Wednesday, September 24, 2014~Week 58 

Cainta; 4:38 PM Wed (PH); 2:38 AM Wed (US)

Helloooooooo everybody! This was probably like one of the greatest weeks ever for like 101 thousand dumb reasons.

We're darling.
 {Kabahays a year ago, same zone now.}

 Haha So first of all! Yes there was a nice little monsoon that swept into the Philippines last Friday and yes Cainta got SOAKED. As in, the floods in some areas were above grown men's shoulders . Like all of the homes of members, less actives, and investigators were flooded. But it's okay because everyone lived and everyone's houses survived. All is well there:) BUT! Sister Doucette and Sister Garcia are Sister Training Leaders and they had gone on exchanges on Wednesday and Thursday with the Sisters in Cainta 1 and they had spent the night there and there were supposed to come home early Friday morning but SURPRISE! It was raining real real hard and then water decided to sneak into their house and within a few hours the house was flooded! The water was knee high inside the house and shoulder high outside the house in the street. So basically they were trapped there for two days.

Sister Wiradi is a cutie. 

But Sister Wiradi and I were beyond safe! Haha we're on the 10th floor of our condominium and even down below on level one there was like....nothing. Honestly, if no one had told us that there was a monsoon and the whole world was flooding, we would have just thought that it was raining pretty hard and wasn't stopping! Aaaaaaand that's basically my story with the floods! :)

#selfielyfe #selfies4ever #thishappenstobeduringthestorm
#lockedintheapartment #hollerrrrr 

Daaaaaaaang look at that hurrrrrrrr.
It be gettin' loooooooooong.

Look at the growth my hair has made.
 #proudmama 

But now I've got a real story to tell! Sooooo last week our investigator told us that he had a friend who wanted to listen to us and meet with us so we were like oh yeah sure no problem! So he came to church on Sunday but we didn't get a chance to really talk to him that much but we set up an appointment to teach him and Ariel on Tuesday at a member's home. And first of all, just a quick side note, when I asked him what his name was, he tells me that it's Angelo. (An-jel-oh). And then when I introduce him to a member that's about the same age as him, he tells Troy, the member, that his name is Jerome. And I looked at him and was like what? You said your name was Angelo. And he goes, "Oh... yeah! Angelo!" I was like... okay that's weird. Anyway, so Tuesday rolls around and we're at our appointment and then we're introducing him to the members and he introduces himself as Angelo (Ang-hel-oh). So now I'm like.... okayyyyy this guy doesn't even know his own name. Fishy fishy fishy. So we start with the lesson and we ask him at one point if he has any questions or anything that he wants to know and the first thing he wants to know is if we have a Spanish Bible. I was like ummmmm no? Why? He goes off about he wants to learn Spanish and he really just wants a Spanish Bible. And so we tell him no...sorry! Any other questions....about the gospel of Jesus Christ? And so he tells us that he wants to just know about the doctrines of the church and who Joseph Smith is because he's heard that name and what the Book of Mormon is, etc. So we start into the lesson and then Sister Wiradi asks him to read something from one of the pamphlets and he starts to "read" it but it's so completely clear that he's got that whole entire paragraph already memorized!! Because he wasn't even looking at it half the time and he was saying it so fast! And after he "read" it I asked him again what his religion was and he says, "Iglesi-- Ay Catholic!" What he was about to say was Iglesia ni Cristo. Now here's something you have to understand about Iglesia ni Cristo. The guy who founded it used to be LDS and if you wanna hear his story, go look it up on google. But basically, in their church and in their church materials, they use all of the LDS stuff! They have our Gospel Principles book, the missionary pamphlets, and other church materials and they study them and then love to debate because they know everything. And so by now I've figured out that his intentions were different and so I ask him to basically just be honest and tell us what he knows about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and the doctrine and yeah..... he knew e v e r y t h i n g. Sooooo long story short, it was a rough lesson where he was basically asking all these random questions and talking about how the church was super rich and stuff yata yata yata. We ended the lesson after inviting him to pray and that was that. Tapos! He came again to the lesson that we had with Ariel on Thursday!!

So this is where his real interest came out and it's actually a very funny story if I tell it in person because I have to do the actions and voices and everything just right but man. This was a dang funny lesson. Basically what went down was this, he started asking about the missionary program and the cost and he especially focused on the training center and learning new languages and going to different countries and the prophet and everything about the missionary program. SO. Angelo's, or whatever his name is, real interest is thus: he wants to become a Mormon so that he can go to a different country, namely France, learn to speak Spanish, (I don't know if he understands that they don't speak Spanish in France), and find a wife (because he questioned about whether the "government," meaning the Prophet, would find out if he had a relationship while he was out on his mission). Sooooo yep! That about sums up him. And that's when I looked him straight in the face and told him, "Brother, the purpose of missionaries is not to learn different languages or go to other countries. The purpose of missionaries is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone so that they know what they need to do in order to be able to return to the Kingdom of God. That's it." (But in Tagalog.) And after that, he didn't really wanna listen anymore because he knew I was onto him. And that my friends, is the story of Angelo. And when I get home, I'll act it out all out to you because it was funnyyyyyy.

Yesterday morning sunrise. 

#yes 

Other than that, it was a great week! We went to the temple today which is always refreshing especially since it's been 2 months since I last went!!

Sisters Panis & Tibungcog today.

I feel so so blessed to have a temple in my mission. I know that Heavenly Father was looking out for me when sent me here. I can't live without the temple. So challenge this week: Everyone go to the temple! If you're endowed, go do a session! It's such a wonderful experience! If you're not, go do baptisms! I miss those so much and that is also a very wonderful experience! Don't take the temple for granted! You don't know how lucky you are to have one so close to you! So everybody! GO!! Haha no but really. Go. I'll follow up on temple experiences next week!

TODAY

Welp! I gotta go now! Thanks for everything you do for me! I miss you more than words can say! Tomorrow I hit my one year mark in the Philippines which is insane!! I'll be home so soon and there's still so much work to do!! Thanks again! Have a great week! LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!

Love, Sister Andersen