Hello Everybody!
Well this last week was just a good week of getting back into the work. After all the big Christmas celebrations last week, we had a lot of work to catch up on. And we definitely made our time worth it. Did lots of finding and are trying to set up all the baptisms for January and February.
So one thing that you will probably find pretty weird is that we went to a couple Christmas parties this past week. Yeah you are probably thinking "Christmas party? Christmas is over!" But the people here just don't care. I wasn't kidding when I said that we still celebrate Christmas here. Haha people still go around caroling singing Christmas songs. People are still having Christmas parties and programs. Everybody's still saying "Merry Christmas" to each other. It's pretty funny. But for New Year we had a pretty early curfew. We all had to be inside by 6:30 because the fireworks get pretty out of control and dangerous. Even though Duterte (Philippine president) made fireworks illegal, still seems like lots of people light em up. But the members in Laoag are sooo nice, they came by at 8 and dropped off a bunch of food for us, since we weren't able to celebrate with them. The fireworks went on all night. They are soooo loud. Sounded like all our neighbors were popping them off all night.
Christmas Skype from both sides
So we had two sets of exchanges with the ZLs this last week. On our exchanges on Wednesday, we got Ray (The Nelson's son) to come out and work with us. He served a mission in Sweden, so it was a lot of fun talking to him and hearing him compare the work in the Philippines to the work in Sweden. There were a couple times that we were finding, and some people would let us come in and teach them. Of course Ray couldn't really understand anything, so after the lesson he asked "So were those members or less actives?" haha And then he was surprised to know that they were new investigators that just let us into their home. He said something like "The work is so different here." It was fun having him with us all day.
It feels weird that a whole 'nother year has gone by. I try to remember back to last New Years Day, and it seems like it wasn't that long ago. But I look back at the whole year of 2017 as a year that has changed my life forever! A full year in the field serving the Lord has molded me into a different, better person. I am so thankful for the experiences, the trials and the challenges I have had. So thankful for the miracles I have seen, and the lives I've seen change because of the Gospel. And I am so happy for the growth of my testimony and the relationship I have come to have with the Savior and my Father in Heaven.
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