Hello everyone!!
Wow so its been one crazy week! I'll try to get everything down in the email. Hopefully I remember it all! So first I'm sure you all wondering about the earthquake that hit so I'll start there. It hit about 8:15 in the morning here. Elder Murdock and I were just sitting down to some personal study and we heard some quaking and the ground started moving a little and we both looked at each other like what is going on, is this an earthquake and it was! So we both got underneath our desks which seemed pretty solid and just chilled there. It was insane. It lasted a minute or two. We were both pretty calm, I mean we were both kind of shocked that it was happening. I remember just crouching there wondering how long it was going to go and how big it was going to get. That was the scary part but I felt pretty calm and at peace. I know that Lord was watching over us. I just prayed that it wouldnt get too big and go too long and it didn't. Becasue it wasn't massive where we were it was actually fun haha. Scary but exciting. And after it stopped we were pumped. I mean we survived an earthquake! We had a bottle and picture shatter and I'll try to sned the pictures of them. So the rest of the day was recovery. Oh so in Loon, about 40% of the houses went down and a bunch of Catholic churches went down all over Bohol (coincidence? haha). But yeah almost all of the members gathered at the church and chilled there the rest of the day and spent the night. I think the next few weeks will be full of service and trying to help people get back on their feet and stuff. I'm sure there will be a lot more that will listen and turn to the Lord. At least hopefully they do. Helaman 12 talks about this sort of thing i believe. All of the members in our branch were okay though. There have been small shakes here and there ever since the big one. Nothing big though. If any of you are worried don't be! I'm fine and will continue to be fine. I don't think they are expecting anymore big hits. Oh and here's a tender mercy, yesterday was everyone's day off of work and school. So glad because it would have been chaos if families weren't together and everyone was trying to get to each other. Everyone is off work and school today too. Oh prepare a 72 hour kit!! I think you have mom but if not then do it! So many people were unprepared and a lot of them said oh now I know why the prophets tell us to prepare and we were like yeah! Haha so do it! It's pretty crazy being in an earthquake though. The ground just shakes haha and yeah I can't really explain it. Alright on to other stuff. Elder Murdock is my new companion! He is from Ogden and he is awesome. He's been here in the Philippines for about 7 months but on his mission for about 8. He went to Weber High School and played soccer. He plays basketball and is good so that's awesome. He was just made district leader too. He's the best tatay in the world! I don't know if they do this in all missions but they do this here. Trainers are the fathers or tatays and the trainees are the sons or anak. And they have this whole genealogy thing so Elder Murdock's tatay is my grandpa and if Elder Murdock trains someone after me then that elder is my brother and so on and so forth. People have brothers and uncles. I have a great grandpa in Cebu Mission and I get to meet him and my grandpa when Neal L Andersen comes in a couple of weeks! Yeah Elder Andersen! How sweet is that? Not as good as Elder Holland but still! So yeah Elder Murdock is awesome. We get along really well which is so nice. Our house is pretty sweet. I mean as sweet as it can get in the Philippines. It's supposedly one of the nicest elders' houses. I took some pictures and I'll send them to you. The food is good. I haven't had any real authentic Filipino food yet but I will. We have a McDonalds and a Pizza Hut and stuff which is sweet. The grocery stores have basically everything we have back at home. Different brands and not as good but still good. Their peanut butter is really sweet and good which is awesome. I pound graham crackers and peanut butter all the time, a classic dad snack. Transportation is pretty crazy. We usually take trikes around. A trike is a motorcycle hooked up to like a I don't know something you sit in. I don't have a picture of one yet but I'll show you later. The people are amazing here. I love them. The kids are so cute and it's so fun to play with them. There was a group of kids that kept coming up to us and they would hold onto our arms and we'd lift them. I probably lifted the same two kids up about 50 times. Haha it was tiring but it was so fun. We also played basketball with some of them. The weather is well.. hot. It's super humid all the time and super hot but i'd much rather have this than the cold so I'm fine with it. It's really really hot though. My whole body is constantly sweating. It's just something you have to accept here. I havent really seen any bugs. I mean they are everywhere but not really any big ones yet. We had one cockroach in the house but Elder Murdock killed it. Hopefully we don't get anymore. I don't think we should. Little ants and bugs are everywhere though. They aren't too bad though. The language is pretty frustrating. Not going to lie, its hard to look forward to teaching people because I know I won't know what they say and that I can't help them. I bear my testimony in every lesson but I dont know it's hard. I love the people and I do like going to lessons but it's hard to like it sometimes because of the language. It's okay, I know the language will come in time and that right now I just have to do my best and do other things to help. We do have one investigator who is really good at english and we were able to teach her in english. They did it for me haha. She is sixteen and she is amazing. She has a stronger testimony and faith than most members. The reason she isn't a member is becasue her parents won't let her be baptized and she's only sixteen so she can't sign the papers herself. In the lesson she told us about how she receives a lot of persecution from people because of her interest in the church. She is having a really hard time. Oh her name is Abigail by the way. Anyway the Spirit really took over the lesson. it was amazing. I told her that Heavenly Father was so happy and so proud of her that she desired to be baptized and follow Him and that He would provide a way for her to be baptized. I promised her that and Elder Murdock did too. I know that the Spirit completely took over and it wasn't me or Elder Murdock speaking, it was the Spirit. It was a really cool experience. I just wish that we could always teach in english. Oh well it's okay. So to wrap things up I'll end with some general conference and district meeting stuff. both of these things I'm going to say have to do with fortifying ourselves in these last days. During Kevin S. Hamilton's talk, he was talking about the decision between a sunday family drive or sacrament mtg. I'm sure you all remember it but if not look it up. Something came to me though. This is what I wrote down. "We cannot ease up at anytime. The devil doesn't and so we shouldn't either. We must keep the accelerator down at all times. we can't affor to ease up. AS soon as we do we will be slowly run over. I don't care how small the action or lack of action is. We can't afford to give Satan any advantage." Kevin S. Hamilton said, "the devil uses good activities for substitutes for better or even best activities to cheat our souls and carefully lead us down to hell." The last thought is from district meeting. Elder Murdock said,"We fought before this life to bring as many souls here to earth and now we are fighting to bring as many souls as we can back to God." Do we really realize we are literally in a war? This is the time. We have to be like the stripling warriors and "obey every word of command with exactness." There is no other option. The prophets and apostles have given us such great council and warning and commands. We need to review their words every day just like the scriptures and prayer. We need to choose not good choices, not better, but the best choices. I love this gospel. I know it's true. I know that through the Lord that everything is possible. Everything. I know that Christ lives and loves us. I know that He will have mercy upon all those who repent and desire to be better. I love you all so much!! Thanks for all of the prayers and for being the best family ever! I'm out of time but thanks for all of the updates on everyone dad and for all of the emails everyone. I love you all!!
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