Anyways, our week was pretty sweet. We have been working as hard as we can but it has rained everyday this week i think. Literally its been pouring all week and we come home soaked to the bone just freezing. Its just kinda annoying cause no one that doesnt know you wants to let you in, and everyone that you do makes you come in, but your soaked so you feel bad. The people here are so nice though. If you dont have a umbrella they make you take theirs, even if you dont want it or you just met them for the first time and there is a good chance that we might night be able to bring it back. Its so cool, theyre just the nicest people ever. My comp and I have defiantly been blessed with some progress this week, and we got a lot of new people to church for the first time and we have a lot of people progressing right now. It sucks cause im not going to be able to see any of them get baptized but that doesnt really matter to me, basta they get baptized! We've been trying really hard to get our ward active in missionary work too. ... We've been having a ton of fun with the work and i cant BELIEVE how fast this last week FLEW! Well thats about it for my week. Lots of progress, loving it and it continues to jsut fly by. Love ya all and hope you have an awesome week!!!
we went back to the same group of people we taught last week, and they want us to teach them, but due to the rain we weren't able to all do it again, so we'll see if we can do it this next week. We did happen to find another HUGE group of people though haha. There are probably about 20 of them. They listen intently and ask good questions but we'll see what really happens with them. Its just so hard trying to get them all to understand it when you can't really focus on their particular needs. but i have faith that good things will come out of it and they want to go to church, so if we can really get all 20 of them there it will be the coolest thing ever!!! did i tell you about the kid im living with? he studied at Harvard before his mission and is smart. We went on splits this week and i got to know a little bit about him so that was cool. He doesnt like to be known as that kid that studied at harvard but he cant seem to escape it.... But we got a lot of new families to church this week and its sweet. I hope we can get them all baptismal dates this week.

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.