Good few days

Family!

Sorry for the lateness of email today. It's been another busy Monday here and even now I'm doing some important other stuff. However my family is still important so I guess I'll shoot you guys an email.

This week has blazed by pretty quickly. It's Elder Bermejo's last week so we've been doing a lot of little things to get the area and zone ready for his departure and to make sure I understand the area and stuff. It's possibly the most confusing area I've yet had , but I'm still happy to be assigned here.

Questions:

No , I did not go to a doctor. Sister Monahan's advice was just rest and drink lots of water and other stuff. She gave good advice and checked in often. You no longer have to email the office , Mom , haha. Thank you though for the concern.

How is your ward?
- It's good. Some regular challenges and we're still pushing the rescue effort and finding however there are some strong members that home teach regularly and stuff and area doing a lot of rescuing on their own so we're noticing the efforts they're making.
How is your companion?
- He's good. A very kind person with a big heart. He's starting to feel like he's going home though , which is usual.
How do you like Urdaneta? Tell me a little about it....
- I like Urdaneta a lot , but we're not assigned there haha. We're in Binalonan. It's like going from Wilton to Norwalk I guess , except Urdaneta is much much better than Norwalk and Wilton is a tad prettier than Binalonan
Are you eating?
- yess , I lost a little weight last week but I'm gaining it back , no worries.
How do you like being zone leader?
- It's okay. A few extra responsibilities but I enjoy regularly helping the missionaries in the zone.
What do you do as zone leader?
- Take care of 20+ missionaries. Attend to their needs and try and be a good example. It's like being a district leader just on a slightly larger scale.
Can you believe that Tanner is home in 3 days!!!!!
- Hardly. Please tell him to write me when he gets home AND please bug travis to write me..still nothing
What has been your biggest challenge this week and what did you do?
- Haha I don't write about certain challenges over email. Maybe ask those kinds of questions when you see me. But it's been a relatively good week.
How can I get in touch with Cody's mom because she has never responded to my facebook letter?
- Mm , I'm not really sure. I'll tell Cody to tell his Mom. What's your name on facebook? Shannon Staheli White , right?
Have you heard back from the school and been accepted? If so, what is your track?
- I got accepted a few weeks ago , but after filling out the track information I've gotten nothing back so far. They said it'd take 4 - 6 weeks , so within August I'm hoping. Registration for classes I think is in October?

Anymore questions? Wala?!

So last Tuesday was my first official day of work in a week and it felt straaange , to be honest. After not working for a week it just throws you into a weird funk - but it felt really really good to work again. Being inside all week had me going crazy , but craving Christmas. And loving motab , haha. The CD you sent me is pretty good , especially the Ode to Joy .. for some reason I love that song. I think partly because I played it as a kid .. but i don't know why. So anyways , Tuesday's work was really good but I was still feeling weak until Thursday. It's been a fast week , but not too many less-actives at this point are willing to come back. Elder Shill [remember him] and Pernecita [remember him] were assigned here back like 8 months ago and rocked the area. Every less-active to talk to was contacted by them or taught by them or brought back by them. All stars. So we're doing our best to find new less-actives and invite them back. Problem is that the area is incredibly spred out so at times we walk 7 - 8 kilometers because there's no jeeps or bus or trykes. But I'm the Laoac part of my area. We cover two municipalities and I prefer working in Laoac. It's a beautiful and very quiet area , but with a tad wealthier houses. There's a lot of people abroad. Anyways , since it's further from the church there's a lot of fruit that hasn't been picked yet , so to speak , so we're having fun finding new people over there.

Friday was a fun day discovering a larger portion of the area I had never been to before. We also got fed [finally , ha] and it was good. The real memorable stuff happened these past couple days. I had a really good sacrament meeting this past week , having finally gotten my strength back. I'm not sure why , I just really enjoyed the sacrament and the hymns. My favorite sacrament hymn is 169 and especially the very last line. I remember singing that New years day back in Damortis , the first sunday of the year , and for some reason just feeling something different. Anyways after church ---- oh wait , back up. I came up with a word Saturday. Busog Lasing. Translation: full drunk .. what I mean is that I felt so full Saturday lunch [we ate at chic boy] that I felt drunk. Like I couldn't think and just wanted to collapse. ---- return to sunday lunch. A member always gives us food , and I don't know why I think it was because it was the first meal after fasting but I just felt so stinking full and again BUSOG LASING returned! HAhaha such a strange feeling. Anyways work that day was slow until we got to our last lesson.

Now I've been wishing and hoping a lot lately to be able to teach someone who understands ... a bit .. more ... now I love humble people , but there's just a certain fun in teaching someone who can respond well. It happened. Finally. We met someone on the street last week and contacted him this past Sunday and it was a glorious lesson. Turns out he's a pastor for his church , something called the Apostolic something. Anyways as we teach and are able to explain our beliefs and stuff he keep coming back with his beliefs and verses in the bible and stuff and it was just so much fun to be able to use this small , but still sufficient knowledge of the bible with him. Everything he said we agreed on because it was doctrine in the bible that of course we teach , because we follow every single doctrine there is. And don't think this was debating because it wasn't in the least. We would just listen to him and then answer his questions and respond with our own teaching. The spirit was so strong. Especially when we got towards the end of the lesson and at this point his face was showing that he didn't understand why we were agreeing on everything so he was trying to find things to disagree on , and thus was the Book of Mormon. So what happens is we just bear down testimony of the truthfulness of the book and the look on his face and his wife's was amazing. You can just see the spirit working in them through their eyes and when we stopped there was just silence. For maybe only 5 seconds , but pure silence. Then the man tries to quote some bible verse and just stumbles. His mind was so jumbled by what the spirit just did to him that he couldn't get his thoughts together. It was such an amazing experience. So we left with such a great feeling and there was no hate or argument or anything. I felt just love for this man because he was teaching the right stuff and knows was the priesthood is and believes in it and I wanted so badly for him to just ask the Lord if the Book of Mormon is true. The Spirit is love.

So that was an amazing experience that I had last night that I won't easily forget.

TODAY! We had a zone activity. Personal and companion study were at the stake center in Urdaneta and for the companion study I had prepared preach my gospel jeopardy for the zone as a competition to see who studies well , haha. It was a mixture of PMG , scriptures , church history and other stuff ... and after so much preparation it all turned out well. Then we were able to watch a movie our mission president allowed , which was 17 Miracles. Have you seen this movie? Maybe it's because I'm on a mission but it was amazing. So powerful. And really just an eye-opening thing to really see what the Willie and Martin Handcart Company went through. Some great acting , some horrible , but still such a good movie. At the end of it we , as a zone , were just quiet. So right after it ended we knelt as a zone and gave a prayer in thankfulness for the pioneers and stuff. Another really powerful moment.

I'm not sure what's up but I've just had a couple of really spiritual days.

Anyways , now I've gotta hop off because we're goingn to be scrambling to get home in time for a FHE that a really nice family is holding for Elder Bermejo's farewell [kind of].

So that's all I've got for now. Thanks for all the prayers and love , and I'm happy to say I still have a long time left! Haha.

Love you all,
-Elder A White

[p.s - shout out again to June for all the letters]