heyo

Hey , so thank you for more emails this time , ha. Mom it was fun to read about China , but I'll be honest I don't have much time now so I'll try and get in as much as I can.

First : my questions
- Did Caitlin , June , and Travis ever get my letters? I'm getting silence from all three of them! Ha , actually I think Caitlin said she got it I'm just waiting for hers. And I haven't heard from June in a long time ... and I have no idea if Travis has gotten either of my letters.

That's all. All's been well in Baguio , but increasingly busy. Training takes up so much of your time , haha , and I feel like I never have any free time any more to do anything. Which really is better though , more focused. This week was a bit crazy because we had something going on each day other than proselyting. Monday - Pday , Tuesday - District Meeting , Wednesday - MCM , Thursday - weekly planning , Friday - Zone Interviews , Saturday - conference + priesthood , Sunday - conference. So it was a bit of a different week. Unfortunately we haven't been able to meet with the Laordan's since they last came to church last Sunday ... they've been out of town like all week in Dagupan and Mountain Province ... so every time we drop by there's always just their 12 and 13 year old there , and we're like uhh alright .. just tell them we dropped by. Haha. We text them all the time with little response .. but that really is their attitude. It's like they don't care and then we get into the lessons and it's the most personal , spiritual experience you could possibly imagine. So they're killing my mental stability right now , but I love them... that's the problem ha. We've been finding like crazy because all of our investigators just lose interest so fast. It's easy to get a first lesson here in the Philippines , because everyone's like alright ... word of God ... no problem come in. Then we share with them something different from their beliefs , and when you come back for the return appointment it's "next time na lang" which means like ... next time.. na lang haha I donno how to translate that. Like come back another time. That's one problem here , they don't really understand what you're saying and how you're any different because they're are so many jehovah's witnesses and iglesia ni cristo that go from house to house confusing everyone. They're just like what's different about you than them ... you're just going to tell me I won't be saved if I don't join you. So we have to like disassemble these barriers and then work our way back up trying to educate them a little about the bible they claim to believe in , ha. It's a complex ... how people can have such a devout faith in something they are too busy to read. Explaining how the Book of Mormon is not the bible is hard enough. But pilipinos are seriously awesome , and I love them ... that's the problem.

So this week on Pday I found a blowdart , and I'm going back to buy more! I'll be sending those home ... so don't shoot eachother but they're stupid fun. Also they work ... we're going hunting later. I'm on a search , though , to find Christmas presents so I've got to take out some Christmas moolah. Tuesday's district meeting was good as always , and the whole week has been pretty regular , nothing spectacular. There is so so so so much rescue work to do here with the less-actives , President Jensen apologized to us at the training meeting a couple weeks ago. He was like I understand everything in Preach My Gospel talks about baptizing , but we need to shoulder the ward's work as well and do their home-teaching for them. Home teaching is a program that DOES NOT work in the Philippines. They don't understand how to do it , and thus it does not get done. So the missionaries do it all , and just as we build up the less-actives trust enough to come back to church he gets offended again by some insignificant tiny thing. It's hysterically horrible. That's another thing ... I love pilipinos , but they are so incredibly insecure. Especially the teenagers. They'll try and show off to all of their friends, but when approached they back down so so quick and every person here is incredibly unsure of himself. It's impossible to get past the social concern part of their conversion because it's never , well what does this doctrine mean to me , but more of what will my uncle's uncle's neighbor's mom think about my decision... yeah.

Anyways the week was good and Elder Tan is still a great missionary. We're trying to find everyone and anyone who will listen , thus we talk to everyone and try and get members to help... which doesn't really happen haha. Baguio is a bit different , I do miss the humility of Pangasinan. But it's great up here and I love every minute of it. On Friday we had Zone Interviews , in which President Jensen comes and conducts a short interview with each missionary to see how he's doing. It always makes you feel good and you can ask him anything you want , including deep doctrine haha. But during which our zone leaders gave a unique workshop about loving our investigators and everything which was a good change of pace from regular workshops.

But let's talk about conference. We didn't really have many investigators come to church , which was a bummer , but the talks were obviously so so good. My favorites were President Uchtdorf's talk about humility , President Packer's talk to the youth , and Elder Holland's scolding but awesome remarks in priesthood hahaha. " You older folk , don't you sit back yet , I'm not through with you yet " . But President Monson gave some pretty awesome remarks and I was blown away about a second temple in Provo. That's nuts. I think I had some other favorites as well , but those are the ones that stand out in my mind. Also Elder Callister's talk was pretty good. In between sessions on sunday we went to a very rich members house in our zone for lunch , and she invited all the missionaries , so it was a joyous event ha.

Okay well I think I'm out of time , so I'll try and send pictures next week and hopefully be able to get a package out within October. Elder Holland comes to speak to us on Saturday so I'll go into detail about that next week.

Love you all and good luck!
- Elder White