Illagan: Tumawini 2nd 12.30.13

White Christmas!!

White as in I am the only white person who lives here in 40 square miles. Haha. People say you always remember your first Christmas away from home. Its unavoidable when you are 8000 miles away!! It was good though. No presents or anything silly like that but I got to skype my family! So you all can try again next year to receive a Christmas present better than that, because this year I cant be beat! It was awesome to talk to everyone and make sure they are still alive. They probably thought the same thing about talking to me haha! But it was vute I got to see Lincoln walk with my own eyes! That was the first time I have seen my nephew take actual steps. So all in all it was awesome to explain to them how this country works and answer some of their questions! Other than that we have a had a pretty regular week here! (well as regular of a week you can have a missionary) Oh I almost forgot I went on splits this week with another missionary in my district, Elder Tadeo. We went to his area which is called Delfin Albano and I thought we had to walk a lot in our area. Wrong! I estimate that day (Saturday) that week walked well over 25 miles. While on splits we taught two and a half lessons. A half because one of the old guys we taught was plastered drunk! Hah! not funny really but kind of is looking back... But now to my real area.

Sister Jobel: 

She is the absolute picture of a perfect investigator. She keeps all the commitments, she read all the material before hand so thoroughly that I think she should be teaching us. She will be Baptized in a week from Saturday, by her husband. She the bomb. 

Sister Venus

She has come to church two weeks in a row and we had the privilege this week to set a Baptismal date with her. January 25th! Im so excited! She Is opening up so much. When we asked her a couple days after setting the date with her she said that she lies awake at night because she is so excited. I pray that she continues forward and that she doesnt lose too much sleep! 

Bro Joel and others

Bro Joel progresses but very slowly. We will see what happens. Remember this is the man with cancer. My heart pangs whenever i shake his hand because he is getting so weak. He is only 30 years old. The doctors told him this week that there is nothing else that they can do. We almost got him to comet o church this week but he is too embarrassed because he a had a catheter.I kind of want to cry thinking about him right now but I dont know what will happen but I have faith that it will all work out. We also got a couple new investigators this week but its too soon to say what will happen. 

I love you all and hope you have a great New Years Eve and great first few days of a new year!

what my room looks like when its raining and we cant dry the clothes outside. xD

  Me and Elder Espino with the Capello Family.

The Kids doing a dance during the Christmas party 

my Christmas treats

 The market near our house

My splits in Delfin Albano

Illagan: Tumawini 2nd 12.22.13

Hows the good old fashioned American Christmas Season treating you all?! Lets me try and paint a picture of what Christmas is like here. First of all its 90 degrees and rains HARD every day. I dont know if any of you have ever tried to do laundry by hand and then hang dry it in the rain. But it doesnt really work. The next is all the kids here walk through the streets caroling but the only way to get them to leave is by paying them. Some call that caroling, I call it blackmail. The town has been nuts with everyone going to market for gifts for their kids. We dont have a Christmas tree  or any decorations but we are going to make some deserts and buy candy so It will be decent. We are going to have a Christmas party at the Church on Christmas day. Games food and Candy. Should be fun. I know hat everyone in America would hate to have a Christmas party at the church on Christmas, but I really like it here because otherwise for a lot of the kids Christmas would just be like any other day. So its good they get to go play games and eat candy. The parents here try but the just simply isnt any extra money to celebrate holidays. What else... We traveled to Cauayan last Thursday for Christmas Devotional but it was more of a party. They had actual mashed potatoes so it was worth the two hour ride. But get this. We went to zone meeting last week and it takes an hour to get there. We always take a van (its like their public transportation here) guess how many people they crammed into the van? Let me add that this van is smaller than the standard American Soccer mom minivan. 19 people. Yes 19! How crazy is that?! Christmas has been a ton of fun though, its the perfect excuse to tie all of our lesson back to the savior. It was fun last night we read and explained the birth of Christ from Luke 2 to a bunch of kids. Its cool because I speak Tagalog on about there level. Haha! Also before I forget I need to tell you all the weird things I have eaten. In the past 3 weeks Ive eaten: Squid, a bunch of types of fish, Balot (for those of you who dont know what Balot is look it up) and every type of pancit under the sun.  now to the good stuff:

Sis Jobele is still on track to be baptized on Jan 14 we are so lucky to have here she is the bomb. We teach her twice a week and they always feed us after. That family is so nice.

Sister venus came to church yesterday! she was a little late so I was kinda sad bu tthen when she finally came I almost dropped the sacrament tray I was holding. You have no idea how awesome it is as a missionary to see people actually do what they say they are going to do! 

We have a few more investigators but they arent progressing very much yet. We also had a bunch of our less actives come to church yesterday! All of our work paid off! Woohoo! Haha 

Thanks you all for your support Love you all and Hope you have a very Merry Christmas! (Maligayang Pasko!!)

the beautiful sky here and of course some baka! (cows)


 the house of sister Gangan who is the nicest woman on this whole planet.

 our investigator sister Venus and a couple of here kids and a ton of other random kids that like to listen to us because im white haha!

Illagan: Tumawini 2nd 12.16.13

I cant believe that I have been gone for two months! Ill be home in like 3 days if time continues to pass like this! The cycle (transfer) is almost already half over! It seems like legitimately two days ago that I was standing on that curb hugging my family goodbye! But now Im here, I know a different language, I live a different life, and I get to spread God's kingdom here on earth! So cool. So here we go! This week we got to Teach our progressing sister! She is going to be baptized on January 12th! Im so stoked! She is the bomb! She had us over to their house for Pizza on Friday night and that was the first time IVe had cheese since Ive been here! Oh how I missed cheese! Count your blessings everyone, one day cheese might be taken away from you! We taught another family and the sister didnt seem to be progressing because she is super shy but then we had here give a prayer and she broke down crying during it and could barely finish. The spirit is such a strong force. She was supposed to come to church on Sunday but wast able too because how bad the storm was and she has a very new baby. She said she wants to come next week though so fingers crossed! Another of our investigators has cancer and he seems interested but we havent had a lot of chances to work with him yet. We will see how it goes! The language here is progressing really well. I can speak a lot faster! Understanding people is still hard a lot but that is getting a lot faster too. No offense to Derek but sometimes I think serving a mission in English would be a lot easier! Its hard in different ways though. Tagalog is just really hard. Its okay though! I can teach a little and bear tesimony so I guess thats all I really need. I just feel bad because I ask people tons of questions but I can understand their responses half the time! Its so fun though! This week we walked between 7 and 15 miles everyday! In 90 degree heat. Trust me im not complaining but I just want you to know how different it is here when Its snowing back home! One funyy thing is the kids here do on Christmas what we do in the states on Halloween they go door to door asking for money and candy on Christmas, kinda funny huh?! We arent really able to give them money though because we are poor! We have enough to get by but not enough to be able to give away! I hope you all are enjoying this Christmas season and My love goes out to all of you although it will probably take 3-4 weeks to get there. The Pacific is a big ocean. Take care!

-Elder David Petersen

a sick caterpillar that me and Elder Espino found! It was like the size of your middles finger and had orange spikes! Sweet! It tasted pretty good too. Haha joke.


me and the kids of course! There is enough kids here that I could send a new one like this every week haha!

The next is at the Bishops house we had Pizza woot!! In the Philippines pepperonis are sliced Filipino hot dogs just fyi!

Illagan: Tumawini 2nd 12.9.13

Hello po!

I am here everyone! And it really is as hot as everyone says it is. Right now I'm writing in a tiny internet shop and Its probably 95 degrees in here with 100% of course. And these are the cold months... Fans are my new best friend I cant sleep without it. But my other new best friend is my new companion Elder Espino! He is a native Filippino from Metro Manila. I dont know how to describe this place because you can only really understand it by living here. Ill try: We ride everywhere in and on top of Tricycles (they are motorcycles with covered open side cars) I love riding on top because the wind feels amazing. Hopefully I can attach a picture to this but I dont know if the internet will be fast enough but it is beautiful here. Hot and beautiful. We have taught many people here already in the Tumawini 2nd ward (my area here is Illagan and my area is the Tumawini 2nd). Everyone here lives differently than I have ever seen. Almost all here have dirt floors, thatched roofs and bamboo or tin walls. But I dont notice it too much anymore because thats just how it is. Our apartment is nice (for here) though, its has floors and I get my own fan. So far its been a blast though, we have taught 18 lessons in the 4 days I have been here. We have 3 new investigators and 1 of them will probably get baptized, so excited! The food here is basically just rice and whatever meat the people could afford. For my meals though I have been eating a lot of Filipino hot dogs and toast with mango jam. Its funny you know how in America Hunts is like the lame brand? Here its like the best brand there is. Today is P-day though so we have been shopping and washing our clothes (by hand). I don't know what else to say because I could talk all day about how different it is here but I love it and even though Its hard for me to understand alot of the Tagalog here (its is heavily Illikano influenced here in Tumawini) I love the people and I love going our and serving everyday. Yesterday in church was the Primary program and it was so cute. All the kids here (they are everywhere) always yell when we walk past they say "Hey Joe" or "Hey man" or "Americano" but they always want me to wave and the younger ones always come running up in groups of like 10 to shake our hands and give high fives. The funny thing is they remember my name. When we walk by the same way they say "Babay Elder Petersen". Everyone here is so nice they are always trying to feed us and give us drinks. Its a crazy place but I love it and I love the people and I can't wait to keep teaching the people who I have taught so far. They need this message. Because its true. I love you all and I hope you enjoy your week in the cold. 

-Elder David Petersen

My companion Elder Espino from Manila.

Cauayan City 12.4.13

Arrived in Cauayan City, Philippines

Week 6 MTC 11.30.13

Well Technically the last day is tomorrow but still! So close! Next time you hear from me Ill be on the other side of the Planet! Speaking a foreign tongue, drinking only filtered water, eating only fish, and be the only white person around for miles. Is it weird that despite all those hard things all I am is excited. Seriously I cannot wait! Today will be our last day as leaders of the Zone. And I still have to figure out who to give the foam of memory to! ( the foam of memory is a memory foam mattress pad that is passed down from missionary to missionary in our zone and I was lucky enough to receive it). We are going o pack our bags today which will be fun. We are all so pumped! The language is awesome. We are figuring out how to be more specific in the things we say and speak more like they do. I got an email from one of the missionaries in our zone who has been out there for 2 weeks now and he says that the dialect in his area heavily influences the Tagalog there. It will be the same thing in my area im sure. Im excited though. It will be hard but Im ready to give it everything! There isn't much else we can learn from this place, in-field orientation was long and not as informative as you'd think. But today is out last P-day so im washing all my clothes so that they are ready for the field. I can't believe this time has come, Im so pumped this last week went kind of slow pobably because we were all so excited but I still can't believe the day is here. Ill get to call my family twice on Monday which will be a ton of fun and Chantelle says Lincoln can say Hi on the phone so I hope he'll do it for me! Its crazy that he can do that because he could only say Mama when I left. Little guy is growing up fast. We taught a lesson this week to an investigator. And I don know what was up but our Tagalog was terrible. But somehow during that lesson the spirit was stronger than any other we have taught. Its funny how when it really counts God wont let 3, 18 year old kids slow down his work. When we can't do anything else, he works through us. Thats true for all of you I know. When you have done all that you can do, and Its not enough ask God for help and watch what happens, I know that If you have faith you will see his hand in your life. In a very real way. Miracles still do happen. I love you all and thank you all for the things you send me here. It brightens my days to hear from you all. I hope you all have an awesome week and Ill write you from the Philippines next week!

Elder David Petersen


Have you ever wondered how much missionaries pray? My left shoe is worn out and I couldn't figure out why until a few days ago we stood up from a prayer and I realize I drag my left shoe on the ground as I stand up. Ill put a picture and you can see

Week 5 MTC 11.23.13

This is as good a week as any to stop counting the weeks on this email! It would just get too hard to remember eventually! This was a really good week at the MTC! Like always a few good things and a few hard things happened! Lets start with the hard and work towards the good! The first hard thing was out teacher talked to us for a couple hours a few days ago and told us all the grammatical errors we are making that completely change the meaning of our words. For example: I asked our investigator "Paano magbasa kayo?" when I should have asked "Kumusta po and binabasa ninyo?" The first one translates to: How read you? And the second one translates to "how was your reading?" very different right? It was kind of hard to hear all of that because as much as I love it, this language is the hardest thing I have ever had to learn. It so unbelievably different. It was very humbling to hear that we still have a long way to go. After that class though my companions and I have dug deeper into the language than we ever have before. We have found that if we say the sentences first in English than translate them we can say them with perfect grammar. So I think we will try and think about the questions a little more before we say them. Another hard thing is we did TRC over skype. TRC is where we teach people who are already members of the church. We taught Brother Pao who lives in Manila. The hard thing was we could hear him because skype kept cutting in and out. I hope he got something out of our message because it was ridiculously hard to focus. Alright enough of that stuff. The awesome thing that happened this week. And I dont know why, but last night in class the language as a whole kind of just clicked inside my head. Our teacher was explaining Object focus causitive on nounified verbs and the sentence structure just clicked in my head why it is the way it is. And can I just tell you all It makes so much more sense than English. I wont go into it too much why but someday ill tell you. Its just really complicated. 

The last really awesome thing is we got our flight itineraries yesterday! WOOHOOO!!! We will be flying to Detroit from Salt Lake and then directly from Detroit to Manila. That last flight will be 21 hours long. Yes I said 21 hours long. Manila is almost directly on the other side of the globe from Detroit. The Lord literally could not have sent us farther away from home. Is it weird that all I feel is excited?! Im so stoked to get there! 

It makes me so glad to know I have all of you rooting for me! And I thank you all for our words and the letter and things you send me! I try and write all of you back but If i don't get to it just know I love you and that If I had time I would right to everyone of you everyday! I hope you all have an awesome week. God be with you. You are all in my prayers.

Week 4 MTC 11.16.13

Kumusta!

Some really cool things happened this week! 

First!

We got to listen to L. Tom Perry on Tuesday. Since have lived in Salt Lake the past 10 years seeing apostles around hasn't been the most mind blowing thing in the world. But it was soo cool to see all the people here get excited about it because a lot of the people here who never would have got so see an apostle in there whole lives get so excited. He talked a lot about the Philippines in his talk and it made our zone feel really cool because we are the ones who get to go there!

Second!

I got to host Logan Adam! (one of my best buddies for my whole life) I say him driving down and I happened to be hosting right then so I got to show him the MTC, take him around to where he needed to go and all that stuff. Its was cool that I got to welcome him right from the get go. I am jealous though because be will be leaving before me still even though Ive been here for forever haha!

Third!

We get our flight plans in just 6 days! I can't believe it! It seems like we just got called as zone leaders yesterday! But its been two weeks xD! So thats really cool. I cannot wait to get to the Philippines! You would think Id be scared, but im literally so stoked to get there! 

Fourth!

We don't speak English anymore. Starting this morning we dont speak any English to each other or in class. Its going really well. My companions and I made this goal because we were teaching a lesson and we are starting to get frustrated with how slow we speak. So in order to become fluent we are forcing ourselves to have no other option. Thats how it will be in the Philippines in a couple weeks anyways! 

Fifth! 

I always try and Inclue a funny story so here is the one for this week. Kinda short! So we were all in our room changing back into our dress clothes when we hear yelling coming from the hallway in fron of our room. We opened the door and looked down the hallway and there we saw 5 naked missionaries! They had all been taking showers and none of them brought their key (the doors lock automatically here). So they were all standing there naked trying to figure out who was going to have to go to the front desk in their towel to get a key. It was such a hilarious hijynx. Really classic.

We continue to grow in language and in spirit here! I love you all and enjoy hearing from you! I hope you all have an awesome week.

 

This is us at the temple last Sunday with the older Elders in our zone! Love them especially Elder Kelly haha (second from the right)!

Week 3 MTC 11.9.13

Can it be week 3 already?! Sorry so sound like a broken record but every time I write these emails it hits me how fast time passes!

So this week some good, some bad, and some funny things happened to me. Ill start with the bad: We learned a huge lesson the hard way this week. We were teaching two investigators in one day and the first lesson went amazing. However we did not leave any time to plan or prepare for the second lesson. We thought since we were just teaching restoration we would be fine. Wrong! When you dont do all that you can do to prepare to teach. The Holy Ghost does not help you teach! And when the Holy ghost does not help you teach you can't understand or speak Tagalog! Since we have only been speaking Tagalog for 3 weeks We absolutely need the Gift of Tongues and that experience absolutely testifies of that. We vowed never to be unprepared for teaching again. We were an absolute train wreck. However we taught her again yesterday and we retaught the restoration. (yeah it was that bad) and I told whole first vision in Tagalog. It is powerful in every language. To prove it Im going to write it and I dont have it with me so this is memory:

Ako ay nakikita ng isang hiligi na tama tamng sa tapat sa aking ulo

higit pa sa liwanag ng araw. Ng dahang-dahan pumaba hangin sa ito ay 

pumalibot sa akin. Nang Tamuon sa akin ng liwanag, nakikita ako ng

dalawang kautahan, na ang liwanag at malhatian ay hindi kayong 

masalarawan. Nakatayo sa hangin sa itaas ko. 

Ang isa sa kanilla na salita sa akin. Itinatawag ako sa aking pangalan,

at nagasabi, Itinituro ang isa--- Ito ang Pinakammahal na anak, Pakinggan Siya!

Sorry I accidentally hit send! So if you haven't tread the first part of this email go there first. But I know that that story is true and despite the few grammar errors i Probably made, the story is just as true in Tagalog. The spirit testifies of it.

Now onto the funny stories. We were teaching one of our investigators and I was telling him (in Tagalog) how the commandments help us. And I was teaching him how the make us happy. So I said "Following the commandment brings happiness" in Tagalog the word for happiness is Masaya but When I was telling him this I kept saying the word Masama. Pretty similar words right? Well I realized after I had said it a few times that I was truly telling him the that "following the commandments brings evil" haha so hilarious looking back on it. Another funny thing that happened is we were doing practice role plays and I was saying in Tagalog "Christ guided the blind" the word for blind is bulag however I kept saying bugol. So I was telling them that "Christ guided the coconuts" 

But anyways. All is well here and like always I thank you all for the kind words. Im so excited to get to the Philippines and my time here in the MTC is half over! or pretty close anyways. Keep the Philippines in your prayers during this time when they are having these storms. Love you all and hope you all have a great week!

Week 2 MTC 11.2.13

Hey all,

Can you guys believe Its week two already?! I just got here yesterday! Where does the time go? Its great hearing from all of you. Since my P-day is on Saturday I get to recharge my spirits with all the kind words for you and it makes for a nice weekend! The Language is progressing really well. The thing is we learn so much everyday but it doesn't feel as overwhelming anymore. We learned verb conjugation for past present and future as well as possessives the past couple days. I didnt learn those until the end of French two in high school. So i guess that means that we learned more in a week and a half than I did in two years of French. That leads me to believe Ill know more Tagalog than French by next week! Haha! So cool. Half of our branch leaves on Monday to the Philippines, im so jealous! but we will be there soon. But that makes us move up in the branch because there are two new districts coming in next Wednesday so we wont be the youngest anymore! Im actually really excited to meet them. I genuinely love all of the people who are going to the Philippines with us because I remember the first day I got here and can't wait to talk to these people and make them feel at home. We have a new teacher his name is Brother Solderquist and he is the bomb. He taught is and helped us memorize part of the first vision in Tagalog. Ill write it in an email when I can recite the whole thing! Maybe next week :) Its weird some thoughts come in Tagalog now. Some things like hello, thank you and and what?  but its still really cool. Elder McCausland from my district sleeps on the bunk above me and one night I woke up because he was speaking Tagalog in his sleep! Hes a white kid from Florida! Amazing!The food here hurts your body so bad haha. Right after you eat it feels like your chest is going to explode. So Ive started eating more cereal and fruit haha they are safer! We've really slipped into the routine though! The days here feel like hours back home. I can't believe we leave exactly one month from today. My companions and I and some other members of our district are kinda sick but I feel better today. So no worries! One of the things that I have grown to love here I singing hymns, they get stuck in my head all day haha. But we sing in Tagalog during class and when we shower we all sing together in English! Its hilarious. What else is new... Oh yeah! We start teaching two new investigators on Monday. The investigators here in the training center are just teachers but they are acting as people who they taught on their missions so it really feels like teaching a Filipino and is really helpful in learning how to teach. All is well here and I hope for the best for all of you!

Love,

Elder David Petersen

 

Elder McCausland (far left) and Elder Sefita (middle on the chair) are companions and the two guys next to me are Elder Kocherhans is next on my right and next to him is Elder Rogers

The picture of the candy is when we went trick or treating around the dorms, people's families send them so much stuff that everyone is really generous

 

the last picture is just of my bed

Week 1 MTC 10.26.13

Hey all,

Kumusta po tayong? Thank you guys for the email! Today is my first P-day so i will be able to email on Saturdays. Its been quite the experience here so far. Everyday we speak more and more Tagalog. The routine is basically we wake up at 630 then we have 45 minutes to get ready then we go to breakfast, which i have actually been eating since I have been here! Its kinda weird but at night i go to bed and I feel a little bit hungry so I fall asleep and I wake up and the hunger is still there. Even though thats a really small things its something that i worried about so its been cool to see that! After breakfast we go to class and learn gospel in Tagalog. Very rarely do we have just language class. We learn Tagalog through the gospel which makes sense because thats what we will be teaching. Its very cool. I have gained a huge testimony of the gift of tongues. We pray for it an average of 6 times a day. And personally I pray for it before every time i know I will have to speak sa Tagalog. After class we have lunch. Yeah, class is 3 hours long. then we usually have gym time and personal study time before dinner then we have more class. However since today is p-day we will be going to the temple. Ill report back on that but it will be cool to be in the temple with mga kasama ko (my companions) and the rest of my district as well. I said a little on this in the letter i sent to lincoln, which will be to you in the next few days sometime but my companions and I literally laugh all day long, every one of us have a funny side so there is never a dull moment. Mga kasama ko are Elder Rogers and Elder Kocherhans. They are both really nice guys and we laugh a lot. We speak Tagalog as much as we can even if its just small things like Thanks (Salamat po) or hurry! (balis-balis!) Tagalog is such a cool language and the gift of tongues has allowed us through the spirit to learn it very quickly. We have to remind ourselves to not be too hard on ourselves for not knowing a ton because its only the fourth day! And in that light we know more than we possibly could without the gift of tongues. We pray every night in Tagalog and we bear testimony sa Tagalog as well. That accent is funny when we get out of class it takes a minute to adjust back to not using it and I think that will only get worse haha. The spirit is so strong though and we pray officially like 15 times a day but really this whole place is like a prayer. I love you guys and I hope you don't miss me too much because I dont have time to miss you as much as I probably should! I want to write and much of my testimony as I can to you guys it will be short but it will get longer. I actually forgot my notebook so this is all from memory: 

Alam ko po na buhay si Jesucristo at tagapagligas po si Jesucristo. 

Alam ko po na mahal tayong Diyos.

Alam ko po na panalagen si diyos ang kalakasan. 

Alam ko po na totoong koloob ng mga wika

si panalagen ni Jesucristo, Amen

Thanks to all you guys it helps a lot knowing I have people Who love me back home all the mail and Email is really fun. I will return any letters I get physically throughout the week but if you email me ill see it a week from Today! Overall though Im having a blast! 

Love you all,

Elder David Petersen