Family!

heyo , so this week has been pretty good ... but I'll start by answering your questions mom


1. One of the MM mentioned that the mission president's wife gives out a pill once every six months that the missionaries take to prevent parasites? True?
...um I might have taken one ? I can't really remember. Maybe that's not a problem in our mission. Sister Jensen is crazy smart so I'm not worried...
2. Are you taking your vitamins?
yes.
3. Are you only drinking the filtered water and drinking plenty of it?
yes.
4. You've been gone for 11 months now! Is it going fast for you?
yes. :[
5. You mentioned using dearelder. Who is writing to you that should use dearelder?
no one writes to me!!!!! ...except andrea sends good stuff about apple. keep it up.
6. Do you still hear from June? How is she doing?
umm sometimes , haven't gotten a letter in a couple months but she emails me from time to time. Not too sure to be honest , but I guess it's hard to keep consistent with emails when I can't email her back
7. Are you ever going to write me (not email me) a letter again? I love the ONLY one you've written me.
ha.. I'm trying. Just look at it from my view.. I'm allowed to email family only... so I email family. Therefore that means first priority goes to non family for my letters because that's my only communication with them. I love you all , but I do want to know about what other lives are up to haha. I'm trying my best ... but there's a lot of people to write to.
8. Do you know an Elder Mitchell or Elder Jacobsen? Their moms are on MM.
.. yes , elder jacobsen goes home pretty soon they say ... not the most obedient elder I hear , haha , but that's not for me to judge. Elder Mitchell is the only black missionary in the mission ... and maybe in the philippines ... so he's well known obviously. He's from utah tho.
9. Do cars honk their horns like crazy there? I know they do here!
ha of course ... but it's not that bad. driving is just go as fast as you can without getting into an accident ... so flashing lights and honking horns is just to warn ... they're good drivers
10. How long do you think you'll be in Baguio? How long do you typically stay in one area?
I'll probly be here until about december ... usually it's 3 transfers in an area , with 6 weeks in each transfer. But sometimes it's 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ... just depends on what the Lord needs you to do.

So this week was okay. Elder Tan is pretty adjusted now to everything , but there's always little things to help him with....

I really don't feel like writing hahaha. This week wasn't very exciting. Tuesday I went on spits after district meeting with one of my zone leaders , elder ombega. It was pretty good , but his style of teaching is a lot different than mine haha. He's pretty rushed and bold ... I'm a bit more quiet and don't like talking too much if I don't have to. But he's obviously a great missionary , so it was fun watching his style and always helps to adjusts points of your own teaching and finding style. Wednesday we met up at the zone leaders apartment and then went to a restaraunt called '50s Diner' ... haha it was as 50s as filipinos can get , but was pretty good food that wasn't too too expensive. 125 pesos [about 3 dollars] got me the biggest sandwich I've ever eaten ... but it was about 80% bread. The walls were lined with pictures of elvis , beatles , hitchcock movies , and famous actors and actresses. It was pretty fun. Then the next memorable thing was Friday we had New Missionary Training. So after 2 weeks the new missionaries are supposed to head back down to urdaneta for new missionary stuff. So we wake up early , get out the door and wait 25 minutes for a taxi ... and everyone that drove by was full. So we trecked off and walked about 20 minutes before we finally caught one. Get to the bus station and the other companionship from Baguio had already headed down. We arrive down there and and get to the office ... and the other companionship tells us it was cancelled... haha. We confirm it with Elder Faber and the office couple and apparently every other companionship in the other zones had found out , but Baguio was shafted with the news. So we laughed it off and headed back up the hill , after talking to Elder Faber for a little while. Get back up and got to work .... Other than that , it was really an uneventful week. The Laordin Family is still way awesome , it's just hard trying to figure out their progression because we're not really sure where they are right now , because of the Mom's business , and they we're able to come to church again this past week because they just found out they had a wedding of a relative to go to. So... our sunday was pretty lame. But Sister Rehbaum had a referral for us in a farther away part of our area , so we met up with her at 5:30 and trecked out to there to find her referral which was like a distant relative she found through family history and geneology work. Finally get to their road and meet a woman who we then followed to their house ... which was like a 15 minute walk through a very narrow and muddy path to the middle of nowhere house haha. But we met a lot of them and shared a short message .. in which Sister Rehbaum did 80% of the talking hahaha. She's got a good heart , but wants to be a missionary really bad ... so she talks a lot. Also she used to translate for Elder Bytheway when he was here.

So yeah. It really was a very average week. Now I've got a few letters to mail off , and then friday we'll be heading down to Urdaneta again for the real new missionary training. The next few weeks will be pretty awesome ... friday head down to urdaneta for the meeting , the following weekend is general conference for us , then the following weekend Elder Holland is here. Daang.

So yeah , I'm sorry this letter was really lame but I had nothing exciting to say ... ha.

Please tell everyone to write me letters , dear elders , everything ... send me news about everything .. I'll love ... anything!

Love you all ,
Trevor... don't wear all my clothes , looks like you've grimed up my sabres hat pretty good.

Hello , hello , hello...

This has been quite the eventful week. Let's start off by saying that a mission is a strange thing. You work , literally , as hard as you can. The physical side isn't that bad ... hills are tiring , but that's the least of my care. The stress and mental toll it takes is that hard part. Each investigator is very much a relationship. I'll relate this. Everytime you show and they say "next time na lang" (... come back another time) that's being stood up by a date. Everytime they don't come to church , that's like finding out they're cheating on you aha , and when they drop you as a missionary ... that's being broken up with. Sometimes we drop them because they're not progressing ... we're gonna say that's because their sight is not on the temple as ours is , and although it's been fun , it's time to see other people. So now you have a brief mental and psychological inlook [is that a word?] insight? of what I go through each day.

Okay ... I'll talk about my companion first. He's still awesome. He's from Cebu , but grew up in Tacloban. He's a very humble humble person and works hard. He gets so excited when things are rolling for us , but when we hit a little stump he gets down kinda fast. But that's natural for us when we're new. We just kind of go with the roller coaster effect. But since the start he's been a great missionary , he teaches well , and is very teachable. Soaks in what little advice I give him and definitely applies it to his teaching. So it's been a really good week so far. Also he was studying culinary arts down at college in Cebu , but.. hahahaha ... he cooked adobong sitaw and cooked the rice the other day , and it was the worst I've ever had ahaha. I didn't necessarily tell him , but I think he's more used to "building cakes" [catch the referance?] and stuff of that sort.

Okay , let's talk about what I've done this week.
We struggled... all week. Man , it was really hard. My whole mission I've had no problem reaching the standard of excellence of new investigators , which is find 10 every week. Only a few times I haven't reached it. Friday came around and we still had none. Also the family you had asked about , mom , the Laordan family hadn't responded to any of our texts for over a week. I had no idea what was going on. [side track ... remember that family me and my companion found in my last area? The Rabilas family? They have a baptismal date for next month ... they're awesome] So yeah. I was way bummed this was Elder Tan's first week of experience in the mission , because it was hard. We tried tracting out parts of our area because we have been getting zero referrals from the members, and zero luck. People are like yeah I'm busy but you can come back ... we come back and they hide. That's one big downer about filipinos ... they are structurally very insecure. So instead of telling us outright , like we would do in the states , that they're not interested ... they hide. They just don't come to the door , or tell someone to tell us they're not there AND TO COME BACK ANOTHER DAY ... it's ridiculous. So we waste about 5 or 6 trips before we finally tell them , if they're not interested stop telling us to come back. Anyways , it was hard. We have 7 investigators with a baptismal date , but we have had no idea what's going on with them. 5 we haven't been able to teach for a week and 1 is being weird.

So it was a crazy start to the week. Oh , our iron wire somehow chopped in half and shot out sparks when I plugged it in last monday [ I didn't see the sever ] and almost burned down our table , ahaha , that was funny. So anyways. Tuesday was district meeting and was good , but like I said we've just been trying to figure out what's going on with our investigators and at the same time find new ones ... which didn't work. Then on friday I went on splits with Elder Heninger in my area [he's from canada] and I told him everything that was going on and he was like just endure man , everyone goes through it. So we worked hard to only get 4 lessons and find two new people. Then saturday rolls around ... quite a day. Our ward mission leader who we just got is amazing. Former AP in his mission back in 94 , former elders quorum pres in manila and bishop [if you're a bishop in manila ... you're good , haha. churches are very hard working and organized down there] . So he became our ward mission leader , and he's so organized and helpful. It's such a blessing to us. And say he came and worked with us. Haha , part of it ... we hiked up this giant hill to find a less active member ... and my rubber shoes are wearing down and they're 4 dollars ... so ... not the sturdiest. HAhaha. So I walk up this little incline to a house and instantly slip on some dark grime I didn't see. It had also rained that day so this huge hill is slippery ... so instead of fall down I'm on like a slow/fast sprint down this hill praying praying I don't fall ... that would have broken a few bones or caused a few gashes. So I'm like holy crap holy crap holy crap as I'm half running / trying to brace myself down this hill. Eventually it ends with a cliff edge and I've got mommeeenntummmm going . I'm like ahhh geeeez I'm done , cuz I cannot slow down. As soon as the hill flattened out [this is about a 4 foot flat before the cliff edge] I throw on the breaks and like throw my body backwards. ahaha wow , I kept my balance and was so close to going off after I had just raced down like 50 yards of hill. I look back up at Brother Manongdo and Elder Tan and they are cracking up ahahahahaha. I glanced up at what I had just run down because of one little slip and started cracking up as well. It was nuts.


Okay , so let's just talk about the important part , because I'm short on time now.
So at 5 Friday [rewind] me and Elder Heninger passed the road to the Laordan's house and I told him about them , and he was like you wanna go visit ... and I was like I'm pretty sure they're hiding and I know we seem so pushy to them ... but yeah let's at least go place a we care about you kind of note or something. So we head over , and it's just the dad and one kid .. and he's like come on him! We step it sit down , and he's like alright I'm out of here ahahaha. So we're like what?! Where are you going? He's like I'm gonna go pick up my wife , she's in the hospital. We're like woooowww that explains a lot , so we set up a time to come back the next day [saturday]. Head back with Bro Manongdo , Elder Tan , and Sis. Degay [close neighbor and friend]. Both sister and brother are there , but no kids at first [ they joined the lesson later on]. ...and this is what went down. We figure out why we haven't been in touch for a little over a week , and she explains a few crazy things that have been happening and that she's been at the doctor that they wanted to operate right then but she was like no I need to go home first , I have no money for this and have told no one , and stuff like that. So then we say the opening prayer and I ask her how they're reading has been , and she tells me she read over 2 nephi 31 so many times. That every time she cannot understand it , and didn't know why. Then had a dream one night that told her whatever your faith is , stick to it and you'll be fine. So she woke up feeling like she's okay and doesn't need to be baptized a second time. We then asked her some kind of deep question , don't remember what it was , but she continues to tell us everything insane that's been happening to them the past few weeks. All of these crazy trials and stuff that no one family should ever be going through. This goes on for about 10 minutes of her just telling us , and then she's like so what. No one really says anything , so I was like sister as you were talking one scripture kept popping into my head , so would it be alright if we read it.
We proceed to read Alma 36:3 , about trusting in God and he'll support us through everything ... and she gets to the second to last line and stops ... Elder Tan , haha , thought she had finished and instantly begins to start saying well what did you understand ... I let him get to his third word before I kicked him in the leg , ahahah , then he looks up at sister and realizes she just choked up and is starting to tear up. She finally catches a breath and finished the scripture .... and we're dead silent. No one says a word. 30 seconds goes by and she's like maybe that's what has been lacking ... my trust in God. Then she continues her story and is like I don't know what all this is happening , but maybe this is the answer I've been looking for. Then tells about her family and how she wants them to change and be a closer family and all this and after a long time , and us being silent for about 20 straight minutes , I was like sister that day we found you ... I don't know why we were in your area ... we went exploring some where that we've never come back to and it was crazy muddy and in the middle of no where. But when we came to you I was heading back up to the road but Elder Iray said no , let's stop over there real quick. So we did ... and we found you guys. She then looks at me still crying and is like I was praying so hard that day for God to send me someone to help my family.

... I can't go into detail about everything that really transpired , because I have almost no time left .. but let it suffice that that was possibly the most spiritually powerful experiences I've ever had ... let alone lessons taught. This family is amazing , but has so many things against them , not to mention the health of the mom which is failing and we have no idea what to do or what to say. I texted her last night saying we'd like to give her a blessing , so we'll go back tomorrow or something and hopefully do that. This woman was in tears , and she's a strong woman .. ha , but it was absolutely amazing the power that silence really has. That if we as missionaries just shut up and let the spirit speak to them it has such a more powerful effect. Long story short they promised to come to church ... but ended up not being able to [along with 10 other investigators :( because of so many things ... but mostly because of her health]

So let's talk about sunday after church ... one we knocked at this door that I kept feeling we should talk to last transfer but never did. Finally did so last wednesday ... and nothing. Haha. I was like whaat , I was definitely feeling this one. We knocked for 10 minutes with no answer. Came back sunday night and BAM a mom that was way interested. It was awesome. Then went looking for this guy we gave a BoM a month ago , finally found his house but in the process found this younger guy with a young family with so many problems. We just introduced ourselves and chatted with him for a little bit and he completely opened up to us about his family , and his wife took they're one little girl and went to her parents house like hours away because of a fight they had , and he's like all I want is for us to be a happy family and be loved ... I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

It's just a testimony builder ... I've fasted 5 out of the 7 sundays I've been here for new investigators , including last sunday. And after one of the hardest weeks in my mission we find two great new investigators that we'll see where they go. The Lord works in mysterious ways ... seriously. You must give everything you have on a mission to see the smallest smallest effect , but when you've done everything you can the Lord kicks in and is like alright ... I've got this ... just follow my spirit.

It's been a crazy week , but the work goes on.

Few notes: thank you for everything , the packages again were awesome. Please send a picture of the manhattan temple if you can , PLEASE SEND MAIL AND DEARELDERS , we met a taxi guy that asked me about polygamy [ that's the first time so far on my mission .. thats very rare ] I asked him how many wives abraham had and if it was a commandment of God if he'd follow it ... we've got a return appointment tomorrow hahaha , and some other coolio stuff has happened.


This letter is stupid long , hope ya like it!!

Please tell travis to write me a letter .. he owes me two. Ask june if she got my letters , she should have gotten three in the past month or two ... andd I think that's it.

Love you all. Mom have fun it China , please send me news about how it's going ... but not too long

BYE!

[ps dad how's the house?]

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Heyo

masyadong iba ang isip na dalawampu na ako , at nag-birthday naman ako sa labas ng states... pero mas masaya naman kung ganyan!

[ weird to think that I'm 20 and it was spent outside the states ... but it's better that way ]

HELLO ALL YOU CRAZY WHITE WHITE WHITE AMERICANS. How's it going. I'm still in Baguio , and like I said now 20. The day was spent with my son and proselyting , haha. But it was also good. My new companion is ELDER TAN , from Tacloban. Ahaha , sister perkins a senior missionary here pointed out during transfer meeting that the Lord must have a sense of humor because he put Elder White and Elder Tan together. He's pretty coolio. He's from Tacloban andd I speak Tagalog better than he is. He said he rarely spoke it before he came on a mission so is learning it as we go , haha so I'm teaching Tagalog to a filipino. He's got a good work ethic but the mission is a bit different than his life before so he's slowly adjusting. Especially in Baguio where it's nothing but climbs all day long. Saturday was my birthday , same as the states ... just a day before you guys , and Sister Rehbaum and the people at her house had me over for a birthday lunch! They were crazy nice. They had a ton of food , a cake! , andddd I ate balut. Ahahaha. I took a video , so you'll be watching that when I send my memory card home again. Hahaha I had to eat it twice because Sister Jo didn't have the camera on as I thought it was the first time. Ahaha. So the second time is faster than the first time. It wasn't that bad , tasted like an egg. But knowing what you're eating gets to ya , haha. So go ahead and google that or look it up on google and you'll know exactly what I ate.

Mom ... may I offer a bit of advice , being the foremost expert in this family [besides Grandpa] on Asia , haha ... stop trying to fight it. Stop buying KFC , Pizza hut , peanut butter ... just go with it. You're gonna be a lot more miserable if you continue being an American in Asia. Conform to the culture and you'll love your stay so much more. That especially means food and the people. Act like an asian and you'll do a lot better. People will stare until you leave so don't let it bother you , at least you don't 'Hey Joe!' 'ed every day. Asians are the coolest people in the world , but that's too bad you don't speak their language.

So yeah , I'm actually like out of time haha. I'm sorry. I told I spent the first 45 minutes reading the emails. PLEASE send dear elders. Please write hand letters. That's means all my friends as well. Mom please inform people of the address change. I'm pretty sure it is

Elder Austin White
Philippines Baguio Mission
San Vicente East
Urdaneta City 2428
Pangasinan , Philippines

I really miss mail. THAT ESPECIALLY MEANS APPLE NEWS FROM BRANDON AND ANDREA. I know the iphone is coming out very soon which means tons of rumors are floating around. Andrea I just got your dear elders about steve jobs , thank you a lot , but next time lets get a little diversity haha. That was 10 stories saying the exact same thing ... that he's retiring!


MOM! also that package was amazing , thank you so much. I loved the notes and the photo album the most. Thank you so much. If anyone can send me some of the pictures through email that we took the night before I left CT I would love to see those. Thank you for everything. Those socks also felt amazing.

THanks for everything , I'll talk to you all next week!!!

Heeellllllooooo

Jammin out right now to the BYU Idaho choir of last general conference's How Firm a Foundation. This is some real good stuff.

How's everyone. How's CHINA , that's nuts. I'm in the Philippines , a lot better than China , but we're pretty close. don't come here , ha. Mom- good luck in China with Brandon , I'm sorry to hear Trevor couldn't come , but the Lord will provide a way ... you know this. Right now I'm at the SM , of course. We just ate pizza with a lot of elders from the zone , and it's one of our zone leaders last day here so it was pretty speeecciiaaalll. He does not want to go home , ahah. He was like I cried a lot the other day , but I'm okay now. Hmm , what else. Yeah their rendition is real good. Byu Idaho.... Oh wait ... news.

I'M GONNA BE A DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!

...

Not in that sense.

I got a mysterious text last wednesday telling me to attend a super secret meeting in Urdaneta .. which was the training meeting. Me and 5 other Elders and 1 sister are training. I'm almost positive it's a filipino ... but we'll see what happens. I'm pretty freaky deaky excited to train , but not sure if I'm ready to be a dad. [not sure what they call it in other missions , but that's what it is for us ... tatay or dad.] anyways , so I went down to Urdaneta last Friday and President Jensen gave a couple hours of training for us , because their new curriculum at the MTC is crazy ... they don't learn any of the lessons , just the fundamentals. They just learn skills basically , but like zero doctrine. So I've got to teach him all the doctrine at the same time as he teaches lessons , ha. I want to train a foreigner , because it'd be way fun to teach the language at the same time but I know it won't happen. After the meeting we ate some pizza that President ordered and I probed him for questions for a while , haha. Was he shocked to learn about being a mission president before the mission , then in the Philippines , a lot of stuff. It was fun. Then headed back to the office and Elder Faber was disheartened to find out I'm training because it means we won't be companions , yet. Hopefully before he goes home. President Jensen knows how much we want it , haha Faber tells him like every day. Then we headed back up and sprinted to a lesson as soon as I got back. On the bus back up we caught this rickety iron thing [they say it was a bus] ahaha and the windows were open at first because it was a nice day. Then after like 45 minutes to rain pours down and everyone shuts their windows ... of course mine is the only stuck window and so the pour little girl behind me was getting drenched ahaha. Then finally we signal the guy after me and the elder who went down with me [Elder Esling , filipino in my batch who is also training] tried forever to shut it , the guy walks up and like casually gets it down. We look at the family behind us and are just like uhhhh he was standing up... more power ahahah. Anyways then we sprint to get to a lesson with... the Laordan family! Who we'd only been able to teach once more in the past couple weeks cuz they've always been away. Well last Tuesday or somethign we watched the Restoration DVD with them , which was good. Then left 2 Nephi 31 to read. We come back , just me and my companion , and taught a very spiritually powerful lesson. The mom read , and had questions. We taught , elaborated , explained , read , testified and committed to baptism. The family said yes! The only problem right now is the mom's job which she's trying to figure out a way to get around and not work on Sundays , so please continue to pray for them. We taught some pretty satisfying lessons this day and found a lot of great new investigators. In the past 5 weeks , ha , me and my companion have fasted 4 of the sundays. We really want to find families families families. I want to help a family be baptized so bad.

Also we finally got a ward mission leader last week , and I'm so stoked about it. He's a return missionary , was an AP on his mission , has been a bishop in another ward , and is way hard working. So I'm praying so hard that things will pick up with this coordination with the ward. I think that is actually the most surprising part of a mission , that the ward is the KEY to actually having success. I always thought it was just pounding down doors , talking to people on the street , and teaching. Not true. If you have no ward support , you have nothing. that's the biggest mistake I've my first few months of the mission.

Anyways , so now it's the last few days before Elder Iray leaves for his next area and I get my new baby boy. That's really all the time I ahve today , I'm sorry. I'm doing a million things as usual , including trying to show my companion [ whose from the middle of farm land , probly never seen a credit card before ] try to buy things for store.lds.org using his credit card on the slowest computers in the world. It's hard .. I'm sorry.

ALSO JUNE: that's the name that nate ruess named his dog ... from the song ' snails ' from the format? "Nico take it slow...."

MOM PLEASE ASK SISTER EDWARDS TO ASK TRAVIS RIGHT AWAY IF HE GOT MY LETTER , IT'S VERY IMPORTANT AND i HAVEN'T HEARD ANYTHING. Also my other letters... still no news. Ha , I don't want to keep sending home letters if they never arrive.

DAD!! Just wanted to say happy birthday , and thanks for always being an awesome father and encouraging me to stop being stupid and go on a mission... I don't regret it.

Also met an american yesterday whose from hurricane utah and st george. I was like I've got a lot of family down there ... a lot of Staheli's and he was like oh I know a lot of Staheli's , mostly ones that were from hurricane then moved to bountiful. Just thought I'd throw that in.

Okay that's all I got love you all!@#!@#!2

hey

haha my letter is going to be kind of short again. as my mission progresses I find myself trying to do more and say less , ha. Now I'm undertaking trying to put an entire thing of hymns on my usb along with general conference talks , along with ordering proselyting tools for my area and a handful of other things. So please forgive me for my rudeness ,ha. This week has been pretty okay. Let me say the things that I wrote down first.

1. I would STILL like to get some nutritional facts on rice and MSG.
2. Apple news.. please. Andrea!!! The new phone should be coming out any time now .. there will be tons of news already floating around , mostly rumors. I wanna hear em!
3. Did grandma / trevor / hayden get my letters? Caitlin- I sent it to your address at utah! Should be there?

that's all for now. My birthday is soon.. haha.

So. Monday after pday we rocked out a few lessons. oh wait.. pday. Wait. I'll put on pictures.

Okay , so Pday last week we went hiking as a zone to sto. thomas. It was crazy cold but fun. Explored some caves , found some people bones.. ha.. and took some pictures. Then practiced Hark All Ye Nations that we were gonna sing tuesday at zone conference. That was pretty fun. So then we went home , changed , and hit up our lessons. Tuesday we woke up at 5 to get to the bus station by 6 to head down to Urdaneta for zone conference. Ohhhh how I've missed Pangasinan. I want to go back so bad.. haha. Baguio is cool and all , but I miss everything about pangasinan. The people are so much more awesome. Anyways then we had a zone conference. Which president jensen and sister jensen spoke , the APs gave a workshop , and Elder Faber [office elder] explained how to order from lds.org. Because the office is going insane with so many orders from missionaries so he's like look , you can order this way. Then goes .. I would like to call up Elder White to offer his testimonial about the awesome experience of online shopping , ahahah. Cuz I had just ordered and my order was already in the office. So he was like Elder White ... when did you order , I said last week , he goes ONE WEEK! IT'S JUST THAT EASY! It was like a tv-mercial or whatever those are called. way funny. should've been there. We'll be companions one day... I hope so at least. After the zone conference we dedicated the new mission office and mission home and took a short tour of them. Pretty nice places. The ones in baguio were a little old , still way nice , but these are way nicer. And President Jensen has every book that I want. Answers to Gospel Questions , The Joseph Smith Papers , History of the Church , and a bunch of others. So awesome. I asked him if I could borrow and he said I don't think so , ahha. Anyways then we headed back up the hill to Baguio. Oh ... ahahaha. On a Victory Line Bus with almost all non-missionaries/members on the bus. We gave them Finding Faith in Christ and The Testaments to watch on the way down and back up ahahah. It was way funny and awesome. These people are used to like way crude movies always being played and now they're watching movies about Christ and Book of Mormon stories. way awesome.

So then the rest of the week was actually really hard. We're searching so hard for new investigators , and especially families , as other elders are baptizing like crazy we're struggling just to keep our investigators progressing. The one family we found now is never home because they live like 2 hours away 6 out of 7 days a week. We're trying with another one but the mom and dad like aren't hardly interested .. just want us to teach their kids. People are losing interest , less active / part member families don't want to come to church and it's hard to keep a smile on. And then Saturday a Baguio or typhoon rolled through. Oh man. I'm not sure how hard you guys got hit ... but go try proselyting in a jacket soaking wet inside and out and getting slapped with winds breaking your umbrella every 10 seconds , ha. It was an experience. I had / have a cold ... but it was still fun. We went around trying to help people , cleaned up trash in a street for a little while that rolled through , and tried to teach. A mission is a time of trials but it's worth it. Sunday we got a ward mission leader! FINALLY! And he's way awesome. The work will pick up. Also we had no power as well for about 2 days ... at least you guys have fire haha. Try being in a tiny apartment soaking wet with no heat , haha. Anyways. This was the best part of the week. Last night. After church and meetings we go teach a lesson. Wait back up... before church we went waaay far out to teach a lesson to a part member family and encourage them to come to church. We got held up there waaay too long as they kept chatting before we could share a lesson , and we almost missed sacrament meeting. Finally ended the lesson , sprinted up a mountain of a street to the main road , ran down the road and found a taxi right before it took off. Got to sacrament meeting right as it was starting. Still... pouring outside. So anyways last night. Taught one lesson , then got punted from 2 ... we were like ah what now? So we felt prompted to go by this one lady who owns a tindahan. Now again a tindahan is a small window-store. Like very small , one tiny room. They basically just buy groceries and stuff from the main market and sell for a bit more money so its closer to people. So when I first got here we stopped by her and bought some food and talked to her for a minute. She didn't really like us at first but we gave her a book of mormon. Then we'd walk by almost every other day as we went to appointments and always stopped there to buy a snack or something so she'd warm up to us. At first she was always like I'm too busy to read your book and stuff and we're like thats okay we just wanna buy! and then we were always way nice to her and slowly her countenance completely changed. Now for the past two weeks she loves when we come by and slowly has been reading the book of mormon and pamphlets. Then last friday I lent her my Restoration DVD , the 19 minute movie about joseph smith and first vision and stuff. She was like okay I'll watch it. We went by last night and she goes here , heres your movies. We were like sister! did you watch it? And she looks at us and like cracks a small smile and is way quiet... its all way quiet cuz theres no one outside because of the baguio. No rain ... so everything way again .. way quiet. And shes like ... ano na atin? which means like.. .what now for us. And at this point we're slapped with the spirit and I'm like sister , how did you feel as you watched it. And she's like have you ever have that feeling that something was missing .. and you dont know what it was? And we're beaming and just like YES! And shes like ... I felt good. And we're like sister... do you believe its true [after she had given us like a short summary of what she saw , she watched it twice ] and shes like ... do you? And I'm like absolutely , thats why we're outside every day walking around in even typhoons. It's worth it. and she's like ... me too. BAMMMM. I'm not yet sure what it means , and I'm probly jinxing it right now but we were so happy. She was like what now. We're like read the book of mormon , think about it , then ask God if its true. She's like yeah thats been missing , I havent really read it that much. We're like we'll probly come by tomorrow or tuesday and we'll see how it was. She's like okay , give me a day. oh man .. so good.

I've said it a million times , but the gospel is medicine. How people live without it ... I do know actually , because I feel like I did for 19 years haha , but now it's amazing. You can have the worse day ever and just hearing someone bear a small testimony and seeing faith grow and feeling your message atually penetrate a heart ... it's incredible.

I'm out of time now and gotta go , but that's all for now. THanks for everything you guys , and andrea you mentioned wanting to send something ... if its a package [better not be thats crazy expensive] make SURE you mark " GIFT! " on the package ... or I'll get slapped with a huge fine,

I love you all , enjoy my birthday!!! its soon.