Sunday, April 5, 2015

Happy April 6th :)

Hey guys! 

So besides it being April 6th today which is just a good day in general. Today is the 185th anniversary of Christ's church Restored and organized again on the Earth. How amazing is that? And not only that, today is the day that is accepted through revelation in this dispensation as our Lord and Savior's birthday. April 6th is a very, very, very amazing date in time and history for the entire history of the universe. Some of the most important occurrences in all of history happened on this date. How amazing is April 6? :)

This week was a pretty good week here in Ilocos Sur. It was Holy Week here in the Philippines and I have some very, very crazy stories about Holy Week here. Unfortunately, some of them aren't all good, there were people crucified, I had an encounter with someone using black magic on me in downtown Vigan to try and steal my money. It was just very very bad at times. The black magic experience was very abnormal. Elder Gamboa and I were walking through downtown Vigan to try to get back to our apartment and it was Wednesday night when everyone was celebrating Holy Week. And Holy Week is very big in the Philippines, especially in Vigan with all of the Catholic churches and landmarks here. So we were walking back and there was a parade outside of one of the old classic Cathedrals here when we saw a beggar. Elder Angolluan told me if you ever see a beggar (especially in Manila) to never look in their eyes because they use hypnotism to try and take all of your money. So when I saw him I immediately felt to not look into his eyes. So we walked by him and immediately he just started following us. Then we stop and he stands right next to me with his hand stretched out to get money. Then I was just tempted to look into his eyes. Biggest mistake of my life. This guys eyes were completely black, they had absolutely no white in them and I felt just a dark presence come over me and I had to tell myself to look away. When I finally looked away he did everything he could to get back into my eye sight so that's the time Elder Gamboa and I just decided to hurry back to our apartment. Next thing you know he's following us back to our apartment when we see a police officer leaning up on a tricycle and told him that someone was following us. Then he tries to grab him and this guy just bolts down the road faster than I've seen anyone run before in my life. So that's what Holy Week was like here haha. Pretty crazy stuff.

The typhoon, thankfully, never hit us this week, It dispersed over the Pacific at the very last second and we didn't even get a single drop of rain. Only a little wind is all. The prayers really did help this week :) I'm so happy it didn't hit the Philippines. It would have been devastating if it would have came here.

Elder Gamboa and I are still working hard but it's been different to have him as my companion. I feel like he lies a lot to me and it causes a really big disturbance in the apartment as well with the other companionship. So we sat down and had a talk for about 2 hours today and it really really helped himself and myself as well. Basically I just told him that he needs to grow up and stop looking to judge other people. I found in my own life that as I have cast out the beam out of mine own eye first then I can see clearly how I need to change myself. I'm trying my best to help him and we are a companionship so I will always be there for him and support him and trust him. But it's hard sometimes, but as I pray for charity for him then I'm able to love him even more despite the difficulties and tough circumstances. 

Vigan is a very, very good area. I love it so much here :) It's A LOT different than Laoag though. There's no members who live in our area so we don't develop the close relationships with the members like what we were able to do in Laoag. That's what i miss most, just the members there. They were the best and they made Laoag a great place to serve. If it wasnt for them, Laoag would have been the hardest 4 1/2 months of my life. But because of them, it was the best 4 1/2 months of my life. I'm so grateful for the members there :)

Everything else is going great though! Just working hard and getting ready for General Conference this next week for us here. I'll be starting to study Ilokano this upcoming week to try to be fluent in that as well, then after that I'll study Cebuano, then if i have time maybe even a little Spanish towards the end of my mission. I figured what a better time to learn new languages than when you're on your mission haha. It's fun but it's hard work still. It takes a lot of faith, hard work, determination, and takes a lot of courage to not be afraid of making mistakes and learning from those mistakes. But it's all fun stuff, and it all makes me rely more fully on Christ for His help while learning these languages. :)

That's about it for me this week! :) I hope you all have a great week this week! :) Love you all!:) I'll talk to you all soon :)

Love,

Elder Oslund

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