Hey Family,

Its this time of week again, dont get so excited...

Oh first of all, he is finally born! Beau, glad to hear that he is doing good, and michelle is doing good, when you gonna start the baseball workouts. Gotta get him started early. This week was awesome, do you remember how back like 2 months ago I would always say how fast time was going. Ha That aint nothing compared to how fast it is moving now! Time is going soooooooooo fast its unfair. We are working hard, and we are playing hard...and still following the rules of course. Valdez is still his same good ol up beat never down, always laughing sorta guy.

I would like to say this, I beat elder Valdez in chess. And proved that he is just as bad of a sore winner as he is a sore loser! Hahaha when I beat him he was like"inantok na ako" which means he is tired. haha then he went to bed. We have played chess many times since and he has beaten me everytime. But I got him once and that is all that matters! I am getting alot better too. Our evenings are turning out like this... getting home at like 9, nightly plan, eat dinner, play chess until 10:30 and then go to bed frustrated haha its really fun though.

This week was awesome as far as our work goes, we made our 2nd contact to that oym Nanay Samora, haha she is a very talkitive lady, we would be talking and out of nowhere she would just start talking... like I was talking about how the gospel will bless her family, then all of the sudden she was like, I will have to do a lot more studying before I change my religion... she is really nice.

We gave baptismal dates to the 4 bodegoen brothers, they came to church again, they really understood the plan of salvation, they are really nice kids, better then some of the young men in the ward already. We had a fhe at their house this week it was awesome really fun, the dinner was interesting though. It was this weird ulam (rice topping) it looked normal till you really looked at it, it had pig skin and intestine, chicken liver, you know that weird thing on the top of roosters heads...they cut that off and put some in... then it had sweet potatoes and a little bit of pork...nice... i got that on my plate... ate it all up, i have learned the trick out here of eating gross stuff, just make sure you have some water or juice or something, put the food in your mouth, act like your chewing, look happy, then toss it down with a swig of water or something... genius! I am not going to lie though, chicken liver is pretty good, something I wont eat though is something with blood in it, in most philippine missions its against the rules to eat it, the only way i will eat pig blood is if it is served to me... and i absolutly have noooo other option. Blood really isn't good for the body, your stomach cant digest blood. I really hope I never have to eat that.  I'd rather eat dog or balute.

We also gave a baptismal date to Sister Lorna and erica her kid, she is the aunt of russel. Anyway she is soooo sick, the most ready person I have ever taught. One day we came into teach her and the first thing she said was, can you guys give me a blessing my head is really hurting.... I didn't even know she knew what blessings were. But it fit in awesome with our lesson we were teaching about prophets and the priesthood, and how we couldn't have given her the blessing if we didn't hold the priesthood. Everytime we teach she has great questions. One time we were teaching and we finished and asked if she had any questions, she was like ya i have one, there are soo many churches out there, how am I supposed to know which one is true....boooom! Well sister its a little thing I like to call james 1:5 it was awesome fit in perfectly with are next lesson, about the Restoration. It was such a sick lesson, we had two fellowshippers with us that just booooom nailed their testimonies in there....the spirit was sooo strong! Then we asked if she had any questions, she said no we committed her to pray. We closed the lesson. Then she was like elders I actually do have one question,...we were like uh oh, cause the way she said that was very weird like she was bringing out some dark concern... nope she was just like i know we aren't members yet but can we have an fhe at our house on wednesday! Heck ya we can! Gosh I am so excited for this woman! There is no investigators class in our branch so our investigators just join the usual sunday school class. And sister asked us on friday if we could get the reading assingment for sunday school so she wouldn't be so lost during sunday school! Can you believe that! Man this lady is awesome! So ready.

Sister Torio went to church again this week it was awesome, she said she had a friend that is a less active that really wants to come to church, but is afraid because she thinks that ward wont accept her since she fell away, then sister torio was like, no when I went to church this sunday it was my first time in a long time and they were very welcome! Which is awesome, we have a pretty solid ward, its just still kinda small.

Sister tolintino came to church again this week! Awesome! it was her 3rd week in a row, and sister bagorio and her cousin mary jane and her sister pauline and her friend valen a new investigator of ours came to church. Awesome!

Something that wasn't so awesome, is we decided to push angelica's baptismal date back, she one just isn't solid yet, we went over the baptismal interview questions with her and she just really struggled answering them. She has a desire though. What she really really needs is some legit support, if her father and mother would both come to church, it would be easier for us to let angelica be baptized, but we are afraid that after her baptism, her mom is gonna stop coming to church, which means we just added another less active to the list. So we are gonna re teach her but really focus on her parents and getting them to come back to church!

We had a awesome lesson with Tatay Magno last night, the spirit was soooo strong, tatay almost cried, the spirit was leading that lesson 1000%! We were coming home from Lorna, and elder valdez was feeling really really sick, so I left him at the apartment, it was about 8, proctor and molino were with him, then Francis our fellowshipper came with us, this kid is a stud! He is 18 and is better at teaching then a lot of missionaries. His papers are in, anyway we go to magno's house and Francis was like, what are we teaching him, I was like i dont know, a script thought long. We go in sit down, we decide to teach about faith, oh a little backround on magno, he is a elder, and last year called to be the 2nd councilor in the bishopric, he was set a part then soon fell inactive, started drinking and smoking again and not coming to church, the missionaries have been teaching him a long time, tatay is real nice and wants to come back but there is something always going on on sundays...but there is really a concern that he hasn't come out with, I think he is afraid to come back because he fell away so hard. Anyway we open up to ether 12:6 talks about the trail of our faith and how our faith needs to be tried before it is legit faith. A idea comes into my mind that i have never thought of before, i was like Tatay if you were on a cliff and Jesus told you to jump what would you do, he was like jump, i said why, she said casi si Jesucristo ang nagsabi which means because Jesus said so. Then I said if Jesus told you to jump but you didn't would you have faith, he said no, then I talked about the need to trying our faith, then Francis talked about how we strengthen our testimonies and the blessing of faith. Then at the end I had this thought of how to commit him to coming back to church, totally directed by the spirit. I was like Tatay back to the example if Jesus told you to jump you would jump and try your faith right..he said yes. Then I said Tatay I dont know why its hard for you to come to church, it is hard for you and I dont know why, but Christ loves you, he died for you and he wants you back, Jesus wants you.  But you need to show your faith to Him, you said if Jesus told you to jump you would jump, well what if Jesus showed himself to you right now and said "Tatay Magno will you go to Church May 6" what would you say...Tatay said yes. Then I said tatay Jesus himself isnt here, but I can feel his presence and his love for you, He is here in spirit, and I was called of God to be a missionary, and as a Representive of Christ, (showed him the picture of Jesus in the front of the B.o.M.)...Will you go to Church May 6 to show your faith for him. Tatay said yes, you could tell the spirit was really workin in him. His prayer was awesome, in it he said please help me to come back to Church on May 6...man that was a awesome lesson, we will see if he come to Church. I am thinking we are gonna go pick him up on Sunday morning, make it a little easier on him.

Anyway that was the week for ya, didn't do much for pday just relaxed.

Mahal ko kayo,
Elder James