Philippin' Awesome: EIGHT HOUR JOURNEY

Week 40
Monday, March 20, 2017

Hello friends and family I hope you all had a great week!

This week I don't have a crazy story. We went to Iloilo this week, which was fun and hard at the same time. On Wednesday, we woke up at six and headed to Iloilo at seven. Our Area is the second farthest area from the mission home and our trip took eight hours...it was rough! On the ceres, (bus) they play movies the whole time, and I didn't want the "worldly" things surrounding us for eight hours, so I was able to bring my usb that has a bunch of Mormon movies. We became friends with the Driver and Conductor, and they played our Mormon movies all the way there. It was funny to just see six missionaries enjoying these movies and everyone else was like... HUH?! It was awesome though. And then, the other day that same ceres passed by us and the Conductor and Driver were honking like crazy and waving at us.

When we got to Iloilo, our first stop was of course Angles, my favorite burger place. It's as cheap of a burger as you'll get... so cheap that it's not a surprise when there's a bone in the meat, but it's so goooodddd. They don't have any in Antique so I always have to get some when we're down there. In Dumangas, Elder Paxton and I ate there every night... haha, I love it so much. To put it in American dollars, it's 50 cents for 2 burgers, very cheap!

On to the week. We had interviews on Wednesday... that was good. It was funny because it was a companionship interview and President was looking at our baptisms. He saw that we had three in January, and one in February, and President asked if we'd be having any this month. We told him we have an investigator ready, but the Zone Leaders couldn't make it up to interview her. So he was like, "I have an idea..." He called Elder Cobabe in and told him to come up to Pandan to interview "L". He wants her baptized this week because we are "setting an example for the mission." It was cool to hear that. President is really happy with our work, and Elder Cobabe is coming up here tonight to interview "L". "L" is so happy that we could move her baptism to Saturday.

On Thursday, we had our Zone Conference. It was awesome, I learned so much. What we were taught works...it's this thing called inspiration...haha. It was also so fun to hang out with Elder Cobabe for a while. I miss him so much . Then after Zone Conference, we headed back to San Jose and slept there because there weren't any more Ceres leaving for the night. Friday we headed back home got here at like 1pm and went to work. So, not a ton of work this week, but that's okay.

That's really all I have to say this week. I'm excited for Saturday and "L" being baptized. She's so happy too. I love this work. It's almost time for me to leave Pandan though. I think I only have three more weeks here. I love this place so much!

I love this work and I love serving my Savior every day. Have a great week!

Love, Elder Andersen

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS FROM OUR PERSONAL LETTERS:

Q: How are the languages? Are you thinking now in your new language?

A: The language is really good. I've been working really hard on my accent lately. I honestly think in both languages. All of our trainings and meetings are in English, so it depends where I am. Also, we're suppose to speak English in our apartment (for our native companions) so it really just depends on the situation. I speak a mix of Ilonggo, Pandanon, Kara-ah, and Tagalog haha...it's a mess. My Tagalog is alright, haha. Here's the real question... how's my English? (Honestly his English is getting worse and worse...he throws in Ilonggo words all the time and his grammar, spelling, etc. is crazy. I hope it all comes back when he gets home.)