Phone Call home for Mother's Day!

We had a great phone call home from Chris for Mother's Day! He called home on the Saturday night (Sunday morning for him) and we talked for almost 2 hours! It was so great to hear his voice and hear how well he's doing despite the constant crowing of a rooster in the background and lots of noise from out in the street outside his house. He really likes his new companion and he's loving his mission. Despite what seems to be some challenges from our eyes, when asked what has been the most difficult thing about his mission so far he answered "Nothing Mom. I love everything about it!" So glad to hear it....He sends his love to all and is very grateful for the letters and Dear Elders he received from his family and friends. So now on to his letter this week which we received Monday morning...

Hey guys!

Happy mothers day! Haha! We just finished getting pagkain for the week. We got a lot...haha...
Today we also went to a music store just to see what they had. I played a bass there, which was good. This week was really good....Elder Nye is a great companion. It's really great working with him, he is fluent in tagalog and can teach anything. He has been out for a year more than me. He reported like January 5th to the MTC. He is from Utah and we're getting along really well.

So 2 Sundays ago as I told you we had area conference because it has been 50 years that the church has been in the Philippines. John U Teh (area authority), Quentin L Cook and Boyd K Packer all spoke. President Packer and Elder Cook were both in Utah though.... They were all great talks, Elder Teh's was really great. He expressed the importance of reading the scriptures everyday. He said we should always ask 3 questions: 1. Am I reading the scriptures? 2. If no, then what is my excuse? and 3. Is my excuse good enough? It was a really good talk. After that, Elder Guarino and I went out finding in our area and we found some new people who are interested.

There is a family Elder Nye and I have really been working with now, they don't necessarily get everything the first shot, but we ask a lot of questions to make sure they understand everything we are teaching them. There's a lot of children there, but it is mostly Sister Lori and Sister Teresa we teach.

Then Monday and Tuesday I worked in Elder Jimenez' (Zone leader) area, so I won't talk about that. We went finding, and visited some less actives in his area. Iyan lang.

Then Wednesday was transfers. Elder Samson got transfered to Pasig which will become part of the new Quezon city mission next transfer so I will not see Elder Samson again unless he gets transferred to somewhere in the Manila mission, but I doubt it.... Then Elder Eduria, from our zone became the new zone leader replacing Elder Gamolo who finished his mission. So now I am living with Elder Eduria, who is a great cook, Elder Nye, my companion, and Elder Jimenez who was there last transfer. It's great! I love it!

Thursday we worked in our area, went finding and taught some families. We taught Sister Juliet and her son for 1 hour and 30 minutes. It was a long lesson but she had a lot of good questions about everything we taught. We taught her some of lesson 1 some of lesson three. It was more of a discussion, more than just us giving a lesson. It was weird though because she speaks english to us, and then she would speak tagalog. It gets confusing because if she asks me in english I will answer in english but if she asks me in tagalog I will answer in tagalog. haha. I taught half the Joseph Smith story in english and the other half in tagalog haha. It was a really great lesson. She and her son are both really interesting.

Friday we had zone planning, which means me and my comp plan for goals we want for this transfer. One of them we thought real hard about and we both said we are going to get 5 baptisms, and it will happen, a lot of people are making progress. We also plan on working with a lot of less actives too. That night we visited one and nanay was there and said she wanted us to teach her son and his nobia. Then tatay (also a recent convert but less active, we were trying to get him to come back to church...) came in and starting yelling and stuff, soooooo he was drunk. The kids were crying, tatay hit them, it wasn't the best setting at all. So we shared a message with him, and he said he would come to church with his wife on Sunday. He didn't though because of the Paqiuo (Filippino boxer a national hero here) fight.... No one really came to church there were a lot of people watching the Paqiuo fight....

Saturday we went finding in a different part of our area, there wasn't much though we only found a few new people to teach..... Not much to say for that day. We tried looking for people who were closer to the church, but we got nothing.

Then yesterday I called you guys. And we had a lesson right after that. We taught brother AnakTa and his nobia sister Daisy. They have 5 kids. It did not stop raining yesterday. I was soaked the whole time. It was bad.... After church we visited Sister Lori and she said she would come to church next week with Sister Teresa. Which is good of course! We are going to work with them a lot this week. They are both really nice. Then we had a DA at the Canadas and that was it for Sunday!

By the way I don't know if I mentioned this in my last blog but the fruit here is amaaaaazing! The mangoes the bananas, the pineapples. Its soooooo good! I'm addicted to it! I tried this other fruit called Dragon fruit and it was also amazing and looks really awesome! I'm sending pictures soon, I promise!!! About Brother Yang, he is almost 50 i think. He has a son on a mission now. Really nice guy haha!

Anyways I'm really happy! Everything is going great! And yea! Please thank the stake presidency for their b-day card and please thank Justin L.V for his Dear elder.... I just got his first one. I don't know if he sent more or not.....Anyways about the temple thing I'm going to organize my thoughts a bit, so I'm not just throwing random thoughts here, so yea! I will write down some blessings of the temple and send them to you next week!

I have to go now unfortunately, so I'll talk to you guys next week! Take Care! Love you!

Elder Chris Gagnon