I asked Elder Zesiger a few questions...
Have you got the package of jerky I sent to you yet?
I told him how we are going to do better at reading our scriptures daily as a family....
and how a bunch of girls that graduated with him are going on missions.


haha, No I haven't gotten it yet, but I can't get it until we go to Buedia where the office is and we have to go for a reason so I don't know when haha.  I know I'm always challenging these families everyday to read scriptures as a family but we weren't that good at it lol.  We would always just get to like Alma 42 and restart hahahahaha.  That's crazy!  hahah that's sick so many are going!  I am super glad that I worked at State Farm because I don't care about rejections anymore haha.  My eye is good I think haha I go to check it again tomorrow, but I think I will start to taper off the eye drops again.:)

 Rose is good!  We are just waiting for the wedding papers to be processed now so her wedding and baptism will be this Saturday or the next!  I'm soooo excited hahaha.  We got 14 new investigators this week, it was pretty cool, but the best were the Alfaro family.  They were a referral from Sister Quis Quis the one whose laptop I used to call you guys.  They have two kids, one 11 and one 9.  They were super receptive and cool, they said they would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.  I've been trying to follow the Challenging and Testifying Missionary talk so I extended and got 14 baptismal dates this week!  All for the 27 of February, so hopefully I don't get transferred on the 24th haha.  Caden is getting huge! (he saw a picture) I weigh 150 now.  I've been taking a picture of my face every night for the last two weeks so that at the end on my mission I'll have a sick video!  I finished my first journal so I bought a new one.  You were right haha, when we bought it I was like "this will last my whole mission"  Nope. haha.  I love you guys, this week went really fast, because I have to plan and lead everything so its kind of stressful but the language is coming a lot faster now its sick!

I'm planning my frist wedding!!

I went to the doctor last Tuesday and I go tomorrow too so your info is always kinda delayed haha! Sorry, but last week the pressure went back down to normal, but the iritus is back, they took a picture of my eye and let me see and you could see like 20 black things floating around in my pupil haha it was sick!  Makes me kinda want to become an eye doctor again. Anyway he told me to take both eye drops at the same time, it kind of sucks cuz I even have to take them at night so I have to wake up a couple times.  But I am going to see him again tomorrow. 

  

I got a new companion to finish my training.  This doesn't happen that much, I am the only one in my batch that it happened to but Elder Arnejo got transferred on a special assignment.  His name is Elder Mangaoang, he's pretty cool.  President said that I have no idea how much the Lord is blessing me with so many Filipino companions and roomates.  Everyone else in my batch has only had one or zero native companions and I've already had three haha, it is really helping with my language though, we speak it all the time.  I am planning a wedding and a baptism for January 30th!  You are all invited!  It will be at the Comembo chaple on 525th Combembo Street in Barangi Rizal Makati City!  It's hard cuz I've never planned a wedding before, especially here cuz its different, but its fun.  I took dad's advice and this week has been my most successful week so far!  And it was really fun!  Good things are yet to come and I'm super excited.

I also have a new person in my bahay (apartment), named Elder Langi.  He is from Tonga and has been out for 6 months in the field.  He doesn't speak Tagalog very well and the Filipinos can't teach him in a way that he can understand, so I get to!  Haha it's super fun!  I also saw a cock fight and it was sick!  It's even more fun to watch than spider fights!  It's probably illegal in the US though haha. 

 

This is a family in Elder Zesiger's ward.  They sell 1,300 quail eggs a day as their family business!

 

It's been two weeks since my last post

Sorry,  I have not been the best at this "blogging" thing! Here are some excerpts from Cole's last two emails....

Jan 3, 2016

Our New Years was awesome!  We went to sleep at 10:30 to keep the mission rules but then we woke up at 11:40 and went up onto the roof of our apartment.  New Years is so freakin fun here!  It's super loud and everyone just goes crazy haha.  Literally every single house has fireworks going off so the entire sky is full and it is amazing!  It goes straight for like 1 hour!  The language is getting better.  Last week dad emailed me to not say the culture is weird or anything they do and try to see them as Heavenly Father does.  This was perfect timing because there was an emergency transfer this week and I now have another Filipino companion until January 13th! That means it's just me in our house and 4 100% Tagalog filipinos!  I like to think that Heavenly Father is giving me every chance possible to quickly learn the language, so I am trying to take advantage of that.  Rose Ann is really progressing, all we have left is some of lesson five and to get her married!  We didn't get to teach that much in our area this week because we also have to cover my other companions area as well so we switch off every day, which is pretty fun. I like having two areas haha. 

Yesterday in sacrament meeting, my goal for the day was to focus on gratitude and to look for miracles.  It was testimony meeting, I got up and bore mine again and I feel like it was a lot better than last time haha, a lot better Tagalog, I cant believe I've already been in this ward for a month! I love them haha, but anyway, it was testimony meeting, and a visitor got up to bear her testimony, she is from Cebu, but she is here is Makati to get some "papers finalized".  Her Mom, Dad, Sister, and Husband had recently died.  She was maybe 28.  She bore her solemn witness of the Plan of Salvation.  It was one of the most powerful testimonies I have ever heard.  I believe that someone in the ward needed that testimony and that is why he sent her.

My most spiritual experience came in the form of a dream.  The day I had it, I was listening to the talk from last conference called "What lack I yet?"  In it there was a promise that if you ask God what is hindering your progression, he will tell you by the power of the Holy Ghost.  I prayed that night and I asked him to tell me through a dream.  I had faith and this is the dream I received.  I was on my mission as usual and all of the sudden, you guys showed up.  You were in the Philippines for some reason haha so I hung out with you, but when you came, the world kind of changed to be more like home.  We hung out in the back yard, I went on a drive with Shelby, I jumped on the tramp with Coby, dad showed me his new tool box and the progress on the trans am and I got to hear Caden play the piano.  It was an amazing experience.  At the end of the dream, I was sitting alone in my room at home and you came in.  You said that it was time for you guys to go.  I started crying like crazy and told you that there was no way that I could survive the rest of my mission without you guys.  You were crying too and it seemed that you didn't know what to tell me, so instead of answering me, you knelt down right there and began to pray out loud, you prayed that I would receive strength and be able to find joy in my mission and have hope for the future.  When I opened my eyes after the prayer, you were gone and I was back at my desk at the bahay.  I began the plan with Elder Arnejo for the next day, and then I woke up.  I do not know if this answered what lack I yet, but I do know that Heavenly Father loves me.  He knows what I need.  He knows that I was really missing you guys, so he gave me the opportunity to hang out with each one of you in the exact form that I asked for, a dream.  I love this gospel and I am grateful for the chance I have to share it.  I love you guys more than anything:) 

 

Jan 10,2016

 

 My tatay elder arnejo is getting transfered on a special assignment on Wednesday so I get to lead the area for the last half of my training!  Kinda scary cuz I,m not that good at directions right now but I know it'll work out great. 

I did what mom told me to do this week and I counted my blessings and wrote down ten a day.  It was awesome haha this week was fun and went super fast!

I went to the doctor on Tuesday to check on my eye and I guess my eye reacted bad to the eye drops and I have glaucoma now hahaha.  The pressure in an eye is supposed to be 10-19 and mine is 35! So it was killing my optic nerve, don't let mom get scared, it'll be alright, I got new eye drops and I go back tomorrow.

I had a funny experience too haha.  I went to the Boni 3rd ward with Elder Tavita since he doesn't have a companion and as a joke we told everyone there that I was his followup trainer.  In the ward announcements I was surprised when the Bishop said "and now it will be our pleasure to hear the testimony of our new full time missionary for the Boni 3rd ward, Elder Zesiger!"  I got up there, looked out on the crowd of unfamiliar filipinos and said, "Magandang umaga po brothers and sisters.  Ako po si Elder Zesiger.  Acually po, naglilingkod ako sa Boni 6 ngayon.  Dito ako para transfers lang haha" Translate that.  The Bishop looked at me with wide eyes, then I bore the rest of my tesimony.  I don't think some people listened though cuz after the meeting I still got a lot of Welcome to the wards haha.

I got to go into a Ferrari store and see the new 488 gtb! It's one of the sickest cars I've ever seen!

I also found a Rolex store and  they had your sub. 

 

Some pics we got this week....