Monday, December 2, 2013~Week 16
Quezon City; 12:58 PM Mon (PH); 9:58 PM Sun (US)

Magandang umago! Or I guess it's magandang gabi para so inyo lahat....

Well, I hope that Thanksgiving was to your liking this year! I'll tell you more about my Thanksgiving later on when I give you the weekly run down. 

TODAY

So basically we are being over abundantly blessed here in our area! It's stressing us out because we are so dang blessed! We literally have a problem. WE HAVE TOO MANY PEOPLE TO TEACH. I know. It's a hard knock life for us. But seriously! We can't handle everything. We're supposed to focus 50% of our efforts on investigators and 50% on less actives and we're also supposed to find new people to teach all the time! Which is great! It's just that, we have so many investigators that we have to go to and so many less actives to go to that we don't have any time to go finding! And even if we did have any time to go finding, we wouldn't have any place to schedule them in because we're booked! Our area is really spread out and really big so it's not like we have actual appointments with people. We just go to certain areas on certain days of the week and they know that we'll be coming that day sometime. And for most of our area we have to be out of it by 7:30 or 8:00 because it gets dangerous for us. There are a ton of drunk men and thieves. So it's a little bit rough! SO. We've really really thought about what we could do to help and we've come to the conclusion that we just need to ask President to put Elders up in Kaingin. We really feel like putting Elders up there would help that area progress so much! It would be so helpful to have the priesthood up there while the new sacrament meeting was getting started and once that's been established pretty strong, you could do SO much finding! Seriously, Kaingin is HUGE! Plus, the Elders could stay up there longer because they're not girls! Especially if they're Polynesian Elders! They'd scare all the drunk men away! So hopefully we can get this through to President! It would help the less actives and the investigators and it would help us so much! We could double the work here if we had Elders in just Kaingin! 

 My beautiful leg now!

Up close and personal!  

Anyway, so Tuesday was a very very busy day and it was a day of miracles! We taught 5 lessons even after we had district meeting which never happens! It was great! We taught this 58 year old woman named Merci about the Book of Mormon and she's been reading it! Which was wonderful! She's so so adorable! We LOVE her!! And then we went and taught Robin about the Sabbath Day and Nanay Merley (their grandma) was there and we were hoping that she would just listen but she wasn't really. And then we went to the Letada family! I don't remember if I told you about them. Their names are Jake and Erika and they have a 2 month old baby and a 1 year old son! They are adorable! Anyway, we went there and we looked inside the house and neither Jake nor Erika were inside but there was someone else who was there just kind of lounging around and he was reading a book. And as I looked closer, IT WAS THE BOOK OF MORMON!  So we said "Tao po!" and he got all startled and kind of looked from us to the book and then back at us like he was guilty of some great crime! Hahaha it was great! Anyway, we ended up teaching him the first lesson and hopefully we get to go back. He's Jake's little brother. AND! A miracle for their family! Jake got a job! They needed it so bad! So yay for that! Then we went and taught Jenie, our recent convert! And she super duper bonded with Sister Tibungocog which was great because she hasn't been coming to church since Sister Jones left. Pray for her! So that was all in Daan-Tubo! And we were about to go home and I just had this thought that we should go to Pansol and just pop in to see if one of our investigators, Lalang, was home and set an appointment with her for the next day. We literally had not taught her since my first day in the field here. That was September 26. She was just never home or she was busy. So we headed over there and we popped our heads in, "Tao po!" and guess what?! She invited us in and we taught a lesson and the spirit was so strong and it was a miracle!! And she told us to come back the next day too!! IT WAS SERIOUSLY A MIRACLE!! 

On Wednesday we had Zone Conference and that was just great! One of my favorite things was a workshop given by the zone leaders from an area in Tandog Sora. One of the Elders was from Canada and he had an English accent and he was radiating with love and gentleness and peace! He had such a kind, soft, loving voice and I got chills when he bore his testimony! It was so tender and so powerful! Their workshop was about finding and my favorite thing that he said was, "The Holy Ghost is the ultimate referrer. He knows who is ready because he knows everyone's hearts." I've heard that a lot my whole life but never quite like that and never in such a tender voice and never in an English accent and never with that much Spirit radiating from the person saying it! CHILLS. Our APs did a great workshop about referrals! They did an acronym thing for us little missionaries!

Rekindle the spirit of missionary work (RMs)

Empathy

Family and Friends

Earn the trust and respect of the members

Report back to the referrer

Regularly ask yourself, "I am a blessing or a burden?"

Ask!

Look for opportunities

SUCCESS

'Twas great. After Zone Conference we went to Lalang's house and that was an AMAZING lesson! We showed the Restoration video and then talked about the Book of Mormon and the spirit was crazy strong! And then we had her give the closing prayer and she just started bawling because she was saying that she knows that she's been growing farther and farther from Him and she's just so grateful that the sister missionaries came to her to help her come back to Him! It was amazing! Our purpose is literally to help others come closer to Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end! It states it right in our call letters! It's so amazing to see it actually happening in people's lives though! Anyway, she has a baptismal date now. No big deal. Just kidding HUGE DEAL. WE'RE SAVING SOULS.

Thursday was obviously Thanksgiving and I was surprised by how not homesick I was. I've been preparing myself to feel homesick since day one here! I just figured that it would come! But I really wasn't! Heavenly Father wasn't gonna let me feel that way and I was so grateful!! We had dinner at a member's house on Thanksgiving and it was really delicious! It wasn't the standard mashed potatoes and turkey but it was still great because we were surrounded by loved ones! Which is what Thanksgiving is all about anyway right?? Sister Dulalia even bought us some ice cream! Rocky Road! Mmmmmmm! Good stuff! Happy Thanksgiving to me!

Friday was another great day because we taught the Fuertes! And it's always great to teach them! haha they're my little angels! We taught them the Law of Chastity! And it went great! And we taught Jake and Erika Letada and I love their family so so much!! OH! And earlier that day, we got a new investigator! And we went and taught in the nicest house I have ever set foot in my entire time here in the Philippines! It was a beautiful town house! They're members of the church and it was seriously like a dream! The new investigator's name is Jem and he's a friend of the member whose house we taught at! We're going back to them every Friday and we could not be happier because they also fed us DELICIOUS food! And as it turns out, he just happens to know Steve Anderson! haha they served together in the office! Such a small world!! What are the odds of that?! Yeah so that was pretty amazing. Highlight of my mission. (Just kidding.....sort of....)

Sister Tibungcog TODAY
hahahaha it was a kandid shot 

Saturday night we went to the Fuertes just to remind them about church and make sure every thing was alright with Nanay Merley. We ended up teaching a Word of Wisdom lesson and getting 3 new investigators! Haha one of them being Nanay!! Sister Tibungcog has really gotten her to warm up to us! It's amazing! The change that has taken place since we first met her is incredible! And then yesterday we went and taught a less active member who was baptized when he was 17. He's only 19 now and he used to want to serve a mission SO bad! But then his mom told him he couldn't go to church anymore. But yesterday, we went and talked to him about missionary work and he got a little teary eyed talking about when he would bear his testimony when he would work with the missionaries! He's coming to church next week! We're excited! Hahaha and THEN! We went up into Kaingin to teach an investigator family and ohhhh man it got real awkward real fast. So we've taught the father, Markos, and one of his sons Mark multiple times. We've only taught one of his other sons, Jake, once! And then he has another son that I've never taught before, Jhay-Ehz. And man. We sat down and it just got awkward because Jhay-Ehz started asking me what my name was and how old I was and telling me he really loved my smile and my eyes and even though my leg was injured he really loved that too and then Jake said that "something happened to your face since last time." And I thought he was going to say that it had gotten fatter or something but he says, "You've become mas maganda." Flip. Everything was just getting weird and I said, "Okayyyy so magsimula tayo!" Which means, let's begin! And so we started teaching about the Book of Mormon and there really was a change after we started teaching. They all just got solemn and were really listening and committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Jhay-Ehz offered the closing prayer, we shook hands with everyone, and I got out of there! Haha WE REALLY NEED ELDERS IN KAINGIN. It's just because I'm white and American but still....yikes. It was humorous though after! Hahahaha it's more fun in the Philippines!

Anyway, that's my week for ya! It's been a really great week! We had a lot of fun and we're seeing A LOT of success here! I'm so grateful to be a missionary! I love it! The joy you feel here can't be compared to anything else in the world! I had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I hope you all did too!! I can't believe that it's already December!! That's insane! But that means that I get to skype with you all in just 23 days!! Get ready! And don't expect me to be able to speak Tagalog because I still can't! Haha love you all so much!! Thanks for EVERYTHING!!!! LOVE YOUU!!!!!

Love, Sister Andersen

 I wrote a looooooot of letters last week!  

Who's going to be lucky enough to get one?