It's Christmas time in the Philippines! Ber months equals Christmas here
so that is pretty sick. I get three months of Christmas music and yall
only get like just over one. HEHE. Its still pretty hot though... We
actually have air conditioning in our room...and we have been using it
for the past three days... It's gonna cost us a ton in electricity but I
haven't slept this good since America.. But it's actually kinda bad
though cuz it has been really really hard to wake up the past few days
cuz of how ridiculously good our sleep has been.
Me
and Elder Puefua are like best friends already. He is awesome. He beats
me up when I make fun of him and when I tell him what to do haha. Then I
always tell him he is my child in the mission and he gets pretty
ticked, and then I start yelling,"WHO'S YO DADDY! WHO'S YO DADDY!" And
he trys to punch me, and tell me that he's my daddy and I just make fun
of him in Tagalog cuz he can't understand yet. HAHA. Good times.
So
I'm starting my third week here in Vintar and we had a BAPTISM! We
baptized Sister Rosemarie Tolentino. She is a 17 year old girl, and has
been taught for a long time but I guess Me and Elder Puefua have been
the only ones brave enough to ask her parents if it is okay with them if
she gets baptized (cuz catholic). The first time we visited her, we
planned on doing a practice interview to see if she is ready but she was
sick and almost threw up like 10 times we we met with her haha. She
insisted she was fine so we kept teaching her and I handed her my English BoM so she could read a verse and she almost threw up on it. So I
decided to call it after that and told her to just rest and we will
come back another time. She came to church that Sunday though! Then this Thursday
we went to her and did a practice interview and she knows EVERYTHING.
She is way way way ready to be baptized. She was just scared that here
parents wouldn't let her get baptized. But after the lesson we talked
to her mom and her mom said they would discuss it as a family. Later
that night we were informed that her parents would let her be baptized,
so we spent all of Friday running around to tell the members that there was a baptism. She was her interviewed Saturday morning, and then she was baptized that after noon
and the chapel in Laoag (cuz there is no font in Vintar). After she was
baptized by Elder Puefua she bore an awesome testimony and it was
great! The branch is full of young women and young single adult women
so she was welcomed really warmly.
Elder Puefua
is lucky. Hasn't even been in the Philippines a month and has a
baptism. I had to wait 7 months before my first haha.
We
are still getting a ton of referrals! We have so many! So we are trying
to contact and teach them and get them to church so we can help Vintar
become a ward!
Vintar is so beautiful! It is
like a mix of Lasam and Laoag. It has city and also mountains and rivers
and dams and it is so pretty. Lots of missionaries have told me they
are jealous because Vintar is apparently the best.
Elder
Puefua is getting better every day at Tagalog. I pretty much spend all
of study time working with him and helping him learn his stuff so I am
not learning as much for my self as I want to. Other than PMG I am not
reading anything, so I think I will just start the BoM again for the 3rd
time on my mission.
I try to get you
guys some more Spiritual insights for next week. Maybe I need to do
better at paying attention to spiritual things more, and learn to stop
and smell the roses, and enjoy the Philippines while I am here, cuz I
only have 10 months left. There are a lot of things for an American can
complain about out here, but It really is a wonderful place when you
just look for the gems and not the germs.
Sorry if I don't have many pics, I have another broken camera....
I love you all!
-Elder Andersen
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