1st transfer

How is everyone. Good? Good.

No massive email from momma this week , maybe I'm on too early. But thanks for everyone's emails as usual. and oh man , that's so strange that they weren't released - that must be killing him to have his mission be draining.

- Just got your email Mom -
- Mothers day : No don't worry about any of that . The conversation can only be like 30 mins to MAYBE an hour at most , and calling cards and rates here are pretty cheap I'm pretty sure. But I'll let you know towards the end of April when the call will come. Maybe it'll be on the cell phone that we might have by then ... all the companionships in the mission are supposed to be getting cell phones soon..ish.

Questions of my own:

- How's dad's house
- How's Grant's job hunt
- What's Brandon and Trevor up to
- House the economy / obama / whose the leading republican candidate
- How's Japan
- What's going on in the world...
- Just fill me in , I'm pretty much in a bubble.
- Andrea, send me apple news. That's fine to just google Apple and copy and paste. Send as much as you want , I just want news. Iphone news is coming very soon , should have the keynote third or fourth week of April.

June - can you get me Alex's address? It's 11 Norden Place , right? Whats the zip code for norwalk?


Okay , letter time. Last week was hectic. Let's explain why. Monday was fine , Tuesday was fine , Wednesday... head to district meeting in Bayambang. Have a good workshop from Elder Sanchez , and then we meet together one last time as a zone because it's transfer day on Friday. Three people were pretty obvious for transferring because of different reasons kind of hard to explain to someone whose not a missionary , but basically their time was pretty much definitely up in the zone. Then there was the rest of us , in which there were like 5 who were probably going to transfer and 2 almost definitely. So.. one by one Elder Coleman (a ZL) calls the names. Elder Sanchez first ... he then gives his testimony. Elder Limyoco next ... testimony. Elder Podzikowski (ZL) ... testimony , then last... me. WHAT?! I did nottt think I would be transferred. Only two transfers in Malimpec , my companion was only one transfer into the area , and it's already been two transfers with two different companions. So so weird. But I testified and then we went to shakeys (pizza place) one last time as bayambang zone. Wednesday night and Thursday we still had a bunch of appointments but I had to say goodbye to a ton of families. The Tulagan's (the family I baptized) were the hardest , haha. They're so nice and it was really sad to say goodbye to them. But I've got a pretty good feeling that one way or another I'll visit them again. I feel like I'll be transferred back into Bayambang Zone again. So then Thursday night we had dinner at Bishop Escano's house and a bunch of the ward missionaries and the friends I made there came and said goodbye. It was way nice. Friday morning wake up and the jeepney with all the Elders transferring from the zone got there at about 7:45 finally. Head to Transfer Meeting , and got called up randomly to bear testimony with a couple others. President Jensen gave a really good message about Enoch and thennnn the transfers. 3 others from my batch were actually there too , Elder Tollman , Elder Purcell , and Elder Evert. Soooo , Elder Tollman goes to Lingayen Zone , Elder Purcell goes to Mangaldan , Elder Evert to Rosales , and me.. Rosales too. Which I was actually pretty stoked about , Rosales is a pretty sweet zone and has an SM which there's only two in the mission. Baguio and Rosales. It's basically just a mall , but really big and pretty american-ized ha. So I got to my area which iss San Quintin! It's pretty awesome , Elder Lefler's old area before he went to Malimpec (a lot of the members have ..things.. to say about him , ahaha) , and the house is soo much nicer. Although I saw about an 8 inch spider on my bed as I was putting the sheet on. My companion is Elder Salde from Visayes Region of Philippines and he's way way nice. It's so good to actually laugh with a companion again , ahaha.

So Friday night we just met members and ate at a members house , in which I shared a short message afterwards. Saturday we met the branch presidency (it's just a branch and meeting house is way small , it's awesome) but the church is currently being built and they're hoping for it to be done by July. The branch president and first counselor are way young , too , aha. Then later they had a half-day mission thing in which some members helped out with some investigator and less active member lessons. The branch is way way nice , and this area is so cool. It reminds me a lot of utah because of it's streets and it has mountains in the background. Also , I'm turning into a canadian with all this sun (that's a dad's side of the family reference). Saturday night we went to a funeral of a member who had just died andd funerals are a bit different. They're pretty loud , crazy , and small , aha. And aren't held in a church. It was still good though , and the family gave some heartfelt messages. Sunday was church and so I again gave another message and introduced myself during sacrament meeting. They all think I'm good at tagalog , so we'll see how long that lasts , ha. After church we ate at a members house for lunch then went to the burial part , which is held the next day. The procession was all of us walking behind the [hurst?] funeral car , as the car played music and drove crazy slow to the site. It was funny to hear a piano instrumental of my heart will go on at a funeral. After that we had a bunch of lessons in which the second counselor accompanied us. He's like 70 years old and hysterical. He's the sweetest looking old man and just talks and talks and talks at the end of lessons. We were cracking up afterwards because after our last lesson he told a story that took like an additional 25 minutes. Elder Salde like thought he was done after 15 minutes and was like alright , thank you Brother for that story , and then he continued again.

All in all , I'm transferred to a new area and love it so far. The people are way nice and there is so much work to be done , which I am stoked about. It's not a city but it's not as Bukid or middle of nowhere-ness as Malimpec was. But thereare only 160 members in the area , which means so so so much work that I get to do. I'm loving it. The new companion is way awesome too , so this is looking to be a really good transfer.

Sorry this email is kind of lacking , but I'm at the SM right now and my times pretty much up. I'll email some pictures next week! Also I think your package is here mom , they tell me I have a package here and I'm going to pick it up.

Love you all ,
Elder White