Illagan: Tumawini 2nd 2.16.14

This week was fairly average. The cycle here is coming to a close and I will have a new companion next week. I wonder who it will be! Anyways we have a few new updates this week:

Catriz Boys: 

We started teaching 3 sons of our Recent convert. They will more than likely be baptized next month. Its a blast teaching them though. Teaching kids is my favorite. I suppose thats why the scriptures tell us to become like children. ITs when we are like children that we are most receptive to learning and growth.

Nester:

This is the wife of a member who we have never been able to teach til this week. Its sort of too soon to tell but I think he will progress. He was so thankful for us teaching him. His wife who we visit every week was so thankful for us teaching her husband that I though she was going to cry. I hope his heart continues to soften. One hilarious thing is after our lesson which was in the middle of nowhere we were walking back when he rode up on his scooter. He offered us a ride we reluctantly accepted and then proceeded to put 3 men on one vespa sized scooter and go. It was hilarious. but the most I have ever seen here is 5 people on a motorcycle. I pray I never see  6. 

Guiyab:

One thing about the Philippines is everyone and their dog is Catholic and worships idol and mother Mary,  but nobody including their dogs know what the Bible actually  says. We have been teaching this sister for a month now but not much progress but the past couple lessons there have been really good she seems to be opening up. This week she asked us why we dont worship Idols. We showed her in her bible where God specifically tells the entire world to not create aor worship graven images. Shock. We'll see where it goes but I hope her heart continues to soften. 

I love the work here and although I dont have time to write about everyone here I love them all. I love my area here and I love all you back home and serving elsewhere in the world. Have a good one!

Illagan: Tumawini 2nd 2.10.14

In the Philippines you carry an umbrella 365 days a year. The reason for this is because its either raining, or so hot that you need an umbrella to keep the sun off you. This week we had to carry them for the latter reason. Did I complain about the heat in the past? Yes, and now i want to go back and time and beat myself up because my past self didn't know what hot was. The best way to explain it is when you open the oven that hot air ours out and hits your face and it doesnt burn but its hurts a little. Thats how it feels. And because of this the electric fans that we use at night to be able to sleep no longer blow cold it blows warm now. But enough about the weather, this isnt the news. 

We met a bunch of really awesome people this week. We had 3 investigators in church yesterday. Larmi and Kriselda (22ish)  and Sister Guisman. Larmi and Kriselda are two women who we met on the street a week ago and went back and taught a few days ago. We taught them the resoration and they accepted out invitation to come and pick them up for church. Its was awesome to be able to get them to church so fast. I hope they continue. Sis Guisman is he wife of a member of our ward who hasnt seemed to serious in out past visits with her but this last lesson we had her husband bear a small testimony and it seemed to work on her. Missionary work with members is so much more successful. 

One fun thing that we do over here as missionaries is every week after district meeting in Ilagan we go eat lunch together as a zone. There is this place here that is called Mang Inasal. You order a piece of roasted and you get unlimited rice with it. We sometimes see who can eat the most rice. Its a ton of fun and it only cost about $2 American so its sweet. I dont know what else to say other than Life as a missionary is a ton of fun and so rewarding. I know that we are doing the work of God here. And I know that this is the one true church. Its so simple. This is the church that Christ established on earth. Why would anyone join a church about Christ when the Church of Christ is here. I love teaching people this and I know the spirit testifies that its true. Remember how blessed we are that we know the truth and once we realize how great a blessing it is, the next logical step in thinking is that we need to tell other people that its true! Dont be scared to share that testimony! I love you all and hope you have a stress-free and happy week! 

Since I know this is everyones favorite part! Last week I got a photo compressor so I can send them all in one email. Now i dont have to feel bad for clogging everyones email! Here it goes:

 These first two photos are of Joel (my best friend) , Joel's friend, and I. Joel has hair lip so he cant really talk. So he walks around with that other boy and we communicate through him. Joel points to our pockets (his way of asking for money) and we found out that its because he wants money to go buy cheese-curls (theyre his favorite) . I love this little boy and whenever we walk this way I always bring candy with me to give to him. Hes spoiled now but I love him. Sometimes when he sees us from very far away we see him run to us.

 

 

The next is a dessert here they call Halo-Halo (ha-low ha-low) its means mixture in english. Its basically a bunch of little jellies and ice and ice cream. Its super good and the best part is its cold!

 

 

The next is a scarecrow that we had near our house because its scarecrow festival right now. Even though there is no crows xD

 

 

The last is Me and sister Gangan's puppy. Sister Gangan is my favorite woman and this is my new favorite puppy. Good incentive for the long walk to her house in the middle of nowhere xD 

Illagan: Tumawini 2nd 2.2.14

(Good-afternoon to you all!) Im aware that its the middle of the night there however it is about a million degrees here right now, I now know how those roasting pigs feel when they are over the fire. The best way to describe the weather here would be to say that it feels like you have a person greenhouse around you everywhere you go. 

This week was legit! And there are miracles to tell. Ive been waiting for miracles to happen. And honestly the fact that im still alive is a miracle with all the bad water we drink but thats a different story! The miracle goes like this:

So we had our baptism on Saturday! Wohoo! It was so awesome. I got to baptize Sister Venus and also an 8 year old boy who is in our ward by request of the bishop! It was so awesome. That is miracle in and of itself. I love seeing our work pay off and see the blessing and spirit begin to flow to the people that we teach. But the miracle story starts right after her baptism when we invited her to bear her testimony. She bore her testimony all about how happy she is that we found her and taught her the truth. Then she bore testimony about how she knows her decision is right even though she doesnt have any support (nobody from her family came to her baptism). It was heartbreaking. I felt for her so deeply. She was crying and but she was so happy at the same time. Heres the miracle. We invited President Rahlf to give the closing remarks and mind you President Rahlf doesnt speak a lick of Tagalog. He got up there and looked right at her and told her all about the whole church is her new family and how the next day in Church everyone will raise their hand all welcome her and she never has to feel alone because there are so many of us on the same path. She understood him and couldn't stop smiling.  I asked President Rahlf who translated her testimony for him and until I told him he had no Idea what she had said in her testimony. That was a true testimony to me that the spirit works through us. Although there are barriers like language in our way the spirit can overcome all those barriers as long as wee heed tis voice and are always worth to receive it. 

Not much else happened this week. It was a really good successful week but we need prayers to find more progressing investigators. Or prayers for the people we are currently teaching to soften their hearts. Love you all and hope you are all doing well!

The butterfly that I promised its as big as a ping pong paddle

And the pony carts that they have in Tuguegarao City. Its an hour north of here and thats where we had zone conference. Its not like a tourist attraction this is one of the ways they get around there.

Its Me Sister Venus, Adrian (the child of record who I baptized) and Elder Espino! 

Illagan: Tumawini 2nd 1.26.14

So as a missionary every once in a while you get this really weird feeling. Ill try to describe it. Your walking through a corn field, and its so unbelievably hot outside. You just tried to find someone who you walked an hour and half into the middle of nowhere, but found out that he wasn't home. Everything about this scenario sounds awful right? Except for the fact that I literally could not stop smiling. It hit me that day this week that what we do is not only so important and so unbelievably crucial but that its is so much fun. That would probably be my biggest advise to someone wanting to serve a mission. That everyone always says its the hardest thing you do in your life (also true) but I dont feel like people ever tell you that the Lord blesses you with indescribable happiness. Im sure any missionary would agree with this. Just know that even though some of you miss me or your other missionaries, really we are the ones that wish you could come out here. So if any of you are thinking about serving or still hesitant about going through with it, just know that it is a blast (especially if you go to the Philippines). 

Anyways, Sister Venus  is going to baptized on Saturday! (Sidenote: I have never told you all this but everyone here has like crazy weird names, its like a mix of fantasy books and spanish for example I met a girl this week named Princey Pearl and a man named Dannyboy. So different!) Wohoo! So excited! And another awesome thing is that she wants me to baptize her. I guess thats a perk of being an American all the Filipinos want me to baptize them xD But I am so happy for her. She is the woman that we found on my first week here and I know I have told you all that before, but It makes me so happy that we found someone to teach out of tracting, its makes all the hours we walk around worth it in my mind. Ill be sure to take some pictures! 

We started teaching a few other people this week. We set a few return appointment last week in that place where we had to walk through the mud (called Tanna). We taught two families out here. Im not sure yet if they are interested we will see soon if they followed through on commitments. But the other two families that are super awesome are Lielee's family who is super nice and asks awesome questions. And the other family (the mother's name is Isa, the father's is Dannyboy, and they have a daughter named Jessica). But they have been fun to teach the most receptive seems to be Dannyboy hes only 25 but they seem like really good people. We offered to help him build his chicken coop but he said he could handle it (I was secretly okay with that because I have no idea how to build a chicken coop xD) But the spirit was super strong when we taught the Restoration.

Remember that Spider I told you guys about? Well this week there was one ( a little smaller probably baseball sized, but still with the thick legs) on one of my shirts when I pulled it out of the closet. I threw the shirt and then couldnt find it. No worries though I sprayed our entire apartment with prometherine (definitely not spelled right, but the spell checker is trying to correct it to Promethean, and I know I didnt spray those xD).  Pretty good week though. Elder Larron's Birthday was this week and we bought a cake and chickens and had a feast. (I dont know if I have ever told you about Elder Larron but he is Marshalese and quite possibly the most insane person on the planet. He is also pretty hilarious.) Missionaries do have fun, contrary to common belief. Anyways I hope you all find happiness this week and joy in whatever work your doing. Remember to focus on the good, I love you all and hope you have awesome weeks to report back next week!

Me riding a Caribou!  

Illagan: Tumawini 2nd 1.20.14

How is everyone? This week has been kind of a roller coaster! Full of ups and downs! We'll try an focus on the ups! 

So this week started off by us getting Sister Venus ready for her baptismal interview! We went there a few times and went over the interview questions everytime. She is really awesome when you can get her to not be shy! The crazy thing is, I dont know if i remembered to tell you guys this last week but she read the Book of Mormon like crazy. She started reading it 2 weeks ago and we asked her where she was. She was at the end of 1 Nephi which was good for having had the book for two weeks. We went back two days later and she was in 2 Nephi 17 and two days after that she was in Jacob 4. She read 130 pages of the BoM in like a week and half haha! I think thats the thing she loves the most. A sidenote: she passed her Baptismal interview! So we will be having another baptism within a couple weeks if all goes well! We found this woman a month ago off a street (or here we call them dirt-pathway contacts) contact. I dont know if all of you understand how rare that it. They says its about 1 in 600 street contacts result in a baptism. I guess we rolled dice just right that day! 

I had to buy a new pair of shoes this week because the ones I have been using for wok were ruined (all the way worn down to the socks haha!). Christmas finally came this week!  The package that my family sent over a month ago finally arrived 4 days ago. So i had candy, a few really awesome ties, a multitool that I already dont know how I was living without before, instructions for a magic trick from my brother, and the best!! My small quad! My bag is finally light. Life has been good this week with a light bag!  The package of stuff I ordered from manila also got here. It had a few triple combinations in Tagalog. A lot of the members here only have the BoM because there is no way to get the others, so i ordered some. It was fun to give them away. 

Just so you all know where I am at in the language: I can teach all the lessons in Tagalog, answer questions, and understand almost everyone. The only thing that I am still working on I understand 100% of what people say because I usually can its just when people talk super fast of mumble. Luckily though when it really counts I feel the Lord helping me. When someone is asking sincere questions or the spirit tells me to say something specific it amazing how the words flow. One cool thing though is in casual conversation, Since I have been here long enough to start worrying about it now I am starting to say things how they say them. I use there accent and I speak super fast. Its actually a ton of fun. I can already tell some of the things I say are going to be hard to get rid of when I head home. 

But right now Elder Espino and I are just working on increasing our teaching pool which means lots of finding. We really want to focus on part member families and referrals but we do a lot of tracting to. Which brings me to the crowning moment of my week! Story time:

So Elder Espino and I were tracting in this little community (its really like 25 houses build close to each other in the jungle, we had to take a tricycle but even the tricycle would only take us half way) So for the sake of the story we were walking through the jungle, and we got the end of the neighborhood and we asked someone if we could just continue down the way and get back to the highway. He said yes so we started walking. We were walking over these hills above the rice fields and we walked for like 15 mins when all of the sudden the road we were walking on stopped. All that was there was a small farmers path through the rice fields. So we started walking. Before long the small path turned to straigh mud. Stinky, nasty mud. So we kept walking and there was a time where we were literally up to our knees. E. Espinos shoes kept getting sucked off haha! We were laughing so hard, it was so unfortunate it was hilarious. Two kids in shirts and ties walking up to our knees in mud, so funny. It was slightly less funny for us because we got to see the snakes in the water next to us! (Sorry Mom, but its true and it adds to the story). We got out of the rice fields finally at the other end and we were right by our members house. So we went to go use her well to clean off. Well it was broken so we got to walk all the way home completely soaked and covered in mud haha!  Sorry that this email is so long this week!

Well thats all for this week everyone! Love you all and hope life treats you well!

The first on is Me and elder Espino with our new DL Elder Baker hes 6' 6". I thought I stood out here!

The scripture case I made for my new (old) scriptures! Sorry for sending you guys so many separate emails but the churches thing only lets you do 15mb at a time per email.

right before we got muddy standing on those hills I mention in the story!

 after the mud:

Illagan: Tumawini 2nd 1.12.14

I literally have been so pumped to write this email I hope I can put into words how crazy this week was! So Here it is! On Tuesday I went on splits with Elder Bahr who is also an American. We were in his area which is far away, its like a 45 minute walk, just to where the area starts. Anyways we walked about another 45 minutes past that to a place called Villerea. I kid you not and this is not an exaggeration I am the second white person in the history of the Earth to set foot there. Elder Bahr opened that area so he was the first and then when I went there I was the literal second white person those people have ever seen. Kinda crazy. Last time I went on splits in that area we taught a man who was completely haggard drunk. And went I went on splits this week he was slightly less drunk so I guess thats improvement XD Its more sad than funny but still.

Sister Venus came to church on Sunday which is amazing and totally an answer to my prayers. This means that we most likely wont have to push he baptism date back. We will be reviewing with her a lot this week and If God will we will have antoher baptism on January 25th. The rest of our investigators are at different levels of progression and we didnt make any huge breakthroughs this week. 

But now to the wildest day of my mission. Saturday. I woke up and had study like normal I went downstairs and found the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life. Ill attach the photo I took but it was as big as my hand fully outstretched. So crazy. Then a few hours after I had the privilege of baptizing Sis Jobelle! All our work paid off and the feeling of baptizing someone is worth every second I spend here. It gave me such a desire to go out there and find more people! The Testimony she shared after was legitimately like she has been a member for years. The spirit was so strong. Seriously golden investigator. 

Just about an hour ago we were traveling back from Illagan the trip takes about an hour and the whole time I was talking with this 5 year old girl in Tagalog. It was so much fun. It doesnt feel like I improve very much in the language every day but it was days like today where I see how far I have come. That and she was so cute. She asked me if there are Americanos in America. When I told her yes I asked her how many she thinks there are. Her answer was 100. Haha!

This week was amazing and I hope to have many more like it. I hope you all had an awesome one too and if not I hope and pray this next one is better! Love you all. 

-Elder Petersen

Illagan: Tumawini 2nd 1.6.14

Hello everyone! Its kind of weird to think that I only get to write you all like 85 more times. My second cycle as a missionary is almost over. I just have one more cycle of training left now. This week has been pretty awesome. First on this list has to be our baptism on Saturday. Im going to make the program for it right after I am done emailing. Want the big news?! She chose me to baptize her! I get to baptize Sister Jobele on Saturday! I am literally so excited and grateful. We finished teaching her this past week and she has a flawless church attendance record and she is more than prepared for her interview. Im so stoked on it! Guess my mom didnt buy those white pants for no reason! Haha! I will report back next week after the baptism but I have a feeling this week is going to fly with something that awesome to look forward to! Before I get back to the spiritual things I am going to lay down some temporal things I learned this week. If you know exactly where to go in our open market you can find potatoes. Tonight I will be eating mashed potatoes and gravy and me and my companion are going half on a roasted chicken. It will be the best thing I have eaten in 2 months. So today is a good day. Okay sorry about that I just had to tell you all! But we have our other investigator with a baptismal date, but she wasnt able to come to church on Sunday. Its heartbreaking. Investigators are allowed to miss one Sunday so that was her one Sunday. If she misses another we have to postpone her baptism and that would be the hardest thing I will have ever had to do. The rest of our investigators are progressing slowly. We have a couple new investigators but there is one family in particular that I am growing to love. We have been teaching their daughter the past week and the last couple times we have gone there the Father has been listening to. He heard us teaching the first part of Plan of Salvation and like literally could not wait to read the pamphlet and find out what his purpose was before this life, what is now, and where he is going after. It was awesome to see that excitement. I hope we can get them to start keeping some commitments now.

New years Eve was nuts here. We climbed onto our landlords house. Guess that rockclimbing skill came in handy on my mission after all. But in every direstion at midnight there was hundreds of fireworks going off. The good kind of fireworks of course. It reminded me of like a bombing in England in WW2. Its was super awesome though. I dont know if I have much else to say this wek other than I hope this email finds you all in good spirits and health and Ill talk you all again soon!

I threw some other people on this email who I dont normally send picture too but hese ones are so good they ned to be sen by more people!

This is the email I wrote to my friend Zach who is also serving in the Philippines. I thought you all might be curious how casual speech is written.

Haha Gustong gusto ko ang mga bata dito. Itinitawag nila ako Elder Puti minsan. Pero Gusto ko kung kailan sinabi nila "Magic Americano". Kasi Alam ko na ang Maraming magic trick. at Isip nila na Magic Ako. Nakatawa ito. Mahal ko iyan. I am having so much fun here and I hope all is going well with your companion. My first cycle here is almost over I guess that puts you at about half! Grabe! Sobrang baslis ito! Yung buong mission ko ay mahirap pero Isip ko na ang city ay sobrang iba. Hindi ko alam, Pero naniniwala ko sa iyo. Patuloy kayo nagtratrabaho. We will make it through!

And now some pictures!

They are me and my entire batch.

The center of my town.

And like always a group of kids!