Mas gwapo ako keysa sa lahat ng tao pa rin

So this week, what a crazy week!!  So sorry to hear about your crazy drama story.  But that's life!  What can ya do about it? hahaha,  Lucky!  You get to drive!  I wish I could drive here.  I just miss the little things like driving and stuff.  But that's okay.  The people drive like freakin idiots here so that's okay!!  Sorry if my English is bad now.  It's freakin hard to speak English and Tagalog.  So I'll just speak Tagalog maybe.  Then you guys won't understand haha.

OK.  This last week was a good week!! We had the baptism and that was so amazing.  I was so worried because we weren't able to come into contact with her to remind her about her baptism.  So we just went there and hoped she would be there.  And she was already ready and dressed in white!!   So I  had to get my stuff ready to baptize her!!  She was so excited.  That was so amazing.  It was such a great experience!!  I had to do it twice though because the first time we weren't sure if her hair went all the way under the water.  So that was fun!!  Both of the baptisms I've done I had to do 2  times.  So maybe I need more so I can practice better.   haha (:

OK.  This week we had like no progressing investigators and that just sucked.  Because we baptized all the people who have been coming to church.  So that was good and bad.  So we needed to go out and find some new ones!!  So we went to this less active members home to teach her.  She had a friend who seemed kinda interested.  So we shared a short message with them and then the next day we went to her house to share a good message with her about the restoration of the gospel!!  She was really interested and accepted to read the book of Mormon.  Se only had 1 day to teach her.  So I  wasn't really sure if she would come to church.  But the less active was helping by being a friend and she showed up to church with her daughter!!  That was so awesome when I saw them.  I was just soooo happy!!  That was the good thing this week!!

My companion earlier today left to go back to Tacloban.  So I am on splits with the old assistant to the president now until transfers on Thursday!!  So that is pretty cool!!  He is a good missionary.  So I'm excited about that.  Sad to see my old companion go, but it's good because sometimes I didn't know if he really liked the work here.  Since it's not really his assigned mission.  But what can ya do? Just work and hope it goes well.  So hopefully the new one will be more into the work!!  Gotta work hard to get the people into the waters of baptism and bring those less actives back into the church!! Love the gospel.  Miss you guys but I know that napakahalaga ang gawain misyonero, so its ok (: Namimiss ko kayo, mas gwapo ako keysa sa lahat ng tao pa rin, so ok lang (more handsome essential missionary task, so its ok I miss you, I'm more handsome than you and everybody else as well)  (: Love you guys!!  Talk to you next week!

Pasaway (disobedient!)

Sige, so this last week..... first I'll answer questions!!  The baptism happened.  That was pretty cool!! I'll send some pictures in a bit of that!!  We were able to find a new apartment which was pretty nice!! It does have air conditioning so what a freakin blessing.  But it's freaking garbage, so its not really different.  haha  Tell Jessie I'm gonna beat her up if she doesn't go to classes.  She needs that so bad!  Sorry to hear about what happened to Uncle Scott's mom.  I realize how lucky we are to be blessed with the knowledge of families can be together forever.  And what a relief that is!  What a blessing it is to be able to share that with the people here in the Philippines.  It really is such a great experience to be here!!  I love it!  Of course, there are days when it's way hard but that's okay.  Because the hard days are what encourage you to work harder and make the work happen!!

So we had interviews with the mission president and his wife.  So that's why you saw the pictures.  It was actually in Paniqui so we didn't go to Tarlac.  It's only like a 20 minute bus ride to Paniqui so it wasn't that bad.  But that was such an awesome experience.  I really love our mission president and his wife.  I'm gonna be sad when they leave because he really has a great spirit about him.  I just love hearing what he has to say.  When he speaks, you can really feel the spirit and know what you need to do and when you need to do it!!  That was such an awesome experience!!!

These pictures were downloaded from the Mission President's Wife Facebook Page.  When I enlarge them, they look awful, so I kept them small.

So know for the interesting thing that happened this week!!  So it's called being pasaway, which means disobedient.  But we kinda had to in order to get back to our area!!  So we went to church in Moncada, like a 10 minute bus ride away in the morning.  Afterward, because they are having their town fiesta, or town celebration, the road was closed down.  So we didn't have a way to get back to our city.  And we had church in like 2 and a half hours, so we needed to get back.  So first we took the little trike thing to this bus stop.  And I was alone with like 3 other people, so I didn't have my companion for like 4 minutes.  I was like oh crap.  I'm freakin gonna get lost!!   haha   But it was all good, I was with members.  And I can actually understand what they say, so that was good!!  Then my companion showed up at the bus stop and we were good.  We had to get on a bus but it had to take an alternate route to get to where we needed to go.  So instead of a 10 minute ride, we were on that bus for like an hour and went the longest way ever.  And not only that, we ended up crossing the mission border and we were in the Urdaneta mission.  So that was a pretty interesting thing!!  I took a picture of the giant mall that they have there.  So I have evidence that I left the mission area.  Hopefully nothing will happen because it was a requirement for us to get back to our city!  But I  thought that was something a little funny!!  I was in another mission, and I was like,  oh goodness I'm so gonna be dead!!  It was funny though because we had like no idea what we were doing!!  But it was so worth it!!  I liked seeing the difference just in that little bit of area!!

So that was what has happened this week really!  Not to much, just trying to move our stuff into our new apartment.  And the baptism we have another one this week.  I will be the one baptizing her so that will be pretty cool!!  I'm excited for that!!  Love you all!  Make sure to let everyone know to email me.  All my friends and stuff.  I wanna hear from some other people!!  I would love to hear from anyone!! Thanks a ton.  I love you guys!!  Take care and remember that the church is true!! Love you!!

Service Project!  Gathering wood in the area. 

Just me looking Gwapo as usual!! Attractive me!! Ya Mapagpakumbaba ako, (I'm Humble)

Basbasan Kayo Ng Diyos (God bless you)

So this last week was a rough week but good at the same time!!  It was good because we have been trying to find a new apartment because we are being kicked out of ours.  We have one in sight, so tomorrow we have to contact the owner to see if we can get to it!  It has air conditioning in the room so if we get it I'm going to be so eternally grateful.  It is way to freaking hot here in the Philippines!!

Notice he is always in the shade.  He says it's too hot there, but it's the cold season!

We had the interview for one of the girls this week and we were kinda nervous if she would pass because she doesn't really listen very much when we try and teach her!  But we trusted in the Lord and just explained how, if you feel the holy ghost just say what you feel.  Our zone leader came out of the interview and said that she did way good!!  I was so happy for her!!

The other girl though we are having a hard time contacting, so we were not able to get her interview done.  I was so worried that she would just stop coming to church and everything after coming for like 2 months straight!!  So I was completely panicking for that and I was so nervous!!  Then to make it worse, when our church was starting we only had like 18 people there.  I was just so upset and sad!!  But then as soon as the opening prayer was said, everyone just showed up.  And we had the most that we have ever had in our church attendance!!  We had 47 people show up!!  Along with the girl who we weren't able to contact!!  She has set up an appointment for the following week!  So I am so excited for her also!!  We also had 2 more investigators commit to baptism so that was good we just have to get them coming to church now!!!

Why do they always make that sign with their hands?  No clue.  I've decided it's a Mormon gang sign!

"One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just isn't the same."  (Sesame Street throwback!)

So this week was a good week and hard, I was really sick this past Saturday and Sunday morning.  I was just throwing up a ton and felt completely awful.  I was so afraid I had like a virus and would have to come home.  But I said a prayer and just really prayed hard for strength that I would be able to continue and would feel better.  So that morning, I called the mission president's wife and just let her know what was happening.  She told me some stuff to help me and now I'm feeling just as good as new.  Which was great!  I was so grateful for prayer and seeing the blessings that it brings!!  I love the gospel.  It really is amazing and I'm so glad that I have the opportunity to share it with the people here!! So that was this week!! I love you guys!! Continue to put the gospel as a priority at basbasan kayo ng diyos!! Love you guys!!

Hindi Tamad (not lazy)

So this week has been a rough week!! It has been hard because we had a lot of meetings which made it really difficult to work.  That was definitely really hard because we are trying to reach our standard of excellence for the month of February.  This means we need to be doing a lot of teaching and everything!!  That was the hardest part!!  I really realized how lucky I am to have the companion I do right now.  I realized how lazy some of the missionaries here are!  They just don't wanna work.  When we are supposed to go out at 10:00 in the morning, they just sleep and don't even want to go out and work!!  I was mad because I didn't come out in a mission to freaking sleep all day!  And just do nothing!  I came out to share the word of the gospel so it can bless the other families just like mine!!!   So if I get a new companion this next transfer and he is lazy, I am going to whip him into shape.   Because I ain't gonna put up with that!! haha

I have no idea what is on his head!

Also this week was difficult because we found out that our landlord doesn't like the contract that we have for our house, so we are getting kicked out!!  That was pretty fun!!  We have till like the 18th of February.  But I was so worried about everything!!  I think we are going to actually move into a nicer one.   One that actually isn't just cement.  And it has some tile in it!  I was like "woah I'm like a king!"  Even though its like the size of my room and Jessie's room combined... it's so small!!!  So that was an interesting thing!! 

Then because we weren't able to go out and teach, I was so worried about the investigators coming to church!!  That was the thing I was way worried about because we have 2 girls that need to continue to come to church in order to be baptized.  We weren't able to teach them very much this week.  One of them we couldn't even teach at all!!  But they both came to church and I was so happy!!!!  We have really been talking about how we need the members help because missionary work isn't just for the missionaries.  Last year in our stake, we had 150 baptisms and the church attendance didn't really rise at all, so the stake president has really been focusing on the members.  Why they aren't helping the missionaries by keeping the less actives come to church!!  So that was awesome to see that he really trusts us more then he does to the members!!

Just what Mac needs, a light saber!  He thought it was "totally legit!"

So this next week we are going to be working a lot so that will be good!! Miss you guys but remember that the church is true and it is the thing that really does bring real happiness in our lives!! The language is really coming along well.  I understand a lot now and even in casual conversation I'm starting to pick up stuff so that is pretty cool!!  The people here still think its crazy to see an American!!  The only things they know how to say is whats your name?  So I hear that everywhere I  go.  Which is kinda annoying.   But they also know swear words, so I hear F you Joe!  And I really  wanna just go up to them and sock them in the face, but I know that they don't know the meaning of it, so I just let it go and ignore it!!  Remember the church is true love and miss you guys!!!