cha. another thing is everyone stresses about "high blood" aka high blood pressure. they know just about anything to do with blood pressure. maybe that’s a good thing tho. any way one missionary was upset one day and we were trying to help him and he admitted the problem was he ate pig that morning. no one understood the big deal and he quickly told us "im highblood!" it’s a good joke for us americans tho. 

other than that we have an investigator probably being baptized on saturday! the kids a champ and even more people are coming to our overflowing ward. february 2017 didn’t exist in my life. time is going way too fast, i can’t hold on! i remember like 2 days in february. 

Yeah, life is good and the hymn will be a wild card 

KEARL 

biggest piece of meat ever!  with no rice

lol! thanks for the meal nay

traditional filipino blanket wind tunnel creation

74 years old and works with us all day

yyyyeehhhwww doggies!

fighting

elder palmer my boy

trillin

this is the cauayan philippines mission in one photo

teaching

maryenda got me like

elder maloy going head to head with our goat friend

our usual trunky spot

in the house

astig

swimming pool bap

elder mcCauley is one long elder (6 foot 5)

corn

sa loob na

my boy randy is half way to death

that fasting grind gotcha like

"dinner is ready [my children]" LOVE NANAYS