Hey Mum and Whanau,
Another great week. Thanks for the emails and the pictures. It is good to hear that Danii and baby Rawiri are dong fine. Joe, your the man. Thanks for keeping me updated.
I'm a bit short on time today but I wanted you all to know that I love you so much. One experience from this week that I want to share with you is to do with how they celebrate Halloween. Ok, so in the Philippines they have Halloween on November 1st and not October 31st like the rest of the world. However, here it is called, "All Saints Day." So, what the people do on All Saints Day is they go to the cemetery and visit the graves of their deceased relatives. It sounds a little creepy but that's what they do. The people will usually stay at the cemetery for long periods of time and others will do an all nighter - like, spend the entire night there with their deceased family members. Last week when President DeLaMare emailed, he asked us to go out and do some finding at the cemetery on All Saints Day and spend a couple of hours chatting with people and sharing the plan of salvation with them. It seemed fine in theory and so on this particular day my companion and I walked up to the cemetery to go and find people to talk to and as we walk in I get this really bad feeling come over me, like eerie. We were on splits today so I was with Elder Cortezano and while we were walking around the cemetery I was feeling like I do not want to be here. This cemetery is nothing like what I've seen back home. It's huge and in some places instead of graves with a headstone they have like houses or shrines built for the crips of the deceased. Honestly, this was freaking me right out. If you're laughing at me while you're reading this, I don't blame you. Just thinking about it cracks me up. So, we spend about a half hour or so walking around the cemetery and Elder Cortezano is trying to talk to people and I'm still not liking the fact that we are at this place and I looked at him after we get rejected by this one lady and I said, "Der alis na tayo!" I didn't want to be there and we were getting rejected so we gapped it and walked as fast as we could out of there while trying hard not to bump over anyone as we left. Once we were out of the cemetery I just had to take a minute to chill out on the side of the road. I don't know why I was feeling apprehensive about being in the cemetery but what I did know is that I just didn't want to be there.
Well, I went on exchanges with some of the other Elders later in the day and was able to help them with a few issues they were having. At church yesterday, we had an amazing attendance of less actives. The chapel was jam packed. My companion and I had 19 less actives attend and the other companionship had 24 of their less actives attend. The work is moving forward really well. We are getting closer to the baptism date of MayMay Ramos but we had a little hiccup where she didn't make it to church yesterday. It was a little sad because we now have to postpone her baptism date. Things like that happen and it can be a little disappointing but despite that she is doing good. We are going to go and visit them tomorrow and find out why she didn't come and what we can do to help.
We have interviews this week with President DeLaMare which is always nice and then we have Temple Tour on Saturday and I'm going on exchanges again bukas (tomorrow). It is going to be a busy but great week.
Mum, it was great to hear that Elder Ofahulu's mum called you. Stay close to them.
Um... other than that, life is good and we've had a good day today. I'm not sick and me and my companion are doing great.
I love you all and I miss you all. The time is going too fast and in a few months na lang… hehe…I'll be back home. So, ang gagawin ko dito ay magtiis hanggang wakas. Yun ung mahirap pero kailangan natin un upang makamtan ung mga blessings ng diyos. Mahal niya tayo. Mahal ko din kayo. Inat kayo lagi at hwag ninyo akong makalimutan.
Elder Chadderton
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