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