Ghetto fireworks

Hey Fam,

Happy New Years! It was super fun being here in the Philippines for New Years haha. Their fireworks here are soooo ghetto. It is like they are just launching bombs in the air! There is very little light, but they are super loud! It was impossible to sleep that night until like 1. We just stayed up listening to the chaos outside and having a good time telling funny stories and stuff with our Kabahay.

This week we had a lot of good lessons actually. We found quite a few potential investigators that we are hoping will progress. Yesterday at church was awesome:) We had 7 investigators come to church and it was the first time ever for 5 of them. It was awesome to see some new investigators come to church:) 

On Thursday we were walking to an appointment and a little kid came cruising passed us on his bike and yelled "Hey Joe" at me, pretty classic haha. But when he tried to ride away as fast as he could and his pedal on his bike fell right off! He has to swing back around and pick it up and was super embarrassed haha.

Elder Wood's knee got really infected this week and kept saying how he's going to lose his leg and just have a stub haha. They couldn't work these last couple of days because he can't walk super well. On Saturday night Elder Chambers asked me to guess how many lessons they taught, and was acting like it was a lot bc I didn't know they had to stay home that day. He's like I'll give you a hint, you wouldn't be able to count it on two hands. I guessed 11 lol but it was just 0. I was like "dang you can't use two hands to count that high but you can count that high with Elder Woods right leg next month." Haha he thought that was pretty funny. 

I have been studying the new Come Follow Me curriculum for personal study these last couple days. It is so good! There are so many good scriptures in the New Testament. I never have really read it before so it has been fun to see how Christ taught people, and how he really was the perfect example. I hope you all use that book when u study at home for Sundays because it really is so good!

I set a lot of goals for this 2019 this week. I'm excited for a full year of missionary work! It is weird to think about where I might be, or how much better I will be at Tagalog in a year! I am excited to work hard and grow a lot! I know this will be one of the most impactful years of my life:)

Love you guys!

           -Elder Reber

No pics from Graden today but in our email he had to throw out some of his usual teasing. He said he was sure that I missed his daily "banter."  He quickly laughed at himself for saying the word "banter." Then he mentioned that he wasn't sure how we were getting along not only without his banter but without all of his friends. Boy was he right. Graden could not be more blessed in the friend department and I will have to say it is hard enough missing my own kid. When you add on missing the interaction with this fun crew all the time, it just made me need a walk down memory lane. So grateful for the friendships we get to enjoy with all of these great boys and their families. We are super lucky to have one another and I am grateful to feel their love and support on a daily basis.