PICTURES!!!

Ester and Melvin's baptism.

Christmas has begun in the Philippines. Candace is thrilled. She loves Christmas and lights!!

 This is a construction site in Candace's area.

Temple Day!!! Candace is lucky enough to go to the temple once every six weeks. This is her current companion.

Jeyer's Baptism

Baptisms

Nanay!!! And family!! Kumusta!!! I'm so sorry that you didn't get an email yesterday because Pday got switched to Tuesday as today was temple day. And just as a little side-note, can I just say how much I love the temple. It's like a breathe of fresh air and a rebooster. I highly recommend it :)

The baptisms went really great. I have pictures for you!! After I finish sending this email, I'll send you a few little pic-pics for your viewing pleasure :) Jeyer's baptism was great. His testimony is still small, of course, but he'll be stellar. No Elder Holland, sad day. But, he did give a fireside for the young adults preparing to go on missions. It was combined with the Quezon City stake and the Quezon City south stake and there were about 900 people there. Ah, so jealous, but how astig is that! All young adults. And he basically committed every single one of them to go on a mission and also said, and you sisters, don't you dare marry a young man that has not served a mission. Haha. Totally doesn't even surprise me. I love it though. That's what they really need here in the Philippines....strong youth, who will become strong leaders and build strong families. It starts with them right now. And missions are definitely the way to build that. I honestly have still not figured out how someone can go on a mission and NOT have a more firm testimony of the gospel. Blows my mind. Elder Callister's talk was incredible at our mission fireside. He gave 2 actually. One was on the blue print of the church...what the original organization was like, the doctrines, and ordinances and scriptures that correspond with each from the New Testament. It was awesome and will definitely come in handy when we run into those hard core Catholics, which by the way, I had my first encounter with one this week. Lets just say, I'm not a huge fan of Bible bashing, I don't mind the discussion, but I don't like the "prove it" part, ESPECIALLY when it is in a different language and I'm just trying to figure out what the question actually is, let alone how to answer in a clear and concise manner.  Anyway, his talk was awesome. Sheesh, if people would just actually read the Bible, a lot of this whole mess would be cleared up. Instead they go, you know actually, I'm just going to believe the nicien crede which was in fact written by man who had no idea what they were talking about and has now been ingrained into religious thoughts for the past 1500 years, even if you do show me proof from the Bible otherwise. Man, I hate Satan. He messes with everything. Then he also talked about being a consecrated missionary. He talked about the difference between water that is at 99.5 degrees and water that is at 100 degrees. At 99.5 degrees, it’s just hot water, but at 100 degrees, that's when it starts to boil and give off steam and with the steam it's 1000 times more powerful. That's the difference between being a consecrated missionary.

Also, I almost forgot! President Nielson talked about the Sabbath day here in the Philippines. It is seriously a problem. In the last 5 years, there have been 75,000 baptisms here in the Philippines, but only 10,000 are still active. That means 65,000 are now not active. Insane, I know. So he talked about how the culture in the Philippines has been trained to think that it's ok to not keep the Sabbath day holy. It comes from the Spanish conquering and the ideas from Catholicism. And it's so true. People think it's totally acceptable to go to church on Christmas, Easter, and your birthday, and that's ok. So he talked about how we have to change their perspective on what it means to keep the Sabbath day holy. We need to change their culture and make them realize that in God's culture, Sundays are holy, not a holiday. And then he talked about Somoa and how in Somoa it's illegal to have anything open on the Sabbath and he talked about the economic benefits that country has because they keep the Sabbath day holy. And then one elder asked, "What do we tell them though if they have to work on Sunday just to pay for food for their family?"  And he goes, "How much faith do you have in the Lord? You tell them if they will keep the Sabbath day holy, they will have more food on their table than they did before". And it is so true. I was thinking about it, and that's one of the reasons that I think our business always has business when others don't...we keep the Sabbath day holy. God can't work with short cuts. He wants to give us the blessings, but he can't if we don't hold up our end of the deal. In the end it comes down to, how much do we trust our Heavenly Father? He's never going to withhold those blessings from us if we are faithful and exact in following his commandments. It was such a great talk. And, lets me honest, I was eating it up because it was all about culture and perspective lens. I hadn't really thought of Sabbath day attendance in that light before (I just usually go, duh, don't you get it?:), but it totally makes sense and it's totally true. I felt like I was back in my strategic culture class. I've decided I'm totally going to break down this culture and figure out what principles I need to focus on teaching so that habits, perspectives, and behavior can be changed. First one is faith. Man, it's like pulling off people's toenails here to get them to be responsible for something. It's gonna happen though. I'm stoked about it.

Yes, they gave a filtering water bottle in the MTC. So prepared sila, they think of everything. So don't worry about it. And my goodness with Gadhafi. Ha, we didn't even have to take him out. The people took care of that for us, and HOLY HANNAH, weddings galore! When did all of this happen?  So so crazy. Both Jessi and Shalee. I can't say I'm too surprised though. I knew it had to be happening sometime soon.

Ok, I am WAY out of time. I'll still try to send the pics though. Love you all so much and hope you have a fantastic week. Oh yeah! And big shout out to Ry and Mush....HHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPYYYYYYYYYY BBBBBBBBBBIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHDDDDDDDDDAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!! Mahal na mahal ko kayo!!!

Look up...Step up...Cheer up...Be Happy:)

Hello my family!!!

Ma, congratulations!!! RS president, whoosh!!!! Haha, I love that. You'll be absolutely awesome, I have no doubts.  We are ALL getting shoved right out of our comfort zones...It's because then we have to rely on our Heavenly Father entirely. Yeah, I've learned that to the Nth degree, you have no idea. Haha. My new theme for my mission is the one from conference "We must look up and step up, and as we do we will cheer up, for God wants us to be happy". That's the motto I tell myself everyday as a reminder that I'm not alone in what I'm doing. And it really does work. This week has been phenomenal. Even if the lessons aren't amazing, or our investigators aren't progressing as quickly as I’d like, I still just feel so amazing and so good inside. Because I know I have God on my side and this is HIS work; so even if I feel like it's not working, it really is. Most of the things we worry about aren't of eternal significance, and if it is, God will help us. Yep.

They do have canned veggies and fruits here but they're expensive. But don't you worry, I've gotten creative. I've figured out how to budget my money so that I can spend it on fruits and veggies and then I just cut them up and freeze them so they'll last for the entire time. Yep, genius I know. I love it :) The bed bug thing...pretty sure it's not bed bugs. They're still there, but only once in a while. I think it's the water. Between wading through disgusting flood water and then our water we shower in of course isn't entirely pure...so I think that's where it's coming from because it's mostly concentrated to my hands and feet. But it's MUCH better now. It only itches every once in a while and now I've figured out how to make it stop...you just find the head of it, and pop it. Then it goes away. haha. So excited for Twit!! That's awesome. She'll pass with flying colors. I don't know what she's so worried about. Thanks for all the chatty letters that you send too mom. I love them. I just wish I could actually respond to everything, but alas, no time. And tell JoAnne thanks for her letter too. It made my day. And I just sat and laughed when she talked about showering...yep, story of my life.

So we had our first baptisms last Saturday...Melvin and Ester, they're siblings. And then Jeyer gets baptized this coming Saturday. They're all doing awesome and it's so good because they're all friends with each other which means they automatically have a friend in the church that knows EXACTLY what the other one feels like as a newby. It's awesome. Our area is basically starting out from scratch right now. None of our investigators are progressing, so we basically shoved them all into one day and we're going to be finding for the rest of the week. Yep. We'll see how it goes. I'm excited though...I know there are people here that are ready. And we're totally going to find them :) So I figured out this week that my companion is TOTALLY like Katie Neff!!! Haha, it's absolutely hilarious. She's so motivated and organized and on top of things, and seriously hilarious. We have so much fun. We just walk down the street and laugh and tell stories and have all these inside jokes. Oh my goodness, it's been so much fun. I'm already dreading transfer week. I'm hoping we'll stay together?? Yeah, don't think that'll happen, but we'll hope for it anyway. One frustration/sad thing from

the week, so like I said, we moved all of our investigators to one day because they're just not progressing. It just breaks my heart when people just don't get it. You can explain it to them, some of them can even spit it back to you (one of our investigators who's been an investigator for a year) and yet they STILL won't do anything about it. "So what is it that we're asked to do?" Response: "Go to church, pray, read the scriptures, blah, blah....", Us: "Will you come to church this week with us?" Response: "Well I don't know... I'm kind of busy....". Oh my heavens, this is ETERNAL LIFE people, it's kind of a big deal. It just makes me sad, when they understand it, and they just don't want to do it. Ah, sometimes I hate agency :)

Tad Callister is coming to speak to us this week at a mission fireside. He's the one who spoke about the Book of Mormon in conference and drew the circles with the lines, remember? I'm way excited about it. And pretty sure Elder Nielson is coming with him.  And I also know that Elder Holland is here right now, so hopefully he'll drop by :) So sweet. So I pretty much love this country...Christmas has already started over here! Like, in full swing. Christmas lights, Christmas music, decorations, the whole cabootle. Oh my goodness, I'm in heaven :)

That's all for today. Thank you so much for the love and support and for everything else. I don't know where I'd be without you. Mahal na Mahal ko kayo!!!! Have a fantastic week!!

PICTURES!!!

One of the fun families Candace knows.

                         

This little duck was inside the balut that Candace ate. After Candace sucked out the yolk, an investigator finished it by eating the duck:)

This is Candace's zone in their matching zone t-shirts. Her companion is the girl next to her.

 

Conference Weekend

Kumusta pamilya!!!

I cannot believe it's snowed there already. I'll just have you know I'm soaking up the sun in this tropical place....as beads of sweat drip down my face every time I pray. Haha. For my balut, it was 18 days old. And it's really more like eating a boiled egg than anything. It's really not too bad...if you ignore the dead baby duck wrapped around it :) Don't worry about the ziploc bags...I solved the problem. I have a ziploc for them from when I packed in the MTC. So I'm all over it :) I'm kind of nervous about how packages work though. We have to pay here when we get them and I've heard if they contain certain things you get smacked with customs fees. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I've heard that for clothes and that kind of stuff that they make here. I don't know. I guess we'll find out! Ha. Bagyo just means hurricane, typhoon, whatever you wanna call it. They just call them bagyos here. So there are a few areas in my mission that aren't pure city but not very many. For the most part, the province areas went to the QC north mission. I'm pretty sure anyway. Haha, I loved your question about the squatters areas. Well, you see, some of them have bathrooms that drain out into the drainage ditches, but some don't, so it just depends. Yes, they have phones that connect to the internet. They are very tech savy over here and facebook is huge. Some people even have two or three phones, all with different features or with different cell companies. I still haven't figured it all out yet. Ha. The whole cell phone plan thing they have here is confusing to me. And we just go to an internet cafe to email. They're everywhere.

So for this week....Let's see. This week has been so great. Mostly because I got to listen to conference. I have to be honest, the past 2 weeks have been really hard. I've just been struggling I feel with everything and the worst is....I can't go running to get it all out. I've been sick for the past 4 weeks now and this past week it turned into a sinus infection (which, ps, i accidently ODed on Antibiotics a couple days ago...ha, whoops. I was having a minor freakout. They don't give prescriptions in this place! But I'm good now, so don't you worry. Really though, don't worry), so yeah, I've been sick and feel so overwhelmed because both my companion and I are SO new and neither of us know what we're doing at all. So it's been rough. But then I got to listen to conference and I feel honestly 250% better. If that's even possible. That's funny you should mention Elder Uchdorf's talk because that was the exact talk that I needed to hear. When he said, there are 4 principles that we need to remember if we're ever forgetting God's love for us, and then he said "God calls on the weak things of the world to preach his gospel". And that's me. I feel so weak, and so inadequate. But after hearing his talk, I feel so much better. I'm ready to go now. I also loved Sister Dalton's talk...my favorite was, Father, you are you daughter's hero. Love you Dad. You really are my hero. Both my companion and I started laughing because we were both just crying. We love our Dads, that's all :)

Our area really is ready to flourish. We can go finding and not once have we been turned down. Yeah, some of them aren't entirely interested, but they still invite us in and let us share. Not once have we been given an outright no. And that's a miracle.

Let's see, what else from the week.... we have 2 baptisms this Saturday which I'm super excited about and then one more next week. We've found a few families too this past week that we're going to start teaching. It honestly is so much fun to be a missionary. It's fun to teach them truths that they just have no idea about and you know will just make them so much happier. I'm trying to brainstorm what else happened this week....it's all running together. Haha. I need to be better at writing things down when they happen apparently. This week, I'll do that. Promise. But instead of sitting here trying to think of things, I'm going to try and send you some pictures!! Hopefully this works. Love you all and I'll talk to you soon. I hope you have a fantastic week.

New Companion...Same Area (Tandang Sora)

KUMSTA!! Hello my family!!

Holy cow, are you serious! another temple in Provo? That's like what, 15 temples in Utah or something. Man, we are seriously spoiled. I love the analysis as to why Provo though. Bahahah!! SO true. And in Star Valley too. Haha, I love that I'm getting the general conference updates before I can even watch it. No surprises for me, eh? :) And I heard about the USU/BYU game! Ah man, SO close. Can't lie, made me pretty happy though that we at least put up a good fight. I love that Ryan is Scrat's hometeacher. haha. Such a small world.

Oh my goodness, there's so much to tell, so I'll try to be quick like a duck. First of all, transfers were last week and I now have a new companion!!!  Oh my goodness, she is AWESOME!! Her name is Sister Ramilo and this is only her 3rd transfer. Yes, her 3rd transfer and she's follow up training. I told you she was astig. She's from Mindinao, 21 years old, and a teacher. They graduate school here at 16 so most are college graduates by 21/22. She's an amazing teacher though and I'm learning so much from her about just teaching clearly and simply and really involving the investigators.  She's so awesome with helping me with the language too. I try to always speak to her in Tagalog. If I get stuck though, I can switch to English because she's an English teacher so she can help me translate it over. Seriously, yesterday I think I learned between 20-30 words just because every time I had a question, I'd just ask her or she'd say, so do you know what that is in Tagalog. She's so awesome and I'm way excited to be working with her. She's SO laid back.  It's nice that way though because there's better give and take and we get a long. The only part that's hard is that right now, I really don't want to be in charge. I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing so I don't want to be the one making the decisions. But we really don't have a choice seeming as I'm the only one who knows the area and the investigators. It's been interesting and I've had to really step up a lot in the past few days. But it's ok, she's so patient with me. Even when I get us lost a million times in the squatters areas or miss a turn so we end up going in a circle. Haha, whoops. Anyway, I'm super excited for this transfer and it's going to be awesome.

So I ate Balut this week! You know, the egg thing. So here's the deal, you crack open one end of the egg, suck out the juices and then peel back the shell a bit. Yeah, it's like a whole bird inside of there. I totally thought you had to eat the whole thing, but apparently it's more common for people to just eat the yoke, which is totally ok. So I just ate the yoke that the little ducky grows around. Wasn't too bad. Honestly, I don't even think it tastes like anything much. One of our investigators finished off the bird for me. Disgusting. Awesome moments from last week: I found Quakers honey nut squares at the grocery store last week and they were actually cheap!! So don't you worry, I now have cold cereal and yes, I've never been so happy in all my life. Also, funniest thing...so of course I work out every morning. Haha, I now have the whole apartment working out with me. Haha, We do planks and ab routines and pilates leg workouts. haha, it's hilarious. I love it though, of course :) Sad part of the week, the 3rd bagyo this week is now approaching and yesterday my English scriptures got wet. Yes, way wet. And I have no idea how! They were in their case, INSIDE a plastic bag, INSIDE my backpack! Siguro, the humidity?? I don't know. But if so, it's gone too far. This humidity is already messing with my hair, and now it's messed with my scriptures....that's crossing the line! I'm pretty sad about it, but hopefully they'll dry ok.

I'm trying to think of a specific spiritual moment for you, but I honestly can't think of just

one. This week has just been awesome with Sister Ramilo. She just has a great feel about her and it's been so awesome to see her teaching style and how much it is helping out investigators. We had one lesson about the Book of Mormon to one family, and it was so awesome to see them actually understand how important the Book of Mormon is. I don't think any of our other investigators have gotten that kind of understanding because we just have been horrible at explaining it. So we've had so many good lessons with less actives members and investigators where the spirit has been so strong. I was thinking about it today, and yeah, sometimes it's frustrating because you just want them to understand and change their lives in an instant because of that understanding. But really, even if it takes them a couple months, that's still so super fast for them to completely change their lives around. It's a miracle to see how fast their desires can change.

I love you all and I'm so grateful for your example and support. So many times we visit recent converts or less active families and every time I'm always just so grateful that we had a family founded on the gospel. It honestly makes all the difference. Mahal na Mahal ko kayo!! Have a fantastic week!

Typhoon...shmyphoon

Kumusta kayo!! 

Oh my goodness, I have to be completely honest. This week has been rough. In all senses. So I don't really have many good updates. I'm just glad it's over!!!

Typhoon, shmyphoon....yeah, it was pretty crazy, and the wind and rain was nuts, but don't you worry, we were still out working. The government might shut down, but there's no shutting down for us. Really, it's not all that bad. Just about 3 inches of water in the streets and you're soaking wet. One of the members in my ward described it as the rain is like heat seeking missiles....it seriously comes at you from all directions. There's no hope of staying dry at all.  But other than that....haha. I was actually cold yesterday though! I wore a long sleeve shirt and I was just a little bit chilled. Go figure. The city really isn't shut down. When they say that, it's just because people don't want to go outside for work or school. It's much worse out in the province areas. That's where all the flooding is happening. Four of the sisters from Marikina are staying with us right now. Their house hasn't flooded or anything; it's just a precautionary thing. It's pretty much over though, so no big deal.

I don't have my new companion yet. Transfer day is tomorrow so you won't get to hear about her til Monday. Sorry :) But yes, my other companion is gone. We dropped her off yesterday and she'll fly out tomorrow. They have a lot of going home activities and stuff.  This past transfer I just have really learned the value of the small and simple things. We think they're not important, so we don't do them, or we're not as diligent, or we fudge the line. Wrong, the little things are the most important ones, especially if we want to have the spirit with us. 1 Nephi 16:28-29 describes it perfectly I think. I'm so ready to hit the ground running. Hopefully my companion feels the same.

So we don't get to watch general conference live here. They used to do that, but it's at such a weird time, like 4 in the morning or something that not enough people were showing up to make it worth it. So instead, we get to watch a rebroadcast not this weekend, but the next weekend. So I’ll get to watch it a little late, but it's totally ok because I'm SO excited. Hopefully we can get a lot of investigators there with us. Some of the ward members ask me if I’ve been to conference before when they find out I'm from Utah and I always feel so bad because I'm going, yeah, usually every year. And they just are blown away looking at the pictures from the Ensign, let alone actually going. We are so so spoiled for sure.

Oh yeah, happy moment from this week! I finally convinced my companion to go running with me. First time in 6 weeks! I've never been so happy in all my life. We didn't go far at all and it was so super slow, but it was so great at the same time. Oh my goodness, I sure do miss it. There are no words. But my jump rope will just have to do for now.

Anyway, that's really all for today. I'll be talking to you pretty soon, just a few days and I promise my next one will be better :) Mahal na mahal ko kayo!!