Best Week of My Mission! :)

Maximo Family Baptism

August Zone Conference

Hello:

   This was probably the best week of my mission! :) Starting out on Monday, we had a sweet family home evening which was held at this guy Rex's home. They just transferred here from Jaro, Iloilo which is close but now they are in our ward. Rex used to be a stake president so he is a baller and super good at English. He works for the Philippines Embassy. On Tuesday, we had to get the Maximo family interviewed for baptism! They were interviewed and all eight passed so no problems. The sweetest day was for sure Saturday. We had come back from splits and we worked in the early afternoon then at about 5 pm we went over to our church to get stuff ready for the baptism. When we got there, our boss of a ward mission leader, Siopao, had almost everything ready except for the clothes we had to borrow from a different church building, which we also had to hand wash haha. So many clothes! We started to get worried at about 5:55 when they still had not showed up to their baptism which was supposed to be at 6pm. At about 6:15 they rolled up on their tricycle and we were all super happy. It was a combined baptism with another ward and sister missionaries so there were nine total people baptized and it was way rad! We put the Maximo family in their clothes and then went to the sacrament hall to do the opening stuff. We heard a few talks then Elder light, Bro. Siopao, and I sang 'nearer me God to thee' that is my fav. hymn, (You should see if you can schedule something to get that sung at my farewell, but I will not sing it haha, mens acepella choir preferably)...My first singing in front of people occasion...It went well though. Then we baptized! I baptized Rex and Romnick, Elder Light baptized John Carlo and Anthony, Bro Loberisco baptized Victor and Jocelyn, the parents, and Kyle baptized Christine. One of them, Junior, was not able to be baptized due to a bad flu! We then went back upstairs to the sacrament and listened to some amazing testimonies from the father, mother and then Christine. Best day ever.

   Then on Sunday we did the confirmations! I did two, Elder light did two, stake clerk did two and our bishop did one. They were really welcomed great by the ward!

   Well we found out that Elder Light will be transferred so I will end my mission here in Mandurriao which is great! Elder Light is going home in October too, so we knew one of us would be leaving Mandurriao!

   I got my final stuff for my flight. I will fly into St. George at 4:25 pm, so.....see you there :)

   We get to listen to David A. Bednar tomorrow so that is cool. Then my birthday I have members feeding us lunch and dinner, then on Thursday Elder light will leave so we will have lots of things happening this week!

   I don’t care about my homecoming, but I would like to have some rice and Filipino food which I can cook, but not only Filipino food haha...I don’t care about the colors haha.

   I love you all lots and thanks for writing.

ps......I got Koby Taylor's letter. i can’t believe Konner has diabetes. That’s too bad. But please tell Koby and Melanie thanks a lot.

Love, 

Elder Garrett Christensen

Dad!

   Everything here is going so well. I am loving life and we just baptized the Maximo family! The sweetest family I have ever taught!

   That is cool about all the trades and different things going on with sports. Especially, Peyton Manning. Yeah the heat is a killer of fun haha that is how I feel while we walk around sweating. It just exhausts you but whatever I hope you get out hunting soon! I will be staying Zone leader of Iloilo Zone until I go home in October. Elder light will be transferred. I like him a lot and will miss him.

All is well and I love you lots dad,

Elder Garrett



Filipino No Good Eating Grass!

Hey everyone how are things going?

   Elder Light and I had the best week! We were able to be a part of Clarence's baptism which was sweet. We were actually at a members house and we were just setting up a time she could work with us and she said "hey, see that girl (talking about one of her employees in her in-home loan business) go talk to her and teach her" So we did and from day one she was really a great investigator. The first time we taught her about the word of wisdom she quit using cigarettes, alcohol, and coffee and hasn't used them since! Not even once! When we taught her the law of chastity, she dumped her boyfriend because he did not share her standards haha. She is just really sweet...

   Oh Yeah, I haven't gotten a hard copy of my travel plans home, but I was told over the phone about them! We leave from Iloilo to Manila, then from Manila to Tokyo, Japan, then from Tokyo to LAX, then from LAX to SLC, then from SLC to St. George. I am not sure what time I will fly into St. George, but I was told we get into Salt Lake around 1pm. So maybe we could assume that like 3-5pm I will land in St. George on October 10. See you there. :)

   We played soccer this morning at the Arevalo chapel which was way fun, even though I am not a super natural soccer player haha. We are getting excited for Elder Bednar to come visit this month. And also, I got what they call in the mission my "trunky letter"...which essentially says that 'you are almost done, don’t slacken your work effort or start thinking too much about home or other matters.' It was cool to get. I have seen people get them throughout my mission but it seems like you will never get yours, well I did. Also getting flight plans was cool, but I still feel focused and happy to be here.

   The relief society (best women on earth) have started planning me a birthday party dinner thing at one of their homes. She says she will cook me lasagna because that is what I requested haha :) I am getting so old. Mom, did you ever think I would be 21 years old?....I didn't haha.

   Something funny happened this week I thought I would tell you about...We were walking down the street and there was a place with trisikads parked (which is like a tricycle, except hooked to a peddle bike and not a motorcycle) and the drivers there are just sitting there waiting for passengers and one got up and started walking to us and said, in English "Filipino no good eating grass".....haha we were laughing because he didn’t laugh or anything. He just turned around after he said that. We are still unsure of what he meant? I guess you can make your own interpretation. 

   The Maximo family will be baptized this week! All eight of them! They attended the baptism of Clarence too! We are super united here, like a big family and I love it.

Elder Garrett Christensen

Dad, what’s up?

   Things are going so well here, I am loving it and happy to be here. We had a baptism last week and will have another eight this Saturday. We are super excited. That is funny that you are counting my days haha. I haven't really been counting days, just weeks, cuz I am sick of washing my clothes by hand. And we only do it once a week so every week down is sweet since I will never do it by hand again when I go home...at least I hope not!

   Good to hear that football is going well and that Dixie had a good game too. I hope you get to go hunting this week and have a good time in the outdoors!

Love you dad,

Elder Garrett

Love you lots...

Hey everyone:

   This P-day has been a bit weird so this will just be short and I won’t be able to e-mail all of you individually. Sorry. This morning we did our laundry from 6-8am then we cooked breakfast (fried rice) then did our studies. At 11 we came to e-mail, and we did for like 15 minutes, I e mailed Pres. Pagaduan. Then the power went out haha so we left. We went and ate then went to a shop place to contact a referral who makes basketball jerseys. Then we went to a place to try and get an X-ray (cuz we have to get one before we go home) but we waited forever and they said they couldn't do it because I have no permission slip from a doctor....So we then came back now to e-mail but we are running out of time and we have appointments tonight at 6...

   The Maximo family came to church along with some other investigators, 11 total. One was referred to us from a member and she will be baptized this Saturday the 18th. Her name is Clarence and she is the bomb haha.

   I saw a photo of Taylor Webster so that was cool, I am glad he is doing well. I know it is pretty crazy for me to be getting close to that point.

   Our zone training meeting went well on Tuesday and we are having a lot of good success from the missionaries in our zone. They are working hard and being pretty obedient haha.

   Regarding the flooding, we are fine here. We have heard a lot about the people in Manila too and it seems bad but as for us we are fine, no problems! 

   No dad, I think I will bring home quite a lot of stuff. I have some things I will leave like some of my shorts, pants, socks and stuff but lots of my stuff is still good so I will still bring that home. I am happy that all of you are doing well and that you are staying happy and healthy.

Love you lots,

Elder Garrett Christensen

I Will Never Take a Washing Machine for Granted...

Hey mom, I noticed that the first thing you mentioned was "I hope you had dry feet this week"...funny you say that because I don't think there were more than one or two days that Elder Light and I came home with dry feet haha. I am not complaining because it really isn't a big deal.  Also the shoes we buy are rubber so it is fine. Actually my shoes are still wet from last night so I am wearing different shoes, the ECCOs that you sent me a while ago. We have had crazy weather in our area the last few days. On Tuesday, President and Sister Pagaduan texted us and said to tell all the missionaries in our zone to not leave their house while it is raining hard and also that they have to go buy an umbrella and raincoat. I still have and use the umbrella you gave me mom! Everyone says "whoa, you have a double umbrella!" since it has two things on it for wind ventilation. They said there is a typhoon in the Philippines but not in Iloilo itself.

   We had eleven investigators at church. The Maximo family came again and they really enjoyed it. We also had Edna- the one with an amputated leg that we have to carry up the stairs- come for the second time in a row. The others were Clarence, who has a super strong testimony of the restored gospel, Book of Mormon and stuff, and her friend and roommate, Clydee. The only problem is they are 19 and 20 year old girls. So we are taking members with us every time we visit and they now have lots of friends. Clarence actually said she is not on very good terms with her father and she asked us for help on that problem. She also said that when she prayed about the Book of Mormon, she had a dream about her family being together and really happy and she said she just feels good about it. We could potentially have ten baptisms on August 25. That is the date for all those people. Hopefully all goes well!

   This week we had Zone Leader Council on Wednesday which was sweet. I like most of the zone leaders in our mission haha. We ate pork steaks which was good. Then on Friday we had zone conference which is the whole zone together for training. We learned about how to rescue all of our less active members here. We also have a new training thing going on for monthly zone training meetings, which is 2-3 hours and Elder light and I teach it. We have it tomorrow so we will see how it goes. It sure takes a lot of planning!

   That photo I sent you of the boy riding the karibaw is not mine. I took it from a member’s home. I thought you would like it though.

   Ok so I thought of one thing that would be different than America that I can tell you about. It is shopping at a market. It is a big place maybe like 3-5 acres full of people selling their thing like fish, pork, chicken, eggplant, cabbage, corn, mangoes, cheap jewelry, and almost everything else you can guess. You can ask someone how much stuff is and they will usually tell us it is higher price than it should be since we are American and "rich" so you can try to talk them down. 

   This morning we were hoping to play basketball with Jason, an American from Alaska that went to Utah State. We went to the court at 7am but it had rained hard so we couldn't play. He said "oh well, let’s just go get breakfast" so we started driving and after like five minutes we heard something pop in the engine so we looked and it was a hose going from his radiator. We went to the closest mechanic shop and asked who was the mechanic there. They pointed at this little tiny guy and we almost laughed haha, but he started fixing it and after like 20 minutes he said it was good and charged him 300 pesos (roughly 7 dollars) for labor. We thought it was expensive but he (Jason) just paid it.  Then we left. About 100 feet down the road, his car like broke down again haha and he was flooring it but there was like no power. So we went back and had the guy look at it. He said the spark plug was blown so we said ok and he started fixing it. We then took a taxi to McDonalds and had breakfast on Jason haha :) When we got back the guy was done and wanted to charge Jason 400 (roughly 9 dollars) pesos labor this time. We knew he was just jacking us because that is like four days of usual labor so we talked with him about it and stuff. It is just annoying that there is no set price on things so if you are American, automatic price increase! Oh well haha...

   Things are going so well here. I love it. I am going to do my best as long as I am here.

Love you lots,

Elder Garrett Christensen

ps....I promise I will never take a washing machine for granted when I get home :) I am so sick of hand laundry hahaha

Hey dad how are things going for you? Sounds like you are enjoying life and staying busy. That is way good! This week I will officially have less than two months left on my mission! You might think since I know that, I am lazy and ready to be home haha but it couldn’t be more different! I feel so happy about being a missionary. I love the work. I love(most) the people. I have learned so much and Elder Light and I always talk about the things we have learned here and how we will apply them in our lives after the mission. Something I have learned is you need to understand, before you are understood. I think it is a great principle for all people. We use it every day. I am loving my time here but I know I will continue to work hard and then when i get home, I will take whatever circumstances come and do my best. Thanks for all your support and love. Sorry you will miss the archery opening weekend. I don’t have any dates or time yet of my travels. Sorry. I am also excited for updates on high school football.

Love you,

Elder Garrett

Pictures from July 22 Letter