yo yo

Family! What's going on. I'm still pretty good. Back in Malasiqui today and just sent out that package. I am sending no more packages. They lie to me about the price until I actualy bring it in and it's all taped and ready to go and it's crazy expensive! So no more. Not worth it. Let me know if you guys like the thing I got made and I can get a few more things made , but I'll just be bringing them home - no more shipping business. Also please get that letter off the Andrea ... where ever she might be at that time , and also the other thing off to the other person that's name is on it! Surprise. Update : This could be the mission office address of Naga Mission actually ... I would check on your mormon mom website if other missionaries from there say otherwise Philippines Naga Mission P.O Box 8857 Camarines Sur 4400 Naga City , Philippines Is there any area you hope to serve in before you come home?  You thought you might only be in one more area -- weird!  How many areas are there in your mission?  How many have you served in so far?  And which area would you choose if you could and what's it like? -Not necessarily , it would be fun to go back to a former area , though. Probably just one more , yep. Lots , haha. 5. Probably my first area - Malimpec. Do you know an Elder Jabillo?  He's leaving next month and HIS PARENTS ARE PICKING HIM UP!  Sounds like a plan to me! - It does sound like an idea ... a bad idea . WOOOAAHHH I am witty. Do you know an Elder Filichia or Elder Davis?  Both their moms are on MM and are very prolific writers.  I'm not.  I never write on that site.  - I've seen Elder Davis before I think. There's over 180 missionaries in the mission , haha , it's not every day I see them Um , if you search them on Facebook their email might pop up , ha. And even if we were 'friends' on facebook mom it doesn't mean you could see their accounts , haha. Just search their names 'Mitch Merrill' and 'Cody Storm'. Ahhh this internet shop is blasting Adele ... I really , really miss her music. So anyways , yeah - whatever you wanna throw in the package mom he would love it. Just send it off sooner than later if you can so not to delay the happiness! Ha. Don't worry about ordering anything special. I wanna ask him when I get home if he has any leather scriptures - and if not I'd send him some. He's awesome Anyways this week has been okay. Kind of long , as it is with training at first , but okay. Studies are from 7AM to 11AM straight .. so that's a bit taxing. Waking up at 5:30 is still challenging. But we haven't moved yet ... hopefully sometime within the next three weeks - but the little house we find is way far away from the highway so that's a small problem at night when we'd try to be getting home. Also they tell us that people drink and play music loud at night , haha , so we'll see what happens. we may or may not move into that place. But it's really the only one we've found so far that's suitable. So Tuesday was district meeting in Calasiao and seeing as our money didn't come through on Monday we were allowed to go shopping for our groceries and stuff on Tuesday. So we have district meeting and our district is composed of just 4 elders , haha. It's tiny. So it's basically just like companioship study in which I just give my thoughts on a subject or teaching skill or something and we try and apply it in our work. My topics the past two weeks were first the atonement and the second was testimony. I liked the first idea a lot of connecting the atonement in everything we teach. The problem sometimes here is that members and investigators get very attached to missionaries and not to the message. They think they're coverted to the message , but they're not. So when new missionaries come in and don't visit that person every day and watch movies and hang out and all this junk they get upset and offended and stop coming to church. [That's a bit exaggerated , but you get the point.] So the idea is to point to Christ in all our lessings in order to point away from our selves. In order to do this we connect whatever principle we are teaching directly to the atonement. If we can't connect it , we can't teach it. It was challenging at first , but in all honesty it brought a different spirit to the work and we saw a lot of blessings and great reactions come from it. So that's a small view into what teaching is kind of like. There's a lottt to remember as you're teaching. Despite the doctrine you have to remember the scriptures and hundreds of small little teaching skills that will effect the whole lesson. But you get used to it as time goes on. So after our district meeting on Tuesday we headed to the grocery store to get our stuff and were seen by like 10 different members , hahaha. Some were nice but others gave us the what are you doing here , shopping , kind of look haha. Here in the provinces you are a biiig part of the lives of members , so they will get upset by the littlest things. So , of course , we didn't really have the chance to explain that we had permission from our mission president to be shopping - but they didn't say anything on Sunday about it. Wednesday the zone leaders came with us to check out the house , and one of my zone leaders [ filipino ] starts negotiating with them about the price of the house and starts going waaay too high , haha. So they got an agreement on like 6,000 pesos / month without us even telling them if we want to live their or not. So the owners of the house could be a little upset if we don't end up moving there. That house is no more than 4 a month. Anyways. Work was pretty regular this week , nothing special. Thursday we had our new missionaries training in Urdaneta and that was a lot of fun. I got  to see Elder Soderquist and Elder Tan as they're both training as well. Elder Tan is doing awesome in San Quintin [mine and his second area] and I love hearing from the branch and members back there. I still write members in all my old areas. Also President gave a couple good speeches of instruction and answered a bunch of my questions. As we got back we just had a really good day , in that we got right out to work and landed 4 lessons within the 2 hours we had and were able to extend an IBD as well. Hopefully we'll have two baptisms in May. It's a good area , and working through less-actives really is a much better way. Friday my companion kind of broke down a bit with home sickness. He misses a lot of things from back home , particularly music and of course ... the girlfriend. So we spent about an hour or so just talking about it and getting out to work as soon as we could to get his mind off of it. It's funny how that works , when we're working thoughts from home are super far away. But in the morning when you wake up and at night going to bed they fly right home. He's a great guy , just needs to keep his mind focused. Saturday flew by pretty quick and Sunday was church. Didn't have as many as last week :\ but it was still good. It's awesome to see how many less actives will come back each week. They really are very faithful. Anyways , I'm running out of time here - so I'll close this up. I'm still well and loving everything as always. MY HEALTH IS FINE MOM , haha. It is the rice giving me a belly ... along with everything else here. It's all loaded with sugar to keep energy just high enough to get through work. I do drink the filtered water , but when it's sunday and you're out of water , and it's hot , and a member offers you water ... it's hard to say no. The area is great and these people are awesome. I'll talk to you , Mom and Dad in a couple weeks ... really really weird. I'll probably email you next week my cell number so you guys can call me. Okay , love you all! -Elder a White