Maligayang Pasko!!!

Elder Calinog, Elder Tauleilei, Elder Powell.
Christmas lights at the Manila Temple.

Merry Christmas y'all! :) I kinda sorta FREAKING miss you guys! haha, but no worries, I'm loving it here and there's no snow to shovel so we're good here :)No worries with Elder Sidillo's fam, we've been hearing about the big baguio (storm) down there but he said he knows his family's safe. He said thanks for thinking about him.I might still get the package before Christmas, we have a "Christmas Conference" with half of the mission and President and Sister Sperry on Wednesday so we might get mail then. Not sure what we're doing there but there will be a tie exchange so that's a good sign :) If I don't get it then we have a mail run on December 27th (26th for you) so it'll still be Christmas no worries haha :)I'm SUPER excited to talk to y'all! :D I bought a calling card for 40 minutes to the US today so I can give you guys a call anytime you'd like between 9pm December 23 to December 25 9pm. The best for me would probably be the 25th between 5 and 9pm cuz that's 8am-noon for me on P-day. PLEASE EMAIL ME back DURING the week to let me know when you wanna do it. No skype, just an AWESOME call :) Not sure what we'll be doing on Christmas Day but I don't know if we'll be able to get much work done cuz everyone else will be partying(getting drunk and gambling:/)Wow you're amazing! You guys made those missionaries Christmas! :) I still need to write all my missionary friends, it's really hard to find time on Pday... or any day haha :PHere's a couple journal entries LOVE YOU TO DEATH! :)Dec. 14Wow, what an AWESOME day! :D We had a Pday/Temple day today. I woke up at 3:30 AM and was ok with it?!!? I guess that's 12:30pm at home so technically I slept in haha :o) I got a picture of the temple right as the sun was rising behind it and lighting of the clouds. It was perfect! I'm actually starting to enjoy taking pictures.... but don't tell Mom.... haha ;)So another thing not to tell Mom... :o) I got into a cleaning frenzy today?? Haha, I think I'm learning to work hard and always be doing something here or something. Maybe that or it's just something in the water :P I started cleaning the kitchen and then I wanted everything to look perfect. Then I wanted to clean my desk off. Then I even wanted to organize the inside?? Weird huh? :)

Dec. 15Heavenly Father answers prayers!!! :D Wow! :) I already knew that, but I am really starting to see it in our investigators as we invite them to ask God if the things we teach are true.Yesterday we asked one investigator, Donna, if she has received an answer. She said she believes it all and that she feels "safe" when we come and teach. We told her that was the Holy Ghost and asked if she felt she had received an answer. She said yep :) We invited her to church Sunday and hope she will continue to progress.Tonight we taught another Sister, Kenneth. She's been to church 3 times because she's living with the Bishop's family but we had only taught her 2 times before tonight. We taught her about faith and works and it went well. Then we asked her if she had asked Heavenly Father if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. She said she had twice. We asked if she felt like she had received an answer and.... she started crying. That's usually a good sign for a missionary :) She said that she has received an answer and feels that it's true. We pointed out that the good feelings she was having was the Holy Ghost.WOOT! :D The work is really starting to explode here in Panghulo :) We have the potential to have 5 or 6 people baptized sometime in January if they'll keep commitments and go to church.
So things are good here :) I love you all TONS :) Send my love to the fam at Mutual Dell :) Send me any more questions you have before Thursday and I'll get back to you during the week.MAHAL KITA!!! :D

Elder Powell  12-18-11