7-25-11

Hey everybody!

I hope everyone';s doing good, over here it's just another week in the office, not a ton of stuff to report.

I come to the office, do stuff, go to work at 6, come home and eat. We have been doing this like karate stretching every night its pretty legit. Elder Biado, my companion took karate forever and teaches us all this crazy stuff.  It's fun.

There's been a lot of moves. with 32 missionaries coming in next month we have to find places for them to sleep. So tons of people are looking for apartments, including us in our area. On Tuesday we helped move some sisters into their new house. Their old house is way big but really hard to get to and it was rough tryng to get the truck up in there.  Me and Elder Biado did everything because of course they're sister missionaries, haha.

On friday we had our monthly office meeting, we all meet at the mission home (office elders, AP's, office couples) and talk about the upcoming month.  It went really smooth, faster than usual, they say.  Transfers are going to be pretty crazy, lots of new stuff is happening.  Sister Christensen who's in charge of apartments with her husband, is so funny. She was cracking jokes the whole time, me and Elder Haws were rolling, haha.  She kinda reminds me of mom, just some of the stuff she says haha

On Saturday, our P-day, we went bowling with president and his wife and son Ben.  Ben is almost 16 and just got back from Utah for the summer.  He's a funny kid and I'm so glad he's here though, a funny kid that livens stuff up a bit haha.  Ya and the bowling we went to? Total Filipino style, a ball that's like a shotput ball but lighter with lttle pins that they put up by hand every time.  It was pretty fun, we all had terrible scores aha.  Then the best part of Saturday was our baptism. Ian De Los Rios got baptized, the little 9 year old.  He's so smart and so funny.  We asked him and his little brother who was the most handsome out of the two of them and Ian covered his face all shy and said "Me". hahah it was so funny.  He reminds me so much of Noah except he speaks Tagalog haha. And president came to the baptism and said a little something about enduring to the end. Elder Biado baptized him and after Ian bore his testimony, well sort of, he went up to the front, stared straight at the ground and thanked everyone and us for teaching him.  His dad came though, his dad and mom and oldest sister live in Pasig and are always working but his dad got the day off so that was awesome.  Really nice guy and now its a completed family.

The work is definately the best part, at the same time it kinda sucks cuz we just have no time.  People come up to us in church and are like "did you contact that referral we gave you" and we have to say no because we didn't have time.  In any other area you would contact a referral right away but we just don't have time, plus we have to look for an apartment, takes more of our time because it's kind of high priority.

Anyway life is good here.  I may sound like I hate the office but its pretty fun.  I get to see the other missionaries regularly and help them with their problems as little as they are sometimes. Life's been not too crazy lately, but we have zone conferences and trainings coming up, then transfers.  So it'll start to pick up soon. Time definitely goes even faster in the office.  Transfers almost half over!  Crazy stuff.  It's weird being in the office at times though, almost forget you're a missionary because you are not always doing "missionary" things, almost like I'm taking a break to work in an office before I go back to my mission..  Any spiritual insights, thoughts, anything I'll take it from any of you.  I need it because sometimes I feel pretty spiritually starved. Something I loved though from the July's Liahona is the article about the forest fire fighters? I don't know if you've read that but I loved it.  It definitely is inspiring me how guidance, help and even comfort are just around the corner if we'll just act in faith and do what we're supposed to know.  I need that for sure.

Anyway love you all. Thanks for the support. I'm a spoiled kid for sure, thanks for the love and prayers.  I hope all is well and you are all in my prayers.

The church is true and this work is where we all need to be in whatever way we can.

Got to go to new.familysearch.org in our gospel principles class (yes we use computers in our Sunday school class sometimes, Quezon City 2nd ward is an American ward I swear) and it was way cool. Our families got a lot of work to do, something I'm going to try when I go back home. Pretty cool stuff.

Anyways love you all and hope the family reunion goes well!

 

love

Elder Stover