Hearken all ye nations of the earth.. at paminaw mo sa ako.. o makinig kayo sa akin...
Si Elder Hansen got 2 baptisms this week.. WOOT! Thats right... Toni Oliva and Rosebell Labatican were the first investigators in 5 months that were actually baptized on schedule. They were also the first ones to keep all their commitments and come to church every week that we taught them. And also they were both 9 years old.. Just a testament that we all need to become as little children... IT makes me wonder sometimes why grown men and women can't read one chapter out of the book of mormon in 7 days but two 9 year olds can do it no problem... Anyways, I am so happy for them :)... Sister Toni was baptized on Sunday right after the sacrament service and Rosebell was baptized on saturday in the church in the middle of a typhoon haha...
Yeah.. We had a typhoon hit this week.. It wasn't bad, but it definately slowed things down for us. Funny story about that.. So,Saturday was an absolute CRAZY day.. First we woke up at 6 to get ready for a 1 day mission in barra (the sisters area) and so we have to ride a trycicle for like 30 mins out there.. So we get there and the sisters assign us the hardest area in Barra.. Its a tiny little island filled with people who really have no interest in the gospel.. and literally every house had been tracted at least 5 times in the last year.. But the sisters sent us out there to do some tracting.. We ended up finding a teenage girl 19 years old who listened to us and took us to 3 other people who also listened.. It was way awesome! I was ready for complete failure but it ended up turning out ok.. and another funny thing about that area... So we went there with a member who, before we got on the island, had to go to his friend to ask for protection.. Then the member came back to the boat and said "Ok, you guys can get off the boat, they agreed not to stab you".. I was like "WHAT??".. "Stab".. And Bro Suaybaguio said casually "Yeah, stabbings happen really often here.. but its ok, I got so-and-so's protection"... haha it was way funny and kinda scary.. anyways I'll upload a vid and some pictures of us on the boat going there... Good times... After that we had Rosebell's baptism and it went awesome :)...
Then on Sunday we had Toni's baptism and her dad was able to be the one to baptize her.. He also has been to church for the past 3 weeks straight.. Their family has been inactive for the past 2 or three years and we hope that Toni's baptism will inspire them to keep coming to church every sunday.
So this entire month in Lucena has been pure Festival and this past week has been even worse.. This past week is what they call the "Chami Festival".. Chami is a type of noodle that they eat here and I guess they made a festival out of it.. I have no idea why.. But today people have just been giving out free Chami to everyone and the entire downtown area is shut down and they are putting up all these stages and stuff and i guess some celebrities are coming and bands to play and all that jazz.. its pretty cool i guess.. and speaking of celebrities...
I got to meet a filipino celebrity and be personally serenaded by her haha... Yeah... Probably the most akward time of my life. Let me start... So after Rosebell's baptism we decided to just stop by Pacific mall to pick up some goopy stuff to clog a leak in our toilet.. and when we went in we saw all these people gathered around a stage... so me and my comp at first didn't acknolage it and just went up stairs and bought the stuff.. then on the way out this guy gets up on the stage and was like "Who wants to be serenaded by a celebrity singer???"... so I.. [[thinking that everyone was gonna freak out and raise their hands... ]] Threw my hands up in the air... But lo an behold I was the ONLY one out of like 300 people.. everyone else was like too scared or something.. or maybe they didn't understand the guy cuz he was speaking english haha i dont know... But once I raised my hands I knew I was in for it.. The guy was like "YOU in the back..".. I tried to ignore it and just walk through the crowd and leave but the guy just kept egging on the crowd to get me on stage.. Anyways.. long story short.. I ended up on stage.. The guy asked me where i was from and all that... then asked me why i should be chosen to be serenaded.. I told him that I was just a missionary and that I should probably just go.. But then the crowd started Booing super loud and so I was basically stuck having this Celebrity sing to me.. I had no idea who she was, but everyone else there seemed to love her.. Her name is Coleen Garcia.. she has a TV show here in the philippines and is a model and all this stuff.. Anyways.. So she comes on stage and sings this song called "Hawak Kamay"... which means "Holding Hands".. Yeah.. And she totally tried to hold my hand, but I was just so used to shaking everyones hand that when she reached out I just shook her hand haha... Everyone was all confused... It was like way akward cuz I was just standing there with my hands in my pockets and I had the most akward face.. and I was just waiting for it to be over... I'm sure that any filipino guy would die to have this girl sing to him.. But I was like standing there looking out into the crowd and then i would like glance at her and she would reach out her hand and every time I just shook it haha... AHH!!!! and here comes the worst part... After the song was over the announcer guy asked me how I liked the serenade thing.. i was like "Yeah... it was good, you have a very good voice".. And then I shook her hand again and started to walk off the stage haha.. But the announcer stopped me and was like "Don't you want a little more than just a hand shake?"... I was like "No thats fine thank you".. then the whole crowd started chanting "KISS KISS KISS KISS"... When that happened I took the Microphone from the announcer guy and in tagalog i said " Look! I am sorry, but I am a missionary and I have standards to live up to and I am grateful for Coleen and that she sang to me but I really can't hold hands or kiss or do anything like that...".. The crowd saw that I was serious and they all kinda shut up and It felt SO AKWARD!!! But I got the opportunity to talk to Coleen after and tell her about what we do as missionaries and she said that she really respects me for what I did and she said that she hates when she has to kiss people she doesnt know and all this other stuff.. So all in all.. it worked out prettty good and I have officially invited a Nataional TV star here in the pinas to learn about our religion.. SCORE!! haha... well that was pretty much the highlight of my week.. other than the baptisms OF COURSE... haha I'll upload some pics of it...
gahh!!! anyways I used up all my time typing that story.. I hoped you loved it!!
Love yallzz
Elder Hansen
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