Hello again! It's November! Crazy! Doesn't feel like it here.. ha not quite the same on a tropical island.So this week has been good/long/hard but great nonetheless. I have a new companion! His name is Elder Ventigan, he's from somewhere in the Baguio mission. Not that that means anything to any of you.. anyway, he is pretty cool and fun, his english isn't quite as good as elder sanchez's but its ok I can understand his Illongish haha. Actually these first couple days he's been struggling a little speaking Illongo cause he just got transfered from a Cebuano speaking area, but he's good now. He speaks like 5 different languages it's amazing.But yeah the work is going to get harder for us this transfer because we "harvested" all our investigators the past couple transfers, so now we gotta find new people, and tracting just isn't as effective. Hopefully we can get the members to help us out with referrals and stuff, they are way more effective. So yes, they do have "halloween" here, but it's completely different than our halloweens. Here it's called all saints day, and basically they just make a ton of amazing traditional Filipino foods, and then in the evening go to the cemetery and light candles and stuff on their dead relatives graves. Apparently it's a big deal though. I'm just excited for the food haha. So Mom, I still would like those recipies, and some pictures of everyone in the family, and maybe one of the rexburg temple, and our house and surrounding areas and stuff, if thats at all possible. Just so I can show people what it's like where I live. The Villanueva family I'm always telling you about is particularly interested haha, they have all our families' names memorized! And they've never even seen pictures cause I don't have pictures of everyone. Anyway things have been going good. The Illongo is coming along slowly but surely. I can't wait for the day I can speak it fluently! Hopefully that day comes.. So do you guys have snow already? I'm gonna miss having a white Christmas. Welllllll I can't really think of anything cool to write about now, so till next week! Love, Elder Andersen

So... I'm staying in La Castellana next transfer! yay! But I'm a little nervous for my follow up trainer. Oh well, it'll work out.. this week has been hot! We haven't had like any rain this week, which is weird, and last week we had a ton of rain cause of the Baguio that came through northern Luzon. But it's been good. We have some really good investigators that are doing well. The one sister, sister Johna, is the mother of the Villanueva family and she is always surprising us. She's not even a member yet, but she knows a ton and is definitely going to be a future leader in the church. So last week she was talking to us about Lucy Mack Smith, this week she told us she is preparing to receive her patriarchal blessing! haha it's so awesome! She and her husband and niece are scheduled to get baptized on November 20th I think. Then we have this other family we found last week that is really prepared for us. They read the book of mormon, pray, and a couple of them were able to go to church yesterday. The father was taught years ago in Manila, so he remembers a little, and they are way accepting of the gospel. We asked him to pray at the end of our lesson, and he did, and then at our next lesson he told us that was the first time he had ever prayed, and since then has been praying for everything. So they're way cool, except they speak Tagalog, which I don't remember much anymore cause I've been so focused on Illongo. I can understand a lot of it, but I can't speak it very well. Even elder Sanchez who speaks Tagalog said he was having a hard time teaching them cause he hasn't spoken it in forever. We had zone conference this week, it was really good. President Tobias is awesome, and the training we received was really good. We are really focusing on retention and reactivation, or "rescue" as we call it. Because there were so many converts back in the day and stuff that were either missionary converts or were baptized just because. Now we have very high standards for baptism to insure the people endure to the end. But there are so many people that are not enduring to the end, and that is what we are focusing on. Also helping the wards and branches function like a normal ward or branch should, because they really don't have any idea because none of them has ever been in a fully functioning ward. We are trying to help the members realize what really being a member of this church means, and that they can't be content just going to church on sunday... thats proving a little difficult, but I'm confident we can help them, and help this branch. It used to be a ward, but now the average attendance is 85. Thats a little pathetic, and thats what we want to change. So yeah, good things are happening. I can't believe I'll be in my second transfer next week! I really need to learn Illongo fast! I can understand and say more each day, but it's still slow. And a bit frustrating at times, but it's all good. I'm doing well, miss you all, love you! -Elder Andersen

Hey Family, how's it goin? Things here are going well, another week has gone by.. I can't believe I only have 2 weeks left in this transfer! I think I'll be staying in La Castellana next transfer, but thats just a guess.. I hope I do haha cause we're gonna have some baptisms in November that I really want to be there for! We had 2 this week, one was the son of the Villanueva family, his sisters are the ones I baptized, and they are like the coolest family ever. They act like they've been members their whole lives. But the parents never come to church, but they went to conference last week, and then this week they came to church and are going to continue, and are going to be baptized in November! I'm really excited for them. The other baptism was the father of the Dela Serna family, the other way cool family I was telling you about. Finally they are all members! It was an awesome sight to see. Their family is already planning to be sealed next year in Cebu. So this week we went on exchanges with the zone leaders, so I went to the city of La Carlota on tuesday with Elder De Los Santos. He is way funny I like him a lot, but he doesn't speak english very well so it was fun to help him with his english as he helped me with my Illongo. I finally had something kind of crazy to eat here, elder de los santos made it. I was a little nervous at first when we went to the market and he bought a bunch of vegetables, chicken liver, shrimp, and quail eggs. I thought to myself "how in the world are all those mixed together going to taste good!?" but, somehow it did! haha I ate it with no problem. I've learned not to ask what something is though, just eat it. Cause most the time if you just eat it without looking or thinking about what it is, it will taste really good. But if you ask, you might find out it's something crazy like barbecued blood clot. Which is apparently really good. I hear Balut is good too it just looks disgusting. I'll have to see for myself :) I think I'm slowly getting better at the language, but maybe thats just my thinking haha. It's been raining a lot lately. I'm not sure if I told you how crazy the storms here are. When it rains, which is everyday, you can just see the wall of rain coming towards you, and the lightning is super crazy, you feel like you're going to get struck by it! Then the thunder is louder than I have ever heard before. It shakes you to the core it's so loud. Sometimes when it catches you off guard everyone like ducks for cover cause that's just the natural instinct, but they are way cool to see. People tell you way funny things here, elder sanchez told me not to trust their comments haha cause a couple nights ago an investigator told me I was getting chubby, but I'm pretty sure I'm exactly the same (at least I think I am) and then a different investigator told me I look more mature than the first time they saw me. I don't know, I don't think I got that much more mature looking in one month haha. I don't really know where they get ideas like that, but it's funny. I got somewhat sick this week. On thursday I woke up with a way bad sore throat and a splitting headache. So I just popped a bunch of pills and went to work. I'm not really sure what we did on thursday though I was pretty out of it ha. But I'm back to normal now, so no worries. I don't have any crazy diseases or anything that I'm aware of, so everything is good. Well I'm not really sure what else to write cause you guys don't have any questions or anything, so I guess this is it for this week. But thanks for all you do, Love you! - Elder Andersen

Well hello family! This week has been pretty great. It's weird, the days seem so long, but the weeks seem to be flying by! I know that doesn't really make sense, but whatever... So I'm not really even sure what to write about this week. Things have been going well in La Castellana, the people are awesome. It's really neat, we have been teaching this one family for a while and most of them are baptized, well actually it's like 3 families but they are all related and live right next to/ with each other ha it's a little complicated. Anyway so we've been teaching them and they are way awesome, they are the ones I told you about that gave me the bananas. So we were teaching them and the grandpa of the family has never listened to our message, and before he talked to us actually really hated us, we were teaching his daughters and he wouldn't let them be taught, but they all prayed and he let them be taught and baptized, and their families also, and since then he is really nice to us but still hasn't let us teach him or anything. But a couple nights ago we went and taught them a lesson and he was there and listened to the whole thing, and was way interested and asked really cool questions and then stuff, and yesterday he came to general conference! the whole family of 30 or so did it was so awesome! they told us in that lesson that was the first time they had all been together in a long time. I think that brother, brother bebong (people have really weird names here) realized how much the gospel had changed his family's lives and everything. Hopefully he will continue to listen and want to be baptized. We had some other really good lessons this week too. We've been so busy in fact we've had to go on splits with President Oliverio and J.R. It is amazing how if you have the faith that Heavenly Father is preparing his children to hear his message, you will find them. It's funny, when you go up to people, if they don't really want to talk to you they kind of just pretend like you're not there, but they are nice enough to listen to our message sometimes and so we start and they won't be paying much attention, but then after they feel the spirit and can feel that we are different than everyone else, they really start to listen and pay attention and ask questions it's neat. You can definitely tell when the spirit is working through you in a lesson. We've found some way cool families and we are hoping they will be baptized. We've received a bunch of new training this week on how to improve our teachings and stuff and they have really helped. They want us now, to give a baptismal invitation, or commitment in just the 1st or 2nd lesson. I'm lucky I just got here and am getting this training now, so I don't really have to change my ways haha. Well Illongo is still hard, but I think it's coming slowly... I hope. It's frustrating sometimes, but it's ok. We had to go to La Carlota to the stake center to watch conference on Saturday and Sunday, it was really good. I think I definitely got more out of this conference than other ones before. But, the funnest part of going to conference was driving there. The branch hired what they call a silakian (sp?) which is basically just a big truck. So 50 or 60 of us all crammed in and drove the 45 minutes to La Carlota it was way fun, especially since I was riding on the roof of the cab of the truck haha. They are harvesting the sugar cane here now, it's so primitive, they just chop it down with machetes. It takes them forever to harvest just one field, and then they load it up on a truck or a trailer thing hooked to a karabaw. My goal is to ride one of those before I leave. Haha funny story, ok well first cultural note: peeing in public, like on the streets, on walls, trees, or whatever is perfectly acceptable here. So the other night we were in a different city cause we had to talk to the elders there, and we were on a bus going back to la castellana and we got a flat, so we were standing outside waiting for them to change the tire and this guy gets off the bus, goes to the back tire, and just does his business! hahaha mind you there are still 50+ people on the bus and like 20 outside. I died laughing. So many things like that make me laugh here. Like walking back to our house at night past the karaoke bars and hearing the people singing because they can't sing, but there they are singing with all their might. ahh I love it. So yeah, things have been going well, busy, but good. Thank you for all your support and prayers and everything, they are much appreciated. Love you all! Love Elder Andersen (aka Joe)

So second week in the Philippines down! Everything is going great, I love it here! The people are awesome and so is this place. It's just so different from everything I'm used to, so it's fun to experience all these new things. All right so where shall I start. I guess I'll tell you about the people here. The president of the branch is named president oliverio and he and his family are some of the coolest/funniest people I've ever met, I love them! President is way funny, I can't wait till I can speak Illongo so I can understand all of his humor, his wife is super nice and a good cook, they always feed us on sundays. She is also making me a bag called baguio bag which is like a side satchel/man purse kinda thing I guess you could say. I'm excited for it, I hate carryin my big backpack around. They have lots of kids, but I only know their youngest son who is 19 and is the branch mission leader, his name is JR. I love working with him too. It's always hot here, no matter what time of day. However, when it rains it cools down for a little bit. Wow I love the rain here! It rains most everyday, and when it rains, it pours! like the biggest rainstorms I have ever seen. So when we teach lessons either jr or president go with us. They are basically like my family here ha. Elder sanchez is awesome, we have a lot of fun together. This week he had to go to Bacolod for 2 days for some training meeting, so I went to another area with some other elders on splits, it was way cool. Their area is like bukid-err jungly/ foresty. So everyone that lives there lives in bamboo huts with palm tree leaf roofs and everything it was way cool. La castellana has one part like that, but mostly it's just small city. One of the coolest things I did this week was baptize! we had these 3 girls, ages 11 13 and 21 who were going to get baptized and we asked them who they wanted to baptize them and they said me! it was such a cool experience! Their whole family is way awesome, the parents know the church is true and they have strong testimonies of the church but they have a problem with coffee and they never go to church cause they have work, so thats something we have to work on with them. We have lots of investigators actually, and also we have to do a lot of visiting to recent converts here and like less active members to try and get them to church and what not. I don't understand, the people here are so nice and will do anything for you, but they don't do like home teaching or fellowshipping, so thats why recent convert retention rates are so low. Thats one of the biggest problems in the philippines. Ok now I'll tell you about my house. I don't even know how to describe it really, it's really small! when you walk in the room is about the size of our kitchen maybe and then there are two rooms about the size of like andreas room, one with desks and tehn the other has our stinkin bunk bed haha. then we have a bathroom the size of the backroom bathroom, and the shower room is about that big too. So far I haven't seen anything too crazy. The snails here are HUGE and then we have these little lizards called tiki everywhere in houses and everything, but they don't bother anyone cause they eat mosquitoes and stuff. The ones you gotta be careful with are the tuko lizards. they are bigger sized and make a sound that sounds like their name- tuk-o, tuk-o ha but they can be scary cause if they bite you they cant let go cause they have locking jaws and so if you get bit by one you have to kill it. we don't have big spiders in our house, but out in the sugar cane there are big ones. at night the kids go through at night with flashlights and catch them and then fight them. Oh good news, the roosters don't wake me up anymore cause I'm just used to them now I guess. It's way pretty here, I'm basically in the mountains and there is a big volcano not too far away and then some other little mountain things, but everything is just so lush and green. there is also a big river that goes right through la castellana. My Illongo isn't very good yet, but I'm working on it. In some ways it's a lot like tagalog, but then in other ways its completely different. It's basically just a matter of talking and using words and mimicking the natives, even if I don't understand what the words mean haha. Just trying to talk to people is big. I haven't had too much fruit yet, but i've tried a couple new ones. I'm excited for mangos, but they aren't in season right now so they are a lot more expensive, so we don't buy them. Well thats about it for me here, oh last week I told you about sikads. only I called them sickles haha I have no idea why probably cause I was in a hurry, but they are called sikads. They are way fun, especially the big motorcycle ones with like 6 people stuffed onto it. Busses are fun too haha a bus that has enough room for 50 people will hold actually 80 or more. It's great. I'm gonna miss all these crazy ways of transportation when I go back home, but thats not for a while haha. OK thats all for now. Love you- Elder Andersen

SO I made it! haha it's so crazy here! I guess I should tell you where I am first off.. I got assigned to an area called La castellana it's about and hour and a half ride from bacolod on the stinkin busses. I don't know if it's on a map because it's kinda small but it's by the mountains and super gorgeous, there are a lot of sugar cane fields here, and it is nothing like america haha. There are like karabaws (water Buffalo) everywhere in the fields and stuff. The town is pretty nice though, there are a few cars but mostly motorcycles. Everyone has motorcycles it's weird. So they either ride those, walk, or take a cycle they say it sickle, which are like these bikes with carts on the side, or they have motorcycle ones too. It's pretty awesome. My trainers name is Elder Sanchez and he is a native Filipino from Manila! I'm the only one of my batch that got a filipino companion... Kinda weird. It was hard at first cause like I didn't know what to say to him or anything but it is better now. In la castellena there is a small church building but there are a lot of people that come to church, we had 96 yesterday! This area is newly reopened just last transfer, but elder sanchez and his trainee before me had 13 baptisms already! We had 4 on saturday, but I'm not counting them as mine cause I didn't do anything to help those people I just got here haha. I don't understand like anything because everyone speaks Illongo, which I need to learn. It's different than Tagalog, but I'm sure I will learn it sometime. My apartment is nicer than I expected, but still not that nice haha. We have a shower, but the water pressure usually stinks so mostly we just end up using the good ol' bucket and ladel technique. It's a little chilly but it wakes you up. I haven't been sleeping very well cause I wake up at like 4:30 or 5 cause of stupid roosters! They start making noise so early and everyone and their dog has a rooster so it's just non stop. Haha I never knew this but filipinos are awful at singing. They love music and singing but they can't carry a tune to save their lives. I do my best to sing on tune but Its hard to get 96 people on tune. It sounds like a combination of tone deaf people and dying cats , so try to imagine 96 people doing that haha. When we teach I just sit there and smile, and then randomly e Sanchez will be like and now elder andersen is going to share about such and such, so I do, and then he translates for me. I love it here, the people are all way nice, and they are really poor. They have like nothing, but will still have a tv and a cell phone, I don't understand it. But whatever. THe kids here are the cutest things I have ever seen! they are fun. Yes, everyone yells out Hey joe! or wash yo name? or they just run up and give you a high five. THe food is good, elder sanchez always cooks, and I do the dishes, cause I don't know anything about the food here. I only get a half hour here too it's kinda lame... so I gotta go, but before I do here is my address in case anyone wants to send me mail: ELder Greg Andersen Philippines Bacolod Mission Galo&Lacson street P.O. box 660 Negros Occidental 6100 Philippines I love you all, thank you for your prayers and support, I need them! Love, Elder Andersen

Hey Fam! Well this week has been a lot calmer than all the crazy stuff that happened last week. Nothing really too exciting to talk about, except I did get my flight plans on Friday so I'll tell you what those are. OK so at 4:30 next monday we leave the MTC and drive to SLC airport and hang around there and our flight leaves at 8 to LAX and then we get there at like 9 and hang out at LAX till 2 in the morning and from there we fly all the way to Taipe, Taiwan! Then from Taipe to Manila, And from Manila to Bacolod and I get there at 3:15 P.M. on September 15. So I'll be flying for a really long time. I bet it's going to be just wonderful. OK so things I need: Yes I did get that towel thanks! But I think I'm gonna need more than 4 bottles of contact solution for 2 years... the deoderant is fine I can get it there so just send those 4 or whatever. I need a new alarm clock.. the one you gave me before I came didn't work for some reason, like you couldn't read the numbers on it or anything. Yeah I can't believe I'm leaving in a week either! I heard about BYU winning their first game. I also heard them winning their first game. Good for them I suppose. I was more excited about Oregons 72-0 beating of New Mexico. Tell Miriam thank you for her email, and that I'm sorry I don't ever have time to reply personally to anyone! Rachel- good luck in school at good ol BYU-I! Oh and yes I should be able to email you from the Philippines I'm pretty sure. Letters would take way too long so I'm not even going to deal with those. I'll probably send some stuff home that I don't want or can't take with me. Our suitcases have to be pretty light. OK well I best be going, I've got class here in a few minutes, I love you all and I"m praying for you! Oh P.S. I think I can call you from the airport, so don't be afraid to answer the phone from a weird number monday night around 9 or 10 probably. OK Mahal ko kayo! Love, Elder Andersen