So this week was a lot more exciting than last week , I promise.
On Monday after emailing we headed to the Palengke [which means like market or wet market] to try it out. We usually just shop at the SM , but we were sick of buying from the SM and waiting in ridiculous lines. So we went exploring. Ended up finding a ton of Ukay-Ukay's which is basically small outdoor shops of tons of used clothes ... which I have no idea where they come from. But they're mostly all hysterical. Most come from donations from the states and stuff , or other companies ... for example a company predicts the winner of a super bowl and prints 5000 t shirts to sell right after the game ... oh whoops they lost after all ... which means they send them to the philippines to sell for the price of printing so they don't lose any money. So yeah , some of the stuff we found was hysterical , but more importantly we found a ton of ties for way way cheap that are just as funny as the shirts.
After words we went shopping for veggies and fruits in an effort to rid our systems of pancit canton ... which is basically cheap noodles so easy to cook riddled with MSG ... I've decided I no longer want cancer ... so I'm banning it from my system. Also I just saw my picture on Sister Jensen's blog , haha ... I was fatter then. My weight fluctuates a lottt on the mission depending on what I'm eating. Anyways so yeah , we found a lot of good fruit for cheap that I'm sure you may be able to find in chinese markets in the city ... but I'd never seen any of this stuff before haha. It was all way good , of course.
Tuesday - we had exchanges with E. Heninger and his companion came with me in my area. His name is Elder Lobitana and is a pretty dang bold missionary haha. He actually kind of commandeered the lessons from me , but I forgive him ... even though he's way way new. If you're reading sister jensen's blog you'll have known that a baguio / typhoon rolled through and danggg haha. The Laordan family was the first family we taught on Tuesday and it was a great , great lesson. We met their oldest child , who goes to school about 10 hours away but was home this week on vacation. Her name is Amira , 19 , and wow she has really smart questions ha. So anyways we taught them about baptism again because that's how the conversation rolled , and before we realized we had been there over an hour 1/2 answering questions and refortifying testimonies and what not. It was just a really good lesson and they strongle committed again to baptism on oct 29 ... but I don't think they understand yet what they have to do before they can be baptised ... which is come to church 4 times in a row and a series of other things. Baptism requirements are strict in the philippines , but they're awesome.
Wednesday was okay , Thursday was okay ... met some new people as we went exploring through mud , haha. Taught a kind of awkward lesson to someone who wasn't very interested but her nephew was , whose 18. She was like awkwardly grinning the whole time , like I know the truth ... please leave now haha. Anyways , then Friday rolled around and we headed back down to Urdaneta for the real new missionary training meeting , which was pretty awesome. President Jensen is always a great great speaker and gets you pumped to be a missionary. Afterward something very important happened. HA! So we went to the office and of course talked with Elder Faber for a little bit , and as always I was like Faber you gotta start using your authority as office elder and convince PJ [pres jensen] to let us be companions! He's like I literally tell him every day. So then president jensen comes in and talks with us for a bit , and Elder Faber is like grinning his Elder Faber grin , and is like president me and elder white have something we'd like to talk to you about. And President is like what is it , elder faber!! Are you going to tell me your attraction to each other? AHahaha , do you have something you'd like to confess. And he's like ahah president , we feel the time is now to become companions , could it work out. And I didn't hear everything they said next because I had someone else asking me a question - but then President told him on his mission his mission president asked him who he'd like to be companions with , because his best friend was in his mission as well , and he was like Elder Tanner , President ... and his mission president was liek alright .. consider you guys companions. And then he was like I went from 180 to 165 those couple months because we worked so hard.
.... So. I don't want to get my own hopes up , but I'm pretty positive I'll be companions with him before he goes home hahaha. We're pretty stoked. Anyways we then got home that night and taught the Laordan family another time , because they weren't home on Thursday ... they do that alot hahaha , they tell they'll be home and then just aren't there. Okay... now saturday.
Wake up , winds are that bad .. rain isn't that bad ... get a text from President Jensen , says all missionaries are to stay indoors because there's a huge baguio coming in. We're like uhhh what... we have so many lessons today. So. We had to stay inside all day long , even though there was liek no rain or wind because it was all down in Pangasinan ... we were restless. But we watched a bunch of christmas movies , with our christmas lights on , and sang christmas songs. I ordered a couple christmas movies from lds.org. Then we caroled our neighbor apartment and shared with them the christmas story from luke 2 hahaha. It was a funny end to the day , but a pretty upsetting day.
Sunday .... this is the main feature of the story. We wake up , study , and get out of the house. We had a plan to head to Crystal Cave , one of the barangay's [like neighboorhood] and go by all of the less actives and investigators in that area so they'll finally come to church. We went by about 8 or 10 houses and then finally came to the Laordans. We didn't have plans to go to them , because they told us on Friday they'd be in town at that time and would go straight to the church. But we went by their road and were like , eh why not. So we head down a very steep road , down a muddy path .. and get to the their house. And they're there! It was like 12 : 05 and they open the door and like Elders! They were like we're about to get ready , hold on a second. So they continue to take the next 45 minutes!!! to get ready. As we patiently wait outside. Then apparently the grandma was coming to who we'd taught a couple times , awesome awesome. So we head up to the road ... it's like 12:55 now at this time ... church starts in 5 minutes. And we proceed to wait for 35 minutes for a jeep!!! Nothing came by , and when it did they were all full. Finally after so many silent prayers one finally rolls by that accomodates... all 10!! of us. Oh man... We got their neighbor whose a member / kind of less active to come as well and fellowship that day. So oh man , 10 of us packed in and headed to the church. Finally get there , our ward mission leader whose awesome was waiting outside for us , and we awkwardly yet awesomely pile in during Sister Rehbaum's testimony , it was fast + testimony meeting. And they had reserved the very front pew for us , ahahaha. Everyone saw us and were like daaaaang , tons of investigators. So then the next 5 or 6 people to give testimonies apparently knew the Laordan family!! It was so awesome , and they were so happy to see them there. Afterwards so many people came up and fellowshipped immediately , the bishop was like shocked at how many people we brought so kind of tried to show off hahaha , it was just awesome. Then gospel principles class was possibly the worst ever , ahaha , as this 19 year old pre-missionary and his father like patronized and spoke so condescendingly to our investigators during the class .. I didn't get it. But in whole the day was amazing. They met so many old friends they hadn't seen in forever and I think they had a really good experience.
So yeah. That was the highlight of the week. It was an action packed week and things are looking up. Then again we got dropped from one of our IBDs because her husband , whose a member has apparently been teaching a different church for the past year hahahah and doesn't want to leave because he gets to play guitar there .... gah 22 year olds haha. But it's okay , he'll come around.
It was just an amazing end to the past 2 months of trying to get this family to church. Unfortunately the husband couldn't come , but he will. I love love love this family and they have become like family to me. I'd love for you guys to meet them one day. So keep praying and keep them in your thoughts!!
- Mom send me more updates on Brandon , how he's doing with everything ... and I better have more emails next week or I'll be doing some chastizing!
..now I'm off go buy some survenirs ... hope you all like them. I'm trying to find a cheap shipping option as well , but it's all about 2600 pesos per kilo I think. That's pretty dang expensive.
Love you all , and good bye!
-Send me letters. OH!!!!
DO NOT SEND LETTERS TO THE OLD BAGUIO ADDRESS!
If you do , I will not receive them. Please send to the New address.
Elder Austin White
Philippines Baguio Mission
PO BOX 7
San Vincente East
Urdaneta , Philippines
2428 Philippines
BYE
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