same old same old

Hey Dad Kris and Anni and Davo,

So I am doing good here in Philippines, I Hope you are also doing good in our country. It sounds like you guys had fun with the scones and the snow, Snow in Tagalog is Niyebe, I am not sure if that is spanish too, there are a lot of spanish in tagalog, and winter is Taglamig. Hope you enjoyed last weeks vocab list, ha I thought it was a good one.

I am healthy, and just bought a basketball so now we can play basketball in the mornings. Yes!!! Nothing new really is going on. We got a new zone leader Emergency transfered into our house, we are roomates with the zone leaders, the last zone leader had something going on he wasn't telling anyone............. and thats all you need to know. Haha

So this week, on wednesday we had our appointment with Larissa (20) but then we had an unexpected missionary exchanges with MTC here in Manilla, they do this for the missionaries there, at the end of there MTC experience a couple days before they leave, I was assigned with 3 other Elders, So it was me taking care of 3 new guys, and here is the great part, THEY DIDN"T KNOW TAGALOG!!! They were from Pakistan, all of them, and one spoke pretty good english, the others tried but mostly stuck with Obdub, or Snubgub, whatever they said there language was, is was weird. Any way so we were on our way to Larissa, then we got a text saying she couldn't continue with our appointment, she went somewhere with her fam, Crap. Sorry for that big dissappointer. so we went to our next appointment which was to sister Mimi (19 or 20) a new convert, and we shared with her about faith, which is one of my favoritest things to talk and teach about. It's what keeps me together, and helps me in my stupidest times. So I did all the talking which was fun! I am not used to it, but I like it, I have always had companions who are way better at me in the language cause they are all from here. So that was a cool fun experience, then the other 3 shared there testimonies, and that was a hoot, cause the first 2 did it in their Snubby Dubby language, and the other elder translated into English, Then I translated, Kinda, In tagalog, so we had like 2 lines of translation, crazy huh, that's what we call the gift of tounges, God deffinetlely helped us out there.

So that was cool, then I took them to a member family, and that was fun. The Racaza family, they are one of my favorites here. The kids are all basically Ward Missionaries and help us out a lot, there are 6 of them. And when we went there, Nany Racaza was so surprised to see us, them more surprised to see all the Bombai's ( that's what they call Indian's here) with me. Ha she said she had a major nose bleed, which means she really had no idea what the junk they were saying. but they were good and fun and tried to comunicate with her, then the one who is good english sang a hymn how great thou art, nice one.

So, crap, that Larissa cancelled on us, but we stopped by the brother who is member who works right close to her, and gave him a Book of Mormon and 2 pamphlets, the Restoration and Plan of Salvation, she apparently was very happy to recieve them and we haven't set up a return appointment yet. Hopefully she reads those wonderful readable things.

So thats pretty much my week, we did teach a lot of other people but I am runnin out of time, so this will be all for today. Hope you enjoyed my week, hehe, that sounds funny. Lets all hope tagalog gets easier, I feel like sometimes it gets harder a few days, then easy all the sudden. But I am trying hard, and Loving it here.

I hope you are all happy, and I hope your job is great Dad and also yours Kris, Making the best of it and all. And Kids, I hope you are enjoying the Niyebe (snow) it is fun, and you can through it at other people, you can't really do that with rain. Ha Hope you are enjoying and loving life, cause it is meant to be loved, and cried, and laughed, but mostly just loved.

Love you all,

Love

Elder Benjamin L. Larson