Hey - I'm here at an internet cafe in our area again - we have no money ... ahaha.
They messed up ... hold on , two people just emailed.
So yeah , they messed up on our support money this week , so we won't actually get it until next monday. And we also had to pay our electricity bill this week ... and I had to get my shoes resoled two weeks ago... which means I'm broke na broke. Ha. I would withdraw from personal money , and I probably will have to tomorrow after district meeting in order to buy groceries. But there's no ATM in our area , so we have to go to Tayug [ Tie - Yog ] to withdraw tomorrow. We just got done with a 4 hour service project here in the area ON PDAY so we've got many a blessings coming... hopefully , ha.
Let me start off really by saying I might be transferred or emergency transferred [ means transferred before the transfer is over ] because of a girl in the branch here. HA! I know what you're thinking ... and no ... it's because she mayyyy have developed a crush on me (mostly because no one here has eyes other than black) and now she's told everyone in the branch whose told everyone else and I've had about 6 people in the past couple days come up to me and tell me she's in love with me... which is horrible. So I'm gonna email my president right now and ask him what I should do. If I should try and deal with it here , or if he's gonna scoop me outta here. I also was thinking about it the past few days , and I kind of want to work in the office because they get a car , and so I realized it'll be some american elder in my batch who gets transferred into the office. But in order to do so I can't get transferred this transfer and so I'm hoping the president will say that I can stay. We'll see what happens. Though a big part of me doesn't want to work in the office because their proselyting time is like cut more than in half. So yeah , that's the biggest thing I'm dealing with right now. It's incredibly incredibly awkward for me and causing a lot of trouble.
But we have cell phones! We got them this past week. Our number is 09399370157 - but I'll probably call you first. I'm not sure when the call will be , but go ahead and add a plan if you want. I think President said we can call anytime in May , so it'll probably either be next monday , the following monday , or the 8th... and it'll probably be at a time good for you guys. I'm sure we'll find out the guidelines for length and stuff tomorrow during district meeting. So , I'll email you at least one more time before I ET Phone Home.
So my week. It's been good. Getting more comfortable with the language helps everything because then I can be more assertive in the work and then I've got no one to blame but myself whenever I feel that we're slack a lackin on some parts of the week. We got about 26 lessons this week which was the best we've done here so far in San Quintin , but no one came to church .... it's really hard just having a meeting house. It's like we have no validity with this people unless we've got a huge building. Thanks to the Iglesia's for that.... Their churches literally are duplicates of temples. I hear the one in Manila is a spot on copy of the Salt Lake Temple. Last monday we met a Jehovah's Witness when contacting a referral , and maaan ... they are impossible to teach. I think they're different in the states , but it seems their entire religion is based on their own interpretation of the bible. I've asked a couple members how their missionaries are because their missionary work is members that go out every day and proselyte too. And they were like they just dive right now , there's not even any get to know you , ahah. And it was the same thing with this guy , he was just quoting bible scriptures he had memorized that proved us wrong and him right , and it's like yeah... thank you for your own knowledge , but they have no spirituality to themselves .... why have a religion? It just confuses me. I was thinking about Enoch the other day and maaan that must've been so easy for him without any other religions. I could have San Quintin translated if I could teach in English and there weren't any other churches here , ha. joke lang.
Tuesday ... district meeting , then regular work. There weren't too many outstanding points to this week other than giving an IBD to a woman who was stoookkkeeddd. ha. During the lesson I felt like extending it to her , but didn't for some reason , then as we were closing she was like Elders... I have a question. How long do I have to study before I'm allowed to be baptized. Daaaannngggg , should not have ignored that prompting. But we smiled and were like oh man we're so sorry and extended kaagad. I'm gonna be throwing random tagalog words in here , probably just to show off , but at the same time to make you look them up , ha. But yeah , none of our IBD's or anyone came to church because it was 'Holy Week' here ... which is a bit ... different. For one they don't shower on Good Friday. But that's coolio , they've got their own thing. But most everyone had family over , so no one was gonna come to church this week. Next saturday and sunday there's a couple broadcasts from manila and salt lake for some Jubilee or something .. that'll be fun to watch.
Um ... what else. That's really about it. This week wasn't the best , we've been trying to find new investigators and it's way way hard. People here give us one lesson and then hide everytime we come back. In one house I've literally heard their silverware drop twice and we called 'Tao po!' to them .. basically the equivalent here of knocking. So... yeah. It's hard. But spirits are high , and we're gonna see what happens.
The companion is good , really no problems at all. He just hit his one year mark , so he's going through a small trunky phase , but it doesn't really affect the work. The area is way cool , 'hey joe' 'hey man' 'whats your name man' 'where you from man' 'where go you man' got really old a long time ago , but the people here are mostly nice. There's a fiesta here coming in a few weeks so there's tents everywhere selling stuff in the market here. The market or palengke is basically picture the wilton center , but a lot smaller. So there's tents and stands everywhere selling random cheap things. I found a soccer ball there! Haggled it down to 170 pesos. But these people are like gypsies , ahaha. It's awesome. The philippines is sweet. If you don't take it too seriously it's a way awesome place. Didn't go anywhere for easter , btw , ha sorry. I'm not sure people know what that is here. Holy Week is their version and that's just catholic chaos here really.
Okay , that's really all I got. I'm gonna email my president real quick so email me fast if you've got some questions.
Love you all , have fun ... I'm jealous but at the same time not at all .. ha. Philippines is way better.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Weekly Email.
Oh man , these will probably be so boring in a year. My week just doesn't really ever seem interesting , haha. First the things I wrote down during the week to remember.
1. Please email some coin tricks to me. Hahaha , that sounds really weird , but kids here love little magic tricks and all we've got is coins and stuff. I know like 4 but they're running out quickly , so please try and find some good ones that are simple and email to me.
2. In the next package (WHICH I HOPE WON'T BE FOR A WHILE BECAUSE THEY'RE EXPENSIVE) I really need like the whole box to be filled with clif bars and then something for teeth whitening. Not that my teeth are really that bad , but there's no teeth whitening stuff here , and a mission really is a time of habit forming , ha , so that's an easy one to start. Also the food here is just crazy bad for you , haha , so I'm trying to buy so healthy but that costs so much money. Not to mention they have no protein bars whatsoever. So please send a lot of clif bars (i know they're expensive , sorry)
3. Can you send me some nutritional facts on rice? I eat so much of it , I'd like to know what I'm eating , ha.
That's it for now.
Okay , this computer is crazy slow. I've wasted so much of my time just waiting for it to load. So my week wasn't really that interesting except for a few points , so I'll write about it.
Monday , P-Day at the SM then waited for about 2 hours for a bus back to the area. Got back finally , actually I was like hanging out the door the whole way home because it was crazy crazy packed. It was way fun though. So we get back and head to a Family Home Evening. Supposed to be there for one hour and we were there for almost two .. I was upset at my companion. Ha. Afterwards we tried a few houses , but things like shut down at 7 - so we ended up just getting one contact in afterwards. It was a bumma. Tuesday- district meeting , in which we still don't have cell phones. Taught a few lessons , contacted a referral who was this doctor that was waaay arrogant , ha. He like tried to tell us about our religion in english. It's slightly amusing , because they're under the impression they're fluent. I mean I obviously know I make mistakes left and right , but it's a different story when a full grown man tries to be condescending and is speaking a third language , that I really couldn't understand. It's hard to keep a straight face under those circumstances. Wednesday , more lessons. In which one was way funny. One of our investigators is this 11 year old boy that we have to teach for him to be baptized , and so his little sister saw me for the first time without glasses and noticed my eyes. Oh , obviously everyone here has like dark brown eyes. And so she was like AH! BLUE EYES! and I was like haha yeah, and she just goes on (tagalog of course which was so so funny) I've seen it in movies but I didn't believe it was true!. This little 7 year old girl. Adorable , haha.
Thursday , weekly planning which was good , more lessons , all pretty much the same. We have a few investigators with baptismal dates , but some are just reaally .. like not progressing. Like probably just said yes to be nice , but don't read , don't pray , don't go to church , ganoon. So at one I just tried to be as straightforward as I could with the guy in hopes of him actually picking one way or another and not just sitting on the fence as he is. We'll see what happens. Friday was good , MCM at 5 , and then a dinner appointment right next to it at 6 always. And what they cook is always soo good haha. Two weeks ago with had steak and onions and last friday was chicken adobo I think. But they're way good at cooking. Also they have a daughter in the states whose married to a former missionary here. This area was his first area... and last , haha. He met her , fell in love , she went to manila , he ran away for her , now they live in Arizona. Haha , supposedly very happy. But they're a super sweet family.
Saturday , got punted 10 times (which means appointments falling through) which was a bummer , especially when you're walking all day long so you're sweaty and tired haha and nothing to show for it. Got some good OYMs though and maybe some potentials. Sunday was church and we had a few investigators there , one with a baptismal date which was awesome to see. He's a stud , so cool , but been an investigator forever. He's read the BoM like 2 times and has a few favorite scriptures and gives awesome insights during lessons. But no one's ever been able to baptize him because he's always been busy or other things , hopefully we'll get him into the water! So I'm sitting down for about 5 minutes and the branch president approaches me and is like can you give a 15 minute talk on geneology work.... I was like uhhh , yeah I can try , haha. I know nothinggg about geneology work pretty much. But I tried. Just pulled every scripture I could think of and warped it into baptisms for the dead , haha , but it was okay. That's their style here - call on someone 10 minutes before the meeting starts to give a talk.
Later we worked with a missionary that got home from his mission last July. He was an AP (San Pablo Mission , Philippines) and is 26 .... suuuch a good missionary , haha. It was awesome to work with him and learned a lot of really good tips and styles and stuff. Hopefully we'll get to work with him again because it's awesome to have an AP to work with and learn from first hand.
Now it's Monday , and we're in our area. Woke up at 5:30 to play basketball and cleaned and wrote some letters and stuff. I'm jealous you guys get to head to utah for more family stuff , but I'll be back to that too soon. It's almost 6 months for me and that kind of freaks me out ... aha. I really don't like that. Hahah. Not that I won't be excited to come home , but it's just going by really fast. That's the slowest portion of the mission and it's already over. We're on week 4 of the transfer already! Geeze , transfers blow by and there's only 16 of them while you're in the field. Sorry some of this is scatter brained and not correct english , but I don't have like any time and my time is about to shut off on me I think , haha. Also maybe tagalog gets better when my english gets worse , we'll see. Speaking of that , it's coming along pretty well. I really like having a companion that never speaks in english. Constant use + daily study = learning a language very fast. I would love for us to come back here after I get home as a family and show off mah skillz , then again that's crazy expensive.
Okay I think that's all for this week. I love you all. Mom , go ahead and add that plan - I'll have a cell phone by the end of this week I'M ALMOST POSITIVE , and I'm sure we'll get info about the phone call from the pres in a week or two.
Love you all again ,
-Elder Austin White
Oh man , these will probably be so boring in a year. My week just doesn't really ever seem interesting , haha. First the things I wrote down during the week to remember.
1. Please email some coin tricks to me. Hahaha , that sounds really weird , but kids here love little magic tricks and all we've got is coins and stuff. I know like 4 but they're running out quickly , so please try and find some good ones that are simple and email to me.
2. In the next package (WHICH I HOPE WON'T BE FOR A WHILE BECAUSE THEY'RE EXPENSIVE) I really need like the whole box to be filled with clif bars and then something for teeth whitening. Not that my teeth are really that bad , but there's no teeth whitening stuff here , and a mission really is a time of habit forming , ha , so that's an easy one to start. Also the food here is just crazy bad for you , haha , so I'm trying to buy so healthy but that costs so much money. Not to mention they have no protein bars whatsoever. So please send a lot of clif bars (i know they're expensive , sorry)
3. Can you send me some nutritional facts on rice? I eat so much of it , I'd like to know what I'm eating , ha.
That's it for now.
Okay , this computer is crazy slow. I've wasted so much of my time just waiting for it to load. So my week wasn't really that interesting except for a few points , so I'll write about it.
Monday , P-Day at the SM then waited for about 2 hours for a bus back to the area. Got back finally , actually I was like hanging out the door the whole way home because it was crazy crazy packed. It was way fun though. So we get back and head to a Family Home Evening. Supposed to be there for one hour and we were there for almost two .. I was upset at my companion. Ha. Afterwards we tried a few houses , but things like shut down at 7 - so we ended up just getting one contact in afterwards. It was a bumma. Tuesday- district meeting , in which we still don't have cell phones. Taught a few lessons , contacted a referral who was this doctor that was waaay arrogant , ha. He like tried to tell us about our religion in english. It's slightly amusing , because they're under the impression they're fluent. I mean I obviously know I make mistakes left and right , but it's a different story when a full grown man tries to be condescending and is speaking a third language , that I really couldn't understand. It's hard to keep a straight face under those circumstances. Wednesday , more lessons. In which one was way funny. One of our investigators is this 11 year old boy that we have to teach for him to be baptized , and so his little sister saw me for the first time without glasses and noticed my eyes. Oh , obviously everyone here has like dark brown eyes. And so she was like AH! BLUE EYES! and I was like haha yeah, and she just goes on (tagalog of course which was so so funny) I've seen it in movies but I didn't believe it was true!. This little 7 year old girl. Adorable , haha.
Thursday , weekly planning which was good , more lessons , all pretty much the same. We have a few investigators with baptismal dates , but some are just reaally .. like not progressing. Like probably just said yes to be nice , but don't read , don't pray , don't go to church , ganoon. So at one I just tried to be as straightforward as I could with the guy in hopes of him actually picking one way or another and not just sitting on the fence as he is. We'll see what happens. Friday was good , MCM at 5 , and then a dinner appointment right next to it at 6 always. And what they cook is always soo good haha. Two weeks ago with had steak and onions and last friday was chicken adobo I think. But they're way good at cooking. Also they have a daughter in the states whose married to a former missionary here. This area was his first area... and last , haha. He met her , fell in love , she went to manila , he ran away for her , now they live in Arizona. Haha , supposedly very happy. But they're a super sweet family.
Saturday , got punted 10 times (which means appointments falling through) which was a bummer , especially when you're walking all day long so you're sweaty and tired haha and nothing to show for it. Got some good OYMs though and maybe some potentials. Sunday was church and we had a few investigators there , one with a baptismal date which was awesome to see. He's a stud , so cool , but been an investigator forever. He's read the BoM like 2 times and has a few favorite scriptures and gives awesome insights during lessons. But no one's ever been able to baptize him because he's always been busy or other things , hopefully we'll get him into the water! So I'm sitting down for about 5 minutes and the branch president approaches me and is like can you give a 15 minute talk on geneology work.... I was like uhhh , yeah I can try , haha. I know nothinggg about geneology work pretty much. But I tried. Just pulled every scripture I could think of and warped it into baptisms for the dead , haha , but it was okay. That's their style here - call on someone 10 minutes before the meeting starts to give a talk.
Later we worked with a missionary that got home from his mission last July. He was an AP (San Pablo Mission , Philippines) and is 26 .... suuuch a good missionary , haha. It was awesome to work with him and learned a lot of really good tips and styles and stuff. Hopefully we'll get to work with him again because it's awesome to have an AP to work with and learn from first hand.
Now it's Monday , and we're in our area. Woke up at 5:30 to play basketball and cleaned and wrote some letters and stuff. I'm jealous you guys get to head to utah for more family stuff , but I'll be back to that too soon. It's almost 6 months for me and that kind of freaks me out ... aha. I really don't like that. Hahah. Not that I won't be excited to come home , but it's just going by really fast. That's the slowest portion of the mission and it's already over. We're on week 4 of the transfer already! Geeze , transfers blow by and there's only 16 of them while you're in the field. Sorry some of this is scatter brained and not correct english , but I don't have like any time and my time is about to shut off on me I think , haha. Also maybe tagalog gets better when my english gets worse , we'll see. Speaking of that , it's coming along pretty well. I really like having a companion that never speaks in english. Constant use + daily study = learning a language very fast. I would love for us to come back here after I get home as a family and show off mah skillz , then again that's crazy expensive.
Okay I think that's all for this week. I love you all. Mom , go ahead and add that plan - I'll have a cell phone by the end of this week I'M ALMOST POSITIVE , and I'm sure we'll get info about the phone call from the pres in a week or two.
Love you all again ,
-Elder Austin White
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Hello.
Weekly Email.
Oh man , these will probably be so boring in a year. My week just doesn't really ever seem interesting , haha. First the things I wrote down during the week to remember.
1. Please email some coin tricks to me. Hahaha , that sounds really weird , but kids here love little magic tricks and all we've got is coins and stuff. I know like 4 but they're running out quickly , so please try and find some good ones that are simple and email to me.
2. In the next package (WHICH I HOPE WON'T BE FOR A WHILE BECAUSE THEY'RE EXPENSIVE) I really need like the whole box to be filled with clif bars and then something for teeth whitening. Not that my teeth are really that bad , but there's no teeth whitening stuff here , and a mission really is a time of habit forming , ha , so that's an easy one to start. Also the food here is just crazy bad for you , haha , so I'm trying to buy so healthy but that costs so much money. Not to mention they have no protein bars whatsoever. So please send a lot of clif bars (i know they're expensive , sorry)
3. Can you send me some nutritional facts on rice? I eat so much of it , I'd like to know what I'm eating , ha.
That's it for now.
Okay , this computer is crazy slow. I've wasted so much of my time just waiting for it to load. So my week wasn't really that interesting except for a few points , so I'll write about it.
Monday , P-Day at the SM then waited for about 2 hours for a bus back to the area. Got back finally , actually I was like hanging out the door the whole way home because it was crazy crazy packed. It was way fun though. So we get back and head to a Family Home Evening. Supposed to be there for one hour and we were there for almost two .. I was upset at my companion. Ha. Afterwards we tried a few houses , but things like shut down at 7 - so we ended up just getting one contact in afterwards. It was a bumma. Tuesday- district meeting , in which we still don't have cell phones. Taught a few lessons , contacted a referral who was this doctor that was waaay arrogant , ha. He like tried to tell us about our religion in english. It's slightly amusing , because they're under the impression they're fluent. I mean I obviously know I make mistakes left and right , but it's a different story when a full grown man tries to be condescending and is speaking a third language , that I really couldn't understand. It's hard to keep a straight face under those circumstances. Wednesday , more lessons. In which one was way funny. One of our investigators is this 11 year old boy that we have to teach for him to be baptized , and so his little sister saw me for the first time without glasses and noticed my eyes. Oh , obviously everyone here has like dark brown eyes. And so she was like AH! BLUE EYES! and I was like haha yeah, and she just goes on (tagalog of course which was so so funny) I've seen it in movies but I didn't believe it was true!. This little 7 year old girl. Adorable , haha.
Thursday , weekly planning which was good , more lessons , all pretty much the same. We have a few investigators with baptismal dates , but some are just reaally .. like not progressing. Like probably just said yes to be nice , but don't read , don't pray , don't go to church , ganoon. So at one I just tried to be as straightforward as I could with the guy in hopes of him actually picking one way or another and not just sitting on the fence as he is. We'll see what happens. Friday was good , MCM at 5 , and then a dinner appointment right next to it at 6 always. And what they cook is always soo good haha. Two weeks ago with had steak and onions and last friday was chicken adobo I think. But they're way good at cooking. Also they have a daughter in the states whose married to a former missionary here. This area was his first area... and last , haha. He met her , fell in love , she went to manila , he ran away for her , now they live in Arizona. Haha , supposedly very happy. But they're a super sweet family.
Saturday , got punted 10 times (which means appointments falling through) which was a bummer , especially when you're walking all day long so you're sweaty and tired haha and nothing to show for it. Got some good OYMs though and maybe some potentials. Sunday was church and we had a few investigators there , one with a baptismal date which was awesome to see. He's a stud , so cool , but been an investigator forever. He's read the BoM like 2 times and has a few favorite scriptures and gives awesome insights during lessons. But no one's ever been able to baptize him because he's always been busy or other things , hopefully we'll get him into the water! So I'm sitting down for about 5 minutes and the branch president approaches me and is like can you give a 15 minute talk on geneology work.... I was like uhhh , yeah I can try , haha. I know nothinggg about geneology work pretty much. But I tried. Just pulled every scripture I could think of and warped it into baptisms for the dead , haha , but it was okay. That's their style here - call on someone 10 minutes before the meeting starts to give a talk.
Later we worked with a missionary that got home from his mission last July. He was an AP (San Pablo Mission , Philippines) and is 26 .... suuuch a good missionary , haha. It was awesome to work with him and learned a lot of really good tips and styles and stuff. Hopefully we'll get to work with him again because it's awesome to have an AP to work with and learn from first hand.
Now it's Monday , and we're in our area. Woke up at 5:30 to play basketball and cleaned and wrote some letters and stuff. I'm jealous you guys get to head to utah for more family stuff , but I'll be back to that too soon. It's almost 6 months for me and that kind of freaks me out ... aha. I really don't like that. Hahah. Not that I won't be excited to come home , but it's just going by really fast. That's the slowest portion of the mission and it's already over. We're on week 4 of the transfer already! Geeze , transfers blow by and there's only 16 of them while you're in the field. Sorry some of this is scatter brained and not correct english , but I don't have like any time and my time is about to shut off on me I think , haha. Also maybe tagalog gets better when my english gets worse , we'll see. Speaking of that , it's coming along pretty well. I really like having a companion that never speaks in english. Constant use + daily study = learning a language very fast. I would love for us to come back here after I get home as a family and show off mah skillz , then again that's crazy expensive.
Okay I think that's all for this week. I love you all. Mom , go ahead and add that plan - I'll have a cell phone by the end of this week I'M ALMOST POSITIVE , and I'm sure we'll get info about the phone call from the pres in a week or two.
Love you all again ,
-Elder Austin White
Oh P.S - tell June that maybe the band is Cash Cash? Haha , but maybe not. There was also Mercy Mercedes ... ask her to tell me when we listened to them because I remember music from when I listened to it. Haha that's funny that I just realized that. Dad remembers memories through food and a big part of me remembering memories is through the music I was listening to.
So I'm here at the SM again (again , not sister missionary andrea ... super mall) though it's not very super. But it is the most american-like thing in the phillies and very clean. Also does have a decent amount of foreigners here. By decent I mean 6. But it's got pizza hut ... so... yeah after emailing. And the market here has one small aisle of all American food... it's awesome. I'll be looking for goldfish today. Mom do not send another package for a while , it's expensive and I've got what I need for now - thank you though!
So how's everyone? How's the house coming? There's got to be some technique these novice brokers haven't tried. I'm about to start listing the house here. Speaking of which , a mansion here costs about 20 thousand dollars. Just something to consider ... and they are quite nice. How's Japan doing and Australia and all that jazz ... God's starting to turn up the noise so to speak , eh. Speaking of which .. conference. Awesome. But I'll get to that later.
Let's talk about my week.
Monday ... P-day ... boring
Tuesday ... district meeting ... boring
Wednesday ... ZONE INTERVIEWS. It was kind of fun. Basically the APs , President Jensen , and Sister Jensen come to each zone once every two transfers and conduct interviews with all the missionaries. Or President Jensen does , I mean. So while he's interviewing everyone the Zone Leaders and APs give workshops and Sister Jensen and then President Jensen give brief messages. It's just always way fun to be with the zone and then talking to President Jensen is a lot of fun. He's way funny. So that was wednesday. It's in Rosales , so it takes an hour to get there and an hour to get back. After which we got back and then worked.
Oh , food. We get fed by members about 3 - 5 times a week. It's way nice of them and keeps the pesos in the pocket. Actually this area is crazy cheap. I can get by with very little money because of no pamasahe. Which means basically money for transportation. We walk everywhere so I'm getting a little exercise and saving money. Um , usually for breakfast every morning I eat Energen (which is like an instant breakfast thing you add to hot water) and wheat bread and a mango. Or oatmeal. Lunch we sometimes get fed or just cook rice with some random ulam. Dinner is sometimes noodles or just bread. But every time we get fed it's , obviously , always rice with some random ulam. Again ulam is just anything on top of rice , and sometimes it's a vegetable ulam , mostly has chicken , so sometimes adobo chicken or lechon manok (roasted chicken) , yeah. It's all pretty good , and it doesn't weird me out anymore. My consumption of soda needs to decrease , but I hate carrying a water bottle around and no tindahan (err little shops on the side of the roads) carry filtered water.... so I have to drink like 3 or 4 liters of water before we leave the apartment to minimize the dehydration and head aches.
Thursday ... went on exchanges to Tayug , and it was fun. Worked with a filipino in my batch so we're both pretty green , so that was a pretty cool experience.
Friday ... Nothing much , pretty average
Saturday ... CONFERENCE AND PRIESTHOOD SESSION. I've pretty much been looking forward to this point since I stepped into the MTC and learned how awesome listening to speakers are. Priesthood session was way way good and so was conference on Saturday. So many good talks , but my favorites were on Sunday. After the afternoon session we got back to the area around 4 and worked the rest of the day. Oh and we had to wake up at 5am to get to rosales on time , by the way. Sunday woke up at 6 and got there around 830 , morning session started at 9. Morning session ws really good , but the afternoon was so so so good. Elder Scott's and Elder Holland's talks blew me away. So so good. Haha oh man , just listening to Elder Scott was so much fun , talking about his wife and stuff and just all these little memories from the past. And the unwavering confidence he has in the covenants is so awesome. I mean there were pretty much two themes for the whole conference ... get married and do service. And like every speaker who spoke about marriage just said why we need to , but Elder Scott just sold it. Just sharing memories of his marriage and kids and stuff , it was my favorite talk. Then of course there was Elder Holland's closing address that was as powerful as ever. It's so crazy how unique each apostle is and how different their personalities area , and Elder Holland is so clearly just the most bold and most spiritual (in my opinion). But him speaking about President Monson being only 36!!!! when called into the apostleship and everything else. He's just such an amazing speaker and I want that power in my teachings , ha. It's so hard to carry enthusiasm like that when you have to translate everything you want to say. I keep thinking that if I could just teach in english for one day I'd have this area translated faster than Enoch , but that could just be my perfect pride. No but seriously , his talk really was so good.
General Conference has easily been the highlight of this transfer. So so so many notes , aha , and my head was killing from writing in pitch black. But some how they're legible and don't go over the lines toooo much. It's funny how much better everything is on a mission. Reading the scriptures is better , listening to conference is better , praying is better ... haha. It's like we have two years of straightened priorities that we really want to continue in our lives back home , but we live in too imperfect of a place to keep that same state of mind. We'll see in 19 months , eh. Weeeiirrrddd it's almost been 6 months. That phone call home comes pretty soon. Mom - I really wouldn't worry about adding that plan - but if you want to , go for it. We'll be getting cell phones this next week , I think , so that's where the call will come from. How in the world is this call already here ... I feel like I literally just spoke to you at the airport. I mean it was only like 3 - 4 months ago , so really quick. Crazy.
Things are going well in the area , it's really hard and we only got like 20 lessons this week , but that's alright. Tagalog is escalating always , which is always a motivating factor. the Lord is definitely merciful to me , ha , because I know I am nootttt good at languages. 5 years straight of spanish got me no where. Then again I was lazy too.
By the way mom and pop ... have you read about the dead sea scrolls yet? Doubt you have. Do it.... now. ALSO! I have a request. Please email me a good picture of the old USA Soccer Jerseys for the 2006 world cup. The white ones with thin red lines. There's jersey makers here and I'm about to start making some - so please please please send that next week through email.
Love you all and I think that's all for this week!
So how's everyone? How's the house coming? There's got to be some technique these novice brokers haven't tried. I'm about to start listing the house here. Speaking of which , a mansion here costs about 20 thousand dollars. Just something to consider ... and they are quite nice. How's Japan doing and Australia and all that jazz ... God's starting to turn up the noise so to speak , eh. Speaking of which .. conference. Awesome. But I'll get to that later.
Let's talk about my week.
Monday ... P-day ... boring
Tuesday ... district meeting ... boring
Wednesday ... ZONE INTERVIEWS. It was kind of fun. Basically the APs , President Jensen , and Sister Jensen come to each zone once every two transfers and conduct interviews with all the missionaries. Or President Jensen does , I mean. So while he's interviewing everyone the Zone Leaders and APs give workshops and Sister Jensen and then President Jensen give brief messages. It's just always way fun to be with the zone and then talking to President Jensen is a lot of fun. He's way funny. So that was wednesday. It's in Rosales , so it takes an hour to get there and an hour to get back. After which we got back and then worked.
Oh , food. We get fed by members about 3 - 5 times a week. It's way nice of them and keeps the pesos in the pocket. Actually this area is crazy cheap. I can get by with very little money because of no pamasahe. Which means basically money for transportation. We walk everywhere so I'm getting a little exercise and saving money. Um , usually for breakfast every morning I eat Energen (which is like an instant breakfast thing you add to hot water) and wheat bread and a mango. Or oatmeal. Lunch we sometimes get fed or just cook rice with some random ulam. Dinner is sometimes noodles or just bread. But every time we get fed it's , obviously , always rice with some random ulam. Again ulam is just anything on top of rice , and sometimes it's a vegetable ulam , mostly has chicken , so sometimes adobo chicken or lechon manok (roasted chicken) , yeah. It's all pretty good , and it doesn't weird me out anymore. My consumption of soda needs to decrease , but I hate carrying a water bottle around and no tindahan (err little shops on the side of the roads) carry filtered water.... so I have to drink like 3 or 4 liters of water before we leave the apartment to minimize the dehydration and head aches.
Thursday ... went on exchanges to Tayug , and it was fun. Worked with a filipino in my batch so we're both pretty green , so that was a pretty cool experience.
Friday ... Nothing much , pretty average
Saturday ... CONFERENCE AND PRIESTHOOD SESSION. I've pretty much been looking forward to this point since I stepped into the MTC and learned how awesome listening to speakers are. Priesthood session was way way good and so was conference on Saturday. So many good talks , but my favorites were on Sunday. After the afternoon session we got back to the area around 4 and worked the rest of the day. Oh and we had to wake up at 5am to get to rosales on time , by the way. Sunday woke up at 6 and got there around 830 , morning session started at 9. Morning session ws really good , but the afternoon was so so so good. Elder Scott's and Elder Holland's talks blew me away. So so good. Haha oh man , just listening to Elder Scott was so much fun , talking about his wife and stuff and just all these little memories from the past. And the unwavering confidence he has in the covenants is so awesome. I mean there were pretty much two themes for the whole conference ... get married and do service. And like every speaker who spoke about marriage just said why we need to , but Elder Scott just sold it. Just sharing memories of his marriage and kids and stuff , it was my favorite talk. Then of course there was Elder Holland's closing address that was as powerful as ever. It's so crazy how unique each apostle is and how different their personalities area , and Elder Holland is so clearly just the most bold and most spiritual (in my opinion). But him speaking about President Monson being only 36!!!! when called into the apostleship and everything else. He's just such an amazing speaker and I want that power in my teachings , ha. It's so hard to carry enthusiasm like that when you have to translate everything you want to say. I keep thinking that if I could just teach in english for one day I'd have this area translated faster than Enoch , but that could just be my perfect pride. No but seriously , his talk really was so good.
General Conference has easily been the highlight of this transfer. So so so many notes , aha , and my head was killing from writing in pitch black. But some how they're legible and don't go over the lines toooo much. It's funny how much better everything is on a mission. Reading the scriptures is better , listening to conference is better , praying is better ... haha. It's like we have two years of straightened priorities that we really want to continue in our lives back home , but we live in too imperfect of a place to keep that same state of mind. We'll see in 19 months , eh. Weeeiirrrddd it's almost been 6 months. That phone call home comes pretty soon. Mom - I really wouldn't worry about adding that plan - but if you want to , go for it. We'll be getting cell phones this next week , I think , so that's where the call will come from. How in the world is this call already here ... I feel like I literally just spoke to you at the airport. I mean it was only like 3 - 4 months ago , so really quick. Crazy.
Things are going well in the area , it's really hard and we only got like 20 lessons this week , but that's alright. Tagalog is escalating always , which is always a motivating factor. the Lord is definitely merciful to me , ha , because I know I am nootttt good at languages. 5 years straight of spanish got me no where. Then again I was lazy too.
By the way mom and pop ... have you read about the dead sea scrolls yet? Doubt you have. Do it.... now. ALSO! I have a request. Please email me a good picture of the old USA Soccer Jerseys for the 2006 world cup. The white ones with thin red lines. There's jersey makers here and I'm about to start making some - so please please please send that next week through email.
Love you all and I think that's all for this week!
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Email...EMAIL!!!
Goooood Morning family. I think it's almost10PM for you on the East Coast , which means 8PMish for Andrea and Callie and Grant. .. I think. I'm not the best with time. So yeah , we don't watch General Conference at the normal time because of the time zone differences , so when it's airing there it's like something AM here. So we just watch it one week later. And we go to our stake center to watch it ... which will probably be packed like crazy with all the members plus all the missionaries from the zone. I'm way way stoked though. Ha , speakers and stuff are so so much better on a mission. I remember sitting at the Doying's last October and watching but ... not really watching ... haha. Oh man , now I take notes and stuff. Crazy the change. Also Liahona's and Ensign's are way awesome now , haha. Every morning I eat my Energen (it's like an instant breakfast thing that costs 5 pesos and is awesome) and read a Liahona or Ensign. Man I'm weird now , jokkesss.
Today we're just in our area , because it's like a 45 minute bus ride + 40 pesos to get to the SM (yes shopping mall , not sister missionary.....andrea...) and our area really does have everything we need , so we'll just stay here every other week. We woke up this morning to go play basketball at 5AM with people from the branch... no one was there... haha so we came back and I just read for a long time. I GOT YOUR PACKAGE MOMMA , thanks for it. After about 4 days of reading in mah spare time I'm about halfway through the first book. Plus I'm reading the book of mormon over again and so I'm about at the same spot that I'm at in the books , so it's way cool to read his insights and then to have your own. Some of his stuff I think he's looking too far into , but others I'm blown away by some of the insights. Stuff about George Washington and that little note about Nephi breaking the bow and stuff , stuff like that is way cool to me. Oh yeah , finished the book of mormon a few weeks ago - forgot to mention that. It's actually the first time I've read it on my own outside of seminary or college , so I was pretty happy , haha. I started on October 25 , and it took me a little longer than I was hoping. But when all I have is one hour a day , and I usually only get about 2 or 3 chapters at most read because of all the highlighting and notes and stuff ... I was pretty stoked to finish. But I love love love this book and oh man it makes me way happy to get to talk about it everyday and bear testimony about it and everything. Insights I've received while reading have been crazy and it all adds to my testimony of it's truthfullness. How anyone can doubt that it's not a true book is kind of beyond me.. but everyone has their own theories. But to imagine that a 14 - 22 year old kid wrote a book like that ... yeah. But please tell President Checketts that I'm doing as he asked and I'm starting over now reading it twice at once. I think I want to have read it 5 times by the time I come home , but I've also got the rest of the standard works plus a lot of other stuff to cover as well , so we're going to see what happens. But really , some of the best parts of my day is when I get to just read for an hour in the morning and then whatever time I have at night before going to bed. And then during the day getting to bear testimony in Tagalog about it is just more fun than you can imagine. You just need to experience this kind of life to really understand it. But I love it , ha!
Anyways!! So we're here in an internet cafe here in San Quintin.. so I don't really trust it.. probably riddled with viruses.. so I'm sorry but you'll have to wait another week for pictures. My area is San Quintin , Rosales Stakes , Pangasinan , Philippines. That's probably as exact of an address as I can get. It's a pretty awesome area , but I do miss the middle of nowhereness that Malimpec was. But there's no ward here (yet) just a branch , and they're all way way nice. The church building actually is under construction right now and they started about 2 months ago and say it'll be finished in July. Dad... construction here would confuse you more than it does me , ahaha , but it gets done and it looks good. I heard from a member actually that the Urdaneta temple should be started in January and that it'll be more than double the size of the Manila temple , so people here are so excited for it. And I would love to come back for the dedication , but we'll see my money situation in 3 or 4 years , ha. By the way - did you hear Grandpa's name during General Conference for the authorities and others that have passed away this year? I found an ensign the other day with his picture in it and it brought back a lot of memories , ha. But I'm excited for that or to read it in the next Ensign or Liahona. It'll be really weird.. actually... anyways. Oh , doesn't TK come home around the same time I do? I thought his time over there was 2 1/2 years , is that right or wrong? If so , that'll be way cool hearing his stories from Africa. That's such a different experience than mine , but I'm sure he's going to be an entirely different person. Maybe not entirely , but different.
My minds a little scattered this morning , sorry. So yeah - it's a branch here , but once the church is built the work is going to go straight up. That's the thing here , people look for authenticity in the wrong places most of the time. For instance , it's really hard to get investigators to come to church because we just have a meeting house below a welding shop. And so because of that (I mean , I can honestly understand , it's hard to take someone serious when they're meeting below a garage (not literally , actually , it's more behind) ) they go to the huge Iglesia ni Cristo churches , or just say they're catholic and not do anything. That's another thing that's funny here , theres a lot of active church goers here... but if you're not religious you just say you're catholic. That's pretty much code word for it's not important to me , so I'm not a Jehoava's Witness or Iglesia or Born Again or anything , but I need to say I believe in something. By the way andrea Iglesia is spanish , ni is Tagalog and Cristo is spanish too. Simbahan is church in Tagalog , but yeah it just means the Church of Christ. Rumor has it , it was started by a member here that wanted to be a Q of 12 but was really proud and so left the church and started his own church. They also announce during their mass or sacrament meeting or whatever it is who pays their tithing and who doesn't , so that's how they get funds really quickly. (that's actually a practice I advise the church to pick up.. it's quite effective)
So yeah , back to my thought. The work is hard here until we get the church built , but after that this area will be golden. Too bad I'll most likely be transferred one day after it's completed. The normal time for almost every elder in this area has been three transfers. But the people here area really sweet , and some are really really funny. There's actually a woman here whose daughter lives in America with a former missionary in this area. This was his first area ... and last , aha. He came here , fell in love with the daughter , she went to study in Manila , he ran away and found her , got sent home , came back for her. But apparently their lives are way happy and they live now in Mesa Arizona , haha. But I really like the people here , and the area has a good palengke or market and a small grocery store that has what we need. Also it's not a city , which I love , but not super bukid na bukid (like.. lots of farms and middle of nowhereniss) .. so I do miss that. I think I'm gaining weight , but I could be losing it. I think the ab roller though is starting to work , haha , but my Don White inherited love handles are shining through proudly.
This week there hasn't really been any profound moments of work , unfortunately. One lesson maybe - there's a family here that's been investigators for a long time. It's a mother , father , and like 6 daughters. Ha... it's really uncomfortable when they ask if you have a girlfriend (haha so Junie I say yes) but anyways it's really hard to teach them because the daughters all want to be baptized but the parents won't allow it because there's a conflict with another church. [What happens often here is a baptist or methodist or born again or something church will sponsor a kid or family to go to school , but in return their family must attend their church]. And so if they get baptized the money flow gets cut off. So basically Elder Salde was like I'll let you teach , because I asked him to let me take the reigns because I wanted to see if I could get them to understand how important it was. So basically he threw me the lesson right away and I taught about the atonement and then baptism and why it's all important. And during the lesson I could feel the spirit guiding me a lot because thoughts came way clear and scriptures and stuff all just were so readily available in my head , so I was so grateful for that. So during the lesson I had them read a number of verses in Alma 7 and 2nd Nephi 31 and then basically tried to teach like Amulek , haha. He's an awesome example of a teacher because he just asks asks asks and gets them to realize their own testimony. So in the end we discovered that Sister Hermosora (oh btw , sister and brother is everyone here.. not just members... that'll be a really hard habit to break when i get home) had a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon , but still doesn't want to be baptized. So , everyone has their agency , and hopefully one day she'll understand the importance really. But we did really all we could for her and now we'll just have to support them and keep inviting them.
That was really the only moment of lessons that stood out this week. We're still getting used to eachother's teaching styles , me and E. Salde , so the lessons are still a bit off in my perspective. But it's good , the work is progressing , and the area really is awesome. And General Conference is this Saturdy and Sunday and so I'm so excited for that. Daaaaang this letter is long. You guys are lucky.
Mom - I'll let you know next week if I have a cell phone or not , I think I will , but go ahead and add that plan if yo uwant ... but I still think it'll be cheaper here. But 5$ is already pretty cheap , so go for it. But I'll let you know next week.
You didn't really answer my question about world news and stuff , haha. Nothing in the Middle East? Or Economy? Or anything? That's awesome that Callie and Grant have a job now. I'm sure it won't be a long long time for them in SLC , and Utah is better than Texas ( haha ) . That's awesome that Brandon wants to have a show as well! Tell him I plan on spending a long time at his apartment when I'm back - so have my room ready , please.
I think that's all for this week , gotta write the Mission President now. That was a crazy long letter. Love you all!
-ElderWhite
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