Holy Cow!!!!

Well the inevitable happened this week. i thought i was going to be an exception! oh boy was i wrong. i got the "mimis" this week and they struck like a freight train. "hope you laugh at that" oh man i dont think i have ever been this sick in my entire life! it started up saturday morning and i can't remember the last time i have been this sick haha it was rough. i have been just gettting some rest and trying to get better. i tried to go as long as i could on sunday but couldn't quite make it through the day. i hate not being able to work it really bothers me but the mimis got the best of me this time. i managed to make it here to the computer shop to write you guys a email but im really not feeling good i have the flu or something really gnarly haha. oh well i'll be fine. no worries. im thinking it was from the "isaw" my companion made me eat hahaha. isaw is chicken intestine!!! yummy! haha no it was disgusting and tasted like straight blood. that may be why im so sick but who knows haha. this week was a good week. i felt some improvement on my tagalog. i was able to understand a little bit more which i knew was completly from the Lord cause it was pretty neat. i was able to teach a little bit more. we went on exchanges this week! my first real exchange and i was kind of nervous but i was with Elder Demis he's from Canada, hes from ottowa. haha i can't spell. but he's a stud and helped me with my tagalog. so we went to his area in la trinidad. its a way cool area. so we went around and started teaching and he would just be like ok elder machen your giving the scripture and the thought. and i was way nervous but he helped me and it ended up being better then i thought. he said my accent was pretty good and that i have good sentence stucture and i just need to work on vocab and congigations. so that made me feel good and on the exchanges we ended up giving 3 priesthood blessings! i was surprised when one of the guys asked me to give him one because we were on exchanges and he didnt know me but i just had to put trust in the spirit that i would know what to say and boy did the spirit help me out a ton! it was a neat experiance. the mission is amazing. its the hardest thing i have ever done and i have had to learn patience like never before. and you guys knew me before i wasn't the most patient person hahaha. oh one thing i wanted to share with you is for personal study i was studing moroni 7. i came across what i thought was one of the coolest things. after reading it i came up with my reciepe for recieving the lords blessings and for me learning this language.1. Having Faith that Jesus is the Christ and our Savior. 2. having Hope that he can do whatsoever thing is expediant of Him. 3.Being meek and lowly of heart or humble. 4. Having Charity the pure love of Christ, thats one ive really been striving for, and 5. Obediance. read verses 33-48 and you'll be able to see more of what i'm talking about but i thought it was cool and wanted to share that with you. but then we had a teaching appointment with elder demis and we thought it was going to be just like 2 people but it ended up being like 8 people! haha oh man i was super nervous but we had a rm there to help us and it was good we taught the restoration and i was just trying to understand what they were saying but the natives speak so fast haha. anyways the rm was teaching this one part and elder demis leaned over to me and said ok you got prophets. i just looked at him like are you serious! haha. he just smiled and said you got this. well i did my best and managed to get a few sentences out and he filled in but it was pretty cool. just trying to improve everyday. the lord really helps us alot out here. it was good though! it was a great week besides me getting sick but all is well. haha i have to say the girls here i kind of ridiculous sometimes, i cant go anywhere with out people yelling out guapo. which means handsome. haha i have had people tell me to take them back to the US. haha its pretty ridiculous sometimes. haha when we were teaching that group of like 8 with elder demis they were mostly girls around the age of 20-23 and they asked if i had a girlfriend and i had to just lie and said "yep sure do, shes waiting for me" i figured telling a little white lie would be better then.... well who knows haha. but yeah something kind of funny for yeah. haha sorry this email is kind of all over the place im just trying to write fast! but it was a good week. yesturday was kind of frusturating cause we still couldn't get our investigators to come to church except the koreans. they still all want to be baptized which is good but turns out they might be a special case baptizm so we have to talk to president about that. oh well as long as they get baptized sometime thats all that matters. well i hope everything is going well for you guys sounds like your doing great! hopefully winter turns out to be a good one! im going to miss not having a white christmas haha. but everybody says christmas in baguio is pretty cool so im excited about that. oh yead dad i tried my card and it worked i dont know if the bank is going to be shutting it down soon cause they will see its been used in the philippines but if so just tell them the situation and it will be fine. oh kim asked about the food, well the food is pretty good just lots of rice and meat. the meats a little different but i like it. haha i like being in baguio cause theres lots of mcdonalds and kfc haha so we eat there alot. but i have already lost a lot of weight especially from being sick. haha today i put my slacks on and was like holy cow what happened. the waste was way loose haha. oh well. i've been working out everyday so ill get that six pack back haha. oh yeah christmas package mom. just send american candy ive been really craving it lately and oh if there is a extra ipod laying around like karters gray one or his touch you could send that to me because i pods here are ridicoulous expensive so maybe do that if possible and i would apprecitae it thanks a ton for everthing glad things are going well for you! Mahal kita Elder Machen