Week 26 Santo Domingo Philippines

Monday:  We were in Laoag. We had Christmas con. It was way fun. First I got my shirt from the zone which actually wasn't mine because it was way too small, and everyone kept telling me that I looked super buff.  Then we figured it out and I got the right size. We had this huge dinner party with the whole mission and each zone did a skit and song. It was kinda awkward though, because our Zone leaders got emergency transferred (because they were disobedient) and they were in charge of our skit, and I don't think the skit was exactly appropriate for missionaries. (There was break dancing and a dance battle and false prophets)  So that was really uncomfortable, but our Zone leaders had a blast haha.  Oh well, just move on.

Tuesday:  We had the Christmas conference part of the Christmas con.  President Andradas talks were super good. Felt the spirit. Later I met this fellow Utah person named Elder Huber. We talked a lot, cool guy.  

Wednesday: No lessons....No people. pretty crappy day.  Personal study was good though.

Thursday:  Christmas eve day!  We only got to teach one lesson to an RC.  Elder Legaspi called his parents for Christmas. All day me and Elder Legaspi kept joking with each other saying, " Is it Christmas?"

Friday: Christmas! I woke up in the morning and totally forgot it was Christmas.  I finished Joseph Smith Teachings. So sick.  We had our Christmas party in the evening, which was fun. But we had to go home early because of curfew.  

Saturday: Christmas in America day!  I skyped the fam! it was super fun to talk to them and laugh with them again! I miss 'em. Apparently my English is still good but I have rice cheeks...

Sunday:  No one came to the first hour of church, we were the only ones there. So no Relief society or elders quorum class haha. But there was this one visitor from Olongapo mission who beat boxed church hymns for us.

Today: Went to the beach in San Juan with a bunch of members! The beaches are so flipping gorgeous here! and the water is like perfect! I wish I Could swim so bad!

Well guys I hope your Christmas' were awesome, and I hope you all have a happy new year!  Be careful all y'all.  

The Church is true. Joseph Smith is a prophet of God.  Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. I know these things are true, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

-Elder Andersen

Christ is the gift

Christmas con yooo

Too cool to stand (more like too tall)

Da beach

 The little dogs are nice though

Week 25 Santo Domingo Philippines

Hey everyone,

This week was pretty slow. All the Catholics are doing this Christmas tradition where everyone goes to church for 10 straight days leading up to Christmas, and then they call it good and don't go to church until next year.  Also many of the people we are teaching are super busy preparing for Christmas or they are gone. SO yah, The work wasn't the best this week. We place tons of pamphlets every day, but  most of the people don't want to listen to us. They pretty much just take pamphlets because we are nice and i am white and tall and somewhat okay in Tagalog.  

Excited for Christmas! I am in Laoag right now, and we have tons of activities planned for later. Also super excited to Skype the fam later this week!

I have been studying the teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith this week. I have had many spiritual experiences and insights as a result as my studies. I have grown much closer to my Father in Heaven and my Savior, as well as gained a stronger testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith.  It's been a week full of personal enlightenment and personal revelation for me. God listens to your prayers. There is no doubt in my mind that is true.

Sorry, not much to report this week. But thank you for prayers and support. And all of you have a Merry Christmas! Naragsak a Paskua ken nagasat a baro tawen! Maligayang Pasko!  

 Remember the real reason!

-Elder Andersen

FHE

Pogi siya naman

This kid is nuts, he climbed this one tree and was like making monkey sounds and hanging by one arm. I thought he was gonna fall and die.

Yah. cool people.

Week 24 Santo Domingo Philippines

Yahhhh. Star Wars comes out in three days!! HAHAH YAH WAHOO I'm so mad talaga.  I see star wars adds and posters all over the local 7 eleven, uhhhgggg. It looks sooo good.  

Monday:  We had a Zone practice in Vigan for the Christmas conference. One of our Zone leaders showed up in a Pacers jersey over his garments, so the sleeves were hangin out.....idk man.

Tuesday:  I had a bad day, I don't remember why, but I vented to my journal that day haha.  The work was hard and the finding was unfruitful. And Elder Legaspi got a hair cut, and there was this weird movie called My sisters keeper playing in the Salon, and it was about these cancer patients that fell in love and all this stuff happened and then one of them died and there was tons of swearing and yah It totally made me feel weird and totally took the Spirit away. haha.  Weird movie man.

Wednesday:  Long day, taught, found and stuff.  I finally finished the New testament. Cool beans.

Thursday:  Had District meeting. I learned a lot from the Spirit and really applied what i learned later while we were teaching. It was about teaching with the Spirit and focusing on the people and listening to them and asking inspired questions and creating an environment to help them feel the Spirit. Since then, all the lessons have been so much better.    We had an interesting lesson with a Less active whom we cannot get to come to church. He was called to be the branch first counselor a couple years ago, but got released after one month, and he has been totally less active ever since.  He and his wife are members, but all their kids save one were never baptized, and his wife is totally content on being less active, (she is pretty much still catholic).  I started off by asking him what the most important thing in his life was to him. He immediately told us that his biggest desire was to be sealed in the temple with his family, but that there was no hope.  We followed the spirit and taught him from the scriptures and tried to help him see that there is hope, but that he just has to act. He just dodged us the whole time and kept on making excuses.  He has given up.  We really did follow the spirit, and we compared him to the story of Alma the elder when he prayed for his son Alma the younger when there was probably virtually 'no hope', but because of the faith and righteousness of the father, an angel came to Alma and the sons of Mosiah.  Still the less active hardened his heart, for whatever reason, I know not.  Man. bummer naman.

Friday: Taught a really good lesson one to these investigators, but they are afraid to accept baptism because of Catholicism.

Saturday:  We were supposed to have a priesthood activity in the morning, but the Branch President got sick and didn't inform any other priesthood authorities, so yah that got canceled. We were supposed to go to the beach too. :(  Found a funny girl who was really good in English, and she was actually leaving for BAgiou the next day. But we taught her lesson 1 and then got her info in Bagiou so we can refer her to the Bagiou mission.

Sunday: Fast Sunday sa amin.  We surprisingly had an investigator come to church, and she even bore her testimony. But she pretty much just told everyone about how she wants to be baptized but its not the right time yet, and the exact reason she will not say. But I think it is also because of Catholicism.  I bore my testimony about the Book of Mormon and Moroni's promise.    We later went to Vigan and watched the Christmas devotional at the district center. The music and the talks were really good, and it made me Utah sick a little bit. haha.

Iyon lang. Naragsak a Paskua! Have fun with Star Wars and Christmas! I'm totally not jealous! (I'm totally jealous) Buts it's okay cause Christmas will be cool here too.
Love you all. Talaga, mahal ko kayong lahat! 
-Elder Andersen

Dinner in da filipeens, wen.


Hahaha. aaha, ahah, hahah . ha.



 Idk man. If you have a selfie camera, you kinda gotta use it.  Shout out to grandma Linda for the camera!

Week 23 Santo Domingo Philippines

Hey guys, sorry I really stink at  taking cool pictures. I made it a personal goal in my weekly planner to take more interesting pictures for you guys.

Yah! The work is still Matumal (Slow) !  We lost an investigator that we thought had lots of potential, he was the one who has the big house and whose head looked like it would explode when we taught him. He texted us and told us thanks for our time and to have good luck on our missions, he said he decided to stay Catholic.  :((((((((   Bummer dude, seriously, so much potential.... Bummer talaga.

Thursday... we were trying to cross the street when this American on a motorcycle yelled, "Hey look Catholics!"   I politely told him we were Mormons, then he drove really close to us and said, "Nah, You are Catholics."  Then he went on this crazy rant quoting tons of random scriptures from the Bible, and told us we were gonna go to hell.  He was like really loud and sounded angry. Then He was like, " You know what you outta do? You outta throw away that book of Mormon, that book of the devil, and read the king James version of the bible!!"  Then he said," By the way, there is no marriage out there, on those other planets! You wanna know why?! Because the Lord Jesus, the Almighty, the Creator, is gonna burn em all up!!"  Then he told us that we worshiped Satan, and more about how we need to forsake the Book of Mormon in order to be saved.  I politely told him that we serve Jesus Christ and do nothing but preach repentance on His name.  He was like, " Nah, you don't serve Him."  Then he said," I know what you guys call yourselves, THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS. (Then he got really loud) But there is one word missing, ONE WORD. You know what it is?"  "What" -me    "LORD!" And then he sped off on his motorcycle, really fast. Me and Elder Legaspi just laughed.  The guy was so American. I have no idea why he called us Catholics even though he totally knew who we were, I also have no idea why he is here in the Philippines. Everything he said made little to no sense, it was just really loud and angry. Like he legit sounded like he wanted to punch us.  Dude, we are just trying to cross the street, calm down.  He also gave us this peace of paper with these creepy cartoons and scriptures from the Bible captioning them.  I think He is the Preacher at the Messiah Baptist Church here in Santo Domingo, so weird seriously.

We met as a zone earlier today and planned our song and skit for Christmas Con, it was really fun, and lots of laughs.  Christmas will be fun I hope.

I read the Epistle of James yesterday. Really good stuff.

Thank you for your prayers and support, and emails. Means so much really.  Hopefully in the coming weeks, we will find scattered Israel. It's really hard right now, but we press forward, for we know to whom we are entrusted.  

-Elder Andersen

Here is a much cooler pic of the bear cat, accept I kinda look awk, but whatever, it's a flippin bear cat.

 I named him Ingay (Ing-ay)  Which means noisy. He is crazy

 This is basketball in the Philippines! haha!

 Yahhhh

 P-DAY IN VIGAN

Member baptism Yahhhhh 

Week 22 Santo Domingo Philippines

Monday: Held a bear cat and touched a tiger.

Tuesday:  Had exchanges with Elder Pamaran, he is a pinoy, and he is
25 years old. He doesn't cook, and he always asks me questions about
America, and complains about his companion. haha  We taught lesson one
to this guy named Marlon. He has a huge house, and a car, and he is
rich. While we taught, he asked tons of questions, and by the end of
the lesson he looked like his head was gonna explode, because of all
the new info. Especially when we extended a baptismal date to him. He
thought we were very convincing, but we told him that he should join
when he knows the truth from God, no matter how convincing are words
may be.

Wednesday:  Hard day. Finding scattered Israel.

Thursday:  had ZMT, talked about Christmas, I'm way excited.

Friday:  Got punted all day, and didn't get in to teach one lesson,
haha. Hard work all the same.  We had dinner at a members house
though, so that was a plus.

Saturday:  Another hard day, finding scattered Israel.  Waited for
transfer, news, but nothing. So I have another 6 weeks here in Santo
Domingo.  It's gonna be hard, but hopefully we can help some people
come closer to Christ.

Sunday: We went with the District and the branch president and invited
tons of less actives to a priesthood activity.

Yah, It's hard still right now. The work is slow, and even the new
people we are finding aren't really super interested.  So we will keep
looking.  Yah and the Filipinos don't do thanksgiving. It is after all
a American holiday.  the Filipinos are all geared up for Christmas
though.  But they have pretty much been geared up for Christmas since
September.  Almost done with the New Testament. I'm finding some
really cool stuff in Corinthians. But in all honesty, I really am
excited to finish and start the Book of Mormon again.

Love you all. Thank you for your support and your prayers.

-Elder Andersen

Week 21 Santo Domingo Philippines

 Dogs, and Drama, and Drunks...

Yeshhhh, Hello my dear friends and family. I'm am going to email, giving you an over of each day, so you will have a better idea of what happens from day to day.

Monday:  We were supposed to buy fans in Vigan, but we wasted to much time and couldn't get it done. We called Sister Andrada and she chastised us and then told us to buy a fan the next day hahaha. It, was pretty funny, cause Elder Legaspi was super scared to talk to her on the phone.  She chastised me first and,said we should have had better time management, I thought she wasn't gonna let us get a fan until the following Pday, So I asked "So should we wait until next Pday?" haha and then she chastised me again because that's not using common sense. haha. Love her still.

Tuesday:  Bought fans first thing in the morning.  Soooooo niccceeeee.  Worked, had dinner at a members house, the Sister Missionaries came 20 minutes late, and the member was sort of mad at them, I kept joking that the elders were her favorite.  .......drama......

Wednesday: We got a list from the ward clerk of all the Less actives in our area, (that we know of) 

We went hunting for them, but turns out many of them had moved, or they died, or they were at sea.  And one of them was sleeping, and then sleeping again when we went back again. what a goon man.

Thursday: Hard work, but no lessons. Got punted allll the dayyy long.  We came home and there were tons of ants on the floor, so Elder Legaspi to some sunscreen and a match and torched them :D  haha, filipin Filipinos man.  Haha he almost burned his hand off, and then we laughed for like 25 minutes.

Friday:  We decided in weekly planning to set aside an hour every day to find, we decided that we are gonna knock on every single door in the entire area, whatever it takes to find the Lost Tribes of Israel.  we spent an hour and a half on our very own street, a lot of people turned us down but that's okay, we found some people that said we could come back and teach them.  So AYOS.  Around 9pm, A member called us and asked us to go check on one of our LA's, who has a WOW issue.  She said he had a ruff day, and that we could help him. We biked over as fast as we could and found him drunk...... yeahhhhhh. haha. He tried to act like he wasn't drunk... but he was drunk. 

Saturday:  Happy Birthday DAD!  We worked hard all day, but only had one lesson, idk why this week is so hard.  We Started a fast after lunch.

Sunday: Pres Andrada came to our District! He taught gospel essentials class and spoke in sacrament meeting. It was really cool.  We had and FHE at dinner time, we taught a small lesson to a bunch of fams in the brancg, and then we ate. Many of the members were super surprised how good I was at Tagalog, as compared to my first few weeks.  They told me to start working on Ilocano, but I said no way, not yet anyway.  Then we biked home in the dark, and it was like a 25 min ride, plus as soon as it's night time, every dog in the world chases us. I hate the dogs here so much, I know that sounds horrible, but they all have rabies, and aren't trained, and I'm pretty sure Satan has control over them, because they only bark and chase the missionaries.

Today: I had an encounter with a bear cat, and touched the butt of a tiger, and then the tiger hit me in the goods with his tail.  If only my 6 year old self could see me now- I TOUCHED A TIGER

So yah. I've been think about what needs to change here in SAnto for weeks now. I've asked other members if the Elders area was baptizing in the past years. In the Elders area, we have had 1 baptism in the last 2 years, if not more.  I don't know what the deal is but there needs to be a change, we need to help these people come unto Christ.  During weekly planning we decided to go to every single house in the area, and invite them to learn about the Restored Gospel.  We fasted on sat and Sunday specifically that we would be able to find the people here in Santo that would be willing to come unto Christ.  And that the Spirit would carry our words to their hearts, and that we could help this branch become Zion.  

I've read the Gospels of Jesus Christ, and now I'm almost done with Acts. I really like the Book of John, but Acts I really really like. It's amazing to read about how much of a difference the Gift of the Holy Ghost makes. The difference in the Apostles before and after is night and day.  I'm also obsessed with the Apostle Paul, the guy was a gospel preaching  animal. I want to be like him.

CGEEEE Love you all.

-Elder Andersen

This is a bear cat. Its a bear because it can stand on 2 legs, it's a cat because it has whiskers.

my new favorite animal
 

In action, shortly before I got nailed, as you can see the blur around his tail because it is in moving, obviously yah, yah

Week 20 Santo Domingo Philippines

This week was pretty lame. We got punted all day on Tuesday and Wednesday, because it's the rice harvest right now, and no one was home... We had a few lessons but, mehhhhh... Then on Thursday after district meeting, Elder Legaspi got a really bad fever, He was super hot, and weak, and his body ached, so he had to stay in the apartment and rest. He was sick Thursday and Friday, so no work.  Also we attended a member baptism Saturday morning, and then had FHE in the evening, so we really didn't have the most productive week, kinda lame.  

I'm excited to get back working this week.  So yah.... I had a lot of time for personal study this week, which on the other hand is kinda nice.  I finished reading about the teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, and read all of Matthew, Mark, and now I'm half way through Luke.  President Benson says we should be studying the Book of Mormon always, and that yes, some scripture is more important than others. So I need to return to the Bom and D&C, but i really really want to read the New Testament, so I'm trying to read it fast.  

Alsooooo, haha, Tumitira kami sa impierno..... haha. (Translate yourselves if you want)  So, a little background; Every since my first day in Santo Domingo, we only have had one working fan We have two, but it is broken. (the standard is one fan per missionary)  . And Elder Tejada used it to sleep every night.  So I have been sweating my self to sleep every night here in Santo. Since this transfer, Me and Elder Legaspi have been switching off every night using the fan to sleep.  But it broke a week and a half ago. We are burning alive. It is soo flippin hot in our apartment. Like literally, we are studying the scriptures and we are drenched in sweat.   We have contacted sister Andrada about the sitch, as well as the office Elders, but they haven't really been of much help to us so far.  So we are probs gonna buy some fans ourselves and then have the office reimburse us later. haha. Also, the mosquitoes are still alive and breeding in the apartment, but as long as you stay moving and sleep under a mosquito net, you only get bit sometimes.  haha.  

Me and Elder Legaspi are laughing and joking and are really getting along well. The Tagalog is still coming as well.   Our area is so big, and are bikes are so crappy, and it's so hot, and we are always so tires, and we have no fans, and no AC. But buhay pa. haha Still a great time. No greater work, no greater need.  

Sorry, not many pics this week. I've been in the apartment sweating bullets most of this week haha. But here is us eating, and here's a selfie.  HANG LOOSE.  

Next week na lang.

-Elder Andersen