Week 35...Lasam Philippines

 

So now I am leading Lasam, Its been nuts cause I have to coordinate both me and my companions work as well as the other 2 new missionaries, but as the week has gone on it has gotten easier because the other 2 missionaries in the other area are starting to figure it out on their own.  So now I just have to focus on my area. The weird thing is that I actually got transferred too. From Lasam B to Lasam A.  So I have a new area again, so I actually am starting all over with an open area again.  It's just the other half of Lasam that is farther away, but it has more members in it and more fellow-shippers, more progressing investigators, but less total investigators so we have lots of people to find.  My new Companion is awesome. He has only been out for 5 months so I am the senior companion. He is really nice and humble and just chill.  He has had all American companions so far.  We had a baptism two days ago, and we have another one in two weeks or so, so he is excited. This is his 2nd area, and he is coming from Laoag which is pure city, the complete opposite of Lasam so he is a little shocked haha.  Oh and his name is Elder Roberto.

The other 2 elders are Elder Erguiza, the new district leader, and ELder Harrold. Erguiza 26 years old but he looks like he is 16. 

 

So Eljay got baptized 2 days ago. Elder Whitrod and Abonitalla did all the work though cause I'm in their area now.  Sister Joy marie is married to a member and she was found also by those 2 Elders. She is scheduled to be baptized on march 19. She is way ready and already knows the church is true.  So awesome!

Also our landlord, Brother Dexter, who was my investigator last transfer is now the 2 new missionaries investigator. Just the other day they told me that he has decided to be baptized and they set a date on April 2! SHWEET!

I got a bad haircut the other day. I look like a idiot HAHA.

That's this week.  Ask me questions cause I don't know what to tell all you guys every week! I love and miss you all! 

-Elder Andersen

Baptism! Brother Eljay Ramos Lara

Caribou yo

Elder Roberto and the caribou

 Elder Andersen and the caribou

Cute lil fam of the branch clerk

 So I bought the desert for our recent converts Bday part, but no one ate it :(

 SHELFIE - My good hair day

It's mud I swear

Haha soon to be Elder Romel used my camera to do his missionary pic

 

 

Week 34....Cabugao Philippines

So this is nuts.

This week was just normal until Saturday night, when we got transfer texts.

Elder Whitrod, Abonitallia, and my companion Elder Camero are all transferring. It's just me now here in Lasam. My new companion is Elder Roberto and I will meet him tomorrow.  

WHAT IS GOING ON?

I am not sure if there are just 2 Elders now in Lasam or if their will be 2 more coming in as well.  I hope that there are still 4 elders because if not, then I have to work all of Lasam and it is SOOOO BIG, and I don't know how I will handle that.  This is nuts.

The three who are leaving are all sad and they love Lasam and don't want to transfer. :( It's super weird that three of them are transferring out. Man this is crazy.

So the work was pretty regular. However, we didn't have any progressing investigators this week. :(  Camero has been pretty much leading the work so far but he is leaving now and now I'm the BIG DAWG here in Lasam so we will see what happens.

Elder Abonitallia and Elder Whitrod had a baptism last week, as you can see in oone of the pictures.  The water was like up to their shins haha. They had to sit the kid down on his bum with his legs pointing straight ahead haha. That's how we do it here in Lasam haha.  They have another baptism coming this week but they are both getting transferred so I might be baptizing that person. We will see.

Man I am gonna miss those guys.  I feel bad for my new companion though and perhaps the two others that may or may not come in because we still have no fridge and no front door.  Haha Kawawa.

That is about all I got this week. I excited to meet my new companion and excited to see what the  next transfer will bring here in Lasam.  This transfer has extra 2 weeks on it as well because now the Filipinos at the Manila MTC are doing 3 weeks instead of 12 days there.  So now I will be serving a 24 and a half month mission hehe.  

Love you all. Pray for me, I pray for you.

-Elder Andersen

Week 33...Cabugao Philippines

So what happened this week. Not much. This week was super duper fast. It feels like I was just emailing yesterday.  

We worked pretty hard this week.  We taught some lessons and found some new investigators that hopefully will progress.  We still struggle to get people to church. We only had 2 investigators come to church on Sunday. One of them was our super nice landlord who comes almost every week anyway, and the other was our neighbor who is this 11 year old kid,  we went to his house and picked him up. We even left early on Sunday walked by the houses of a ton of our investigators (and members) to remind them to come to church but no one would come. :(  

The only really out of the ordinary thing that happened was on Tuesday night some one died in a motor accident just a couple meters away from our apartment. It was a relative of our land lord too.  We just heard about it but we walked past the spot the next morning and saw the blood stain on the cement :/ Apparently he crashed into another vehicle that had no lights on and it was night time, ...Yall probably don't wanna hear that but that is really the only thing that happened that's worth talking about this week... I guess.  Sorry bout it.

Sorry this week was so not interesting. I can't think of anything else to tell you guys about.  

Woah this is the last week of the transfer. time fly's sooo fast. and slow some times too. but mostly fast.

Sorry guys that all I got this week.  Read the scriptures every day and pray every morning and every night and go to church, and then you will all be in a very spiritual standing guaranteed. 

 2 Nephi 2:27  We have the freedom to choose. So choose wisely

-Elder Andersen

Some cool stuff. This is where we do work everyday

 

We balled hard

I found the chillest baby ever. She even knows Tagalog (and not Ilokano for once)! All the babies here don't usually learn Tagalog until they start school. So yah, plus all the babies are usually scared of me because I'm white. But this one was SO CHILL!

Me and my valentines formally agreeing to be valentines... (yesh I have more than one)

Week 32...Cabugao Phililppines

Another week gone by and another well needed P-day. This is now my 7th month as a missionary. Wow. time fly's fast. Just 17 more months to go! And I only have one more birthday and one more Christmas on the mission! haha. And one more New Years! but still 2 more Easters. And two more 4th of July's. :(  Man that makes me sad, my next American 4th of July is in 2018. :0

Anyways... This week went relatively fast.  We moved on Tuesday in to the new apartment, man, and we really got to see how disgusting the old one really was.  But it was pretty nice cause the branch president came and helped and also the guys who just finished building our new apartment came and helped too.  The land lord of the old house was kind of a dufus though. He just came in and complained about how crappy the apartment was and kept trying to blame it on us, and he made us go buy like 9 light bulbs and we had to fix the broken windows and all this crap that wasn't even our fault. And he was smoking a cigarette the whole time so he stunk up the house and yah he was just kind of a kuripot.

Yah the new apartment is much better and stuff. The only problem is that it's really far from centro and and takes a while to get there after proselyting.  And we don't have a front door yet so cats get in sometimes haha. Oh and we still don't have a fridge, but were working on it.

Haha, the tall Australian wanted to celebrate after we were all moved in so he bought a 2 liter coke but when he tried to open it and it slipped and broke and sliced 2 of his fingers. He started saying "like why me?"  and he started freaking out and our branch prez used my first aid kit to dress it, but while they were trying to dress the wound he started sweating really bad and almost fainted like twice.  It was really a tiny cut but he just freaked himself out haha. So that happened.

The work was pretty okay lang this week.  It was really rainy and we kinda got punted more than usual. We had one investigator come to church, he is our new land lord. His wife is a member and their kids too.  But the Husband is still a non member. He come to church most Sundays with his fam but he is too shy to be baptized. It's hard for us to get much out of him while we teach him. He is so nice though. He will be baptized one day for sure.  The one kid who didn't show up to his baptism didn't come to church again. :( I don't know what to do to help him. His two siblings are members and came to church, but he just didn't come.:/

On Sunday, one of our fellowshippers bore his testimony and  played a card trick while at the pulpit for some reason haha. Pinoys are so weird.  

Man it's crazy this transfer is almost already over.  I wonder what will happen. Everyone keeps telling me that president will make me district leader as well as a trainer. I hope they are wrong.

Well thanks for your thoughts and prayers.  The Spirit whispers to me all the time that there are many people praying for me and cheering me on back home. Thank you guys, and God bless you all. I hope your prayers will be answered, as well as mine, so that we can stat bringing these people in Lasam closer to their Savior, and hopefully baptism. I love and pray for you all!

-Elder Andersen

FHE at this part member family's house. We played this game and if you messed up you got baby powder slapped on your face

My cute District leader <3

One of My old zone leaders from Vigan, and one of my current zone leaders. Haha. They are crazy. The one on the very left hasn't shaved for a week.  PASAWAY SILA HAHA 

Week 31...Cabugao Philippines

Soooo this week.

I can't remember everything because I usually write it down in my planner what I wrote in my journal so I can remember it all for emails, but I forgot this week. :(

The work was better. I think my companion was just a little crazy last week because of our over demanding zone leader. We didn't have any investigators come to church this week, again. I think it's because it's been raining hard and the people don't want to drive on their motorcycles through the rain.  So bummer there, but we had two less active families that we have been visiting come to church! One of the families that came made me really happy because a couple nights before we taught them lesson one and I really felt the Spirit.  I was also just really in a good mood that night and I made them laugh a ton but we also taught one of the best lessons I've taught so far on the mission.  The Spirit was there and it was so simple. It's so important to love the people you teach and also to let them know that you love them. Not just by telling them you love them, but showing them and being their friends.

We have on investigator who should be getting baptized. He is a 14 year old chubbie boy and he is hilarious, I love him. He has already been interviewed to be baptized but he didn't show up to his very own baptismal service.  Haha what the heck. Everyone showed up but him. He told us that he had to work in the bukid (rice farm) but we have sources that told us he was just chillin at the house. SO that's frustrating.  And he hasn't been to church the past 2 weeks.  So gonna get to the bottom of it. His older brother is already baptized and he has been an investigator for like 3 years already.

So on Thursday we went to Appari and watched the world wide mission conference. The talks were so good, and I learned so much.  I realized many things that I needed to rethink and reapply to the work here in Lasam.

Oh yah a couple days ago, I was reading the BOM while swinging on the hammock and to my dismay, something broke and I fell and landed on my back. All the Elders laughed really hard and I laughed really hard to just laying on the floor but it actually hurt and I bruised my back haha. But it's nothing major, just for the sake of telling a story really.  Man I really like that hammock :(

So we still have to wait like 5 days to move in to the new place. :(  Bummer. I hate that stupid apartment. 

It's okay though. Were still alive and stuff.

I spoke yesterday in sacrament meeting.  I talked about the BOM.  What it is, Why it's important, How we can know if it's true, and stuff.

The BOM is true.

That's all I can remember this week. I love you all.

 Read the BOM. D&C 84:54-57. That's why.

-Elder Andersen

This is when our apartment flooded a solid 3 and a half inches

 Riding on top of the jeepnee!!!! Philippines bucket list. So fun. I rid on top of a trycee this morning too. Cagayan is crazy!

Week 30...Cabugao Philippines

This week was faster.

Last Sunday, we did accounting, and our Zone Leader was talking to our District Leader, Elder Abonitalla on the phone, but then the zone leader wanted to talk to Elder Camero. So the zone leader whined to us about how our KI's were so low, despite the fact that we just transferred in and we are opening the area and we couldn't work on Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday because of transfers and district conference. So then Elder Camero told the zone leader to watch and wait cause we were gonna get 50 lessons the coming week and that's when I knew this week was gonna suck. 

So then we started working. All my comp could think about was teaching lessons. He was always trying to teach the lessons really fast and he always spoke really fast and I am positive that no one understood our message. We pretty much just found lots of people and then talked at them. It was the worst. I taught more lessons in a week this week than any other week on the mission, and it sucked, because we didn't help anyone. I just knew something was missing.  Finally yesterday at church, the fruits of our labors showed when not one of our investigators came to church. 

So that's the update on the work this week.

Update on the apartment situation, We just have to endure one more week. It didn't flood this week surprisingly so that was nice. President and Sister Andrada came to Lasam on Tuesday for quarterly interviews. The interview went well and I love President.  I learned that I need to direct my studies towards PMG, so I can become a master teacher like the Savior. President Andrada said we cant be perfect people but we can become perfect teachers.  Sister Andrada went with the other Elders to the apartment and they said she was speechless (because of how bad it was).  So then to our satisfaction, the APs showed up on Friday with mattresses and other stuff we needed so that was awesome.

Despite the bummer with the work this week, I am really excited about this branch. The leaders are awesome and super dedicated and the branch is super focused on growing so we can get a chapel here (Because our church here is just a tiny little meeting house.)

My challenge here in Lasam is trying to stay motivated and happy. All 4 us are having trouble waking up on time and focusing during study hour because our home environment is crap and we are all mad and homesick and unmotivated and tired. I know that's no excuse.  It's all about perspective and making the best with what you got. And I could probably cheer up and be happy and motivated if I willed it, but it's just hard man.  Hopefully I will figure it out this coming week. We all keep telling ourselves it will get better when we get the new apartment, but we'll see.

Hmmmmmmm. I think that's it for this week.

I love you all. Pray for us, and I will keep praying for all you guys. 

-Elder Andersen

Week 29 Cabugao...Philippines

Man. This has been the slowest week of my whole life.  I have way to much to talk about and I probably won't be able to remember every thing. It feels like an eternity ago that I emailed last Monday.

Mon:  After emailing, me and Elder Legaspi went home so I could pack my stuff.  It took me like 2 hours to pack and then we decided to stay in Cabugao because its closer to Laoag, Because I needed to wake up at 5 am the next morning to travel.  So I said goodbye to Good ole Santo Domingo and left for Cabugao.

Tues.  We Woke up at 5 and went to the Laoag bus station in order to bus to Cagayan.  Before I got on the bus to Cagayan, President Andrada came and told me I was opening the area in Lasam and stuff. So that's kinda scary.  Then I said goodbye to Elder Legaspi and got on the bus. I got to sit next to my MTC companion Elder Langeveld the whole bus ride, cause he was transferring to Cagayan as well.  WE talked a lot, especially since the bus ride was like 6 hours. 

Finally after arriving to Allacapan Cagayan, I got dropped off and was met by Zone Leader Hoopes and Valenton. Also My companion Elder Camero was waiting there, and also the other 2 Lasam Elders, Elder Whitrod and Abonitalla.  Elder Camero is a big Filipino from Leyte. He is not super good at English but it's all good.  Elder Whitrod is a super tall and goofy Australian, and he is almost going home in 2 transfers. He is really funny. Elder Abonitalla is our district leader he is chill.  We are all staying in the same apartment.  We took another hour and a half jeepnee ride up to Lasam, which is up in the Mountains, then we got to Lasam and it's so pretty up here. It's different then Santo Domingo. It's up in the mountains and it's really thick jungle and stuff.  We went to the apartment and that's when everything really started to suck. It's really big, and has 2 floors, but it's really old and dirty and lots of mosquitoes.  The floor is really muddy inside because it floods twice a week from irrigation.  The fridge is broken and irreparable so we cant buy food in bulk.  We have 4 elders but only 2 mattresses, and we have 1 cabinet for clothes, and we are all sleeping in this one tiny room that is clean and doesn't get flooded.  SO we are all living out of our suitcases and tripping all over each other and 2 elders are sleeping on the floor, and their is millions of other problems, and yah its just bad.  So Later we all went and met the branch president in his cubo hut. Cool dude.  Sleep was really not fun. Plus there are even more mosquitoes than there were in my last area.

Wed: Worked in the morning with my new companion. He knows 4 languages including Ilokano, and he is super diligent and good at teaching. I think we are gonna do well here as far as the work goes.  The people are way different here as well, they are nicer and willing to listen.

Thursday:  We worked and also we got permission to look for a new apartment, so we did that.  

Friday:Woke up to a flood, and that really ticked us all of so we went and Looked for apartment and worked.

Saturday; Woke up and the flood was higher than before. Uhhhggg. We went to Balisterros for district conference. WE met a lot of members and they are way cool here.  Lots of priesthood and fellowshippers here, and the members are way nicer to the missionaries.  District con was good, we met the rest of the missionaries in our zone, and President Andrada spoke, and also Elder Raul Villanueva from the Philippines area presidency was there.  We worked and slept in Allacapan that night because we had to go to the rest of District con on Sunday.  I talked a lot with Elder Hoopes, our zone leader.  He has 6 months left. He is crazy and told me some crazy stories, pretty cool guy though

Sunday:  We went to Ballisterros again to finish District Conference.  Good stuff.  Then we returned to our crap apartment out that was lame.  We worked though and the fellowshippers and the members are awesome here.

Yah Its been a long and frustrating week. I'm pretty tired and homesick and annoyed.  All because of the apartment. We found an apartment though, but we have to wait at least 2 weeks before it is done. So I guess we have to endure.  Also I will have to learn to wash my clothes by hand Filipino style so I'm excited (not really) for that.  But The work has been great so far, on the bright side.  We have already 7 baptismal dates and 4 investigators went all the way to Ballisterros to go to church. I think me and Elder Csmero will do pretty well here. I'm exited. The only thing is the terrible apartment.  Were miserable, you guys have no idea haha. We have a hammock though haha. 

Long week, Hard week, Miserable week. 

Thank you all for your support and your prayers. I probably won't be able to send pictures again this week. the Computer I'm using is barely working. So sorry bout it.

-Elder Andersen