Hey, It's the Bagoong Taon

Hey squad Happy New Year, have some photos.

1- Best Christmas dinner ever.  Almost beats last year's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the MTC.

2- We found a Baskin Robbins on Christmas

3- Thanks to the family for hooking me up with this cake!!  

4- We went to the Mall of Asia for our P-day

5- The Mall of Asia arena which looks like a ball shaped spaceship crashed into the Earth.

6- Merry Christmas again from the squad

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8- Picture from the Beautiful boardwalk right next to the mall.  It's nice not having to go all the way to California to see the ocean.

9- This movie is huge in the Philippines and I'm dying for the day I get to see it.

10- I'm also dying for the day she notices my existence.

11- I found one of my favorite dessert places from back home here.

12 & 13- I think the Philippines is the only place that your neighbors would wake you up in the middle of the night so that they can give you food on New Years Eve. 

New Years in the Philippines was such a unique experience.  It was fairly quiet up until midnight then it sounded like we were in a war zone hahaha.  Fireworks and drunk people everywhere... Sounds like a good new years to me.  This year is going to be amazing, I can already feel it and so can Master Siomai.

Love you, Happy New Year.

MALIGAYANG PAKSIW!!

It's officially the best day of the whole year.  The year that people from all around the world celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ and his ministry here on Earth.  Yeah, Christmas as a missionary is lonely and sad when you think about your family and all that you're missing out on but while you're sad you start to remember the reason that you chose to serve in the first place and it actually ends up being a very comforting feeling.  Pretty weird that it's already my last Christmas here in the field.  I took tons of pictures this week so be ready for that.

TUESDAY:  We had our zone temple day.  I love this temple and I don't think I'll ever get sick of it.  For those of you who haven't had the chance to go through it yet, do everything in your power to do that as soon as possible.  It will change your life.

FRIDAY: We had our mission Christmas party and it was so dang fun.  Something that really stuck out to me was hearing the whole mission sing "O Come All Ye Faithful".  That song took a whole different meaning as I sat around my fellow missionaries.  We had a missionary talent show and it was one of the highlights of my whole mission.  This is a very talented mission and I feel so out of place hahaha. 

Saturday: I received my Christmas gift for this year.  The one directly to the right of me is Sister Jessica whom I mentioned in some of my past emails.  One day she approached us and informed us that after 4 weeks her older sister was finally okay with her getting baptized.  She's such a tender mercy from the Lord and we'll make sure that the transition from us to the ward goes smoothly.  After the baptism we had originally planned to spend the day at Mall of Asia and to see the lights down there but something came up within the mission so we ended up bowling instead.  Still just as fun and I learned I still have my sick bowling skills.  We ended the night at President Notarte's house for a family home evening.  

Sunday:  We had Christmas eve at our chapel which was only sacrament meeting.  Sister Dulay's mom is from Utah and has met my parents some time in the past hahaha!  Such a small world it's crazy.  The Giffords (Our Senior couple in the office) invited us over to have dinner with them for Christmas Eve.  They did such and amazing job of making us feel at home and Sister Gifford is so good at cooking.

I love my mission and the people in my mission.  Having the chance to represent Jesus Christ and share messages about His gospel is a privilege and even though it's really hard to be away from all of you back home there is no other place that I would rather be at this time.  I testify that Jesus Christ lives and that He loves each and every one of us.  I love you all so much, be sure to spend time with those who mean the most to you and to always remember the reason for the season.  Maligayang Pasko!!! 

-Elder Burdeos

Paskto na naman? O Kay Tulin ng Araw!

I'm having a blast here.  I love the Christmas season and being a missionary during the holidays is such a privilege.  We literally go around talking about Jesus Christ to those already celebrating His birth.  Really the only negative part about this week was seeing one of my best friends in the mission go home.  Good ol' Elder McCauley.   

We picked the assistants up from the airport after their flight from Palawan and we thought we'd give Elder McCauley a little bit of preparation before the real deal. 

Here's the man himself.  He was one of the very first missionaries that I interacted with when I hit the field.  He's taught me a lot and I'll miss him tons.   (Also notice the beautiful December clouds rolling in so it's not blazing hot during Christmas time!)

I'm a Certifide Master Teacher.  Only God can judge me.

Some students from Dela Salle (Basically the richest school in the whole Philippines) came to the office to learn more about the church for a project.  They were incredibly friendly and impressed when I told them I had been studying English for the last 18 years.  WOW

Bunch of goofs in the office

NEXT EMAIL WILL BE CHRISTMAS DAY... IN THE PHILIPPINES.  MALIGAYANG PASKO.  MAHAL NA MAHAL KO KAYONG LAHAT.  

The Week my Brain Took a Vacation / Light the World week 2

I did a lot of unintentional stupid stuff this week which actually led to this week being hilarious and amazing.  

I hope everybody is having a fantastic holiday season!  As a missionary, you really start to love the Christmas season even more because you begin to realize how cool it is that people all over the world are coming together to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the greatest gift that this world has every received.  We've been running back and forth, trying to prepare for this upcoming mission tour so not much has happened there but here's a list of those unintentional stupid things that I did this week just so you can all make fun of me:

- We were in a parking garage at a mall to buy ties for the mission and we had to make a sharp right turn.  Elder Fiesta asked me to check if our wheels were going to hit the curb so I intended to stick my head out the window to check but I forgot to roll down the window so I ended up just banging my head on the glass while the other 4 laughed at me.

- We were at a restaurant and my food was steaming hot so right as I was about to blow on it, Elder Reber started talking to me and not thinking, I turned to him and started blowing on his face.

- I was standing up from my desk and the box that holds all of the computer equipment was left open so I hit my head on that. That one was a less forgiving mistake haha...

- I was poking my head into President's office to tell him something and the door hit a sudden stop in the floor so I hit my head on the door.  President was dying.

Unfortunately there are a lot more...  ANYWAYS.

Here are my pictures for this week:

We had a sweet Christmas party in our ward.  It was so dang fun and we got to perform a song that I made out of 3 Tagalog Christmas songs that we used to sing for caroling before I left!  I'll send the video hopefully next week.

​My awesome companion Elder Cram plays the piano for the Christmas choir so while they practiced I just sat there and gave them a thumbs up or thumbs down on how they sounded :))​

Mury krismis from SM Makati.

ALSO CHRISTMAS IS COMING EARLY FOR ME THIS YEAR BECAUSE OUR INVESTIGATOR WAS FINALLY ALLOWED TO GET BAPTIZED BY HER OLDER SISTER!  December 23rd is going to be a great day.  

I believe in miracles.  The church is true.  Be sure to roll down your windows before you stick your head through them.  Love you

Elder Burdeos

Happy Light The World / Silver Rush

This week was just insane.  I didn't get to bed at 10:30 any night this week because we have been so booked with transfers.  I'll just give the rundown of a couple of days we had this week.

Tuesday:  We headed to the area office which is right by the temple in to pick up our rental car.  After we took the car back we helped departing missionaries weigh their luggage and get ready for their flights home.  One of those missionaries included one of my companions, Elder Webster.  He's the one who was in the office for 17 months of his mission and an incredible missionary.  After all was done, the hotel that we normally leave our missionaries at had no rooms available so we went to a hotel all the way in the Quezon City mission to drop them all off.  During the car ride I started to play funeral music like bag pipes and stuff which Elder Webster enjoyed immensely.  I Had to say goodbye to some outstanding missionaries then Elder Cram, my other companion, and I headed home.  It was quite the drive and we got home at 12:30 am.  

Wednesday:  We woke up early to go pick up the new missionaries from the MTC.  A good like 90% of them are Polynesian which I have no problem with because they are super good at singing and hard workers.  We ran back and forth from the office and the mission home running errands for President and our office couple.  At the end of the night there were tons of Elders and Sisters who were unable to find taxis so we had to take them home and that may have been the worst decision I've ever made.  We left at around 6:30 pm and it took us 5 hours to drop off 3 sets of missionaries.  My buns were so sore after that I couldn't walk.  Those poor pan de sals.

We've still been paying for the harsh side effects of transfer day.  Who knew it would be so hard to have missionaries get from point A to point B.  

It was one of the most frustrating weeks of my whole life but I'm so grateful to have help coming from those around me and of course our loving Heavenly Father.  This whole week has been full of small tender mercies and blessings that I have seen even though sometimes I feel I do not deserve the help or support.  I'd like to testify that Heavenly Father never forgets about His children and that He wants to see us succeed in life sees the potential in each and every one of us.  Because of this, we need to struggle and go through hard times in order to become the people that He knows we can be and reach our full potential.  I'm grateful to be a missionary and it's such an honor to be a part of this marvelous work.

“But the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning; wherefore, he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of men; for behold, he hath all power unto the fulfilling of all his words. And thus it is. Amen.”  - 1 Nephi 9:6

One of our Elders in the mission got an infection in his eye this week.  He's hilarious and goes around calling himself Cyborg.

This picture is from the hotel we dropped all of the departing missionaries off at. ​

I got to see the beloved Robles family from Makati 2nd at our Stake Conference. 

I AM SO DANG THANKFUL

Hey all you party people I hope you had an amazing thanksgiving and spent time with all of your loved ones and ate lots of food and watched the annual dog show after the parade!  Even though I didn't get the opportunity to do those things, I really want to express my gratitude for this opportunity that I have to serve and help others learn how important it is to show our gratitude to everything that God gives us every single day.

As far as how my week went, it's been really busy this week in the office with preparing for transfers and missionary interviews...

Here is a picture of the family home evening we had at the Matias family residence.  Notice Sister Andrada's face on the far right.  She's crazy.

Have a good week love y'all.  Sorry my email was so short, not too much happened that i'd like to fill all of you in on.

(ALSO I'd like to congratulate my my cousins Jordan and Alex for having their new baby boy Mac this week!  Can't wait to meet him one day) 

--

ELDE

​​

R BURDEOS

"

​ I'd like to bury my testimony​ 

"

2016 - 2018

PHILIPPINES MANILA MISSION

Sara Got Baptized

Can't remember much from what happened this week but I just remember it being a blast and a half.  I'll just explain what happened through pictures.  :)

One of the investigators in our area, Sara, had her baptism on Saturday.  Since there are a lot of people in this picture and you might not be able to tell which one Sara is I drew this visual help in the picture below.  

Sara is amazing and it's been such an incredible experience to see her willingness to follow Jesus Christ and the light in her eyes after her baptism.  She is going to be such a great addition to this ward and they already love her. That's her in the yellow behind me.  She's awesome.

I met the Walmart versions of the Justice League while walking to the area one day.

We celebrated my gwapo companion's un-birthday today.  He won't be here for his actual birthday so we celebrated it ahead of time. 

This week was so much fun and our area is really starting to pick up.  That's all I have to say for this week.  Love you.

Elder Burdeos

PICTURES FROM CORON

1. We pulled the car over because there was a nice view of the ocean.

2. Squad

3. Elder McCauley and I next to Coron's baptismal font

4. Squad pt. 2

5. This is what yards look like

6. When flying into Coron we saw this cool whale shaped island

7. Some of our investigators from the night who ended up attending church the next day 

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