alright....

Just heard a conversation from two Americans (one was canadian.. but again here that makes no difference) and it was weird. English conversations are kind of dull and uninteresting.

anyways.

How's the family? I'm actually still in the Philippines , so that's good. The weather is gooood.. I'll answer questions first.

1. What is the best thing about Baguio?

- Mm.. not really sure. Rich members. ha.. rich by philippines standards. So we eat well at their houses when we do.

2. What is the hardest thing about Baguio?

- rains every day , people are a bit prouder , freezing mornings , double black diamond roads of cement , ha. But its ok

3. What is different about Baguio?

- Everything. It's the most asian and most american place in the philippines. And there's a ton of white old men running around the mall here... dirty.

4. Are you still having to take cold water bucket showers?

- Ha , no. I'd be hypothermic if that were the case [does that make sense?] we have hot water showers here ... it's awesome. I forgot how good it feels.

5. Do you still have someone doing your laundry?

- Yep ... she's way slow because she takes it back to her place because there's no where to do it at ours. So.. yeah. I run thru clothes fast.

6. Things still good with your companion?

- Yep. Week 4 now and things are still going great.

7. Do you cook any meals at your apartment?

- Almost every meal... ha. Breakfast is oatmeal , lunch is some kind of ulam he cooks , and dinner depends. We just buy veggies really and he cooks it up. I'm too cheap to buy meat.

8. How is your apartment?

- Small , but comfortable. It's tight haha but oka.

9. What is the hardest thing about your day?

- Getting rejected from every lesson and climbing endless amounts of steps and roads without rest .. ha. But mentally it's a bit more tiring when you never get to teach.

10. What is the best thing about your day?

- Teaching. Bearing testimony.

Umm ... it was an okay week , ha.
Started off slow on Monday and Tuesday .. Tuesday we got one lesson in after running around Baguio for hours and hours. The worst is spending money on a taxi that we have to take in order to get to one part of our area ... and the people aren't even there. So we waste like a good chunk of our support for nothing ha. But wednesday we taught the Laordan Family again , and it was a pretty good lesson. Definitely a stronger spirit the last time , but still way good. Taught about prophets , Christ's Church , what happened , and the restoration. Bearing testimony is always way way fun and when they're actually interested it just gets ya beaming. Also we were just talking to people and found this other family , Camplon Family , so we've been teaching them a bit. Slow beginnings but it's hopeful. I really want a family baptism and being able to share the gospel with families is something special.
Oh man , mormon . org videos are awesome haha. We watched these so much in the MTC ... like during any study session we just booked it to the computer lab and watched so many of these ahaha. I miss that. All these people are their stories and clips of gen conferences and stuff , awesome awesome.

Okay , so yeah. The week was good and Baguio is still pretty amazingly difficultly awesome. I love the people and love every minute of talking to them , joking with them , sharing the gospel when they listen. Playing with the little kids , running tripping sliding up and down staircases , talking with parents , asking fake questions to get to know people haha , explaining 6000 times a day why I speak their language and why I'm here , fulfilling prophecy , doing everything. Life is just good. There's just really not too too much to say about what I'm doing. You guys know what I'm doing realy , haha , it's the same every day but it's awesome. When I hear music , when I'm laying in bed , times that like my mind instantly clicks out of the mission and it's so so hard to refocus. I miss music more than anything [no offense] but I keep myself in check by realizing how short my time is here. Almost 10 months now , dang Tanner! You're almost at one year... it just flies. It's freaky. As I look through past journal entires and pictures it's funny to realize how I'm not nostalgic about home but about my past areas and the people and friends and family I've made. Filipinos are possibly the most complicated people on earth wth their personalities and insecurities and desires , but I love them all. They're awesome. They're family. You joke with them and help them realize how normal we all are and then ask if you can share with them something that makes ya really happy. Missions are pretty sweet.

Today we have a zone activity and going hiking , so I'll snap some pictures. And tomorrow we head down to Urdaneta for a zoneconference , so that'll be fun to see Pres Jensen and Sis Jensen and everyone. Not to mentin riding the bus during the sunset or sunrise is possibly the best thing besdies being on top of a mountain during it ... which I am. Baguio is awesome. Mom and Dad , move here as soon as you can. And if you wanna drop by Manila , go for it ... but don't come to Baguio. Haha. I need to come back here after the mission and show you whiteys around [there's a couple meanings in that word]. Philippines in awesome and I want back into Asia as soon as possible.

Couple notes I wrote down this week.
1. Mom , I told you last week how awesome that package was. Seriously , way way good. But I don't need peanut butter!! haha thank you , but I can buy it here cheaper. But I've got about a chapter left in Pres Hinckley's and his was an amazing life. Everything was so good , thank you. Especially the goldfish , I freaked out. But there were no CTR rings? and the choco ... haha I can't bring that around in the phillies that'd melt in a second. But they were delicious.
2. I want the Journal of Discourses. Now. hahaha. I want it so bad.
3. I met someone here whose mom worked in Fairfield , CT as a help to someone... doesn't get much freakier than that. The mom of the family in Fairfield was Vicky Carinio they say.
4. Mom and Dad what was your wedding date and what temple?

THATS ALL. Any questions?

heyo

On now. No emails from June or Callie for a while ... spread the word. Also Mom - can you ask to see if June , Caitlin , Travis , or Hayden or anyone got my letters.. that was quite a while ago. Or Grandma? No one's said anything so I'm starting to think a couple batches of letters never reached stateside. Send me pictures of outside the House... not just of the living room ANDREA!!! but thank you.

OKAY YA'LL

Let's talk about the week.

Time is short , so I'll be typing fast.
After I got off the computer last week we hung out at the SM for about 15 minutes waiting for lunch ... because we were being treated at 1:30 to good food. So as we were strolling around we bumped into President Jensen , which was weird ha , who I guess came back up to Baguio for P-Day. Then we go head into lunch and there ended up being 9 of us , 6 missionaries. The members were of our ward but knew the other missionaries because they've ward hopped a lot of the past few years because of moving. The main woman was Sister Rehbaum whose from Australia , still filipino , and crazy nice. Loves the church , loves the missionaries , and has a prett successful business based out of Utah and with a lot of other locations. I'll ask her again for the name , it's a health food company with room for advancement for it's members - she says. Says it's rated like 5 star the best every year or something for a while ... sounded like a rival to Uncle Brian's company so I told her he worked for "(synergy? is that right?) so we had fun talking about that. Mom and Dad I gotta get out of Baguio... haha , every day I keep thinking I wanna live here as soon as possible. If I wasn't having to walk up and down mountains of concrete with legs burning every day I would live here in a heartbeat. Baguio is awesome and beautiful. If I were you guys I'd save up and move here as fast as possible. But after that we got home and had just enough time to sprint to a lesson a mile'ish away. Oh yeah the food she treated us to ... so good. Pizza and italian food with cheese cake. She must have spent about 100 - 120 dollars on all of us which is sooooooooo much money to a filipino. To most that's a month or two's salary. She's got money though. Tuesday was district meeting and afterwards I went on splits with Elder Heninger , my district leader , in their area. He's canadian , but everyone just refers to white people as american. Heritage means nothing. So that was the second time I'd worked with a white person since my trainer left. It's weird not speaking in Tagalog. I'm not sure how much I like it. Small talk is hard , but when I get going you can't shut me up ... there's a lot of jokes that don't work as well in Tagalog. So then Wednesday we switched back , and thaaaat was a hard day. There's one barangay here (means like town.. but smaller.) that is way close to the church but has been proselyted to death. I really hate it. Okay , thats a bad word. I won't be proselyting in there anymore. People know the missionaries and want nothing to do with them , and it's such a steep climb , and we always get punted from lessons there. So after wednesday and tuesday and monday we only had 7 lessons taught and I was getting down ... it's hard to walk around climbing stairs and stuff for 8 or 9 hours and hardly teach any lessons. A mission is a lot of things , but mostly mentally draining. I can only take so much rejection in one day. So at the end of the day we had like a long prayer in trying to understand what we need to do for this area ... we keep getting dropped from people and it seems like no one is interested. Thursday comes along and had a pretty revelatory personal and companionship study in what we need to do , but got punted a lot as well. One thing I've noticed about the mission is that the fruit reflects the attitude. It's easy to be happy when things are going well , but when things get rough that's when your patience is tried. And that's the time when you need to find something to be happy about , because as soon as you stop smiling and stop being psyched about what you're doing that's when everything crumbles and nobody wants to listen. But when you're beaming and just kind of like joke with the people , who are shocked in the first place a white person speaks their language , and don't let the little things get you down , that's when they let you in and listen ... if only for a minute or two. So this week we talked to 30 people ... which seems low but the mission average is about 10 a week. So it's pretty high for our mission. So that's what I realized needed to change , that when we're rejected like crazy we gotta remember whose time this is and really stop caring about the little things.
So Friday comes. yeeessss ... so good. Finally got in 6 lessons , but that didn't really matter. The best was the Laordan Family. Let me say that again. Family. I want a family baptism so so bad. Nothing compares than seeing a mother , father , and kids all accept the gospel together. It's so strong. Other missionaries have it , I have nothing. So. Last Friday we went exploring down one of the barangay's we inherited from the death of the APs here ... (nice symbolism , eh? I'm witty.) anyways. Our area is now one of the biggest in the mission because we essentially have two areas , and so we went down Crystal Cave (which has crystal caves) and found a small dirt/muddy road we'd never been down. Thought... let's try it out. This was last week , or two fridays ago. Talked to some humble homes [the people inside] ... not much acception but gave away a couple books of mormon. After trudging through mud and getting soaked in it , we were heading back to the road when my comp was like hey what was the name of that last house we were at ... I tell him John Rondan , he goes okay thanks. Heads to this house down another small staircase and asks if they know where John Rondan is (ha ... that's a small tactic that we try since people are a bit more open when you first ask them a question and don't immediately jump into missionary stuff) they tell us and we stand around and BRT a bit ... build relationship of trust ... talk about their family , it's a 45 year oldish woman and her mom , maybe 65ish. They're pretty nice , and so after about 15 minutes they tell us missionaries came by back in 1995 and ate dinner a couple times and then had to leave cuz they got pulled out of the area. So then after another 10 minutes we share a little bit about the book of mormon and then give them the introduction to read. My comp and his split/comp came by on tuesday and nobody was home , so when we came by on friday we were surprised to meet the husband and the 45yrold woman. They gave us a couple chairs and we waited around and talked to the husband for a bit while the mom finished up dinner and stuff for her kid. Maybe she's like 40. I can't tell. anyways , then we come inside and start talking a bit ... and husband is a bit quiet , but still nice. We ask her how her reading is and IMMEDIATELY she slaps off facts from the introduction and we were shocked. She was like yeah it makes a lot of sense , some things in the bible are lacking and this fills in. Literally I was about to give her a high five , I can't believe she read (very few do) and then she agreed with it , and then she actually understood the bible isn't perfect. Then the husband left for a second to attend to something outside , during which she bore testimony of her reading of the book. And this is the awesome part , even before she started I started feeling a little different ... something growing in my chest. Then she tells us how she was having a really hard day , just bad things going on and stuff , she sat down saw the BoM and picked it up to read and instantly felt different. Oh man mom and dad ... I've felt the spirit in lessons , I know I have , but I was like tearing up as I heard this it was NUTS. I have no idea why I felt it so strong but she was like I know this book is something different , and not just ... basta basta ... which is hard to translate but means like it's not just for nothing. I couldn't hardly find the words to speak , but we bore testimony and then told about John 10:16 which she was like oh my gosh I've always wondered what that meant we were like BAM! 3rd nephi. It was awesome. The dad came back and we bore testimony again , probly 75 times and then left them some reading. the amazing thing is , she wasn't even that interested when we came the first time. It was her mom that was more interested , and they have so many kids who they say are looking for religion too , and AHHHH PRAY FOR US!!!!! AND FOR THEM!!! Literally I love this family.
Everything else peals (I feel like that word doesn't make sense) in comparison , but after that we taught annootthheerrrr awesome lesson to another investigator. Just a really good day. Saturday , another pretty sweet day. Oh yeah ... haha , Thursday. I fell down a staircase and cut my arms up. Forgot to bring my cord , so I'll send those gnarly pictures next week.

Sunday , two americans from salt lake city came in. Scott and Hannah. About 25ish years old. Said they were touring Asia and stopped in Baguio for a couple days. I instantly was jealous. Stealing my dreams. But it was cool , they stayed for all the meetings so I got to talk to them for a while. June: the girl Hannah looked a litle like Shelsea and had your friend Becka's personality ... kinda like that. She also said she use to live in Maryland. They were crazy nice. Then last night we got fed Barbecue and Potato salad by sister rehbaum and it ended as a good week. Gotta go now , meeting some other missionaries for lunch. LOVE YOU ALL!@#!@#!@#!#!@#!#!@#!#!

ILL ANSWER QUESTIONS NEXT WEEK SORRRYYYYYYYy

ONE MORE THING

ps::::

JUNE! Please tell everyone down in Topsail I say hi and miss the beach ... a lot ahah. Also please tell Elizabeth I understand , but I can't promise I took it well.

(Mom and everyone , Elizabeth is a little 6 or 7 year old girl who told june that she didn't actually have a crush on me but just likes me as a friend)

Still here in Bog ... ee .. ooooohhhhhhhhhhhh

It's pretty sweet. The weather is freezing ... mountains of concrete tiring ... but it's all pretty gravy here. I was senior last transfer , too , momma but I'm following up someone whose trainer just went home. He's way nice and humble , and things have been awesome so far. He teaches some false doctrine sometimes... haha ... but it's okay. We're correcting it. I've been a bit inspired here to change my teaching style. People in Baguio are... richer ... and thus a bit more educated , and lot more prideful .. ha. Nobody is outside , because it rains 24/7 , and so talking to people is a bit more challenging. We still get it done , tho. The zone leaders tell me there's a package for a certain Elder Puti (white.) so I look forward to getting that today. SALAMAT MOMMA! Everything is going pretty awesome here in Baguio , though. ha. Not too much to report on. Like I said last time , they very recently took over the old Assistant to the President's area as well to their own ... so I have had the fun time of trying to figure out everything in this area and where our boundaries are ... ha. My companion's trainer didn't like ever tell him anything and so anytime I ask a question he's like ... hindi ko alam (I don't know.) so. yeah. It's a learning experience , and they had like zero investigators , so that's been another hurdle. I'm enjoying it a lot , though. My first area was poor na poor... just no money at all. Second area was a bit more rich , but really nothing , and Baguio is money city , for the most part. I prefer the poor. People are a lot more humble and willing to listen. People here don't really care too much for anything other than work , so it's been trying to break down their barriers. The investigators with baptismal dates they actually had ... shouldn't have had an IBD ..ha. They're not married and are living together. Soo.. that's been my life for the past week. On Saturday we decided to go exploring into this little part of a barangay we hadn't yet been down , which took us to an insanely muddy slope with ended up in us getting crazy muddy ... but it was still fun. Got 5 new investigators , too , and ended up talking to a lit of more humble people there.

The ward here is way way organized .. it's like american. Really , it's weird. They actually have opening exercises before priesthood classes , and they encourage members to give referrals and do home teaching haha. This is the first time I've seen that. Some members are pretty rich (by filipino standards) which is way awesome for us. One member is treating us to lunch in about an hour. Also she lent us a book a week ago , which I read called "evidences of the true church" by dennis brown .. it's pretty cool. Mostly about what happened after the death of all the apostles and then his section about logic. Everything else I either pretty much knew or yeah. But it's a fast read of maybe an hour if you want to go find it. I'm way excited to see what book[s] are in the package. I have been incredibly addicted to reading here. I'm not sure what will happen after the mission. But I've finished so President Monson's bio , Believing Christ , The book of mormon [almost twice] , most of the gospels , our search for happiness , started Jesus the Christ , two missionary little hand guide things that other missionaries had , and some other books. Reading is dope.

Maybe next week I'll talk more about my week when it becomes less hectic and actually has more lessons and stuff ... ha. We were able to pull out 25 lessons , but oh man it's exhausting walking around and around and around for hours and hours and hours and climbing and climbing and climbing because they have no investigators , haha. We just teach anyone we find on the street that will listen. I wish I could open an area in the mountains ... that'd be way fun. Tagalog , as I said , is pretty much set at this point , so it's fun to shock the people here every day. There's a lot of "Joe's " (everyone who is white is automatically american , and called joe) and none speak tagalog. SPEAKING OF WHICH.

There's a white guy whose a member who lives close to us. I met him last week. His name is Herb Meadows (how much whiter does a name get). His wife was born in utah ... is filipino .. and speaks no tagalog ahaaha. Neither of them do. They have two kids here who attend college and speak both tagalog and english of course , and the wife is not a member but the husband is. He's a bit less - active tho. It was hysterical talking to him ... because I'm serious - JUNE! - he is Mr. Culp's twin. He's way nice , and talks real fast , and just has a ton of knowledge about everything. Especially the DI's ... he says he goes back to America once a year and hits up 16 different DIs in Utah in one day. Nuts. But I've made it a goal to baptize his family. We will be teaching in English ... which means only me ... ahaha , weird. I can't teach in english. That's a whole different ball game.

Also there's this woman we gave a book of mormon to , that didn't like us at first , but we keep buying from her small tindahan (small window store / thing where they sell snacks and stuff ... they're everywhere in the filipines) and she loves us now ,ahaha. The Philippines is awesome. It was baad talking to the american , though , keeps making me think I want to move back here as soon as I can. His area , is literally so much like CT. Small , but small hills and quiet and lots of trees. Dang. Living in Baguio would be way sweet. That's crazy far away though.

Fun Fact : I'm in the old area of John Bytheway ... he was a Baguio Missionary way back when. He baptized a couple of the active members here. Also there's this CRAZY RICH woman whose a member named Sister Ebys. She owns ... a lot of stuff. But they tell me just take a cab to her house on Sundays , even if shes not there , they'll let you in and feed you until you can't eat anymore. I'm excited.

Favor: Please send me nutritional statistics for rice and MSG (there's a lottttt of MSG in the food here.) My stomach continues to grow. despite the ridiculous exercise every day. We'll see what happens.

I think that's all for this week. I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

buhbye.

-eWhite