A Beautiful Baptism

  Dear Mom, Well, I'm still here in the Philippines and believe it or not, the weather hasn't been too bad. Usually, summer starts here around March and goes until June - the rest of the year is "rainy season" or the "winter" of the Philippines. We've been pretty lucky though. This year is supposed to be "La Nina" which means summer will only be one month long. The school year also has just ended since summer is beginning. Kind of weird to think of right? We think of summer as June until August. It's still been cloudy and pretty cool (as in you don't have to wipe the sweat out of your eyes but you still do sweat) but progressively getting warmer so I'm cherishing this time. It's crazy to think of people like Mat who are freezing their...

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Kyiv Ukraine Temple - Youth Cultural Celebration

A very similar cultural celebration called the "Jubilee" will be put on by the youth in the church on April 30, 2011 for the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson in Elder Corpuz' mission, Philippines Quezon City for the 50th anniversary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines...

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Elder!

Dear Mom, It has been another quick week. I can't believe we're already half-way through this transfer. It seems like nearly every other day is a p-day! That's great to hear about Jason and that they're doing the "Step Above" article on him in the 89138 magazine. I'm really proud of him and all that he's done. You'll have to mail me a copy of the magazine so I can show it to everyone here. It just seems like the other day I was taking my picture when they did the article on me. Can you believe that was almost three years ago? Also, way awesome to hear that BYU basketball is doing so well. I'm actually pretty close with Elder Haws, the BYU basketball player. We went to the temple this morning together and we keep in touch really well....

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Every Struggle.

Dear Mom, It's great to hear from you every week. Getting emails from you all is like Christmas every Monday. Letters, emails, and pictures are like gold as a missionary. This week has been really hard, if not harder than most. It's hard when people make choices that hurt you. I've tried my hardest to pray to know how to help them. It's really stressful and brings a lot of tears. But something I really like that one of the elders in my zone told me this morning is that every struggle you go through changes you. You choose how you want to handle it. Something I really learned from my last companion, Elder Christensen, is to not judge people because we rarely know the full story. It's really important to remember that I think. No one is perfect,...

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Transfer 5 Transfer Meeting

Sister Salazar was in Eric's district who will be serving in the Oakland Temple mission in California. Eric's "sister" - Sister Manlulu (born in the same part of the mission) Elder Aquilena and Eric were in Quezon City together and is one of Eric's very good friends in the mission. He is also Ilocano. Elder Baucom is one of the Assistant to the Presidents. Eric's zone leader - the famous Australian Elder Spiller The other AP - Elder Magusara  Elder Corpuz & Elder Christen...

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Fil-Am

Dear Mom, It's hard to believe I'm in my fifth transfer and fifth companion out here. The time has been flying - it seems like every other week is a transfer week. Well, not even a few days and I've had another good experience. I'm glad you enjoyed my pictures of our facials with our zone leaders dad, I don't know if I'll ever do that again. That hurt so much! Anyway, last night, we were at dinner at Bishop Lamoste's house and their cat was getting into my bag. So I nudged the cat with my phone to get it off and it full-on dug its teeth and paws into my leg. I, of course, milked it far beyond what it was to make everyone laugh. Now, Sister DeLaMare has me on an antibiotic and I'll probably have to get another tetanus shot just to be safe. Wohoo. Aray ko talaga. As for my companion, I bet...

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Mahal ko ang Pilipinas!

Dear Mom,Well, I'm going to apologize for how short this email is going to be in advance (as always I guess), but we really have to get home and pack so I'll try to give you a pretty quick play-by-play of last week. Sige? Game.By the way, congratulations again to Jason for making it in to BYU! I can't wait to be there together if he chooses to go, there is no place in the world I'd rather be than with my little brother at that school.We're at the end of another transfer. How? I'm not sure. Six weeks just seem to come and go faster than we can imagine. The news is that I'll be staying here in Caloocan and my companion, Elder Christensen, will be leaving. I was pretty sad to hear the news, but it was well expected and predicted. He's been the...

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