Friday, December 31, 2004

Today is the last day of 2004. Tomorrow I’ll start my full year on a mission. For the whole year of 2005 I’ll be totally focused on the work of the Lord here in the Philippines. I’m now here in the San Jose apartment with all the other Elders from the island. We all had to be inside at 2:00 because of the excessive interest of the Filipinos in fireworks. There are already tons of explosions even though it’s not even close to midnight. We had another big party that Bro D’Elmer did for us. We had real hamburgers and also real ice cream. It was good but I honestly would rather have had something at least somewhat healthy.

Elder Cox and I playing our conch shells

The front of the meeting house in Calintaan

My feelings are somewhat close to the surface today because of the holiday and being away from home. I’m realizing more and more now much I love them. Friends are all good and fun but family is so much more important I’m also thinking a lot about becoming a senior companion. I’ve never been so intimidated by an assignment as I am by this one. I’m not sure that I’m ready for this. I’m such a weak person and I’m really being humbled. I have often struggled with doing things for the right reasons. Before when I contemplated this I always thought that it’d be fun to become senior only because I’d be first in my batch but I already hate batch who are training and who are district leaders so I guess you could say that I’ve been put in my place. I’m going to make my new year’s resolution to become more humble and also to become a better friend to people especially my companions. This has been a really good year for me. I’ve really learned a lot and drawn closer to my Lord Jesus Christ. I still am a very proud person though and I still need to work on that. I really love the Lord and I’m glad to be serving him here. I really hope that I can improve myself this year.