Week 26 in the Philippines Laoag Mission: Transfered from Sarrat to Batac

8/29/2016

There once was a girl named Eldredge who wanted to be a missionary. She traveled to the Philippines and now glows in the dark. Yo Eldredge, your a Mormon! babababa bababababa Eldredge goes to batac she meets Aquino and Arcayan, Sister Gabut requires she does splits her first week! Its goodbye to Sarrat and hellow to Batac, all the ilocano I learned is destroyed by their accents! (If you didn't sing that to the tune of "Harry Potter 1-7 in 99 Seconds" by PAINT i cry fro you) That was just my little tribute to Harry Potter as the 1st of September is the day of Harry Potter 7's Epilogue and I wanted to celebrate it somehow. Maybe I'll eat the Jelly Slugs and Berty Bots Every Flavor Beans my mother sent me.... anywhoos...

    Its goodbye Sarrat and Hello Batac. So I thought I was being sent to just the other side of the river but nooo. I'm a good 20 minutes drive from Laoag, which makes me a good 30 to 45 minutes from Sarrat  (I think, I didn't actually time it.) My new companion is Sister Gabut who just happens to be the same sister I first went on splits with back in my first cycle (a cycle is 6 weeks long) She has been in Batac for 2 going on 3 cycles now which is about the average length of time a missionary stays in an area, so I may only get this one cycle with her- I certainly hope not as she is hysterical and I love being her companion. Due to living with three other native Philippians there are bound to be some differences. For instance they all speak Basaya- a dialect from the southern half of the Philippines- so sometimes they'll just go off in Basayan and i'm sitting there like wat. its fun, I now get to learn Basayan! which doesn't sound like a language... anywhoos I think it has rained everyday since I got here in Batac but it is super fun. (Don't worry about my health or my foot i'm feeling great and so does the foot) My first night we met with a family who has a daughter out on her mission. We were greeted in a way that reminded me of how my family greets the missionaries and at first I thought they may be a multi-generational member family and while we were teaching them the power went out (due to the storm) and I felt right at home. It was awesome.

    My body seems to want to go back to American time as all last week I would be so tired during the day and unable to sleep at night, but luckily that has changed. I was almost going to fall asleep during my personal scripture study and so I said a little prayer asking God to help me stay awake and then I read this scripture:

    2 Nephi 1:13 Oh that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea even from the sleep of hell...

    It made me laugh so hard I was able to stay awake for the rest of my study time. It just goes to show that God has a sense of humor. Speaking o humor- I now share an apartment with one other companionship- who just happen to the the STLs for my new Zone- and we (sister Gabut and I) happened to get home a little before they did so we turned out all the lights and were going to jump out and scare them when they opened the door. But they reached through the open window and scared me! I leapt back absolutely terrified- I thought the screen was engaged but apparently not- and they were laughing so hard they fell over. So yeah, no worries with me not being able to get along with all the new sisters.

    I also met two crazy cat ladies this week, one who had cats on basically every surface available and one who just did cat needlepoint and had two cats. It was quite funny, as soon as the first one opened her door and I saw that she had made a cat needlepoint welcome mat I knew she was a crazy cat lady. I've decided I'm not going to be a crazy cat lady im gonna be the crazy lady at the end of the street with too many Doberman Pinchers and that makes cookies all the time. Did I mention we have a toaster oven? glorious baked goodness...

    I have come to realize that no matter how much I tan I will still glow in the dark.

I'm.

So.

White.

    And there is nothing I can do about it. I've offered to trade skin with a few of our investigators who want to be white but i cant seem to pull it off... any suggestions? ha ha I'm kidding. But it is a little unnerving having people call out to me as I walk. I've tried teaching them but usually those who call out are on motorbikes and are guys who are not interested in hearing the gospel... so, its fun. The kids also swarm wanting to 'upear' or high five me so that is fun, but the beggars also seem to think that i'm made out of money as I'm white... so we just offer them pamphlets and pray with them if they are willing. It will be funny as when I go back to the states I'll expect guys to still pay attention to me but it'll probably be back to 'why is that potato walking down the street?' ha ha ha.

    We also had a 1 day mission my first week and a baptism! it was the STLs baptism but its still fun and i still sang. It's becoming a tradition- me singing at baptisms I attend... anyways the 1 day mission was scary (I had only been in the area for 4 days and they wanted me to lead a group of youth in how to find and get referrals from less active and active members) but it was a lot of fun and the two girls I got to work with were super enthusiastic. This ward is missionary crazy. They have two RMs (Return Missionaries) that have returned from their missions this year and all the youth preparing to go on missions are just as enthusiastic. After the service on Sunday all four of us missionaries got swarmed by the youth asking when we would go on splits and teach. When we told them we had to go and study first and prepare the lessons one of the youth said 'sorry, we just love missionary work!" Instead of youth saying their busy or they have to study for w=school it's the other way around here! it's so strange. I love it.

    I miss Sarrat. Apparently it's a 'hard area' whatever that means so when missionaries find out i'm from Sarrat they always seem to react to that funny. I am constantly worrying about my old investigators and the branch members and wonder how they are adjusting to the new missionaries in their area and how the less active are that Sister Hermosa and I had been working with are doing... I don't think this will ever end. I will always wondering how they are doing as they are written on my heart. It sounds cliche but when I left Sarrat I felt like I was carving their names on my heart and it hurt- but a good hurt. Luckily some of them travel to Batac for school or work so hopefully I will be lucky enough to run into them. I simply pray every day that I will get to finish my mission there...

   As for investigators here in Batac we have a few families that when I first met them I thought they were recent converts, but they have been taking the lessons on and off since October 2015! When we got there the mother and father called out to their children who all gathered around with their book of Mormon's and the baby (age 3) sat quietly and played with some paper flowers her older brother made for her during the lesson. After the lesson we went and visited a recent convert family and had a great discussion on the plan o salvation and resolved questions and just in general had really great conversation. I feel like I can talk 5x better now and nothing has changed about me but the fact that I'm in a new town. It goes to show you know more than you think and if you just try you never know, you might surprise yourself.

From the Sister who is technically a city kid but spends more time out in rice fields,

Sister Eldredge

Week 25 in the Philippines Laoag Mission: Typhoons, Mysterious Doors, and my first Transfer.

Saying Goodby to the Branch

8/22/16

This week was eventful and i took a million pictures and then my camera dies 5 minutes before I emailed. Soo... this will be fun, as I usually scroll through the pictures and just write about what I remember based on what I see.

This week started out with a three day typhoon. So typhoon basically just means it rains like a tropical storm for one day and then a California drizzle the rest, then every now and then there will be like 5 minutes of torrential downpour out of nowhere and then back to drizzle. So it's important to have a hardy umbrella and i can't wait to get some freaking pants to work in...

Since I have been in Sarrat since April I was expecting to get transferred at the end of this week. I have done my best to try and meet up with all our investigators and take pictures with them all so... If you can't tell i'm a little bummed about the whole 'broken camera' thing. Oh! I also got a door closed in my face, that is a first! So it's actually a funny story. We were first teaching Kimberly here but then she moved to another town so we were hoping to meet up with her family and teach them as the dad was super nice and he had been reading the pamphlets we had given to Kimberly. We met up with her mom and set up a day and time to meet with them and we were super excited to teach a family and when we got there the door was open so we just called out "tao po!' (literally it just means people! but that is how you knock here, you don't actually knock on the door) and we were waiting for Beverly (their 8 year old daughter) to come out and be all 'Sisters!!' like she usually is but the house was EMPTY so we kept trying because we were like 95% sure Kimberly's mom was there and then the door just slooowly slid shut. Soo that was actually really funny, I heard a little voice in my head like the door was talking "what, people? no, there are no people here. nope, none at all. do do doo..." *whistling* so that was super funny.

This is also officially the 7th week that Lorenzo has missed church. he works from 6am to 6:30pm every day and life is just hard for him. His house is a bamboo shack in the middle of a cow field and they have no electricity but they do have plumbing which is nice. The thing is their house is like a boarding house for poor kids who are going to the school just down the street so there are a million kids just running around and they are all just so happy. I can't explain it, but here in the Philippines no one is really poor. Like their house may be dirt floor and they may eat more rice than ulam (the food that goes with rice, like entree) but you'd never guess that as they are always just so happy. I’ve only ever seen one kid that was really sad and that was because she had tripped and skinned her chin. (she was ok, she just bit her lip) But anyways he (Lorenzo) is working 24/7 and is praying to be able to get Sundays off but so far it's hard. His friend Kenneth (a less active) came to church with his friend Lennox and they also went to the youth activity this last Saturday so we are just praying for Lorenzo to get Sundays off.

We also thought we were going to get a baptism this Saturday but Kevin's lolo (grandpa) is still sick and is still spending weeks in Sarrat and weekends in the hospital with his grandfather. So he will be baptized later, he is just stretched so thin with midterms in school (while your school may have started Aug 22 school started about may here) traveling to and from Laoag, and studying and taking care of his grandpa... it's rough on him but you should just hear him pray. Its beautiful.

We also got temporally locked out of our laundry room this week. So our laundry room is an add on to the house, it was built later, so there are locks on inside and out on the two doors. So I guess I closed the door too forcefully and the hook swung up and hooked onto the nail, locking the door from the outside. So we tried going outside but that door was locked as well, so we tried the whole 'shimmy the card through the door to unlock it' trick and we were there for a good 15 minutes. Sister Hermosa, shimmying and me giving moral support and wanting to help. She then stepped back like 'I don't know what to do now' and I just kicked the door in. It was like BAM I NEED ME MY LAUNDRY so... I was actually giggling about that for a good day. I'm actually still laughing about it. I felt like 9 (the 9th Doctor) if he had been in 'The Day of the Doctor' from Doctor Who when 10 and 11 and the War Doctor were stuck in a dungeon and they are trying to calculate the molecular structure of the door and the companion just opens the door. If 9 had been there he would've just kicked the door down. (for those who don't watch Doctor Who this may seem really strange but the numbers represent characters, they all play the same person just during different times and different faces. its good.  anyways, back to the letter) So i just kicked the door in, no damage to the door or me, and we got in and took out the nail that the hook had locked itself on so that won't happen again.

So you may be thinking' Sister Eldredge, you shouldn't be kicking down doors with your hurt foot!' well it's not hurt anymore. In fact it looks quite normal and it doesn't even itch anymore. So I will no longer be visiting hospitals except to teach people, thank you very much. (and a hallelujah to that.) Speaking of Hospitals I got transferred. what does that have to do with hospitals? Well my new area is the area with the hospital in it, funny enough... so I'll probably list my and my new companion's names under people you can talk to at the hospital. But the funniest thing about the transfer is that i'm actually not leaving Sarrat. I'm going to the other side of the river, and the other half of Sarrat if what I have heard about my new area is true.

From the sister working on fixing her camera

Sister Eldredge

Sarrat Branch

Week 24 in the Philippines Laoag Mission: Taytay Roman's baptism

TRUNKATED VERSION (full letter follows trunkated verstion):

August 15, 2016

Hello Sam Sparks, this is America! I mean... lets just go to the email... So as it turns out the movie Pacific Rim is actually true. Giant monsters are rising out of the sea and asking for directions to Tokyo. We usually just give them a pamphlet, give a quick lesson -their busy monsters and they are on a schedule so we have to respect their time restraints- and then just send them in the right direction. We've met a lot of very nice sea monsters that way, though one tried to take a bite out of Sister Hermosa but i scared it off by opening my umbrella at it so we are good.

At Taytay Roman's Baptism

    Besides romping sea monsters and giant robots we have had a very successful week. Tatay Roman was baptized by his son Jason- a Return Missionary- and it was truly the most amazing experience of my life. Last week we had the fast and testimony meeting -where everyone gets up if they want and bears their testimony after sacrament meeting- and the spirit was sooo strong and it has carried over this whole week. Tatay was baptized along with a member who had just turned 8 by the name of Charity. When Roman showed up he had gotten a haircut, and shaved and was just grinning from ear to ear. After the baptism he kept saying "Sobrang masaya po ako." (I am soooo happy) over and over and just smiling and hugging himself and his wife. They are very excited to go to the temple in a year from now and Sister Hermosa (since she is from Manila) will be there- the lucky duck... I simply cannot describe how extremely happy I am to have been able to witness his baptism. After the service Roman approached me and told me that he had been taking the missionary lessons on and off since November of 2000. That's a long time. But he has been truly converted. When he was interviewed the Elder who did the interview pulled Sister Hermosa and I aside and told us he had only ever seen one other investigator as converted to the Lord as Tatay and that he was excited to see what he would do. Now, that sounds like i'm bragging, and I want to make sure ya'll know that i am not. I can barely get a sentence out in Tagalog and Tatay speaks a mix of tagalog and ilocano so i honestly can't understand him half the time and he has no idea what I say either. It's not me who baptizes and it's not me who converts. I am lucky enough to have the Holy Ghost with me as I teach and he was ready to hear and receive the words at this time. It's like how a hammer isn't the one who builds a home, but the one who uses it. I am but a tool in the Lord's hands and hopefully I live up to be useful to Him.

        We also have an official house cat. But here the sound of rain isn't just the rain hitting the tin roof, it's also  the sound of a bunch of wild cats suddenly wanting to be house cats... so we will see. Scaredy Pants, the cat is actually the bravest of the lot and will just kinda lounge about the house while we update our area book. You've got to keep a good eye on her because otherwise she'll get into the garbage and other such shenanigans so... yeah. Cats!

    We also had our Zone Activity today, which was suuuper fun. Yesterday I was feeling a little down but that is why God arranged for the ZC today. So a ZC is where all the missionaries gather together on a p-day (prep day) and either go to a museum or a tourist spot or something but since there isn't much to do in Laoag we just met at the church and played games and ate. It was so fun it was kinda ridiculous.

    You may be wondering about my foot. It's fine. It looks gross in the picture, but the skin has completely healed over and it's just a little flaky so we are all good. I'm supposed to go back in next week to have a follow up apt, so we will see what the dr says then but it doesn't hurt any more and it's alllll good.

From the Sister who may be getting transferred

Sister Eldredge

FULL LETTER:

August 15, 2016

Hello Sam Sparks, this is America! I mean... lets just go to the email... So as it turns out the movie Pacific Rim is actually true. Giant monsters are rising out of the sea and asking for directions to Tokyo. We usually just give them a pamphlet, give a quick lesson -their busy monsters and they are on a schedule so we have to respect their time restraints- and then just send them in the right direction. We've met a lot of very nice sea monsters that way, though one tried to take a bite out of Sister Hermosa but i scared it off by opening my umbrella at it so we are good.

    Besides romping sea monsters and giant robots we have had a very successful week. Tatay Roman was baptized by his son Jason- a Return Missionary- and it was truly the most amazing experience of my life. Last week we had the fast and testimony meeting -where everyone gets up if they want and bears their testimony after sacrament meeting- and the spirit was sooo strong and it has carried over this whole week. Tatay was baptized along with a member who had just turned 8 by the name of Charity. When Roman showed up he had gotten a haircut, and shaved and was just grinning from ear to ear. After the baptism he kept saying "Sobrang masaya po ako." (I am soooo happy) over and over and just smiling and hugging himself and his wife. They are very excited to go to the temple in a year from now and Sister Hermosa (since she is from Manila) will be there- the lucky duck... I simply cannot describe how extremely happy I am to have been able to witness his baptism. After the service Roman approached me and told me that he had been taking the missionary lessons on and off since November of 2000. That's a long time. But he has been truly converted. When he was interviewed the Elder who did the interview pulled Sister Hermosa and I aside and told us he had only ever seen one other investigator as converted to the Lord as Tatay and that he was excited to see what he would do. Now, that sounds like i'm bragging, and I want to make sure ya'll know that i am not. I can barely get a sentence out in Tagalog and Tatay speaks a mix of tagalog and ilocano so i honestly can't understand him half the time and he has no idea what I say either. It's not me who baptizes and it's not me who converts. I am lucky enough to have the Holy Ghost with me as I teach and he was ready to hear and receive the words at this time. It's like how a hammer isn't the one who builds a home, but the one who uses it. I am but a tool in the Lord's hands and hopefully I live up to be useful to Him.

    Next on the venue is Kevin. He is living with Nanay Myrna and her grandson Gello (sorry I haven't gotten a picture of them yet) a Recent Convert. He approached US and asked to be taught because he recognized that the Gospel would fill a hole in his life. So cool. Anyways his birth grandfather has been sick in the hospital and he is the only relative so he spends his weeks at school and his weekends in Laoag taking care of his grandfather and tries to go to the church in Laoag. So he hasn't been able to attend every week like he would like to.  You should just hear him pray. Man, I wish I had the spirit like this kid does. We hope to get him baptized this upcoming Saturday but it all depends on his grandfather who we 1) want to get better 2) want him to attend the service. So we are trying to contact the Elders in that area to go and give him a blessing if Kevin would like and just working on situating that all out. Scheduling is hard. I don't like it. (read the previous sentence like a child 'i downt wike et') But hopefully we will get this all worked out and when the Grandpa is blessed he will recover and it'll all be hunky dory. Sana, (hopefully) we will get to teach Kevin's birth grandpa too...

    Then there is Franklee and Rica... Their parents don't want them to be married as Franklee doesn't have the best job and their son has lung problems and financial crap. I personally don't get why the parents don't just support their kids but hey, i'm bias towards the wedding and i'm not a parent so i have no 'basis for comparison' (if you don't get that movie quote i might cry... the full quote is: "That's not fair!!" 'you say that so often, i wonder where you get your basis for comparison.') But so far they are praying about it and hopefully they will either come to a decision and be married anyways without parents consent or Franklee will get a better job or the parents will change their minds. So far i'm praying for the last two.

    We have had two of our investigators move out of town (Kimberly and Maan) which is suuuuuper sad but hopefully we will get their contact info there and the missionaries in that area will be able to get a hold of them. SPEAKING of investigators we got a text from the office elders that a guy had requested for a Book of Mormon from the online website and we were to go and meet with him. Turns out he is a pastor for a church in one of our further brgys. He was sooooo cool. He says he wants to study our church so that when members of his congregation ask him about other churches he can give them correct information and that they won't base their religious beliefs off hearsay. I'm looking forward to meeting with him and helping him out. He may not take the actual lessons but it's all about helping understanding. (Please read Our Search For Happiness for the best non religious explanation of our church) I may try to order one for him....

    One of the best friends of one of the RC in the area, by name of Cezlee, has been really amazing lately. She comes to church and bears her testimony and knows all the primary songs (she is 7) and she has simply MARKED UP her scriptures like CRAZY. Hopefully we will be able to meet up with her and her mom and teach them as a family.

    We also have an official house cat. But here the sound of rain isn't just the rain hitting the tin roof, it's also  the sound of a bunch of wild cats suddenly wanting to be house cats... so we will see. Scaredy Pants, the cat is actually the bravest of the lot and will just kinda lounge about the house while we update our area book. You've got to keep a good eye on her because otherwise she'll get into the garbage and other such shenanigans so... yeah. Cats!

    We also had our Zone Activity today, which was suuuper fun. Yesterday I was feeling a little down but that is why God arranged for the ZC today. So a ZC is where all the missionaries gather together on a p-day (prep day) and either go to a museum or a tourist spot or something but since there isn't much to do in Laoag we just met at the church and played games and ate. It was so fun it was kinda ridiculous.

    You may be wondering about my foot. It's fine. It looks gross in the picture, but the skin has completely healed over and it's just a little flaky so we are all good. I'm supposed to go back in next week to have a follow up apt, so we will see what the dr says then but it doesn't hurt any more and it's alllll good.

From the Sister who may be getting transferred

Sister Eldredge

Week 23 in the Philippines Laoag Mission: Back On My Feet?

When You Forget Your Name Badge

8/7/2016

Kamusta mga tao!

    So this week started out limping and finished walking, and for that i'm grateful. The pictures of my feet look really bad and gross and scary but that was last week and i haven't taken a picture of what my toes look like now, which is nearly entirely healed over and it doesn't hurt to walk anymore, which is cool. So what happened was I have been treating my foot for athletes foot and it had mostly gone away when one night, last Sunday, it started hurting so bad I didn't fall asleep until 2:30am. The next morning the three biggest toes had swollen and were covered in yellow puss. Literally overnight. So I texted Sister Andrada, the registered nurse, like a good little girl and had to go to the hospital to get the puss removed. Just thinking about that makes my foot hurt... but anyways the doctors removed the infected bit (which I could've done at home in all honesty) and was told to keep it bandaged and dry until I came back the next week. So I'll be going back AGAIN later today to see what they say. Last week we also got sized for our slacks so we are one step closer to getting PANTS!! I may cry.

    Speaking of crying I got a package from home!! it had Harry Potter candies, music, John Bytheway CD's (that i finished listening to within the first 5 days of getting it) and sooo much more. It was the BEST! Especially after such a long and exhausting day. That day I had walked way more than usual, as I needed to buy groceries, and go to the doctor to have my foot looked at and I was exhausted from not sleeping enough and all that jazz so it was literally heaven-sent that I got the packages when I did. Did I mention we got a mosquito net? Sister Hermosa and I have rearranged the room so that we can both be under it and we just lay their looking at all the mosquitoes that are trying to get in and thank our lucky stars.

Hugging My Mosquito Net.

    But not much really happened this week due to being confined to the house... agian... Technically we weren't 'confined' but i can't wear shoes and i cant get my foot wet so when it rains we are stuck. It rained all day sunday and i wrapped my foot in a plastic bag and taped it on to get to church, and even that didn't work entirely. OH! did I ever tell you about Kevin? He is the grandson of a Recent Convert, well he is kinda adopted in. His dad is Italian and he's never met him, and his mom lives in Manila for work so we was living with his grandfather in a neighboring town but goes to Sarrat for school and Nanay Myrna saw him and at first she thought he was her grandson who lives in Oxford, UK so she called him over got to know him and invited him to live with her during the school year so he wouldn't have to commute over an hour from school and home. He hasn't been able to come to church the last few weeks as he has been taking care of his grandfather who is in the hospital, but boy should you hear him pray. He has attended church in the past with his friend Gello who is also a RC, so we don't worry about him, we are just praying for him and his grandfather.

    We also were invited over for dinner at a member's home: The Ver's. They like us to come over with the Zone Leader's every Saturday. We had fried tilapia and Elder Daclag convinced Elder Motley that 'true' Filipinos eat fish bones. So Poor Elder Motley believed him and we were all rolling. Whenever Elder Motley was distracted (Elder Daclag would point something out and Elder Motley would turn to look) Elder Daclag would put fish bones on my plate so it looked like he was eating them. Eventually Sister Hermosa told Elder Motley to look up 2 Nephi 9:34 which is about how those who lie never prosper. We were laughing soo hard when he realized he had been taken for a ride.

    So due to continual rain, a bandaged foot and ravenous avocados we didn't get much proselyting done. In fact we all but used up our travel money for trycee's and jeepnee's the first few days as we would just trycee from appointment to appointment. However we have three really magaling (awesome) investigators and a baptism this week! Yup, happy birthday Tesha tomorrow we will be baptizing Tatay Roman. Yesterday after his baptism was announced we had sooo many members get up and bear their testimony of missionary work, and their love for Tatay Roman and how they know that the gospel will bless him and his family. Then, the show stopper, his son Romel got up and bore his testimony. Romel baptized Mery Rose back in April but he very rarely sits in with us in the lessons with Tatay so I wasn't sure what he thought of his father getting baptized. But he bore the most heartfelt testimony about prayer and i was bawling. He talked about how he has been praying for his father to be baptized for over a year now and how grateful he is for 'the missionaries' to have never given up hope on Tatay. It was truly an amazing end to the week and I wish every Sunday was like that.

    From the sister who is almost back on her feet

Sister Eldredge

P.S.  we got a new cat. i've named it lucifer. it's white with red eyes and likes to pee on stuff and i'm trying to evict lucifer and keep salem. Salem and Lucifer are both tom cats so they fight and freaking lucifer took a chunk out of salem's face and i'm going to whack him with a broom next time i see him. Also i looked up salem in the bible dictionary and it means peace. that is cool, but i need salem to whup lucifer's butt. so that is fun.

Week 22 in the Philippines Laoag Mission: Baptisms, Dengue Fever, a Typhoon & Avacados

August 1, 2016

So this has been a fun week of movies, 10 baptisms, new scriptures, dengue running rampant in the streets, starving missionaries, typhoons, and aggressive avocados. So first with what you are probably most concerned about. The avocados here have mutated so they now have a circulatory, nervous and digestive system. They have as many teeth as three sharks "That's over forty eight hundred teeth!" (Name that movie) But if you keep some chips handy you can scare them off when they swarm.  I'm kidding, its just getting to that time of the season when you've got to both watch the skies and watch your step, but this time for avocados and not mangoes.

    So lets start from the beginning, and I swear we will get around to the starvation, dengue and typhoon bit later. Last Monday we got to participate in the farewell party of our Branch Presidant's wife who is going to Norway for 3 months to visit family after the death of her mother. We taught about how God is aware of all His children no mater where we go. Eventually the conversation turned to Jonah and how he tried to run away from God. I was trying to say "Sobrang pasaway si Jonah." Which translates to 'Jonah was very disobedient.' but I swapped out ;'pasaway' with 'masipag' which means hard working. Needless to say the family was slightly confused until my companion translated what she thought I was trying to say. So language mishaps! they still happen, they just take me three days to realize that I said the wrong thing!! That was fun. I also got some new scriptures- I might have mentioned them last week- and i've finally finished making the cases for them. Its ridiculous how excited I am for these mini scriptures....

    This Wednesday I got to work in Laoag with our STL (Sister Training Leader) in her proceliting area. It was a little confusing as I don't know who are the members and who are investigators and who we have never talked to before but it was fun. Some of the memebrs had some fun teasing the newbie. But several of the memebrs and a few investigators as weel were very sick with the mosquito sickness dengue so we had a lot of fun calling elders and ward memebers to give blessings. The power of the priesthood is real, and it can be simply words of comfort from your loving God in heaven but it can also be powerful healing.  So no im not sick and no I did not get bit by mosquitoes the whole time I was around those with dengue.

    This Friday we had a branch movie night, which was super fun but also super rushed. We have been talking about it for a few weeks and I wanted to talk to Barangy captains about announcing the movie night and putting up posters around town and handing out flyers but as our branch president wanted to to it this Friday we settled for passing out flyers. Mostly members came, but it was a good turn out and I want to try having another movie night son, the only thing is the only church movie with Tagalog subtitles is the Restoration which is only 20 minutes long... not much of a movie night... So we are working and talking about other branch activities we can put together.

    Saturday! This Saturday we had a Stake Baptism. That means all the baptisms that were going to go down in the stake were all baptized together. It was super fun. There are wards or branches (depending upon their size, wards are bigger than branches) which are grouped together in Stakes so this was a baptism for nearly every ward in the stake, 10 total! Our Branch got the baptism of Don Don, who was taught by the Elders in our area. Don Don is 'missionary famous' meaning all the missionaries in the stake know about him. He has been investigating the church for 18 weeks (three transfer cycles) and is quite hysterical. When asked about tithing he would very enthusiastically put up both hands and wiggle his 10 fingers to signify 10%. He isn't very talkative but he is, as I said, hysterical. When he got in the water he immediately leaned back to go under before Elder Motley had a chance to say the necessary words! It was quite funny and then for his actual baptism he had to be submerged 4 times as he kept sticking his feet up in the air! (In our church we believe in complete submersion to symbolized the burring of past life and the renewal of life, the resurrection, so its necessary for the entire body and clothes of those being baptized to be completely submerged) It was quite fun and once they finally got it right he was ready to go again! haha Then he hugged Elder Motley and was all gungho to get out of the water. We, Sister Hermosa and I, were able to take some Less actives and some Investigators to the baptism and they very much enjoyed it. They were just excited in general to go to Laoag and see all the other members. One of our investigators hadn't quite realized that it was a world wide church, and told me that it now made sense that I was a foreigner.

    So about the starving missionaries and typhoon. The Elders have not found out how to limit how much they eat so by the end of the weak they mostly just have potatoes and, if they are lucky, rice. They also have some problems with their water system so every now and then the water does not work at their house and have to borrow their neighbor's pump as they don't have one. So we have gotten into a habit of gathering extra canned goods for them as they not only have larger apeties but further areas so more of their money goes towards travel expenses. Typhoons. Typhoons are basically just like any other storm. Ours is a level 2 typhoon so its about the strength of a tropical storm and will last from yesterday (Sunday) to this Wednesday. The largest and worse part of the storm was yesterday. The wind was so powerful it would push water through the window edges and was really fun to watch from our second story windows. I personally am loving the storm so far as it makes the weather so cool. I was actually cold yesterday! who would have thought I would look forward to goosebumps?

    We have a new cat! While I may sound like a crazy cat lady I am seriously hoarding all the wild cats I can. While I don't touch them (they wouldn't let me anyways- they are wild.) I do like seeing them around the house as the more cats the less rats, right? The older cats by name are: Grumpy Gills ( a cat with coloration on his face to make him look like he has angry gird eyebrows) Scare D. Pants (a cat with really wide eyes that always looks surprised) and Baby Cakes, (a grey cat that is small, yet an adult) The new cat is Salem, he is all black and has pale green eyes. He sounds like a cow when he meows but the poor thing is scared of storms and is a very good ratter so he is my favorite. During the typhoon I opened some windows and he came into the laundry room and just cried. If you've ever heard a cat cry its the strangest thing. If you haven't then take the nearest cat to you and dump it in a bucket of water, it'll probably cry. (I DO NOT suggest that as it is rude to the poor cat) But Salem was hiding in the laundry room -an annex to the house so technically its still outside- so I purred until he stopped crying. (if you roll your R's over and over it sounds like a cat purring, that is what I did.) Its dumb but it made me feel like I was helping God by caring for all of his creations, even when its cats that sound like cows.

    Coming up in the future is... The baptism for Tatay Roman!!! He is progressing beautifully and will be ready for baptism by the 9th. (Happy Birthday Tesha!) And he will be baptized along with the primary president's daughter as that is her 8th birthday. The 10th will be the wedding of Franklee and Rica, but as Franklee has not come to church in over a month we have decided to postpone his actual baptism as we want to make sure he understands just how vital coming to church is. Coming to church is just about counting heads and being considered 'active' a bag of sand could be put in church every day and attend all the necessary classes but obviously it wound contribute or learn anything. So don't be a bag of sand. Church, and all the classes that go with it, are for a reason. Its so we have opportunity to help one another through bearing testimony, shared experiences and have unity with our faith. Trees don't grow one in the middle of the field. They grow best in forests, where they have the support and nutrients of those around them ans the previous generations of trees before them. Don't think that you have to 'get through' church. If you keep up that attitude you are no better than that bag of sand. Then after, once church is out, its still Sunday! Sunday is meant to be a delight so what do you do on Sunday? What do you do that is special and sacred for just Sundays? Sing songs, pray, make meals together, do something as a family.If you are living away from family then make one! That doesn't mean get married, that means find a group of friends and spend time uplifting one another. Play games and spend time with one another, away from electronic distractions and you will find joy. The steps are

1) a choice. Once you decide upon how you want to live and keep the Sabbath will begin you on your journey.

2) eventually the choice will become a habit

3) the habit will become a tradition

4) and the tradition will become a culture.

From the sister who is doing her best to keep her feet dry,

Sister Eldredge