Monday, August 29, 2016

Week 61...Ilocos Philippines

Well its good to be in Ilocos again, I feel like I am in another country coming from Lasam.  There is Mcdonalds and American Pizza and fast internet and Ilocos empanadas and it is good to be back in civilization!  I went to the mission home to the trainer trainee meeting, and all of the missionaries except one are coming from the Provo MTC. They are all foreigners (Which means I am gonna be teaching my trainee how to speak Tagalog)!!! I am the only non Filipino that is training this batch, so they were all asking me if I was fluent in Tagalog and stuff. Haha they were funny. I loved hearing the MTC Tagalog and I was just imagining how weird it will be for them in their areas.  They were some pretty goofy Kanos. 2 of them are from St. George but from different high schools, and one of them was this tall kid who played doubles on Dixie's tennis team. He recognized me right when he saw me haha. So anyways, we all met each other and introduced ourselves, and then we got an envelope which said who are companions would be. So we opened it and I got Elder Puefua!! He is born in Samoa and he moved to Utah when he was 10! SO he is a Kano! His MTC companion said he is a party and that I will love him! But the crappy part is that I haven't met him yet and he is still in Manila right now haha. So my trainee still isn't here.... His visa was late so he didn't get to fly here with his batch. :( President told me that he should be getting here in Laoag tomorrow night...

 I have been here in Laoag working with the zone leaders for the past week. I AM SO BORED. And for some reason and cant sleep well and I am tired all the time, and I have another pigsa on my bum and it makes me cranky.  All the Filipinos keep asking me if I am okay and that I look like I am sad, and every time someone asks me it makes me wanna explode cuz I AM SAD CUZ I WANNA WORK IN VINTAR AND I HAVE NO COMPANION AND I HAVE ANOTHER PIGSA AND I CANT SLEEP.  But i will get through it I guess.  

I had a chance to go to Vintar though. I went with my ZL who used to be assigned there. We worked in the area with the branch President and the area looks fantastic. It's like Laoag mixed with Lasam. It has city and bukid (farm) and the people are nice and the branch is really young and it is just a perfect set up for me.  The branch president has just been called and he is only 24 years old, and he is so humble and works with the missionaries a lot and I am so excited!  The branch was organized in 2010 and only has about 40 to 50 members coming to church, and just over 100 total members. It is in a meeting house again, but the meeting house is right next to the apartment, and the apartment has AC!! LIKE WHAT!? I am so excited for this area! Plus Laoag is only about 15 minutes away!  There will only be 2 of us in the area, which I am excited about. The only thing is that I have no idea what i am gonna feed my companion. His batch said he eats an insane amount of food. But I seriously can't wait to get to work.

I have been reading PMG a lot and I am trying to spiritually prepare myself for training in this new area. I want this to be the best part of my mission so far, and I am trying to change some things and ensure that I am clean and pure and ready to be guided by the Spirit at all times and to be an instrument in God's hands. I see a big time opportunity to be able to train and open an area at the same time in this fairly new branch, and I am praying that we will see some miracles and that God's power will be made manifest here in the coming weeks. I have got some big plans for at least the next 12 weeks. I hope my trainee, Elder Puefua, is ready to work his tail off. We will see what happens.

Sorry I have no pics. These week has just been way boring and nothing has happened at all. I am literally just waiting for my companion to get here haha.

I love you all! Until next week!
-Elder Andersen

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