happy new year ha iyo ngatanan!
so i can't believe that it is 2012! time is going so fast! so here..its doing awesome here! so with my new companion/son, elder leutze, we are doing awesome! our number of lessons have increased..like double the amount of lessons i had before. and its just so awesome to get out and work!! FINALL! and i love the language! i am comfortable to speak in waray so im trying to learn tagalog now. but thats coming slowly. but its been awesome!
so as for us..the new years was quite an experience. so saturday, we had to be back in our apartment by 6pm. so that was fine with me. so we ate ice cream and just talked. thats another thing i love about my companion is...we get along great..we're so alike! and i don't have to speak in a different lang. to talk to him. so we just had a great bonding time. and then for new years celebration...we went to bed! haha yep, happy new years! when we woke up it was 2012. haha so then we had sacrament..and this is something you'll enjoy about the philippines..so church is SUPPOSED to start at 9am. but they have what is called..filipino time. so it started at 945ish...haha and it was fast and testimony meeting (the first one in the last 2 months). and it was supposed to be one hour lang. so we started sacrament..and then we started bearing our testimonies..i bore mine..some members bore theirs and soon, everyone wanted to come up and "bare" their testimony..and they basically would go up their and tell stories..and take like 10 mins per each person.. so that one hour testimony meeting changed to almost a 3 hour testimony meeting. so we got out of church about at 12 ish..so thats how that went. but it was ok other than i was starving from fasting. but the branch president fed us. it was so good! i love the food here! and i love their family. i love the people here. and since i have learned the language, i have been able to better get to know them and then develop a stronger love for them. one of the things that i love to do with them is joke with em..haha imagine that. so like after we will visit like a less active for the first time, i would ask them is the know elder nelson (kilala mo si elder nelson?) and sometimes they'll say yes if they know me and if they say no, then i know they don't know me. so what i did was this less active, we visited him like 3 times before i asked him that and he has really bad eyes and cant read my name tag. so when i asked if he knew elder nelson and he said that he didn't. so i told him that he was assigned here. and i said"if you see him will you tell him hi for me" and he was like oh yeah yeah sure! so that was funny cuz I am elder nelson and he had no idea. so we came back and before we began teaching, i told him that "since you cant see, i'll tell you who i am...i am elder nelson." and it was so funny cuz it took awhile for him to realize that i was the elder that i was talking about. haha but he finally realized it.haha and he actually bore his testimony in church..and it was awesome cuz he was less active and he  came back to church. all of it was in waray waray so i was so glad that i could understand cuz he said that the elders were annoying cuz they are always at his house, (which is good cuz it got him to come back to church) and then he said i didn't know elder nelson, but i know him know. haha so i just love it here! i love this branch! i love the people! and i love missionary work! i am so glad that i didn't transfer! and mostlikely i'll be here for 12 weeks(2 transfers) cuz im training. so i hope i stay here! i love alang alang! the members are so kind! they'll feed you anything even when they cant even afford electricity for their house. its def. a humbling experience...still!
so i love being a missionary work, and im scared that time is going to go too fast! but im enjoying it. i know that only the gospel can bring us true happiness. wickedness never was happiness. i just wish people could see that. cuz lots of less active members were drunk these past few weeks becuase of christmas and new years. so it'll be good to finally be able to teach them now cuz the holidays are over. one of the scriptures that i will share with you this week is..2 nephi 2:23-28 and this is talking about the fall and how the messiah will come to redeem us. and i've realized that we have trials and challenges so that when we are finished or after we have endured thru them, we will know what joy feels like after we have finished that trial or challenge. (idk if any of this is making sense,its easier in warayx2) cuz there needs to be opposition in all things. and that satan wants us to be miserable like unto himself. but if our lives are centered on the gosple, we'll be happy like our heavenly father. so i encourage all of us to focus on things that matter most..the eternal things. cuz those are what bring us the most joy and happiness. so i hope you all have a great day, and pagilob tubtub ha katapusan! pagtiis hangan wakas! thanks for everything you do, and your great example! just know i know this work is the lords work and i know this is the true church! i love you all! and miss you all!
love, elder nelson!