Record Numbers

Dear Mom,This week has been hard, but also very rewarding. I've been sick pretty much the whole week, but we've still had some great experiences. It's really frustrating being sick on the mission though, you don't come out here to sit around a house all day and stare at your companion that's for sure. Well, this past week, as the Caloocan Zone, we brought 36 people into the waters of baptism this past Saturday at our Stake Baptism. It was an amazing, amazing experiences. Three of those people were people we were teaching. One of them, Ritsel, is one of the ones I commented that has such strong faith and is living with only one eye. She was also married that morning, so it was a special day for her. When I saw her after and greeted her with...

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The End of Quezon City

[This email had to be withheld until it was officially annouced in church news.] Dear Mom, Well, I thought I went through a lot of change at the beginning of this transfer. If you can only imagine, my life is about to change even more. We just received really unexpected news in our emails from President DeLaMare today. The highest baptizing mission in the Philippines and top five in the world, as well as the smallest mission in the world at 50 sq. mi., is being split. On July 1, 2011 we will see the beginning of two new missions where the Philippines Quezon City Mission once was. Breaking into two missions, the work will be nearly tripled with more than 200 additional missionaries added to the area we are currently covering. Double the mission presidents, double the missionaries,...

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In Eric's Mission - A Work in Progress

His basketball dreams almost didn't come true, but then Tyler Haws learned where hard work and dedication can lead. ...

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Araw Ng Mga Puso

Magandang araw ng mga puso! That's what they call Valentines Day here, "The Day of Hearts." Love is in the air here, as probably is there in the states. I was just telling my companion about how last year, me, Preston, and Nyal just spent Valentines day with you doing fondue at Auntie Liz's house. Can you believe that was already a year ago? My companion got me a huge heart sucker and I got him some flowers. We're also going out as a zone later today and getting facials and pedicures just to be funny. Can you imagine that? Sixteen missionaries getting facials and pedicures? Gotta love my zone of Ilokanos, Australians, and Americans! Speaking of my zone. We had a great zone activity today. My zone is pretty much solid elders so it's way awesome - we're all pretty much like brothers too, we're...

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Visaya ka ba?

Hey family! Well, this week has been short and fast. We've been working really hard and it kind of takes me back to senior year in high school - lots of hard, physically demanding work - except here I'm ensured a full night's worth of sleep. That's so awesome that you've both been here though! I'm sure it's a little bit different - 45 years is a pretty long time. This past week, I've been asked a billion times if I'm Visayan. Kind of strange right? I never got it in my last area so I wasn't really expecting it here. The Visayas compose the middle part of the Philippines - Luzon the top, Visayas the middle, and Mindanao the south. Every time I ask, I get the same answer though. Apparently, it's the nice way of saying I don't speak Tagalog really well. They say that when they hear another Filipino...

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