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!