The Reason for Miracles.

Dear Mom,
I am happy.

I am so, so happy. I can't believe it's Christmas already.

This week really couldn't have been any more amazing, and the next week and week after, just get better. Especially since I get to see all of you on Sunday. Jason, you have so many emails, I have no idea which one to send emails to anymore, but I hope this one makes it to you!

In review, this week started out on Tuesday with the temple lighting that I told you about. It was such a great, great day. We got there, and I saw people from every area I've been assigned in, except, of course, my first area since that's in a complete other mission now. And of course, after a little more than a week, Elder Posadas and I were able to see each other! He was one of the tour guides with me so we were there pretty early. We got to talk a bit previously and it was so nice to see him again, just like being reunited with family - after all of a week haha. The temple lighting was truly touching. It ended with a video about the Savior to Celine Dion's "O, Holy Night" which was so powerful. And then, lucky me and Elder Quinney, got to sing right after Ms. Dion. It went great though, and I was really happy that Elder Posadas and his companion were able to sneak in to see. I couldn't believe this would be the last temple lighting I will see here in Manila.

On our way to the temple!

The "Tour Guides"

 Friday was our ward Christmas party, and I pretty much went through the Christmas party laughing and crying. I think I'll just pretty much be crying until I leave the Philippines haha. I realized how great it is here in the Philippines. The party was simple, because all that matters to Filipinos is that we are together. We don't need decorations, fancy games, or costumes. We just need each other, food, and music. My companion and I had so much fun, especially with Eduardo, one of the people we are teaching. I had great fun participating in the games, even with the little kids, and even had a chance to sing! After the members came to the temple lighting, they didn't really give me a choice haha. I enjoyed it though, I wouldn't rather be in any other area to celebrate the holidays.

Jason would have loved this, these little primary kids did the "shuffle" for their presentation. It was really, really good!

The epic number that the moms put on.

My favorite was watching Sister Lopez, she reminded me a lot of grandma. 

This was the young men and their little band.

Bishop's wives are always so funny, Sister Tapan just HAD to be in the picture!

Food!

Us and Eduardo, the funniest person I've ever taught! I made sure to wear Elder Jolley's tie that day too so he could see the pictures.

I tried to line up with the kids for candy, but the wouldn't give me any haha.

The new married couple! No, that's not their kid haha.

My companion and I made sure to get matching hats!

Games!

This was the "snowball" dance. Every time the music stop, everyone would grab someone to dance until eventually everyone, except us, was dancing!

 And then on Saturday, I was able to conduct companion exchanges for training purposes with Elder Putot in his area and then attend their baptism after. I had some fun experiences that day and even learned some Cebuano! The area we worked in was right by my third area in Ampid, which you could see across the river. I sent a picture of me crossing a bridge - or a least a failed attempt. I was walking and fell through the bridge and my knee got clipped between the two trees. It hurt pretty bad, but made a great memory. That's what life is all about, making imperfect memories. The perfect ones are too overrated.

Ampid!

Super ouch.

 Their baptism went great. I remembered when Elder Tengelsen was one of my leaders and how he took time to attend each of the baptisms. It was a small thing, but to Elder Tengelsen, him giving him time is the way he shows his love. I wanted to do the same and emulate his example. These were also the first people I was able to interview for baptism, so their baptism was also really special to me.

Amidst the great events of this past week, and especially with the season and recent events, I've pondered about miracles a lot. I've thought about what defines a miracle, miracles I've seen, and why they happen.

If I had to define miracles, I would define them as things thought to be impossible but made to somehow become possible. They are good things always. They are extreme blessings. And something I've really considered, is that they happen to everyone: good and bad. For most, the realization of miracles received is often what lacks.

I've thought about the miracles I've seen, mostly in just the past week. From simple things, like being able to wake up in the morning or be able to walk. To things like seeing lives change, hearts and people healed from embracing the Gospel. My companion, in particular, has probably made the most impossible change I have ever seen anyone make in their lives in such a short period of time.

So why do these things happen? Why do good things continue to happen to people regardless of their belief or how much they take these things that happen for granted?

Yesterday, I had a really touching experience that I'll never forget. And this was how my prayers and questions were answered as I thought about this this past week.

We had went out of our way to travel a good 45 minutes to pick up this family to come to church yesterday. When we got there, everyone had just woken up, except for one member of their family: Tin tin. Tin tin is the youngest of all of them, a small, shy, nine-year-old girl - innocence to it's greatest degree. When we walked in, she was all changed, showered, and ready to go. We waited for another thirty minutes for others to change, but apparently other plans were made, and despite all the waiting, we left with just one member of a six-member family, and made our trek back to church.

I felt like a failure, and now we were a good hour late to church. I continued to ask myself, was that hassle worth it? For just one little girl?

It didn't take me long to realize the answer to that, and the answer to the questions I had been thinking about all week. Immediately, I recalled a scripture that when recalled, took me over so powerfully that it brought me to tears. The scripture reads:

Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.

I knew at that point, that our time was not wasted and that our Heavenly Father was so happy. He was so happy because one of his daughters made it to church that day. I don't know her future or her potential, but He does, and I know the she is so important to Him.

When I thought about it more, it all made sense. It is the reason for miracles. Because we are all important to God. We are all so precious. Each and every single one of us. He loves all of us unconditionally and equally, and He gives us miracles, most that we don't even see everyday, because He, as any other loving parent, wants to give all He can to us to make us happy.

Lives are truly so precious, and I had a big wake up call in the mission home this morning with Cherry, our mission-home-house-help. A young-single mother from Montalban who continues to touch the lives of all the missionaries. While I was helping her put together presents for missionaries, she received a phone call and was informed that a friend had been lost to breast cancer. We talked for awhile after in tears with Sister Sperry, and talked about how lives are one of many miracles that people take for granted. Lives and souls are truly so precious. And like Sister Cherry said, we need to make sure to continue after Christmas, as every cliche Christmas song says, and love our friends and family, because we won't be together forever here.

Remembering Christmas, which now is so close that I can almost see it's shadow, truly shows us how important every individual soul is to our Father in Heaven. The miracle of our Savior's birth and the miracle of his atoning sacrifice. The most extreme blessings and gifts that a Father could ever give.

I know that we are all important in the eyes of God. That He loves and cares for each and every single one of us personally. I know He weeps with us when we weep and rejoices with us when we choose to live within the bounds He has set for us. This knowledge that He has helped me to know, is the best gift and miracle I have ever received or seen in my own life.

I know that my life is a miracle. From the great family I have - mom, dad, Jason, and Farah. The great friends, who might as well be family - like the Squires and the Posadas family. To companions I've been with - especially those like Elder Jolley. And experiences I've seen. My life is a miracle, in every sense of the word. Impossible things made possible. Blessings unwitheld. And the worth of my soul being remembered.

Merry Christmas with Love,
Elder Corpuz

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Loneliness in imperfection.

Dear Mom,
I can't believe it's almost Christmas! Just under two weeks now. It doesn't exactly feel like the same Christmas I'm used to, minus shopping, family, and cold, but the mission gives a different kind of Christmas. This Christmas season (that if I can remind you started about three months ago) has been memorable to say the least. The gifts Heavenly Father has given me - new friends and new experiences - up until now have just been beyond my own deserving.

This week has been hard though. It's been really, really hard.

Last night I was able to watch the special devotional put on by the First Presidency of the church with Christmas coming so near. I was particularly touched by Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk about an imperfect Christmas. It reminded me a lot of many Christmases I had growing up.

In President Uchtdorf's talk, he talked about how many of us have what we picture to be the picture-esque (if you will) Christmas. The cliche, perfect family, perfect gifts, and whole she-bang that seems to encompass perfection in the holiday. And then the point - for no one is Christmas perfect and many years we watch our perfect image of Christmas come shattering to the ground.

Funny aside - during the devotional, I noticed this guy had some kind of interest in finding out who I was. Finally, he came up to me and asked for my name (as if it's not glued onto my chest) and then asked if I knew Elder Posadas. Caught of guard? Yeah. Definitely not expecting that one. Come to find it, he is good friends with Airi, Elder Posadas' older sister because they were in the same stake in Zamboanga, and saw pictures of me and Elder Posadas on her facebook, recognized me, but couldn't figure out where! What are the odds.

I can remember my teenage years wanting so bad to just fit in and have good friends. Mom, maybe you remember. I would buy huge boxes of cards, sometimes years over 50+, and I would sit in my room for hours, before Christmas, and write cards to literally, everyone I knew. I remembered being so happy and so excited to give all the cards out. But what I seem to remember more is the sadness that always followed the day before Christmas break. I vividly remember leaving the house with those 50+ cards every year, and coming back heartbroken with only two or three. My "perfect" Christmas every year seemed to be ruined. Not so much because I would give to receive, but because of the thought that all this time, while I was thinking of other people, no one was thinking of me. Christmas always left me feeling so lonely, like I had no friends, and would often times come as the most depressing time of the year.

This week, I've thought about those past Christmases.
This week, I've felt really, really lonely.

I've thought about loneliness a lot this past week. What is it about loneliness and why does it hurt so much? Why does being by yourself and having no one around you always seem to destroy your heart?

I concluded that loneliness, the kind of emotional loneliness that comes even when we are surrounded by people, is the absence of feeling loved. People by nature just need people, and our eternal purposes, as children of God, cannot be accomplished alone, as individuals. Man is nothing alone.

Loneliness is probably one of the most trying emotions that a person can have, and in the end, there are only two options: give up and lock your heart, or open up and love.

When I was struggling the most, I was fortunate enough to be able to turn to Sister Sperry, our mission president's wife, for some motherly counsel, and her answer for combating loneliness was through service.

When I thought about it, it didn't make sense. But when I pondered it, it did.

Service is such an important thing and is obvious by Jesus Christ's example to us. It helps us battle loneliness because it is the fastest way to access God's love. When we put others first, we fulfill our eternal purposes. At BYU, our school puts it best with the motto forever engraved at it's gates, "Enter to learn. Go forth to serve." I believe that as people and children of God, we were given a chance to come to earth to love and to help. Selfishness and self-gratification never seem to bring about happiness that lasts. But when we serve, we feel God's love for each and every single one of His children, and most of all for us. When we don't feel loved and alone, we can feel the love of a Father in Heaven who's love is greater than any we can experience in this life.

Sometimes when we let Satan manipulate our minds and let him convince us we are all alone, we envelope ourselves in darkness in useless things. It's important that we remember that God doesn't forget us, even though sometimes we think He does. He does not abandon His children. He will never leave us alone.

This week I realized this when I felt as though none were with me. We went out teaching one day and found a less-active member of the church. After we taught her, a great lesson I may add, she offered us a small meal of something she had prepared earlier called "ginataan" which is a dessert cooked with coconut milk and native fruits. She said she was cooking it earlier, thinking to herself that hopefully she'll be able to give this to someone to help them, because ironically, no one in her family likes ginataan. What she didn't know is that Elder Corpuz was coming to her home, and that Elder Corpuz has so many fond memories with that particular dish. She didn't know that Elder Corpuz used to love spending hours with his mom, although messing up the little white ball dumplings, and eating it on cold winter days. She didn't know that Elder Corpuz always had ginataan right around Christmas, because his grandma always makes it whenever Elder Corpuz is around, because she knows it's Elder Corpuz' favorite. She didn't know that that day, Elder Corpuz needed to feel loved.

When she told me that, I was in tears, and I knew that that day, Heavenly Father didn't forget about me. And it was His way of telling me that He is always right by my side, especially in times that I need him the most. I've realized that I am loved, by Father in Heaven and by so many other people. I've found that it's important to remember this, and especially to remember that just because people don't love you the perfect way you want them too, doesn't mean they don't love you with all their hearts. Perfect love, as with perfect anything, is extremely overrated.

This week is going to be full of great experiences. Tomorrow I'll be able to have the great opportunity to sing with one of the Assistants, accompanied by Sister Sperry, at the temple lighting here in Manila. I can't wait and I'm so excited. There is no season like Christmas where we can just give all that we can and forget ourselves and feel the love our Father in Heaven as we love and serve one another, knowing that we are truly never alone.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come.

Love,
Elder Corpuz

My body guards.

Me and some of the elders I knew in the MTC at our leadership training.

Some of the members from the Mapayapa Ward.

Setting up our Christmas decorations!

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Peace.

Elder Posadas and Elder Corpuz' last picture.

Dear Mom,
The days have been long. Days always seem long when you go through a drastic change. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the days of taming perilous skies and saving lives. Crossing the country and conquering the unreacheable. Cradling to pins or wearing pink casts. Things only our family would understand. Time just goes and leaves us behind if we're not ready. And when we aren't ready, anxiety and pain always seem to be there to suffocate us.

Transfer announcements were exciting, humiliating, and heart wrenching. After I left you from my last email, all Elder Jolley and I did was go around and pretty much cry for the rest of the night with some of the toughest goodbyes the mission has ever promised me. The last night was hard. It was really, really hard, on top of disappointments with friends. Sleep seemed to be the only temporary answer as well as a last move that eventually would take us to the inevitable future. The jeepney ride to the transfer point in Novaliches was quiet and sad. Elder Posadas and I sat right next to each other with our arms wrapped around one another, like two little brothers venturing off to some kind of unknown place not knowing what would become of them - scared, anxious, but excited for the unexpectable future. And then the verdict.

Elder Posadas - Burgos, Montalban.
Elder Jolley - Novaliches, Quezon City.
Elder Corpuz - Fairview, Quezon City.

We all, the two especially, were given heavy-duty responsibilities in the mission, and I am so, so proud of them, because I know that the Lord is so proud of them. It's so obvious that Father is taking these young missionaries, and preparing them to lead this mission as the mission will exponentially grow in the near future, and I know Elder Jolley and Elder Posadas will be a part of that. I miss them both. It's comforting to know that mine and Elder Posadas' area just about border each other. In fact there's a jeep that runs straight through the middle of both of our areas. It's still not the same though.

Marulas ward youth.

The Young Women in Marulas ward with Analyn in the middle, one of their converts.

Three of Elder Jolley and Elder Corpuz' converts - Jason, Analyn, and Johnart.

The Elders with Bishop Natano and his family.

Leaving their house.

Yet my new area has been a blessing and welcomed me with open arms. My new companion's name is Elder Betita, from Negros Occidental, Philippines - an Ilongo. I'm opening another area again which means we will be starting from nothing, like we did in Marulas. But that's the exciting part. It's a challenge.

Yesterday, I felt the warmth of the love of the ward for us, the name of the ward ironically being the "Mapayapa" ward; the root of the word translating into "Peace." The members are great (and most of them are Ilocano mom and dad). What I appreciated the most yesterday was the music.

I've been kind of like a delicacy in the mission as a somewhat talented musician and piano player. I always do my best to share a little with each new ward I go to. After I got up from playing yesterday though, I didn't realize that I was about to be wiped on the floor. I had stepped into a ward with many, many professional pianists, some in Conservatory music who have studied abroad. Something I've never experienced here in the Philippines, but I loved it and I appreciated it.

I was able to give a short talk yesterday as new missionaries usually do, and I talked about two things. The first: music.

It was like Heavenly Father new exactly what I needed to pick me up that day, and he knew the best way was through song. We sang three hymns yesterday, and heard a musical number - each being of some special value to me. The first, "I Believe in Christ," - the last song that Taylor picked for my farewell since I let her pick the music for that day. The second, "As Now We Take the Sacrament," my favorite sacrament hymn as well as the musical number, "Our Savior's Love" - the first hymn I ever learned to play. Finally the closing hymn, "I Know that My Redeemer Lives" - a hymn that has been really special to me and Elder Posadas as we were able to perform it together on several occasions. I shared about the power of music and how it softens hearts and how it was just the comfort I needed to feel after all these rainy days.

The second, I talked about something that Elder Posadas had wrote to me in a letter. Yeah, we would write each other before, I know, we're weird. But this is something I will never forget, he writes:

Patuloy tayong harapin lahat, kahit anuman yan, kasama mo ako.
Let's move forward together facing everything, whatever it may be, I am with you.

Something I think about often. How he will always be with me, seen or not. And then thinking about how much more our Savior and Heavenly Father promise us that too. They promise that They will be with us.

It's been hard. Change is always hard. Lots of tears. Lots of goodbyes. Lots of pain. I've felt lonely. Really lonely. I felt like I missed a lot of people, but I wasn't being missed. I felt like the change was a bit on the unbearable side. I've come to know it's true that men's hearts shall fail them when they are weak (Luke 21) because they forget their identity and they forget their purpose. Yet I've learned that if you have faith, you can handle difficulties in having an eternal perspective and knowing that all will be well.

Heartaches will come.

For us individuals that feel weak in the heart or fearful in heart, be patient. Perfection comes not in this life, whether in yourself, or your surroundings, but in the next life. Don't demand things that aren't reasonable. Demand improvement. As we let the Lord help us through that, He will make the difference.

The only peace we will ever find in this life is in the Gospel, where we are securely under the wings of it's Prince. I've learned that happiness only comes when we look for it in eternal things. With a realization of Heavenly Father and His love for us, we can hold Him to make every situation a situation that will end well. Elder Posadas' dad in his last letter reminded me of something that you and dad always told me growing up in remembering to not hold on to the past, but to move on and lead with a chin up into the future, taking steps forward and not backwards.

The pattern for those who cling to the Gospel is never failing:

Tests
Searching
Discovering
Depending
Trusting
Peace

Love,
Elder Corpuz

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