January 1
Maligayang Bagong Taong
This week had been kind of different. We had to get home the past 2 days at 5 o'clock just because people are partying and lighting off fireworks for New Years. It made it kind of hard to be as productive as we should be just because we aren't out as much, and we have had lots of "craps" (From Alayna: ???) to do. We have had splits and meetings and baptisms as well so we haven't had a "normal" day of work in a while.
New Years is crazy. People definitely make a way bigger deal of New Years Eve and Day than they do Christmas. There were fireworks and horns going off all day. We went to our apartment and it sounded like bombs were going off all night. We had to go to sleep on time. But we could definitely tell when it was midnight. It was really noisy. The other thing is that people are already super nice and happy here, but on the first, they were extra happy. Every person we walked passed would yell happy new year to us. It was funny. I don't know if it was because they were all drunk, or if they were actually excited about the new year. Just think that next year (2019) I will be home. haha
Tell Sloane I finally saw a monkey. It was NOT a nice monkey though!
The Abad family had their baptism on Saturday. It was such a special moment for me. I have been so blessed to be a part of their conversion. Brother Abad has made so much progress in the Gospel and his testimony is so strong. It is so special that I got to take part in a whole family being baptized into the church as well. I hope that I will be able to do that again, but no one will ever be as special as the Abad family is for me. Their little kids are always so excited to see us and they are always climbing all over me.
January 7
I think I'll start off with one of the biggest things that happened this week. That is so sad that President Monson Passed away this past week.
It was definitely a surprise to me, but at the same time, it really didn't surprise me that much. His health has been really bad lately. He has provided so much and inspired so many people throughout his years as a general authority. He was "on the Lord's errand" and the errand is now over. The good thing is that President Monson now gets to be with his wife again. I know that that was a very happy reunion.
It was weird how we found out about President Monson passing away. The zone leaders were informed by President Hiatt, and then they were supposed to send it out to all the missionaries. For some reason, our text didn't come through though. We got a text from one of our investigators who asked us if we knew if President Monson had died or not. We had not heard anything yet so we called our zone leaders. They let us know that President Monson had passed away. I got that feeling in your stomach and in your legs that you get when you are really nervous. It was a weird feeling. Secretly I was hoping that we would be able to go home and mourn or whatever. haha
We just kept on working though. The bright side of that situation was that it proved to us that one of our investigators was doing the extra effort. She saw the news on an LDS Facebook page that she had liked.
President Hiatt decided last week to do a surprise transfer for a bunch of missionaries. He felt the impression for some new leadership in the mission. Elder Temple got transferred to be a zone leader on the other end of the mission. So he moved out of our apartment and a new assistant was called. His name is Elder Van Wey. He is from the US and he was my zone leader before so I know him pretty well. That was all a surprise because It was in the middle of a cycle, as well as the fact that Elder Temple was the Jr. AP so I would have expected Elder Uy to have been moved out.
I'm still just waiting for the day that I get that call from the president and I become an AP, but I'm still working on preparing for that. haha We have a joke at our apartment though. Elder Uy tells me everything that I need to do in order to become an AP. The first one was using the desk that I use. The desk that I use is the one that he used before he became an AP. The second one is that he told me I needed to buy a specific type of pen. The brand of the pen is "AP". I can't remember the other ones, but we have a bunch of funny things like that.
We are reteaching all of the Abad family. This time Brother Abad's mother is participating in the lessons and she is now coming to church as well. She will be a little bit slower to progress because she doesn't know how to read. It is super cool though. The Abad family is such a special family. I am so blessed to be able to be part of their conversion. I love them so much.
I cant think of anything else too out of the ordinary that has happened. Sorry. I will try and make my emails longer.
January 14
I have officially carried on a family tradition. I have been wanting some American food for a while now. Not that I don't like Filipino food. I love it. I have started cooking myself some stuff that I don't think I would have ever thought of cooking before my mission. Fried dried fish actually tastes pretty good. It smells like the worst thing ever when you cook it, but its pretty tasty. My companion was surprised when I told him I wanted to cook that. I've also cooked Adobo a few times. Here in the Philippines Adobo can mean like a million different things, but basically, I have cooked pork the Filipino way.
Here's how I have carried on the tradition though: I wanted some American food like I said, so I was just waiting for a special occasion to buy all the ingredients. Tuesday was Elder Uy's birthday, so I decided to make chili for his birthday. The recipe for the chili was one that my dad got on his mission, so that is what makes it a cool tradition to carry on. It was really good and really tasty. We all really liked it. Instead of putting the chili on rice we went full American and had french fries instead of rice. I think that was the first time the Filipinos didn't have rice for dinner in their whole lives. The only bad thing was that our apartment was maybe a little bit stinky the next morning!
The next day was Elder Uy's actual birthday. Technically the assistants are in my district and my companion is the district leader so the assistants have to go on splits with us. Because we were doing splits I worked with Elder Uy in his area. Some of the members in our branch knew it was Elder Uy's birthday so they scheduled a dinner appointment, and the sister makes cakes for her job so she made him this huge cake. I got spoiled for Elder Uy's birthday. It was pretty awesome.
Because I live with the assistants, I am technically the assistant to the assistants (AAP).
January 21
Being the AAP means absolutely nothing. It is a fake calling that we made up at our apartment because I live with the assistants. AAP stands for Assistant to the Assistants to the President. It is just a joke that we made because sometimes I just have to help them out with stupid little things. One time they left the apartment early to do office work on Sunday, but Elder Uy forgot to put on a belt so when we left to go to church we had to bring Elder Uy his belt. Another time it was Elder Uy's birthday and we went to a member's house for dinner (we were on splits). They gave him a big birthday cake and I was the one in charge of carrying it all the way home on the car ride. Other times they just call us and ask us to cook rice for them if they are getting home late or something. There is a section in the monthly newsletter from President Hiatt called "Assitance from the Assistants". I am trying to let them give me a section in the newsletter called "Assitance from the Assitant to the Assitants to the President".
We had yet another Baptism last week. Sister Judy Ann got baptized on Saturday! She was referred to us by missionaries who taught and baptized her boyfriend a year ago. Her boyfriend baptized her!
We just barely met her for the first time like 7 weeks ago, but from the very moment we met her, she was on fire. She had already stopped all of her Word of Wisdom issues before we met her because her boyfriend told her to. She came to church the very first week we met her. She reads the Book of Mormon and studies everything we ask her to. I'm not sure if she will go on a mission or not, but her boyfriend is waiting for his call right now, so hopefully that will be a good influence for her.
We had zone interviews this week. I was kind of joking about zone interview because this is what it is pretty much like: "Ok Elders, this is all the things that you have done good on, here is where you have progressed and improved, but let's set that aside for a second and now talk about everything you don't do right and need to work on". That is purely a joke, but there is a lot I need to work on. The Hiatts are great and have really high expectations for us. They want us to be doing our best and always improving. Going 100 percent every hour. Sometimes that gets to me just because I have high expectations for myself as well, and yet I still am not reaching those, and then the Hiatts expect even more. I was talking about that with one of the Assistants and he told me that everything I told him was true, but he said that motivates him, and that we always need to remember there is someone who has higher expectations of us. God expects us to be perfect. So basically all we can expect to do is do our best and then have faith that the rest will be taken care of.
One thing that I really enjoy is the time we spend at our apartment. If I was a truly dedicated missionary I would be the exact other way. I would always want to be out working but I'm not to that point yet.
I have gotten bored of the same old food so I have started experimenting a little. You will be proud to know that I am now the creator of the "Williamson Special" (corned beef with garlic and onions). I don't know if corned beef is even a thing in the US), "The Williamson Surprise" (the chili I made for Elder Uy's birthday). It was a surprise on the way in, and on the way out for some as well!! And the "Williamson Trifecta Rice" (literally just rice, but I don't let it burn like the Filipinos do), as well as an unnamed dish (french fries and tocino).
I"m out of time, but at least the email is a little longer this time. Love you all! (Especially the ones that email me!)
--
Forever and a day, Love Elder Williamson!
