It’s super hot

Monday night we went to a funeral for a less active member, Elder Lozano cried but I didn’t really know him so I wasn’t too sad. It’s so hot here I started sweating during our nightly planning. Generally at night any part of my body that doesn’t have the fan blowing on it sweats. I certainly will not miss the heat when I leave

Tuesday was cool, we visited a less active who married a guy from Louisiana, and he’s super white. But he's in the navy so I didn’t get to see him. But they are so rich!  It was almost a culture shock just to come from rice fields and dirt floors to here, but this was like being at home. It was... weird. 

Friday I worked with Elder Owen, he's a new elder from Alpine Utah and he has only been here about two months. it was fun, I just taught some lessons by myself because he couldn’t talk to anyone. Then I made him eat balut, he didn’t really enjoy it.  Nothing else worth mentioning happened this week. Just some more missionary work

Also I sent a few pictures but I don’t dare send anymore. Twice now since I’ve started emailing my computer has shut down and erased all my work. I don’t know what happened but I don’t want anything to get ruined so I just sent a few on the server

The work here is awesome, way better than San Clemente. But I hope I get transferred, because we have one member who works with us a lot and he’s awesome, but the week of transfers he is leaving on his mission. We get fed so much here. I only cooked breakfast at home this whole week. And with Filipinos, if you just ask to come over and eat they are totally okay with it. If a missionary in America said "hey can we come over for dinner?" I’d be a little reluctant to say yes.

It’s super hot. I hate it. This morning I was standing in the shower and my forehead was sweating. It’s supposed to be cooler in a few weeks, but we'll see.  I think what will happen is me and E Lozano will stay together for another transfer, which I wouldn’t mind at all.  I don’t know if it’s the teaching that makes me a better person or just everything that a missionary does the entire day that helps me. We read scriptures every day for an hour in the morning and then share them with everyone the rest of the day. I think it’s the scriptures not the teaching that changes people.

 well my time is up, I'll talk to you next week. I love you!

Time goes fast

  Are you settling into your new area?  Tell us about some of your investigators.  Do you ear better now that you are in a nicer area? Do any members feed you? Do you have a flushing toilet? Are you getting letters yet?  We are feeling really bad that you have not gotten them.  How many lessons did you teach this week?  Who is your favorite investigator?

This new area is so awesome. People here are so rich, I can’t believe it! Every one of our investigators has electricity in their house, and I have only been to one house with a dirt floor. But I love the work here and my companion and I get along great. But I don’t know how much longerIi can take this heat. It’s supposed to be 38C  and over 80% humidity this next week. even the Filipinos are having hard time with it. 

We taught 42 lessons this week.  We don’t have a flushing toilet, but the zone leaders do! I do like this apartment better, it was hard at first to get adjusted because its way different than San Clemente but I like it.  My favorite investigator is a part member family the Family, an old grandma and her daughter are members and we are teaching these two kids, 12 and 14.

 Tuesday we had interviews with the mission president, he came and visited us in Cabanatuan it was really fun. He and I talked about Cabanatuan and I told him how much I like it. He also mentioned how fast my mission would go, and he was right. I can’t believe how fast the time goes here.   Sorry I didn’t have much to say today, I’m just doing a bunch of stuff and finishing some paperwork before my 2 hours is up. I put up some pictures on the server, but I don’t know how many

I love you!

Elder Williams

(1 year and 11.5 weeks)

At home here

This week was great! I feel so.... at home here. I told you my last area was rice fields and dirt floors and homes without electricity. After a few months I loved it. Here they have 2 malls, and cars everywhere. Yesterday we visited a family and they had a personal computer, laptop, and a wii! It’s just weird because I came from a place that was so poor. I’ve noticed there's not really a 'middle class' here, people are either super rich or super poor. It’s so strange still, but I love it.
We live with two other missionaries, I really enjoy it. It’s more fun because there's always someone to talk to and it never gets boring at night.

This week was intense. On Friday the temperature got up to 36.5C in Cabanatuan. We almost died. Saturday we had a baptism, it was so cool. i don’t know if you noticed from my pictures or other missionaries blogs, but we baptize a lot of children here. The reason for that is because people get baptized and then are inactive, so their children never get baptized. Eventually, a set of missionaries comes around and finds a less active family with children who have never been to church, and the parents agree to let us teach them. it happens all the time here. In fact, Pres. Martino wants most baptisms to come that way because the Philippines Area Presidency told him we need to find less actives and bring them back. it doesn’t do any good to baptize a person if they're going to be less active in a month.
I’m having problems using windows explorer. I probably won’t send pictures that way this week.
The city life is weird. I don’t like walking down busy streets, but it’s nice to sit on couches with pillows instead of bamboo stools mad 50 years ago.

Transfer!

Bro and Sis Roberts

So... I got transferred last week. I’m in Cabanatuan right now, it's the best ever. I love it here. Thursday we spent most of the day transferring, but had a lot of time to do some work. I didn’t even get to unpacking until Friday morning. People here are super rich because it’s a big city. We have a small area that’s like San Clemente with the rice fields but not much. We visited one member and he had a huge two-story house with a big screen TV and couches and nice furniture. It was almost like another culture shock, coming from an area where it’s not rare to have dirt floors or no electricity in the house. My new companion is Elder Luzano, he's the best. We spent Saturday and Sunday watching general conference, and last night we talked to a guy on the street and he invited us to come talk to him, so we went into his house and he is super rich also. He had a pet monkey and it was just climbing all over everything, he didn’t even care. I think he paid someone to train it, it was the best.

The barangay I’m in is called Kapitan Pepe.. Other than that I don’t know much about the area. Its sooooo confusing! i still don’t know where anything is. I'll send pictures in a little while, I have to do some paperwork first and write my letter to President Martino. The apartment is sweet, its two stories and way better than the house in San Clemente. The internet cafe here is way better than San Clemente, its super high tech with nice computers and everything. General Conference was the best, I actually saw President Martino at general conference, I don’t know why he came from Angeles to Cabanatuan to watch it, maybe he had a meeting or something

  They don’t know what Easter is here, and they also don’t know what ST Patrick’s day. I forgot to tell you earlier I took all those Easter and St Patrick’s Day stuff on Wednesday night and put them on the thumbtack board and left them for Elder Basilans new companion. He thought that was the best thing ever.

Also on Wednesday night we had a farewell party/fhe for me in San Clemente, it made me so sad to leave. but I'm not as sad as I thought I would be. Its like when I first got to San Clemente, I only missed home when I wasn't working, and so far I have been super busy since Wednesday.

Elder Williams and Elder Roberts

9 months

ang saya-saya namin!! (don't translate that, it will say something like 'fun fun'). it means something along the lines of "we are so happy" which sounds awkward in english but makes perfect sense in tagalog. it actually was the best week i've had in a long time. Tuesday elder basilan started leading the area because it’s our last week together and he is in charge. I did the same thing with elder casilac, it’s a lot more fun as the trainer. Tuesday night we went to the zone leaders house to sleep because i had the meeting on Wednesday in tarlac. I am uploading pictures right now to windows explorer for you to see. Wednesday was so much fun, the meeting we had was a really good time and then we ate at McDonalds afterwards. Around 7 the bamban elders were supposed to come to our house but didn’t show up until 9, I thought they walked but it turned out they worked late and then took a motorcycle. I was seriously worried because they said they were walking but took forever.

Thursday we worked in baracbac, and usually we take a bus but today we walked. I have a couple videos and some pictures of our trek; it was really interesting because nobody really knew where we were going. Today was also the first time it set in that I am actually leaving this week. I might never go back to that place ever again.\

Friday elder bell and I worked in san clemente, and did a lot of work. Then we had a dinner appointment, and they basically got mad at me because we haven't been eating at their house every night. I guess here it is cool if you ask someone to come over and eat, but in America, it looks bad when you invite yourself over to dinner. i wish i would have known that 12 weeks ago, we would have saved tons of money

On Saturday, i thought it was going to suck, but napakaganda pala ang araw! elder bell and i caught a ride with the Roberts to bamban so we wouldn’t have to pay for a tricycle and could hang out while the Roberts did house checks. Elder Basilan was angry the second i saw him, but it had been 24 hours since I talked to him, I could not have possibly done anything to make him angry. i later found out he was mad because one of the members thought he just wanted to go to bamban instead of eating at their house, but we had exchanges planned way before the dinner appointment. So it was just a misunderstanding. he wasn’t actually mad at me, but still in a bad mood. So during lunch i told funny stories and made jokes (like hiding his shoes in our food storage) to make him cheer up. Then I gave a workshop to our branch missionaries, and it went much better than expected. I could be elder basilans companion forever if every day was like today.

Sunday was my last Sunday in san clemente, but I’m not too sad about it, it hasnt quite set in that i'll be leaving. Later on Sunday evening we went to the Narne's for FHE (I’ll send pictures) and it was definitely my last day there. it was hard to say goodbye but there's nothing i can do about it now.