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Heyo -- I'll try and make this email a little bit better than last week , haha , that was way boring. I forgot to mention [i think] that we had LTM last week. That's Leadership Training Meeting - a meeting for district leaders and zone leaders. It was actually a lot of fun , ha. You get to see so many of your friends in the mission and President Jensen gave a pretty awesome workshop about doctrine. The new focus our mission is taking is a very doctrinal push. President Jensen feels like we're not teaching the doctrine as clearly as we need to be to the investigators and less-actives , so we have a two month preach my gospel "cleansing" [ha] going on. Our studies are a heavy heavy dose of preach my gospel and we're redirecting the way we teach and stuff. It's actually kind of awesome how much I learn every time I open Preach My Gospel again. I've read it tons of times and studied it a lot , but it's like the scriptures... as situation change , meanings do as well - and more things stick out to you. [I'm getting distracted with I'm a Mormon videos] We're actually back in Baguio today , as I wasn't able to get the contact solution that I needed last time. So we got permission to come back up. We just ate lunch and during which ran into half of our old zone , haha , so since we both used to be here in Baguio it was way fun , obviously. We've made close friends with the elders here so it's like a mini-reunion hahaha. Gosh, looking at that from a non-mission point of view must be incredibly not exciting. This video is actually pretty sweet. http://mormon.org/me/3PTR Anyways , let's talk about my week a little bit. It was pretty sweet. This area is starting to rock , to be honest. The Branch Presidency is so new and willing to work that we're working miracles through the help of the miracles. Honestly , every week we see new members coming back for the first time after years of inactivity. We've made it a mission for ourselves to find every less active in the area and invite them back. A solid amount of people , really do only need an invitation. But we're working with so many families and priesthood and it's a testimony every day to see how humble these people area. To be honest , I'm so thankful to be out of Baguio. It was an amazing experience to be here in Baguio , but it's greater impact was to refresh my view of people down in the provinces. In La Union and Pangasinan. People area incredibly humble down there , sometimes really rude - haha , but still very humble. They will open to you as soon as they trust you , and will bear their soul when asked. Other than that we've also had a bunch of referrals coming for us , in which we're able to teach investigators again- after stabilizing the less active families. It honestly is a very inspired focus, President Teh was right on the money when they decided on this new direction. But it's so strange to teach investigators again - hahaha. It feels like I don't know how to do it anymore , because you really can't teach them the same as less-actives. The LAs already have a background in the church , so you are allowed to be a little more bold to them and straightforward , as with investigators you are their first interaction with the church , so you must be very careful in everything you say. The Philippines is very much a battle of the religions kind of area. To be frank , you've got our church , Jehovah's Witness , Iglesia ni Cristo , and Born Again. Then the rest is Catholic. Everyone groups us , naturally , with the other 3 - because they've never been told the difference , but that's understandable. But the 90% who are catholic have just developed this mentality that they now understand more than the rest that your church doesn't matter. Even after admitting they believe in the Book of Mormon , first vision , modern day prophet .. it's still a "whatever your church is .. it doesn't matter" . Haha. [I like this one , too - http://mormon.org/me/2T5N ] So yeah , that's why I love less actives. Almost all of them still have a testimony of the church , it's just our job to remind them. Besides that , me and my companion had a really cool discussion about the law of consecration the other day and it's meaning and everything. It's really interesting to look into to the impact it will have on members and everything. He says the first and second quorums of the 70 are now consecrated as well. So , in my opinion , it will make it's way to all the quorums and then stake presidents maybe and so on. Anyways ... the mission is still awesome. Time is flying by and it scares me each and every day. I think 15 months just went by the other day and I really don't like it. Members remind me all the time ... and I really really don't like it. Ha. But I love this time , and now I gotta go. LOVE YOU ALL!@#!@ -ewhite