Week 16

Hey everyone,

Honestly, if my week count gets messed up, I'm sorry. I never really know what week it is, but an Elder I met in the MTC has P-day on Thursday, so I just get the week number from his subject line. If I'm ever off then that's my bad.

This week was a pretty good one. We met a lot of people in the beginning of the week and taught a lot of lessons. 

Also, I've learned how to cook chicken curry, sweet and sour pork, caldereta, and aftritada all from this little Nanay who has a Carnideria near where we live. She's one of the nicest people ever. 

We got to watch the Urdaneta Temple Groundbreaking Ceremony on Facebook live and it was a super cool experience to realize that the people I'm teaching now will have a temple so close to them so that they can recieve the wonderful blessings of the temple.

Its been a week

-Elder Collier

Picture one is the new Temple Recommend Holder we got as a present

Picture two is a goat just chillin on top of a grave. That's it. Also, there are goats everywhere, but people don't really eat goat so I don't know whats up with that

Week 15

This week was a really great week honestly. I was able to see at least one thing each and every day where I know that the Lord was using me as his instrument in the work. Elder Pangan and I did a lot of work this week and we have had a lot of success finding and teaching. We were exploring one of our baranguays (kind of like neighborhoods but they have councils and officials and stuff) called "Sinabaan" (which we now refer to as Cinnabon just for the memes) which I had felt prompted that we should go to ans while we were there we ran into three girls ages 17-21. They were really interested and when we went back to teach one of them she was really interested and asked if she could be baptized. We said yes and extended an invitation.

Also, this week we went on exchanges with our Zone Leaders in San Carlos and it was really fun. I learned a lot about Tagalog and teaching. Plus, while sitting downstairs in their apartment with Elder Fox and Elder Lucas (my MTC companion lives there but isn't a ZL yet) I saw a rat run into their bathroom. So, I said nonchalantly, "by the way you guys have a rat in your bathroom." They both looked over confused and as they did we saw it run into the kitchen. After a really entertaining circus of attempts to kill it, broken brooms and dust pans, Elder Fox smashed it with a broom handle. I then took it outside in the dust pan and lacrosse-threw it across the street. It was way fun. 

Also, on Sunday we had a Philippines wide stake conference broadcast from President Holland. It was really good and if you can find it I'd invite you to watch his talk.

Its been a week,

-Elder Collier

#kapayapaanalisnaako (kapayapaan alis na ako - a joke translation from english)

Picture one I found another drug sign I missed because it was covered by trees

Picture two is Elder Fox and the rat who we named Remi because he his in the back of the fridge 

Picture three is a fun depiction of a saxophone in Bayambang even though most Filipinos don't know what they are

Week 14

Hey everyone,

Today is the first day of my second transfer out in the field. I started a new planner in weekly planning and I'm officially using a Tagalog one so that's fun (honestly there exactly the same except the Tagalog one has less room because Tagalog takes a lot more space to write).

For the record, I did beat almost all of you into 2019, with the exception of the other missionaries who are getting these emails out here in the isles of the sea. It was way fun because there was a concert in the park across the street from our apartment and the music was so loud it sounded like it was coming from inside the apartment. I ate a Twix at midnight because American candy is mahal (expensive) but I wanted to celebrate.

This week Elder Pangan and I did a lot of work. It was great. On Christmas, Elder Hilis and I had found the daughter of one of his recent converts (who had moved to Honk Kong for work my second week out here) out in this far area from where her mom lived. When we went to her grandmas house to see where the daughter actually lived, and it happened to be the day after her mom had gotten back from Hong Kong. We were able to teach Angela, the daughter, that day, and that night we got a text from Virgina, the mother, telling us that her husband decided he wanted to be baptized as well. It was really cool to see the Lord's timing at work.

Also, one of the highlights of the week, I saw a Filipino trike driver, in this tiny little obscure barangay Diaz, wearing a CSULB T shirt. He drove by too fast for me to get a picture, but it is not officially the most random shirt I've seen here, just ahead of the UCSB Soccer shirt I saw.

It was a good week. I'm getting better at the language and I love the work.

Happy New Year

-me

Picture one is a group of kids we taught along with this 16 year old investigator, and after the lesson they held me down so I couldn't leave

Picture two is a cow and a lot of corn because this week I realized the humor in being sent somewhere with a lot of those, because that's where I didn't really want to go back in the states (l love cows and corn now turns out)

Picture three is a drug sign The Tagalog one translates to "Manambong Parte doesn't like/want drugs" and doesn't really make sense with the English acronym "MAD"  

.Picture 4 is just a picture Elder Pangan took of me while I was tired right before going home from our last appointment of the day.