Elder Steve Brousseau in Laoag, Philippines

Who heard the news? Probably all of you by now but I am super excited to be able to talk to my family every week. This week was a weird change but a welcome one to be able to call my family! The time difference is crazy though. Being 15 hours ahead is a little rough on my family but we'll figure out the best way to do it. Obviously, I had exchanges this week but I'll get to that in a minute. Congrats on your mission call Anna Low! New Zealand is going to get a great missionary! Rachel, I'm very glad your papers are in and I can't wait to hear where you are going! For those of you who have things I should be congratulating you about, Congrats! I would love to hear about all the great things going on! Also, shout out to my little sister for being a solo star! You're doing great! Be prepared for a lot of pictures this week. We spent a few days in San Nicolas this week because that is where the hospital/doctor's office is for Elder Tuiaki's ear infection. ...

It's also kind of hard to sum up this last week. So instead all just get into it.  I feel like not many notable things happened this week. We had FHE for one of our investigator's birthday(her mom is a member) and we talked to her brother who is a teacher at a catholic school and we had a good conversation about the gospel and we asked if we could meet with him again sometime to just talk about religion for a while and he seemed super excited about it because he has some questions that he thinks we can answer. That was pretty cool. On Sunday, Elder Tuiaki and I were the back ups if the speakers didn't show up(of course) but they ended up coming in time so that was a relief but I felt like I had a good talk figured out based on this weeks Come Follow Me chapters. Jesus really does know what you are going through and all you have to do to see that is act on His words "Follow me." Something from the booklet really stuck out to me. It was the question would you ...

The members feed us so much and I love it so much! We got fed almost everyday this week. I finally found out that Sis. Barbie and Bro. Gerald consider me a son so that was a huge bright spot in my week! Elder Kartchner worked some more magic in our bathroom when we had a leak so that was nice. So we got our funds for this next month this week and Elder Tuiaki had a bunch of trouble. The ATM we were using zeroed out his account without giving us any money so we tried another ATM and he still had zero but I was able to withdraw. Elder Dankers(one of our office elders) Was able to figure it out with the bank and everything so he was able to withdraw today so that was nice. We played good basketball with some non-members the other day and it was super fun! The sisters had another baptism this week and Elder Tuiaki baptized him. The Spirit was really strong in the meeting. Then, at church, I was asked to confirm him. One of the other men in the ward ended up doing it which was kind of a ...

Thanks for all the toilet paper but we got a bidet this last week so I'm good! What a way to start a email, am I right? Oh, thanks Mom for the pants. They help a lot this last week as I'm sure you can see by the pictures and the subject line. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's jump in shall we? Monday: We went to Laoag and did normal p-day stuff there. We tried McDonald's here in the Philippines and eh. It's pretty good. Way over priced so don't expect me to go there much. Tuesday: I taught district meeting. Want to know something fun? The senior couple came to our meeting. It was good though. I of course used videos to help get my point across. The Kartchners then came to inspect/fix our apartments. The completely changed our bathroom by making our toilet, shower, and sink all work in there and of course adding a bidet. Super awesome highlight of the day! Wednesday: Not much except me being super happy I don't have to shower with a buc...

Sorry for any confusion last week with me saying I didn't take many pictures. I didn't for the entire week until p-day where I took a lot of pictures. Shout out to all my friends getting mission calls even though I don't hear about them until weeks later when other missionaries email about it. I'm not bitter at all. Big congrats to Sam Alger for being called to the San Pablo mission in the best country to be called to. For those who can't guess where that is, Philippines. Duh. Keep me updated on cool things going on in life. Great to see Anna Low and Jonathan Avila in a Mormon Message! It's called "Compelling Witness" for those that want to check it out. Keep me posted! Monday: We went to the lighthouse and windmills as seen in the last week's email with the Bangui and Pagudpud sisters. It was a lot of fun.  Tuesday: We didn't do tons of interesting things today. Just ran into a member at 7/11. Wednesday: So a cool thing that happ...

Happy New Year again! I hope you all are loving the new year as much as I am! One of the things I am enjoying so far is the new Come Follow Me curriculum. I can already see that it is so needed and will be so awesome for all who truly seek. I haven't taken many pictures and I won't be saying tons in this email because it was a full week of not much but it was still a good week! Monday: We played football with all 3 zones that are centered in Laoag City and I was quarterback for my team. Syempre my team won even though I was on the opposite team of my companion. For those who don't know, I can throw pretty well. We went shopping and had dinner with Sister Barbie. We obviously partied and watch all the fireworks go off then went to bed. I'll let you decide if I was obedient or if I had fun.  Tuesday: Of course I had fun. We went to bed today. We did go out and try to talk to people but most of them were either asleep or not there so we ended up walking around fo...

Monday: We tried Jollibee. It was pretty good. Not my favorite but okay. We also ate cookies at the mission home. We had dinner with sister Barbie and her family and we laughed so much. We went caroling with some RM's and gave out Ang Anklat Ni Mormon to the people we sang to. We are going to try to come back and talk to those people later.  Tuesday: It didn't really feel like Christmas in the morning and I'm sure you can guess why. NO SNOW! I opened my presents and I thank those of you that sent them even though I carried them all the way to the Philippines. They were much appreciated and will be used. The day got better once we went to the branch Christmas party. It was a blast and I sang a duet with Sister Gibbon and a solo. We had 2 lunches and 2 dinners and I was stuffed after the first lunch so I just continued to stuff the food in and I was super stuffed after the second lunch. The second dinner was one that I ate a lot in even though I was full because it was j...

After many trials and errors, I think I am just going to do drive attachments from now on because that is way easier to deal with. Dota 2 is a really big thing here and I don't really know why. I'm sure Chris would enjoy it here. It's been a while since my last email and a lot has happened. It is beautiful here in the Philippines! I love it here! Saturday: This was my last p-day and I went to the temple with my district which was a cool experience to go in a different country. The mangoes here are awesome and I got one because you know, they're awesome! We had a Christmas devotional talking about the Light the World campaign and a choir came and preformed.  Sunday: Sundays in the MTC's are interesting to say the least. We had sacrament meeting with the entire MTC and then went to our other meetings. We took some pictures at the temple and then watched the movie, Mountain of the Lord. Brother Ashton came and spoke to us as well. Monday: We had a devotiona...

Dear Brother and Sister Brousseau- It is with great pleasure that we inform you that Elder Brousseau has arrived here in the Philippines Laoag Mission!  He spent a few hours at the mission home and then was off with his new companion, Elder Tuiaki, to their area in Pasuquin.  We are confident that he is going to be a great missionary and love the Philippines as we do!  Thank you for raising a son who is ready to serve the Lord! With love and appreciation, President and Sister Peterson (Here is Steve's last email from the MTC) What a crazy few days! We flew for 2 days! That was pretty fun. If the pictures don't come in very well I'm blaming it on the fact that I can't go into drive here. It will be fine though.  Friday: We did laundry and went to class. We did a  Skype   TRC  and the lady we were talking to was so awesome. She said that we would be great missionaries and that we knew the language really well even though ...

That's a weird thought, huh? Well, for those who don't know, I will be flying to the Philippines on Monday to spend a week in the Manila MTC. It is so exciting but a little intimidating. I'm on my way to a foreign country to speak a language that I don't know yet but I know the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that He will help me to spread His word. So to explain the subject, I'm leaving on Monday and I am getting to the Philippines on Wednesday. They are 15 hours ahead of me in Utah. I know that in the uncertainty of the world, there is peace in Christ. Thanks for all you who have helped to make my stay in the Provo MTC so great! Friday: We woke up at 4 in the morning to get our laundry done early and so we could get computers to email. The people with their P-Day on Thursday had their P-Day moved to Friday so they didn't have it on Thanksgiving so the laundry room was getting really busy by the time we left after we had finished our laundry and emailing. I wa...

What a week! We had all sorts of spiritual experiences. Just remember that you can all email me at  stephen . brousseau @ myldsmail . net I would love your emails! Friday: We emailed and did laundry for a lot of the day. We did baptisms because Elder Jones had some family names that he wanted to do so that was fun to do again. I got a few packages today! They were from the  Arkells (My neighbors) and the  Centenos (Sister  Centeno's  parents) so thanks to them! Saturday: We taught 2 lessons and we both felt good about how the lessons went and if we taught by the spirit which we did. We couldn't place a feeling we both had. It felt like we were forgetting something but we couldn't place what it was. We had another one of those Saturday talks that seem to keep happening. This one was what made us go on our missions. It was a really eye opening talk because we all had different stories but the one thing that was a constant was the Atonement. We all decide...