Yeah we teach people, there is a guy named jerry and his son jerry boy, hes 11. jerry is a lass active and jerry boy is an investigator, jerry is a rice farmer. they are good people. jerry boy wants to go to church but his dad never goes so its very hard to get him baptized if he never goes to church. and another investigator is a 14 yo girl named mariel and shes nice and she reads bom and prays and she wants to get baptized but she doesn't want to go to church.. haha so if they dont go to church they cant get baptized. that's like the hardest thing is getting ppl to go to church. one sad thing is we where told by our bishop to stop teaching and visiting a family because the mom is depressed and supposedly bipolar. me and elder tuifelasai had been visiting them 2 or 3 times a week for the past month and they are soo nice, they where my favorite family, we know the mom has problems but i know that we could help her, now we were told to "avoid her at all cost" because the bishop thinks she is dangerous and not progressing. it sucks it made me soo sad because they will wonder why we stopped visiting them, i feel like im letting them down and she might get more depressed, also my new companion doesn't know the family except for what bishop told him so he doesn't want to visit either. every time we walk by their house i feel sad:( but i like my new companion hes a nice guy and he is way harder working than elder tui. and he speaks ok English so i understand him.and that's way weird Ruth is getting married, haha. and i didnt know kylee had a boyfriend haha.

also last night our neighbors baby got kidnapped, it was horrible, it was a guy that liked the mom, she is like 23 or so, and he was drunk and on drugs and he broke in their home and the mom and him were fighting and then we heard lots of screaming and then they man took the baby and ran and we came outside to see what was going on and the mom was just screaming and crying and it was the saddest thing ever. it took the police an hr to get there, while waiting we all went looking for the man and baby, hoping not to find him in one of the streams. then there wasn't anything else we could do so we went back inside, then like another hr later the baby was found alive in a poultry farm but the couldn't find the man. so the baby stayed with their relatives and the wanted to stay in our apartment but its not aloud so we couldn't and they were so scared because they didnt want him to come back. so we helped them lock their house with bamboo poles and stuff. then gave them our number to call us if the needed anything, but everything was ok and they are all fine now. but the bad guy is still out there.:( it was nice to help them out, they thought of us as their body guards haha,

but its sad how slowly the police responded, in that much time the man could have been so much farther away they are lucky they found the kid. anyway

here some pics, love you guys

 I really liked the trader joes cookies, you should send lots more haha. there are 4 of us in apartment, and yes we teach people, there are like 3 main ppl we are working on getting baptized but none of them came to church this Sunday so we will have to ask them why. before someone gets baptized in the Philippines they have to come to church 4 times in a row, if they miss a week we start over. so i dont thing the will be baptized this month. we also teach a lot of less or inactive members. there are a lot of them.  we gave a sick baby a blessing on Saturday so that was good, hes doing well we visited him today in hospital, he has pneumonia:(

love you guys

GRATEFUL...

We said good-bye to 21 missionaries.  What a tender mercy it is to be able to say hello to 22 more! We also had four short-term (six week) missionaries join us for a transfer.  

It is an inspirational experience to see how the hand of the Lord guides the "trainers" that are called and paired with each "trainee."  

The meeting when the trainees and trainers are introduced is one of energy and anticipation.  Everyone is quiet.  The trainers on one side of the chapel the trainees on the other.  The elders and sisters anxiously sneak peaks over to the other side wondering which missionary will be their companion. When the great "reveal" is made by the Assistant it's a beautiful thing.   Eyes meet eyes, spirit touches spirit a warm handshake or a gentle hug are exchanged.  Then the Holy Spirit helps them feel an immediate unity and bond.  It's a wonderful thing to be part of.

   Above is from Coles Mission President about Trainer selection. 

1st pic newest missionaries in the ANGELES MISSION !  And Cole and his trainer from Samoa!

Cole sent a very short letter stating that there was not a lot of damage from the Typhoon in his area, just loss of power.  Sent several pics including Rats as big as cats, cute goats and he catches frogs and eats them... yum.

Coles First letter from his first area!!

Hey My first area is called padapada, its really cool, its mostly rice fields and farmers and everyone is sooo nice even though i cant understand them and they cant understand me its still very cool.my companions name is elder tuifalasai, he is from somoa, hes way cool. he is prety much fluent in Tagalog so he has helped me allot, this area is very pretty. it is flat but that's ok. i guess this is a slower area because people are much more spread out than in the city, my apartment is pretty nice. we have airconn and a heated shower so that it great. we watched general conf yesterday, it was real good. It seemed like Elder Christofferson was talking about me cus he told a story about a youth in his ward and how he couldn't ski on Sundays or somthing? haha ya i donno thats pretty much all, heres some pics, and you dont need to send a cord because the card reader you sent has a cord attached that works so its all good.

love you guys 

Elder Arnold has left the MTC!!

Hello all!

 Elder Arnold has finally left the MTC!  We hope to hear from him soon!   He can now speak simple TAGALOG and is excited to get out into the field to learn more .
  He has not adjusted very well to the heat and humidity.  He said it is hard to talk to people because he feels like " They are just staring at my sweaty face."
  Cole is overwhelmed by the amount of poverty he has seen.   He has had scary experiences in "Squatter areas" caves and tunnels.   He thinks it's "way Cool" that he was almost  killed. I guess squatters were yelling things at him that he could not understand, but his Filipino companion could understand and told him to keep walking and don't  look at them.  I will post future letters from him.
  Some of the photos he has sent are of snails as big as his palm.  A super cool cemetery, new friends and some of the beautiful country.