January 5, 2014: Week 11 Happy New Year!!

This week has gone by so fast!  Its hard to remember all that has happened. But let me tell you, New years is insane out here in the Philippines!  I honestly have never seen anything like what I saw the other night.  The ball dropping is cool and everything but picture a sky full of fireworks for as far as you can see.  The whole sky was lit up for like 30 minutes once 12 midnight hit.  There was a constant grumble of explosions.  So here they cool thing is a fire work that is super cheap but makes a big boom.  So half the fireworks that they sell rarely work and blow up in peoples hands or in the middle of people.  So we watched fireworks for about 5 minutes and then we heard the ambulances start up.  And to make it even better everyone lighting fireworks is drunk.  So you would see a bunch of people huddle around a firework and then run and dive behind stuff because it had malfunctioned.  Haha it was so funny.  They love Christmas and do Christmas pretty big, but new year was so much bigger!  It was pretty fun to experience.

So this week has been pretty good.  Just a lot of work, and a lot of people to teach.  But we have our first baptism this weekend!  Her name is jJane and she is 16.  She has been meeting with the missionaries for a while and finally the day has come.  It has been really cool to see the gospel come into her life and improve it.  Were still working hard on Brother Laus.  He's such a cool guy.  I love that family.  Were just trying to build our group into a branch so hopefully that will happen!  This place we are in is so thirsty for the gospel.  You can feel it when your there.  We have people just ask us what were doing, and we don't even have to try and set a return date.  Buy the end they are already telling us when to come back.  Its been so fun.  But really really exhausting haha.  Lots of work to do, but I'm loving it!  This work is amazing.

Pictures: (I hope this is the right order.)

1. Laus Family

2. New Years Dinner

3. This Guy Was Catching His Food For The Night

4. Javier Family

5. Every asks if im related to this guy.  Hes a senator here.  So I tell them yes.

(We didn't end up getting all pictures.  Just #5)