Hello

... we need to talk.

Those are some famous words.

...but still... where'd the lighter fluid come from? [alam ba ninyo?]

How've you guys been. I find myself listening to the I'm a Mormon video by Brandon Flowers a lot on mormon.org . Mainly because it's a way to listen to the Killers while emailing haha. But it's a coolio video , he's an interesting guy.
So how've you guys been? I've had a pretty okay week. By the way I really want those talks ... especially the Mortal Christ. That's one of the best talks I've yet heard.

I'll share a few experiences I've had this week.

I've found , really , that my weeks are more or less the same , but occasionally have some slight differences.
If I had to title this week it would be Understanding. That's been.. a focus , ha. It's been the only word really running through my mind all week. But I'll ellaborate on that a little bit later. First , Wednesday was transfer awareness. This is where we find out whose transferring. As expected , we knew who the three were so no surprises. Elder Heninger is now out of here , it was nice having him as district leader for a while. This is the second time we've been in the same zone and we got to hang out a bunch while he was here. So after transfer meeting me and Elder Tan head to our first appointment ... and this was an old man we had met a few days before. This was the guy that we just immediately asked where his house was , haha. His name is Felix Felomono. So as we come down the stairs to the main barangay road [barangay.. is hard to explain. Kind of like a biig neighborhood. We ran into Brothe Bentayen who had a piece of paper in his hand. He was like hey elders where ya headed , we're like to Felix Felomono , ya met him? And very very casually he goes 'oh yeah! ...he's dead. ....................................................... what? .......................................... Hahaha we had no idea what happened , and he's like yeah ... yeah died on tuesday. The piece of paper he had in his hand was a sign up sheet to donate some money to cover their debts because he was a pretty poor man that appartment instead of buying food only bought alcohol. He just didn't eat. Wow. So... we figured from that ridiculous coincidence we've got a pretty good referral for the spirit world. Sent now.

So that was weird.

Then Friday was transfer day. Oh , also we started running this past week .. haha .. we got sick of adding on chub , so Wed and Fri we went running in the morning ... pilipinos run very slow hahaha. And break every 200 feet. So I had to be a bit patient , haha , but it's all good. Friday we ran over to the apartment of Elder Heninger and Elder Lobitana to say goodbye and it was farther than we expected , haha , it took a while. But I saw an old man out running too wearing a BYU sweatshirt. Definitely got that from an old donation thing. Also Friday was our meeting with our ward mission leader , whose actually way masipag... which means... like hard working? anyways he's way cool and the hardest worker I've yet seen as a ward mission leader. That might because he's a return missionary and has been a bishop in antipolo , which means you're good haha. So yeah , we've been planning this Mission Fireside for last Saturday to finally spark some ward involvement in the mission process. The idea was for all the members to bring a neighbor or family member or friend or something and we would watch the joseph smith movie ... just a friendly and easy way to share the gospel. So... come saturday... about 10 or 15 members came... haha. And nobody brought anyone... hahaha. Wow. So nothing was really accomplished by it , though we tried to weeks and reminded everyone. But... no one's perfect , it's alright.

Also something new that happened this week that has never happened before... we found and dropped an investigator within a week , haha. I finally feel like I'm maturing a bit as a missionary in that I can feel the fear coming off a lot. The fear to talk to anyone , anytime ... to drop investigators that aren't interested , and so forth. It's fun. No , but this guy was cool but that's what I was saying earlier is that the theme for this week has been understanding. We've been trying to think of what our weakness has been , why no one is progressing , and we realized is we're not loving the people enough to be deadly honest with them. So we've tried all week to be so incredibly clear with the message and it's definitely helped. That one guy , we taught him three times .. but after the third lesson he didn't want to progress further than us sharing with him and so we kindly said goodbye and may try again in a month or so. But when urgency becomes more important the blessings flow more steadily.

The area is awesome , but a challenge. It seems as though no one is interested , but we just haven't spoken to everyone yet. We need to talk to about 80 - 90 people before we finally find someone who is interested past "magandang mensahe lang" or ... "just a good message" ... which almost everyone says. I'm so sick of hearing that , haha , because no one Understands the importance ... so that's what we've been focusing on.

Other than that I'm doing well , and happy. Faber goes home in February... that's insane , and please do not remind me of my one year mark , haha. Tell me I have a year left when August rolls around. I'd rather not think about that because I still don't believe it. I just walked into the MTC 3 hours ago.

Selfish time ... things I need:
- teeth whitening kit [doesn't exist here]
- books! [good ones!]
- awesome talks [If you want an easy way , download them and then upload to a usb and send me that USB]
- nothing else!

haha that's all I want. I love reading , I love learning , I love the work.

I think that's all I got for the week , always short on time. Love you all and I'll see you in three years!

-Elder White-




...ps- I'm now the district leader.

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