This week has been packed full of super hilarious experiences and lots of OYMing and teaching.  First off this last week we had one investigator come to church, Anthony Bernardino.  I kind of got a reality check in that not all investigators actually keep commitments and do what they say they will do.  So at least 5 other investigators that said they would come to church didn’t come.  But as we keep trying to push them to do those most important three things for an investigator(1.Read the BoM 2.Pray 3.Come to Church) that is all we can do, because they still have agency, kinda stinks sometimes as a missionary, that agency thing;) Jokelang! The work is going well here in the LaPaz Branch. But we are still teaching the 3 Bad Boys: Nico, Luis, and Christian who are teenagers that are just the coolest kids ever! 

A whole lot of crazy things happened this week including FHE on Monday.  We went to a members house and they had a spiritual thought then we played a game.  Let me tell you this...Filipinos get into games more than anyone I have ever seen!!  It is the funniest thing to watch ever!  But in the game you had to pass the sign around and if you messed up, someone would get to draw lipstick on your face, I almost lasted the whole time without any until they gained up on me, it was hilariousJ 

Also this past week was the official Family Week!  So on Saturday they had a big FHE thing at the church.  We played crazy games that got super intense like Musical Chairs and a lot of other just plain weird Filipino games that I have no idea how to describe.  But I will tell you that the Laughing never stops here in the Philippines!!

On Thursday we woke up to find no water at our house.  None of our neighbors had it either, so we had to take a 20 minute jeepnee ride to take a shower in Zaragoza to get ready for the day.  We didn’t have much water that day but we survived, barely;)  One of the food adventures this week was when Elder Dela Pena climbed a coconut tree to get a coconut for us to eat, because we were starving and we don’t get much food here in LaPaz... Jokelang!! We get fed very well by members and the rice and ulam that we make is very delicious, so all is good here!  But he really did climb a tree to get a coconut, that wasn’t a joke.  And the juice inside tasted good too!!  Also a lizard fell on me as I was getting into the shower yesterday...That right there probably describes my week the very best:) I kind of screamed and Elder Lastierre my kasama died laughing, it was pretty hilarious!  I also ate BALUT!!!!  It was actually not too bad, surprisingly...  It was just juicy on one half and harder on the other half so that was weird;)  But this one was only a 19 day embrio so this week I want to try the 22 day embrio soon so I can taste the bones and see the head of the bird even better!

It has rained here basically every day at about 3-4:00 for the past week.  Up until the rain it is very hot, but once it starts raining it feels so good outside, I LOVE THE RAIN HERE!!!  The rain makes OYM’s so much fun, I just smile the whole time!  But the Filipinos are scared of the rain, it is so funny!  It will be sprinkling and they will literally be running to their houses to get out of the rain.  Around our apartment there was about 2-3 inches of standing rain for about an hour or two one day, but my kasama said it gets a lot worse than that.  Last night the lightning was lighting up the sky, it was so cool!  The lightning would strike every couple seconds and it was the coolest thing ever!

I have learned a ton this week!  Including lots of Tagalog, that I hope stays with me;) 

The work will have ups and downs, but we choose which one we want more!! As for me I like the ups!  

This week was so much fun!  Just keeping your head up and staying positive is the only way to be happy & successful at the same time!

I love the LaPaz members and am just starting to be able to communicate a little bit with them so that is the best!

Have a fantastic week and thank you so much for the emails!! 

Please keep them coming:) I love them!

Love, Elder Alldredge

MTC Group

MTC President and Wife?

MTC Branch Presidency maybe?

More MTC

and more!

Loving that Christmas tree in the MTC!

More Christmas!

Kyle and a couple him and his companion set up at the MTC!  They must work there.

Big, cool statue by the MTC

Kyle's new comp and all his trainees and their comps

Church by the MTC

Random path

Kyle's new house in La Paz

Looking pretty good after cleaning

Cleaning

Kyle and Elder Lastierre cleaning

Lots of rain

Not sure what this means

Rain outside the house

More rain

Outside the church?

Beds

Eating hamburgers at the super mall

La Paz

Neighborhood

Countryside

Out tracting

Typical huts and houses

More countryside

He claims the kids love him

more kids

The dab!

Dancing?

La Paz elders

Nice sunset

Eating Balut (Bird embryo)

Yes that is a beak - pretty gross, but good for him for being willing to embrace the culture :-))!

The Philippines is probably the most interesting country ever!  There are so many things to just laugh at just because they are so different and hilarious!  I love it!!!  Today is my fifth day in the field and I have already experienced a ton!  It has been very fun at times and very frustrating at other times.  It is hard not being able to speak the language, some of the time I just don’t talk because people are having fun in a conversation and I have no clue what is going on.  But I know that with lots of time, and if I continue practicing as much as possible to speak the language, it will come!  I have already learned a lot more Tagalog than I knew from the MTC, so that is good to see. 

My new companions name is Elder Lastierre.  He is from Bacolad and he is 25 years old.  He is very funny and the people love him!  He is so good at adjusting to the needs of the investigator and helping them with whatever he can.  I will be killing him at the end of my training;)  In other words he will be going home when he finishes training me after 3 months.

I am serving in the Tarlac Stake in the La Paz Branch.  Me and Elder Lastierre are opening up this area.  The missionaries have not been in La Paz for over 3 months.  So coming in we had absolutely no clue where anything or anyone to do with the church was!  We finally found the church!  And we have since met all the active members.  We also have visited some Less Active members but this past week none of our brand new investigators came to church.  This is a branch that is pretty close to becoming a ward so we are going to be pushing for that!  We had 88 people at church on Sunday, so that was pretty good for this area... But not good enough!!  We are OYMing a ton everyday to try to find more people to teach.

Another not so good thing about opening an area is cleaning a house that has not been lived in for months...  It was so dirty and the electricity was off.  So we had to go to the other side of Tarlac zone to Zeragosa to stay the night at Elder Eppich and Elder Dela Pena’s house.  The next morning we went and spent the whole morning cleaning our house.  And now it looks amazing!  Well as good as a house like this can look;)  But it feels like home now so it’s all good!!

I have eaten some weird things and have done some very new things.  I ate bilo-bilo which is like a potato cut up and put into coconut milk and sugar, kind of like a soup thing, it was very good!  I ate pansit, which is noodles and vegetables and is very good!  I also ate bibingka which is like a gooey rice cake covered in coconut and sugar on top, it is very hard to swallow;)   And I have been showering using a bucket, hahaha it is quite the experience!

I have also extended a baptismal invitation to four people in 5 days and they all accepted!!!  I am for sure that two of the four will follow through with their commitment, but the other two might have just accepted because they like the sound of it or didn’t want us to feel bad.  Sometimes that is how Filipinos are, they are just too nice to turn you down.  And that can be so good most of the time, but it can also be bad every once in a while. 

One of them was a 15 year old boy who is from a part member family.  That lesson was very smooth and easy to commit him to baptism.  His mom is the Gospel Doctrines teacher and she was sitting in on the lesson.  He will be baptized on October 29^th.  Then there was the father of a part member family.  Everyone in their family has been baptized except for him.  So we went in and shared the Restoration and I gave the First Vision and commited him to be baptized, in Tagalog.  He accepted the invitation and will most likely follow through to be baptized on October 29^th.   The other two were taught the lesson at the same time.  We were asking them how to get to one of their neighbours houses and then just went with it and shared the Restoration.  We followed the same pattern and I commited them to be baptized again.  I really believe that they felt the Spirit so strong.  You could see it in the way they were talking and acting from the start of the lesson to the end, it was amazing.  I really hope they follow through with baptism because they would be so happy in this church! 

The field is so much fun and so rewarding!! It is frustrating, but worth it for sure!!! 

I love you all so have a great week!! 

Keep a smile on your face, ALWAYS!!!  Sometimes that is all I can do to communicate with these people but smiling is universal, and I love doing it!!

LOVE YA!!

Elder Alldredge

Arriving in the Angeles Mission!

After training!

Elder Alldredge and his trainer Elder Lastierre

President and Sister Clark

Elder Alldredge

Training at the Mission Home!  Notice Kyle playing the piano!

Maligayang Pasko Pamilya at Kaibigan!!!

Or for you english speaking folks... Merry Christmas Family and Friends!!:)

Here in the amazing country of the Philippines, Christmas starts on September 1st.  Or at least the playing of Christmas music and putting up trees and things.  After we got back from Proselyting we saw the Christmas tree put up in the front room of the MTC.  We were basically freaking out because that just plain awesome!!!  Every night when me and Elder Zacchilli turn off the lights of the MTC, we sit on the couch and stare at the Christmas tree for a minute or two... Its the best thing ever!!!!!!

Also this week I memorized the First Vision in Tagalog:)

So the big thing for this week was PROSELYTING!!!!!

It was the best day of my mission so far!  It was so fun just to get out of the MTC bubble and actually see the Philippines in action.  We went to the Quezon City mission.  I was assigned with Elder Pedrosa, who is a Filipino who has about one month left on his mission.  He knew so much and I learned a ton from him!  One of the main things he taught me is to relate everything back to our purpose as a missionary.  And whenever I blank in thought about Tagalog or something, to just testify of Christ and how all should COME UNTO CHRIST!!! 

Ok so the first person I taught was Nebres Marcillino who is probably around 45ish years old and he is a Jeepnee Driver.  So what better place to teach him a lesson than in the back of a Jeepnee?!?  So that's what we did!  it was actually a perfect spot for a lesson and i just loved the feel of teaching a real investigator!! We prayed and then I taught him the Restoration lesson, and even recited James 1:5 in Tagalog when talking about Joseph Smith.  I testified of Joseph Smith and of the Ang Aklat ni Mormon, and the Spirit was there, I could feel it!!  I felt a lot of love for this man and I was praying in my heart the whole time to help him feel the Spirit.  I committed him to read the pamphlet and to pray about it.  After Elder Pedrosa filled in the things that I missed, But the lesson was so good and made me so happy!! This was all in the back of a sweet lookin Jeepnee:)

After that lesson we went tracting to some homes.  But I had no clue what was a home and what wasn't.  It was seriously so humbling to see the circumstances that people live in everyday of their lives.  We truly have so much!  I have tried and will continue to try not to complain because they never do and they have so little.  So we knocked on a bunch of gates and said a lot of Tao Po's?!?  But basically no one let us in.  The Filipino culture doesn't want anyone to feel bad so they just say, "Come back again later and we will listen!"  Or "we are busy right now, sorry!"  But they don't really want to listen they are just to polite to say it straight up.  I introduced us so many times as missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.  I really feel so special to be able to say those words!!  I am His Representative, so I have tried my very best to smile and keep a good attitude just like he would.  

I knocked on one door and it turned out to be a members house.  She was so friendly and made us come into her house.  She sat us down and fed us a very good meal.  It was fried rice, chicken, and coke.  She has been a member for 6 years and she testified of the blessings of the gospel even tho her house was tiny and she had so little.  What a sacrifice she makes by sharing of the little food she has to the missionaries.  She said she pledged to feed all missionaries whenever they come by her house.  I know that I can make an impact like that to someone if I work hard and continue to try to become the best missionary I can possibly be.  

After we left we walked until I saw this old bald man chillin on some stairs.  So I told my kasama, we need to teach this man.  I introduced us and asked if we could share a message about Christ.  He said YES!!  So we prayed and I taught the Restoration of the Gospel again, much more smoothly than the first time.  And even tho this guy was like 60 and bald and had no teeth, he was seriously my favorite little man!  He was ready to learn, and he wanted to know.  I really believe that he felt the Spirit and that he will continue being taught and will one day be baptized!!

I also talked to these 2 little kids and they were hilarious!  They were way up in a tree picking fruits and I stopped and asked how they were doing.  They were shocked to see a white person first of all, and second to speak Tagalog to them! These kids here are just adorable and so fun to talk to!!  They are going to be my best friends in the field I just know it!!  

The people here are so cool!  Proselyting was amazing, I am so humbled and so excited to get out in the field!!  All the Filipinos stare because I am white, its so funny:)  My kasama said that it is so very rare to see a white person where we were so they will get excited to see me.  And to hear me talking Tagalog to them will surprise them a whole lot!

But I know that I can make a difference here in the Philippines!!  I know that through the power of the Spirit and the amazing message we are sharing I can change lives forever!  I need to improve in so many ways, but through my Savior Jesus Christ I CAN!!!  I love these people and I love being a representative of Jesus Christ!  

We get to go Proselyting again tomorrow and I am so pumped!!

Missionary work is the greatest work that there is!

I know that this church is true, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to get to share this message! 

Thanks for the emails and the prayers!!

LOVE, Elder Alldredge

Temple pics!

Elder Pedrosa from the Quezon City Mission

A taste of the Philippines

Life saving stickers!  They keep the bugs away!

On the way to proselyting!

Goofy hall picture

Merry Christmas!

The District