November 8, 2013 – Crazy Week!

Dear Mom, Dad, Elder Froude 2, Lauren, and everyone who've heard about the super typhoon Yolanda,

                Well, I’m happy to announce that the Typhoon Yolanda is almost over and my mission specifically was not so much affected. Just strong winds and a little rain here and there. Other missions, however, were not so lucky. Please pray for the people in Tacloban, Leyte, and Samar. Those areas were hit the hardest and over 1000 people were killed so far. They say it was a stronger storm than hurricane Katrina. 

                This week was transfer week! We had a storm before the real storm.  Long story short, we had to have 3 pasaway (disobedient) elders at our apartment for 3 days, dealt with another situation in which many elders came in to be interviewed and president had to change transfers last second which put us behind schedule by a day. But we managed to get through it even if we were later than we wanted to be.

                Anyway, so from transfer day, we went into exit day a day behind schedule. We took the pa-uwi (exiting or returning) Filipino missionaries to the bus stop to go home all before 6:30 am. The American pa-uwi missionaries had their flight delayed by a day because their passports were still at immigration in Manila. My companion and I split up and I went with the exiting missionaries to the War Memorial while my companion took over fixing transfers in the office. Remember how I said I didn’t want to be a party planner? That’s because I had to keep track of all 15 pa-uwi missionaries and make sure they made it all into the right cars and make sure we had enough shuttles.  Just a ton of logistics but it was like herding cats! They all wanted to be everywhere at once and they were never always together! Haha! It was a handful, I tell you.  (P.S. Remind me never to have 15 kids. :p) 

Then we had to take the new missionaries to the mission home. It was intense! But we made it 30 minutes late to the MTC but started on time in the mission home for orientation and trainer meeting. This time I went to the office to make sure the shuttles had enough drivers to take all the missionaries to their respective areas. This was the smoothest part of the week. I gave each driver a specific set of directions and everyone made it out of the mission home in a car with their luggage, all in 10 minutes. Way better than last transfer. Whew!

And for the last few days we’ve been having Mindoro bound missionaries and a super typhoon to deal with, which luckily, has been not as bad in the Metro Manila area as it has been in other areas. Barely room to breathe but we still managed to have the Benfit family interviewed for baptism and they will be baptized tomorrow night. We endure so much this week and to end it with a baptism of a golden family makes it all worth it.  ^_^  Every struggle, every obstacle, every setback, and then to help 2 young souls enter into the covenant of baptism makes all the bad events seem like nothing. Thanks be to God that everything worked in His way and, miraculously, we could help these two young men join their parents in the gospel.  ^_^ Enzo, the 15 year old, asked me to baptize him. I'm so honored! Missionary life is good. It’s all worth it! 

Okay, Ii'm going to log out now. Thanks for staying up with me and updating me on things going on at home! I'll talk to you next week. Then it will only be 5 more email sessions before I'm home! Goodnight! Love you!

Doing you Proud,

Elder Froude ^_^

P.S.

We have had free food almost all this week! We are so blessed!

Christmas is in full swing here in the Philippines!

Purple tie day!

This is where we buy hot bread rolls.  Yum!

A burning school close to our church building. Scary!