TRICK OR TREAT

. Man this week has been a pretty successful one. God just all the sudden blessed us with a ton of success and we are now teaching a LOT of people that are really interested in learning the truth. And the best part is that they are all families. We just gave a family of 5 all dates to be baptised Dec 10. My last Saturday in the mission :). We should have a bunch more to add to that list pretty soon. This week we had some aweosme lessons too. In That one picture with all those people, we actually had taught all them at once. And that is only about 3/4 of them too a lot of the grown-ups arent even in the picture haha it was seriously more then 40 people. And the lesson went so good and they were so into it that we gave them a baptismal commitment that when they knew that this message was true, if they would get baptised? and they all said yes haha and were way interested and wanted us to come back. So tomorrow we are going back again to teach them all :). We've actually had a lot of success like tht this week. We would have had a TON of investigators come to church too if it wasnt POURING rain. So next week we are counting on getting a lot of more peope to start progressing and to go to church. I have been really excited about our work lately and even though i dont think ill get to end up harvesting most of this, im just interested in being able to be a part of it. I want to help as MANY people as i still can while i still ahve the time. Ive just been having a blast. We have still been finding a lot but mostly its just getting back to people and getting them progressing. We just barely got back from cauayan cause we went trick-or-treating up there and it was awesome. I love president. He is SOOO good to us!

SANTIAGO STAKE IS SPLIT!

SantWhat a wonderful experience, to witness the division of Santiago Stake. Elder Nielson and Elder Ardern came to attend the conference. We were fortunate to be asked to pick them up from Tuguegarao and drive them to Cauayan where they spent the night before the conference started on Saturday. With a few extra hours on Friday afternoon, they graciously accepted President Carlos' invitation to meet with some of our missionaries. Those who were serving in areas nearby were invited to come spend a couple hours. It was the most uplifting and enlightening meeting.

Elder Ardern with the New Santiago North Stake Presidency, next is the Santiago Stake Presidency and Elder Nielson


In the mission home
The Conference was held on Saturday and Sunday and it was awesome! There is now a Santiago North Stake and a Santiago Stake. After the Sunday session the Stake Relief Society President prepared a wonderful meal before there was a special meeting with the youth. Later that night we drove the elders back to Cauayan and they had dinner at the Mission Home with our senior couples. It was a wonderful evening full of great lessons and laughter!

On Monday morning we invited the Assistants to come to breakfast and enjoy spending at little time with the brethren before we drove them to the airport. This was truly a wonderful weekend. It's so thrilling to see the church grow in this part of the Philippines.

HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY!

Well we had a Awesome week full of great work! And it payed off this sunday. We were able to get a bunch of investigators to church> I was so excited and so was my comp. We have had some of my most spiritual lessons too. It just has been really good. We have had investigators just explain to us how the holy ghost made it manifest to them the truth of this message and its just such an amazing process to see happen as they explain it too you. We have this one guy who is just crazy. He yells like all the time and all he really really wants it to feel peace in a world full of turmoil and troubles. Then we asked him if he had tried to read the book of Mormon to escape from his problems and he then explained to us how he actually had, he had himself forgotten until we asked, then he told us how he felt and how aweosme it was and he described exactly what he himself was looking for from our lessons with him. It was so awesome and humbling to have him tell us these things. Man just being apart of this everyday is so awesome. Its been rough having to study for 4 hours every morning with this new training program but its been awesome and some how ive been able to stay awake and have really successful sessions even with it being that long. We have a lot of families we are teaching and to see full families accept this gospel is awesome. It reminds me how LUCKY we really are. Which i know i still dont fully comprehend how lucky we really are but im so thankful, until this point, we have all been strong. Thats so awesome. Everything has just been going really good. We had to go to the doctor to get my chest xray for going home. I also got one of my last interviews with president this week and that went amazing.
... Man my birthday today was the best mom. We played some sick football. You should have seen the present they gave me Ill send it next week or somthing... U will laugh so hard. After football president fed us mexican food. Sister carlos is a really good cook and it was SOOOO awesome. It was a way sick birthday. I love president sooo much he is so good to me. He spoils me way more then i deserve....

CARABAO

Only in the Philippines...
Sister Shaner was teaching a woman recently whose husband is a rice farmer. Sister Shaner mentioned something about the carabao and this lady said, "You mean you don't have carabao's in the U.S.?" She was so shocked to hear that Sister Shaner had never seen a carabao. She asked "Well, how do you get any work done?" Sister Shaner explained that we use John Deere--a tractor.

HE'S COMING HOME!

I received Elder Riner's flight plans today! It's official! He will be flying into the Pasco airport at 11:00am on December 16th, 2011. We all have had experience with these long flights so you know that sometimes that means 11:00pm or maybe the next day. HAHA But that is the plan for now. You are all invited to the airport to welcome him home and to his Homecoming talk on the 18th. I will keep you posted on any changes.
Daniel will be coming home the 9th of December so we are also excited for that too! What a month.

A VISIT FROM GENERAL AUTHORITIES

... This week we had 2 general authorities come here to our stake conference to divide our stake into 2 and to speak. It was awesome. U remember that one guy that had a thick accent that talked in conference the other week. He was here haha and i got to meet him. He was from like new Zealand or somthing and the other was Elder Nelson from Twin falls idaho. It was aweosme to see them. It was also way awesome to see our stake split. My old bishop was teasing me cause i was here for the branch when it split to 2 wards and then for the division of the stake too. He told the new stake president i shoudl have to speak. I told him haha i dont want to speak that would not be cool. Especially if there are general authoritys there. It was pretty dang cool though. We had some sweet teaching appointments this week. One person we found tried to pay us for our study with them haha. I told my comp he should of took it but he just shook his head haha i was just messing with him. We were able to give some sweet blessings this week too and had some awesome lessons with some people! i love being here apart of this work. Its been really hot though man. It drains you and you just get all sweaty!
That is sick chelsea came home. Who did she hitch a ride with??? YA! its nuts that i have only had 3 areas haha i dont know of anyone else in my mission that has ever been like that. 4 is not very many at all and i only had 3! But im way cool with that. I hate moving areas and i love it this way. Its just an answered prayer for me... My comp is doing pretty good with the language... He is defiantly getting better and we;re having a lot of fun and getting a lot of work done. We are really starting to build up our teaching record and should be getting a LOT of people to church pretty soon. All we are teaching are families so that is AWESOME and we are starting to get the ward pumped about our work too :). Man that is crazy that chelsea already is getting into dating... I mean i think all that free food will be nice for her but i remember reading that she wasnt going to date the first year??? Sounds like everything is going pretty good at home.

THE MTC BATCH

POWER!

YA we were the onse sister Carlos was taking about we just barley got power like last friday night after having a brown out for 10 days... Everything in our fridge just went horrible and there was mold all up in it so we just didnt open it tell the other day and then it got GROSS!!! we cleaned it earlier. It was not a fun job. My comp is cool. We get along great and we've been working hard. This week we got like 16 new investigators and a few of them are really starting to progress. We are really building up a nice teaching pool again and im so excited to see what kind of things we are going to be able to do with these next 7 weeks we have together. So everything is going really good! Having 4 peopl in a apartment is hecktic of course but it is WAY fun. Everything has been going really good as far as the work and im excited to see waht we can get started for us in this next week. We are working hard right now trying to fill all hours of our day with productive work and seem to be doing a pretty good job with that thus far. Everything is going great!

AN UPDATE FROM THE MISSION HOME

RIVER FLOODED BY TYPHOON PEDRING

Two typhoons in one week, but third one was diverted
We did suffer through two typhoons last week. Another one was predicted for this Wednesday but it's course changed and it went south. We actually had few rain clouds that day but nothing much. Some of our missionaries are still without power, but most have it back now. It seems like the worst hit areas were around Santiago. We were there on Tuesday and surprised to see so many huge trees uprooted and the river so swollen. All of our missionaries are now back in their apartments. We are very grateful that the third typhoon missed us!!! We Feel Our Savior's Love.
This weekend is General Conference. We view it a week late since we are a day earlier than the US. We are all excited to be spiritually feed this weekend!
I'm way behind on blog updates and will try to rectify that in the next few days! It's been a very busy couple of weeks. A new wonderful batch of missionaries, zone leader council and lots more. Thanks to all for their love and concern for this mission.

A TWO TYPHOON WEEK

GETTING A NUMBER FOR AN INVESTIGATOR


A RECENT CONVERT'S HOME AFTER THE STORM

THE CHURCH WAS A MESS BUT SURVIVED. MANY PEOPLE SLEPT THERE AFTER THE STORM BLEW THEIR HOUSES AWAY

HITCHING A RIDE TO SAVE SOME PEOPLE FROM THE STORM



Alright, so this week was a CRAZY one. So last tuesday we woke up to a really loud noise that turned out to be sheet metal getting blown all over by the wind. So i got up to check it out and it was pouring rain and the wind was strong. So we went out and fastened everything down we didnt want to fly away, then we went inside and started studying. After Personal study we couldnt stand it anymore, and even though the storm was raging full boar we went out to save some lives :). we never got a text we werent suppose to and i couldnt stand the thought that our investigators houses were just getting mobbed in the storm, so we put on some clothes and went out to see what damaged had already taken place. As soon as we left the gate it was BAD. there was telephone lines flying everywhere and a HUGE tree had fallen on our neighbors truck and just smached it and destroyed the telephone wires. It was bad. So we climed through all that and went to one of our investigators house we had knew would have gotten destroyed by such a storm. We were right. When we got there it was completely gone. I have some pics ill send to u later but it was BAD> i felt so bad. So we went to the front and found them. Dad was happy as ever just laughing and asking how we were doing. We told him we were just worried about him and how he was. As soon as we found out he was fine we went to the church to see how we could help. We found a few bishops and the gave us a little update. Then we went back out to our other investigators. Almost everyones house was completely destroyed. Sheet metal was flying everywhere and cords were too. While all this is going down we, as Zls, are getting all kinda of calls about everything, trying to get everyone safe and what not. Plus that was the day we had to announce transfers and so we had to get that list and send it to everyone while we were under this little shack, it was the only place we found service. It was all Nuts. Eventually the storm died down and we werent sure were to start with everything. We went and checked on a few other people who also just got destroyed and it was crazy. One of our recent converts house had completely gotten wiped away, as in there was no more house. I think we have a pic of that too. At the same time everyone was getting flooded like crazy. So me and my comp went and bought machetes to help get trees out of the way and houses all cleaned up. It is like the most effective tool after a storm haha its funny. eventually we got home and we soaked to the bone, freezing, and exhausted from it all. We took like a Hour rest then went back out. That was just tuesday. Wednesday we continued to clean and help people but at 2 o'clock we went to a fireside for the Departing Missionaries. Thats the pictures i included in this email. It was so sad to see these guys go. I love them and 2 or the 3 were my comps that i had become tight with and the other i was his DL for a while and we got close too. It was all pretty sad to see them go but it was awesome at the same time. THen thursday we just worked and got a few lessons in after doing osme more service. Friday we had transfer day and thats when i got my knew comp, elder Landeen. He is a stud and is brand new. Im really excited for our cycle together., He is from West Jordan, Utah. He seems really excited for the work and kinda has the same point of view of what he want to get out of his mission which makes everything aweosme!!! Transfer day was aweosme. I got to talk to pres and he almost made me cry. He was praising me way to much, more then i could ever deserve. I was so excited to get stepped down and just become a regular missionary again with no callings. Its the best feeling ever! Just being a regular missionay and training is the best calling i think there is in this world. I love it so much and im so excited for the work we are going to get done this cycle. I got to sit and talk with some of my old comps too. My son, Elder Jackson is now a zone leader and comps with Elder Hardman and they are going to tear it up. Pres loves Jackson and thats why he gave me my comp he said, cause my last kid came out so good and he knows this one has great potential too. Im so excited. Then... Saturday we woke up again to ANOTHER crazy storm. People just got torn apart again! We went out and helped everyone we could again and it was just horrible. I have HATED not being able to teach but loving that we have been able to help so many people out. Sunday we had a good work day. Its hard though cause we have to teach with candle light only due to the block out we have had for almost a week now. It kinda stinks but is kinda cool at the same time. So there is my week in a nut shell. So many other things happened too i just cant really write them all cause its just too much. The lord has been really protecting his missionaries and none have gotten too hurt. I Love being out here and i hope we can get everything back to normal so we can acctually start working again. But the news is we have atleast one more coming in a few days. We'll see... Well i love you all and im thankful for all your prayers. Know that god is watching over all of us. THANK YOU!!! LOVE YOU!!!!!!!