Weak - Lee - Up ... date? X

Sorry ... no pictures yet. Next week I will. But I'm in my area today
and these computers are faaarrr too slow to handle that kind of burden
, not to mention possibly riddled with viruses. So I'd rather not. I
would have sent pictures a long time ago , but I thought my memory
card had a virus on it .. or my camera .. because when I tried to
print pictures the file wouldn't open. But I figured it out finally ,
and alls well in zion. Things continue to go well with the comp! He
does a lot of things that gross me out , ha , but I'm sure I do them
too and it's been a great week 1/2 so far. Not to mention , yes , he's
very good at cooking. So I'll be coming home with a lot of Pilipino
dishes to cook. Mostly adobo (which is my favorite) but sinigang and
others. Pigar Pigar is waay good and pretty easy to cook. Inside the
house it takes him a little while to get to things on time like
studies and waking up and stuff , but outside the house he's way
masipag , which is hard working. Which is awwessomeee. No 45 minute
random member stops ... no asking to go home at 7:30 ... I'm loving
it. Not to mention... I'm senior in the area so it's very nice , haha.
Actually , one thing I discovered while looking on the transfer sheet
is that out of my whole batch I'm the only senior among us. That
sounds crazy prideful , ahaha , but I'm more confused really. Elder
Su'A and Soderquist and Solesbee and Tolman are way way good
missionaries , so I'm sure they'll be called to train or something
next transfer. Anyways , this week has been pretty good but
challenging. It's rained everyday (until sunday afternoon) from last
Sunday. So when it rains... every part of missionary work is
challenged. Mostly talking to people and giving out Books of Mormon.
Most everyone ducks inside at the first sign of rain and will not come
out because rain leads to a long series of diseases (they mostly
exaggerate or fake) ha.. but it's okay. Monday and Tuesday were
regular days of missionary work , and then Wednesday we had district
meeting. Ha , it was here that our district leader informed us that we
had Zone Interviews with President Jensen the next day... ha no
advancement. So when we got back we went about our regular missionary
work and ended up at Nanay Mendoza's at 8 for dinner as usual on
Wednesdays. Nanay in tagalog means like mom , and is more or less a
name that most older women want to be called. It's not really a sign
of respect , but everyone wants to be a nanay ... just apart of the
culture. So Nanay Mendoza is this 76 year old woman whose way way
funny. So makulit... which is hard to translate but kind of means like
silly and jokes alot. So it's always fun to share a spiritual thought
with her and get fed. Though for some reason her house attracts more
bugs than I would like. Thursday was a good day. We wake up at 6 , and
head to the buses. Get to Rosales about 830 and President Jensen shows
up with the APs about 10 minutes later , so we start the interviews.
Interviews happen once every two transfer , so once every 2 - 3 months
and President Jensen just has a short interview with every missionary
, divided by zones of course , to see how they're doing and how he can
help and stuff. My past two interviews were okay , but this one was a
lot better for some reason , ha. As usual , the missionaries give the
opening prayer to start the interview , and after about halfway
through the prayer I couldn't think anymore in english and finished
the prayer in Tagalog and was like sorry sorry haha I forgot how to
say that in english , and he was like no no don't worry .. I like
that. Haha. That was the first time I'd prayed in English .. since my
last interview 3'ish months ago. So I forgot how to say certain
things. Anyways , during the interview he asked how I was doing and
stuff and so I just told him how much I am seriously loving everything
and told him about a few of our investigators and stuff and then he
just gave me advice for one of them and opened up and shared a few of
his thoughts from scriptures from D&C 132 ... and I donno why but it
was just a really spiritual few minutes. I came out feeling really
really good , and times like that are just so important for
missionaries , at least for me. You get really recharged after being
so discouraged or anything from working day in day out in the field
and seeing almost no fruit from your labors. But getting to talk to
him (in english) for a few minutes and just talk about my days and
stuff felt really good. Anyways the rest of the day was good , and it
turns out my companion had talked to someone on the bus and gave her
his triple combination and set up a return appointment with her
because she lives in out area. So , I was thinking too too highly of
it ... maybe doubting a bit ... but we went to contact her anyways on
Saturday. Turns out she had left and wasn't there , so my thoughts
turned even more less supportive , haha , but we set up to come back
on Sunday. So yesterday after church we return and turns out she's
there with her two kids so we come in and share. With us was the 1st
counselor of the branch presidency and elders quorum president , and
so we got to know her a bit ... and she turns out to be possibly very
very elect. She had recently gotten a marriage annulled with her
husband , because of certain reasons , and that's amazing.... I mean
it's awful for that , but here in the Pilipinas divorce is not legal.
So anullments are the only way out , and that is expensivev and very
hard. But they did it , which means possible for baptism! She was also
very sweet and very receptive. So we have high hopes for her. We're in
a process of finding finding finding. We have so many investigators
here , but no one wants to come to church and they cannot progress
unless they do so. So we're trying to find new investigators close to
church and we've been so blessed this week from the Lord's help. In
one situation we go to contact a referral , but he wasn't there ... so
instead we get a referral from a relative for a person across the
street who was probably even more receptive and welcoming. So little
things like that have really blessed us this week. Not to mention ,
the rain has hurt the work a lot , but we still broke through it with
a lot of lesson and a lot of good finding. Today we're just in our
area , and we've got to go shop for groceries and then pay the
electricity bill. Bills here are so expensive ... I've got a lot of
hope for this coming week and so we'll see what it lays in store for
us. Nothing unusual happens anymore , haha I'm sorry. And it's hard
for me to collect all my thoughts here on this computer because I can
only see a small box of what I'm writing at a time .. but here are
some of my thoughts from this week that I wrote down to remember. 1.
Mom ... I've noticed that many times are thoughts are weirdly
alligned. Example: You wrote me an email randomly about Elder Merril
my second transfer and earlier that day I met the girl in Dagupan that
knew Mitch. 2. Please send any kind of small missionary books to me!!
I really really love reading. And small missionary books are so rare
and awesome here haha. Like ... NOT A book such as "what I wish I did
on my mission" or something like that but more like tips and stuff on
other religions and other things about the bible and stuff liek that.
There's so many books , I would love that. 3. I forgot to mention a
couple weeks ago , that as me and Elder Salde were walking to a house
Elder Salde randomly jumps back and is like "ELDER! BINABATO!" and I
was like what... what does that mean , and then I saw a rock land like
2 feet in front of me and realized he was saying like bato... which
means rock ... which means someone is throwing rocks at us. And so we
like run back as this crazy woman is picking up rock after rock and
hurling them at us ahhaaha. So finally we wait and then sprint past
her as she barily misses us. She was old and crazy but had really good
aim. Hahaha , so that was a really funny thing thta happened his last
week here! Okay , that's all for this week! I'm excited for my package
momma!! And mom email sister jensen if you're curious about the
package situation , she's incredibly nice. Actually her and president
jensen look (kind of a lot) and their personalities are so much like
yours and dads. It's really weird to have my parents be serving the
same mission as me. But I'm sure they'll be collecting so many letters
and packages from the baguio address even after they move the mission
home. PLEASE GET GARRETTS ADDRESS SOON!!! IT TAKES FOREVER FOR A
LETTER TO GET TO AMERICA AND I WANT TO SEND HIM ONE WHILE HE'S IN THE
MTC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also Arber's last name is Raci and lives on Deer
Lane in wilton , I just don't know his number. THANK YOU LVOE YOU
ALL!!!

I suppose the proper thing is to talk about my week.

But I really find it so boring to do so , ha. I live it ... I'd rather hear about what's going on at home and talk about that. How's everyone doing ? What's everyone up to? Andrea just sent me a couple pictures of you guys FaceTiming .. that was pretty funny to see. Dad - still large! But that's alright ... I'm continually getting fat again , too. It's near impossible for me to lose weight here. Nothing nothing here is good for you , ha. And if it is , it costs a lot of money. Except for the vegetables... which are obviously very good. As I said before , I still have no idea what's going on in the lives of half of our family .. haha .. but I'm curious to know. Oh - also please thank Grandma for me for the letter she sent. I always love getting letters , and I will write one back as soon as I have enough money to pay for it.... I'm yet again very very low on funds , and I do not want to withdraw from personal because that's not money for me- so I'm trying my best to budget. I was doing fine until my old companion transferred , and would only leave me 300pesos for a 1200pesos bill... so I got stuck with 75% of it. So that destroyed most of my funds.. not to mention a water bill we had to REpay... I could've sworn we had already payed it. So yeah. I might use the card today to pay for a couple groceries , if that's okay , but I don't want to withdraw. It's a 5 dollar transaction fee just to withdraw. And yeah , even though you guys pay the whatever every month , it doesn't affect the support they give us. We get 3800pesos every 15th and first of the month.. and it's a very very bad system. Because often those days fall outside of our P-Day. And when that happens , we have no money until the following Pday. So with the system we will be going about an average of 16 - 19 days on 3800 pesos... that's almost impossible. Especially in my area , where everything is so stupid expensive. But we'll see what happens!!

Okay , before I forget .. HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! I think it's still fathers day there. And being so , I have no doubt there's a very large CostCo chocolate cake on the counter next to ice cream and possibly some outback. Please tell me if my prophecy is incorrect. But yeah , I'll address Dad later in the letter - ha.

Sooo this past week. I'll just talk about the non-boring parts I suppose. Wednesday was finally Transfer Awareness. Which this is a special District Meeting week 6 on every transfer. Week 6 is the last week of the transfer , and on this wednesday we find out who is being transferred. It was pretty obvious who was being transferred and stuff , but there's always some surprises. So we met in Rosales as a zone , and is was always way fun to see the whole zone ... and americans in general. Elder Podzikowsky had already gone home at this point , so it was just our other zone leader , Elder Clyde ... whose from Texas ... and doesn't have much of a personality , haha. Anyways - the district meeting was good and then it came to transfers. And as was expected , Elder Salde (companion ko) transferred. Along with a bunch of others .. but the unexpected was Elder Evert and his companion both transferred. Remember , Elder Evert was my MTC companion. And so ... it turns out that they haven't been doing very much in their area , ha. I asked him what their normal day is and he's like they leave at 2 , walk around , and return at 6. Are you kidding? ahaha , geeze. So in a week they teach maybe 4 or 5 lessons he says ... and so President Jensen wasn't very happy with their performance. So their area got "whitewashed" which means two elders leave two brand new elders come in. So after that district meeting we came here to the SM to eat and stuff and Elder Salde was instaanttlllyyy in the trunky mode that comes after learning you're being transferred. Because probably the only motivation for trunky elders is the fact that President Jensen and leaders will see their states and see what they did that week ... and when you're transferred the stats from that week aren't yours because you're transferred into a new area and take their stats for that week. So ... of course ... Elder Salde wanted to do as little work as possible , ha. When we finally made it back from Rosales we tried to get in as many appointments as possible , while at the same time he insisted on going to every member's house to tell them and take pictures with them. That was basically the pattern for Thursday as well.
Finally , Friday came. And the jeep with all the elders transferring showed up outside the house around 615AM and so Elder Salde ran around to get all of his stuff and stuff and then it came to him leaving money for the electricity bill ... and he would only leave 300 pesos. He refused to leave a dime more , despite the bill being 1200pesos , and he left no money as well for gas or for water. So.. this means I am most likely stuff with a very heavy bill coming for gas and water as well that my new companion is not justifiably responsible for ... Elder Salde is. Whatever. So he left , along with about half of our zone , and an Elder Marcelo came to work with me in my area for the day. Wow ... that was a loottt of fun , haha. He's only one transfer into the mission so I got to be his senior for the day and that is so so so much better than junior , hahaha. Anyways I spent the morning cleaning the apartment and stuff and then we went out and worked. And finally being able to direct the work ... we got a lot more done , ha. So after a few hours my new companion shows up... and ittttsss Elder Laodeno! Ha! The only reason it was incredibly surprising is because his last area was in the same zone ... that's a very rare thing to happen. For someone to transfer only within the zone. He goes home in October , so this will probably be his last area. But we're co-seniors and he's an awesome companion. We went to the palengke on Saturday and bought a bunch of veggies and rice and stuff , and so all I do is cook the rice and he cooks the ulam ... it's way way good haha. He's awesome at cooking. At usually elders that are going home soon get trunky ... but so far he's still pushing hard. No sign of slowing down soon , which is awesome. Also the branch likes him a lot ... which is a huuuge step up from my old companion haha. So this transfer is looking bright.

But , there might be a chance that he transfers or I transfer before the transfer is over. Like week 2 or 3. Sometimes that happens , and it's very rare for a elder to transfer within a zone here ... especially as his last area. So there might be a chance that happens , if so I would be sad haha. He's the best companion I've had so far and his cooking is very good. Also , it's very nice to be senior of an area. Even though we're just coseniors , he's still new to the area so I get to lead around and direct the day mostly. It's so much better than being told what we're going to do , even if it's wrong ha , and having to follow.

Anywayssss that's really all my news for today. We had a pretty good lesson last night with a pretty new family we're teaching. We taught about the atonement and even though they're not super duper stoked excited about our teachings I could still feel the spirit reeaalllyy strong. And we had a couple others from the branch teaching with us , so it just added to it. All in all , it's been a really good few days and hopefully that will continue as well. They also tell me that Elder Salde is now in my last area of Malimpec ... ahaha.

Okay- well .. wait! Quick ... did they seriously make a movie out of Mr. Popper's Penguins? How is it? Why is it Jim Carey? Is it Jim Carey? Also how did the Green Lantern do and other movies. Okay.

Okay , well I'll take the rest of this time to dedicate it to Father's Day! I'm not sure when I'll be able to get a letter out , because I really have no money for postage... it's 55 pesos to send a letter and I have about 200 pesos for the next two weeks'ish. So I'll have to write here , first. So.. Dad! Happy Father's Day! I'm sure you guys had an awesome day in Wilton and hopefully at church celebrating. I have to say , that being away from the family and teaching about family and testifying about family and missing my family helps strengthen my love and gratefulness for my family , ha. And Dad I'm very very very grateful for all that you've done for our family throughout the years. I still don't have any idea what it's like to be a father at such a young age and raise a family such as ours , but it can't be the easiest task in the world. And because of that I'm very grateful I was born into our family of you and Mom. You guys have done everything for me over the years and I can't believe how easy my life really has been. I'm proud to be a White , dad , and hopefully inherit some of the good characteristics that come from being your son ... not just a sweet tooth. ha. But thanks again Dad for everything you've done for us ... for the hours you work every day to support us and help come as close to a perfect life as possible. Thank you for the testimony as well that you and Mom have shared with me over the years , that whether I knew it or not , subconsciously added to a testimony I now have of a truth that has become my life. I thank you for everything you've done and will continue to do.

That's my letter for this week! I love you all and hope to be receiving a flood of letters and emails soon!!

Also please tell Caitlin , June , and Alex all thank you for their emails!! Also if I could still get Garrett's MTC address , the Taylor's address , and Arber's address .. that'd be awesome. THANKS YOU!

Weekly Update

Still in the Philippines!

Thought you'd be glad to know. Also it was an okay week. Why do I have no emails though? I got one from Andrea dated last week that was just asking me if I was there ... then another starting from Andrea about something she wanted for Christmas... this is no good. You all have 7 days to write one email to me. Bitter gitter done.

I suppose I'll talk about my week... I think that's mainly the point of me emailing. BUT! before that. I will say the things I wrote down this week to not forget.

1. Mom... those addresses... still need them. Especially Garrett's MTC address and the Taylor's address. Also news on Trevor Taylor if they have any... where he's at.. how he's doing... news of that sort.

2. My question was never answered if it's possible to get an original style book of mormon... like how they printed them originally. OBVIOUSLY not an original copy , but just the same style. I'm wondering if anyone still prints them in that style for people like me that want one.

3. Borocay ... they tell me that's the nicest resort in the Philippines. It's located in the Aklan Region of the Philippines , I think , on the island Panay or something like that. The same island that Ilo-Ilo is on. So (probably Andrea) please do me a favor and just look up rates and stuff and what that place costs. Pilipinos don't really know.... I'm just very curious how much something like that would cost and how far within Brandon's price range that is. We all know he can afford it.

4. If it's at all possible , please obtain some kind of small magic things to enhance my awesome abilities of entertaining kids out here. Something like a trick coin or something small like that ... I continually have to get creative... and I'm not a creative person. Once again , though , I'll tell you how effective it is to win over parents through their kids.

5. Mom - did you get / deliver my letters to Garrett and the market? I have no proof whether or not they got them , so that either means they're still at the house (I'll go ahead and say I trust they got delivered) or there's no love coming to me!

6. Did June get any of my letters? Haven't really heard from her in a long time , so I don't know if she got any of my letters I sent home to her house.

7. Momma - again before you send off that package , if anyone can get some cool little mormon or missionary books that are fun to read and have good tips / I don't know. But .. I mean ... I'm trapped. Ha. I would just love anything from the outside world pertaining to the church or the mission. So any little books or stuff for missionaries would be splendid. Talk to Aunt Debbie , she sent me an awesome little book while I was in the MTC.

8. How is everyone? What's everyone doing? Brandon...Trevor...Courtney? Did they die? I wouldn't know!

Okay , I think that's it really. I'll talk about the week while talking to you guys through the other email.

Monday , was Pday... we were in Tayug and I dropped off my Preach My Gospel to get hard bound , finally. I think that's something unique that only Philippines Missionaries do ... I've never seen it anywhere else. Anyways. The covers had completely come off , so it'll be good to finally get it bound. It cost 300 Pesos though... I thought it was going to be 70. I literally have had no money this week. I've had so many costs that have destroyed my money. So I'm trying to (word? I forget... like scratch together?) some pesos to pay for this internet and then money for bus on wednesday to get to Rosales for District Meeting. We get support on Wednesday... they say. I hate hate hate the money system they have now. It's ridiculous. I have no food in the house , and no money , and I can't buy groceries until next Pday which is monday. I don't know why they can't just set it up so we get it every other monday like we used to do... the guy in charge here in the mission is quite lazy in my opinion. It's so dumb. So yeah.

Alright ... just got a big surge of emails. That is neat.

So anyways , last Monday. After we got home we went to go teach a lesson ... but got punted till later , so went and contacted a referral. Ha... awkward. First off the referral is a friend of a 15 year old investigator of ours. So when at 7 o clock at night two marriageable - aged guys stand in front of a house asking for a 15 year old girl (who ended having a slight... mental... disability) in a nation that is quite used to serranading (sp?) ... it raised a few eyebrows. But it ended up being okay , she had a lot of family there and they ended up being somewhat interested as we shared a bit about the plan of salvation. Tuesday- district meeting in rosales. That was way fun , got to be with the whole zone for once (the occassions are now pretty rare) and so hanging out with other americans is allwwayyss a treat. It was also the last time I would see Elder Podz here in the mission , so that was sad to say goodbye. But afterwards we ate macdo then headed home. Also ... did I tell you guys we're not giving Books of Mormon of 10 pesos each not free? I don't remember if I've said that yet. I reeaalllyy hated it at first , the idea. But after hearing President Jensen talk about it for a while I realized it's a great great way to sift out whose actually interested , and to just peak an interest in them. He quoted someone saying if you're rich or something , never give anything away for free. People will either demean what you've given or take advantage of you ... and it's kind of true. We're giving away a book that costs a loott more to make , and when we give it away for free they're usually just like oh thanks ... and put it aside. But now it's like they're investing in something. I like it now.

Anyways after that it really was a regular week of lessons and stuff ... they're really not exciting. I wish they were. But on Thursday I got to go on splits in San Nicolos , which is an area that was just reopened finally after 8 or 9 years. It waasss awweeesssommmeeee. First I was finally with a companion that likes his mission (not kidding) second we just talked to everyone and it was so much more fun. That's what I was hoping a mission was and not just going from lesson to lesson like my companion likes doing. For being a pilipino ... he hates talking to other pilipinos. So I do all of the talking and stuff. But we just talked to everyone we could and walked around for about 7 hours. Ended up teaching 4 lessons on the street and giving away (for 10 pesos) 4 Books of Mormon. Oh man , a fresh na fresh area is so awesome. So much potential. So that was way way fun.

So , that's pretty much all that was fun about my week , and Callie says my emails are drone (niiiiceee Elder White. that's a good word) so I'll share an insight I had the other day while reading in Alma. So Alma 36:20 - 21. It's Alma talking to Helaman about his conversion story (he loves talking about it) and mentions how horrible his pains were , and then how awesome his peace was afterwards. So it made me think about two things.

ONE! That repentance is a mirror. It's an exact reflection of how we are before and after. So (this is not doctrine , my opinion lang) however deep a person is in a certain sin , his testimony of that repentance process and his joy afterwards will be equal to his sin before. I do not believe someone can have a deep deep testimony of the repentance process if they have never really walked the path. I take as another example President Kimball. I've read a lot about President K while on my mission and most of the Miracle of Forgiveness. I love this man. Wow , he's so good at chastizing. But in my opinion , he has had some experiences in his life that has deepened substantially his testimony of repentance. And it is only because of his experiences that now he feels so strongly about it.

and TWO! This is Christ's measure of Love for us. I've tried to comprehend many times what he felt for us , especially while in the Garden. How much incredible selflessness it would take to do an act like that. And thinking of this act of repentance kind of helped me see how much he actually loves us. He took upon himself the sins , pains , afflictions (Alma 7:11-12) , and so on of everyoneeee. He felt everything. He knows everyone. And because of this , in my opinion , that is his level of Love. He loves us 180 perfect degrees of the pain he felt. So if we can imagine (we can't) what it would feel like to bear every pain ever experiences throughout eternity (keep in mind this atonement satisfied the demands of justice for all worlds ... so there are more than) ... flip that around ... and that's His Love.

So that's what I got out of those scriptures the other day. Mom , I'm consistently trying to get a letter out to you about some other thoughts I had. My personal study is really the most spiritual time of my day , now. Unfortunately. Maybe that'll change when I become a senior , but I am dying for a companion that actually loves his mission and is not counting down the days till he goes home. I really haven't felt the spirit as strong as I did my first transfer for a while. I donno what needs to change.

Okay. Well on Wednesday we find out transfers ... whether I'll be a senior or not , whether Elder Salde will be transferred. So I'll report next week!

Love you all , you're in my prayers!

-Elder White

Slack a lackin on the emails!

First off - I got your coin tricks Mom , so thank you so much for them. Haha only like 2 or 3 made sense to me and a few were repeated a few times , but it did add to the list of tricks I can show little kids in order to win the favor of their parents , teach , baptize , and get em to the teeemmppllleeeeee. So thank you thank you.

Sounds like you guys have been having a pretty good week - the weather here is pretty much the same all the time , except for the occasional baguio that rolls through ... but even that isn't so bad. Rainy season hasn't really started , yet , so July - October are the heavy rain months. I've noticed a bit that my english hasn't so much as gotten horrible ... but grammar doesn't make sense to me anymore. So if I am adding far too many commas , well.. I'm sorry. First round of classes when I get back will be interesting. Hmm what else. Maybe I'll just talk about my week.

Sooo it was good , haha. There should be aircon in here but there's not ... this is a bummer. We're in Tayug right now - kind of close to our area - and in a mall..ish place. It's not a mall by any standards but has like 4 stores in it , so they call it a mall. And the internet shop we're in is pretty nice , so should have aircon ... but wala. I'm kinda sleepy , too .. donno why. Maybe it's because it's like warm in here. Okay , well I'll talk about my weeek.

Tuesday---- I woke up (my companion wakes up ... says companion prayer ... then goes right back to sleep for 30 or 45 minutes...) ate breakfast , did my little tiny almost nothing work out , then showered and we studied. After that we took off for district meeting (which is held here in Tayug). Get here and the zone leaders had come , so that's always fun to see Elder Podz. His new companion is Elder Clyde whose from Alaska... he's okay. Kind of has no personality. And has the craziest head. Anyways , the district leader and his companion shows up , then the elders from Tayug show up .. and no one has keys to the chapel. So we wait another 30 minutes until they finally track down the keys and we have district meetingggggggggg. super exciting! Anyays , after that we thought we had splits - but that got postponed for a week until tomorrow. It's kind of depressing in that we teach a lot of lessons (the most in the district) every week ... but we get chastized every week because we only have 1 IBD. So they think we're just teaching lessons to get stats ... but we have like 6 investigators progressing that we're not allowed to extend an IBD to ... so... yeah. Anyways Billy left this week for Baguio , so he's about a week away from his baptism. Then these two sisters will be leaving soon , too. Also there's a girl whose living with her "husband" though they're not married ... so she needs to be married before we can extend and IBD to her , too. But her parents live in Ilo Ilo , which is a lot of money away to get them here , which she wants for her wedding. So! Yeah.

Wednesday---- Regular day. Lessons , so forth - ha
Thursday---- Zone Conferenceeee. Finally. These are way fun , because you literally spend every minute of the day that your away from the apartment teaching , in a different language. So when we can finally just sit down in an aircon chapel for a few hours learning in english is so so nice. Also I got to see so many friends from past zones and my batch and stuff. The best was seeing Elder Su'A who was one of my roommates in the MTC. I haven't seen him since the third week in the field , so it's been a long time and talking was so so funny as always. Getting there was crazy though. The Zone Leaders were told it was in Rosales .. so we wake up at 5 to catch a bus ... get to Rosales about 715 ... it gets to 830 and we're like where is all the other zones (our whole zone was there ... we're Rosales Zone) because they told all zones to be sitting down in the chapel at 815. So at 830 Elder Clyde calls President Jensen , and then comes back out of the office and is like oh..kaayy.... it's in Urdaneta. So we sprint as fast as we can out of the church and find a bus after running all over Rosales and get to Urdaneta , haha. Then run to the chapel and were only about 30 minutes late. We got there about 930'ish. So we got to hear some talks , and then about an hour sermon from President Jensen about the Book of Mormon - which was awesome. He's a brilliant brilliant guy , and hearing his thoughts is always so fun. I had heard most of it before , but one thing stuck out to me that was awesome. He was like it took one man 65 days to translate the Book of Mormon ... and it took 50 scholars 70 years to put together the King James Version of the Bible. That should give you some indication of the divinity of Joseph Smith's calling.

So that was pretty awesome to hear from President Jensen , and yeah they took a few pictures. After the conference we had a lunch there , then came home. Once home .. went straight to work.
Friday---- Regular day , and then Family Home Evening at the members house of who just got baptized. Ha , they're my favorite family in this area and way funny to talk to. So of course it was typical Filipino craziness and then really good food.
Saturday---- We had a Recent Convert/Less-Active (Returning Member) Fireside in Rosales in the afternoon. So ... before that. We wake up and do studies and stuff and we get a text at about 11 that says basically ''Hey elders , we're in Rosales for stake meetings , figure out how everyone is getting the fireside later" . That was from the Branch President ... that's how things work here. So I'm like texting everyone I know finding out if they're actually coming or not and trying to find out how much money we're getting from the church budget to pay for a way of getting there .. find out there's only enough money for one tricycle ... which holds 4 people. So I'm texting all the RCLAs to know whether they're coming or not ... and after a couple hours of ridiculousness it all gets settles. But that's seriously how things work .. the Elders take care of 50% of the things here. It's ridiculous. But it all worked out ... with me paying for the other tricycle... so I'm sure that's money that I'll never get reimbursed for. But it was a good meeting in Rosales for all the RCLA.

Sunday---- Regular church , and stuff. And I was fasting to find some new investigators that are interested , because we are lacking so much on finding. And as always , the Lord provides. After church a random man called to us as we were walking on the street and the showed us the book of mormon he'd been reading for the past three years ... ahaha. The problem is he's way old , can't really hear ... so. We'll see. But later on we finally were able to contact a referral of Billy's and they were in the middle of no where bukid (farm) like a solid 25 minute walk to their house ... but there was a mom , the contact (17 yr old boy) and his older brother whose maybe 20 or 21. Anyways they were so sweet and so receptive. Ahhh so awesome. After that we needed to go to Sili (another very far away bukid town) and we're like this is the path right. And they're like oh no , it was... but because of the rain it's impossible to cross here . It's too muddy. So we were like whaaaat , we cannot backtrack all the way to the highway , no time for that. So we proceeded to cross an entire farm field of mud by balancing on the higher mounds of more solid dirt , haha. We had to jump a few times across like rivers of mud and stuff. I was I had taken pictures , but it was getting late and we needed to hurry.

Anyways that was my week! Also I've gotten to the point where I feel comfortable talking to anyone by myself (and this is good because my companion hates OYMing [talking to people on the street] and won't do it ... so now it's me. So we were walking home last night and some teenager kid yells 'Hey Joe!' and starts laughing (as people do every day) but this time I turned right around and beelined straight at them. Ahahaha it was like 3 16 or 17 year olds. The one who yelled hey joe INSTANTLY grabs his cell phone and pretends he has a call and walks straight away , ahaha. But I proceeded to talk to the other two and just told them who we were and stuff ahaha. It was a highlight of the night. People here get so scared when you actually come up to them when they call after you.

Okay well that's all I got for now. Please send me dear elders! I love em. That and emails. Any info about apple and the next batman movie and really any movies and world info I'll take! haha. I'm in a bubble.

Okay , well love you all and talk to you next week!
-Elder White