"Day of Justice"

Hello Family,

That is awesome! Man I cannot believe the race was this weekend, it doesn't feel like the race should be this weekend, that’s gone by way too fast.

Monday was the best day ever. Elder Owen (an elder from Alpine, Utah) and I had what we called a "Day of Justice". Sister and Elder Lutz were nice enough to let us come over and bake the cake at their house, and she made us some lunch. So me and Elder Lozano, Elder Owen and Elder Cadizal, and Elder Hernandez and Elder Alpon all went to their house. She fed us bread and beans with cheese, baby corn, and tamales. Super-sarap! She didn't make us rice, and I loved it. All the Filipino missionaries were having a hard time eating, they straight up hated the food, lalo na because they had no rice. Elder Owen and I relished in the experience. We were just happy that all the injustice of our missions was made right in that day: 

When I first got here, it was hard having to eat rice for every meal. And the ulam was just as bad, sometimes we ate some really sketchy stuff, like pig intestines and chicken feet. But all of my companions have basically said "suck it up, you're not in America anymore. Eat like a Filipino." (But I understand them, I was the same way with foreign exchange students in high school.)Since then, I've wanted nothing more than to take a Filipino and leave him by himself in the middle of New York City so he can experience something of what every missionary here experiences. So as we were eating, E Owen and I noticed the expressions on their face go from surprise to discomfort to disgust. E Alpon didn't even finish his tamale, he gave it to me when Sister Lutz wasn't looking. Then we explained to them that this is how we felt for the first few months of our missions, and we didn't feel one bit of sympathy for them, but we understood entirely how they felt.

Tuesday wasn't anything special, but we visited this less active who said his wife is coming home on Monday (she's been working in Dubai for the last two years). She was supposed to come home in January but they kept having problems with her job and in the embassy and everything, but it’s finally figured out and she's coming to manila this afternoon. The less active guy is in his 50's or 60's and his kid is in elementary school. They are as poor as the people in my last area, but I love them so much, they are seriously the best.

Wednesday all the DL's had a meeting with the Zone Leaders because everyone's work has kind of sucked the last few weeks and we needed to fix it. So now we have a weekly meeting to keep each other accountable because people are just getting lazy (us included, but we are fixing that.) Also today, I got the letters about the new house, it looks awesome!

Thursday was a pretty regular day, nothing happened except E Lozano overslept and i got annoyed at him, he blamed me for not waking him up and I said "our cell phone has an alarm" and then he said "the cell phone alarm doesn’t wake me up"

Friday I worked with Elder Palmer, he's from Canada. It was seriously the best day I’ve had in a long time.

Saturday we had a baptismal service. We were supposed to start at 5, but another branch had a baptismal service scheduled for 3 that started at 4, so that put us an hour behind. Then both of the kids getting baptized were super late. Then the people who were going to baptize them didn't show up, so I got volunteered to do it, so we had to go home and get my baptismal clothes. Then some people from the 5th ward showed up and were going to have a baptism for an 8 year old, and the person to baptize him didn’t show up either, so I baptized three people that day. I have never met that kid before Saturday.

it’s been a good week.

I'm getting super fat. I can’t send pictures, the camera wont attach to the computer, I don’t know what’s going on. I feel good though, transfers are this week so Elder Lozano will almost for sure be leaving. I really like him a lot, I wouldn’t mind being together with him for another 6 weeks but I doubt that will happen.

well my time is up, i will talk to you again next week. 

I love you!

Elder Williams

I have pictures!!

Dear Family,

I have pictures!!  I have a camera and you will never guess what kind.  A samsung. It’s blue and has a rechargeable camera.  I bought the same kind. It was the cheapest one at the first store we went to. It was 5,200 pesos and came with a much better case than the one before and a 2g memory card. 

Did you get my package yet? I got yours on Sunday, thank you so much! I was super happy when the zone leaders brought it to us. Those pants are awesome! I have not had a chance to wear them yet but it is nice to have another pair of pants to wear.

I am starting to gain weight again, everyone in our ward has noticed how much weight I lost and insists that I eat, so sometimes we eat like 5 times a day. Its great but a few days ago we left a house and could not walk because of how much we were fed that day. I lost a ton of weight, I probably weigh now what I weighed my junior year of high school. (Which was 115, he was 140 in May) But I’ve already noticed I’m gaining weight, so it’s okay now.  I am uploading some, are you getting them? Let me know which ones don’t work so I can send them again, I’m going to delete the ones I send to you

I have to tell you a funny story. So the other day we visited the Flores Family. They have four girls and the mother works in Canada. The dad teaches English in college, they are all members but the father is less active. He served a mission years and years ago in Cebu. So we visited them last week and they offered us food, it was super good. We had chicken and some Filipino style mini burrito things. Then he brought out a bowl of these browns chunks of some kind of meet, and E Lozano said "Liver. Kain ka." Which wasn’t too bad, I’ve had liver before so it was whatever. So I grab a piece with my hands, and it's cold! I thought, "Why do they eat cold liver, that’s stupid! Meat should be eaten warm." Any way I ate some rice to cover the taste of the cold liver and I put a piece in my mouth, and it was... sweet! Then i thought, "why does this liver taste so sugary?" After I swallowed it and the rice, i had another plain piece. I think one of his daughters saw the expression on my face because she said "Chocolate, Elder." Then I realized what had happened and so did Elder Lozano, he couldn’t stop laughing. Man I felt like an idiot!

The party was pretty fun, we just had FHE in front of our apartment with a bunch of people from ward 2 and ward 5. We had tons of spaghetti (it’s a party food here, like our version of pizza) and then we bought some donuts and pandesal. After most of them left, a few of the ward missionaries from ward 5 surprised me with a birthday cake, it was super delicious. At first I was mad because I didn’t want to have a part or anything, I mean you know I don’t really care about my birthday. But after we started we had tons of fun. The birthday party we went to was fun, it was like if you had one of our parties and doubled the amount of children.

Sunday we had an area conference, it was like that one we had right before I got ordained an elder and an apostle spoke to us by satellite, L Tom Perry spoke to us, it was pretty cool, but pretty much nobody from our ward showed up. Imagine if stake conference was in the church by the temple and nobody in our ward had cars. Nobody would go, right?

Also we gave a blessing to this lady this week, we're teaching her husband (who is actually a member but he didn’t know that for like the last 3 weeks we've been teaching him) and she was super pregnant and feeling terrible. So we gave her a blessing and two days later she had her baby with no complications. She’s been listening to the Jehovah's Witnesses but after she had the baby she said she wanted to listen to us instead. Coolest thing ever!

 we visit them every Sunday.. Anyway my time is up, I’ll talk to you again next week, hopefully you get the package this week

I love you!

Elder Williams

Birthday Hike

We had a great hike for Elder Williams Birthday.  The conditions were so much nicer this year compared to last year.  We did not have to walk through thigh deep water to get to the lakes.

Before the hike

Lower lake

upper lake

Add caption

Happy Birthday Elder Williams!

They love each other so much!

We still do not have any new pictures because Elder Williams lost his camera.   It is sad not to get fun pictures to see the new adventures he has every week.  Today he will go buy a new camera so hopefully next week we will have more pictures to share.  I am going to post pictures of his birthday last year. His only request last year was to hike to upper palisades lake.  This was 2 weeks before he left on his mission and one of the last family  trips we took before he left.  Friday he will turn 20, to celebrate his birthday we are going to hike the upper lake again. Last year the trail was flooded and we had to wade through freezing cold water that came up to our thighs.  I am hoping for better conditions this year.

A boy and his dog...priceless

 

Dear Family,

School is just starting here, it’s weird because every school in the Philippines requires uniforms and they just look silly. This week was pretty good, I’m not sick anymore!!

Monday I got to hang out with Elder Bell because we had zone conference in Cabanatuan last Tuesday and they came to Cabanatuan Monday morning. It was so much fun. We just talked about how much we miss Camiling Zone and our last area.

Tuesday we had zone conference that was so cool. Tons of missionaries showed up, 5 of the 11 zones in the mission were there, the other zones were Wednesday and Thursday. I also saw elder Casilac for the last time on Tuesday; he goes home on the 25th. I can’t believe he’s already going home, when we were companions he was just over a year

Wednesday was cool, at like 7:45am our water in the entire apartment got shut off. After a small investigation, we realized we hadn’t seen a water bill in two months. So our laundry nanay offered to ask the landlord while we looked in the house. Both times the water company gave it to our landlord and the bill never found its way to us. So we had to pay two months plus late fee. It sucked really bad because elder Alpon (our kabahay) from ward 5 hadn’t taken a shower yet. They told us the water would come back around 4 or 5. As of Wednesday I have 58 weeks left!

Thursday wasn't anything special, literally nobody was home. In the first 30 minutes of walking, we visited 5 homes and nobody was there.

Friday we went running, it was awesome. I love going to the track because I can just go in circles and don’t have to stay with anyone. We also had companion exchanges because we have two baptisms coming up and the elders in Aduas have one also, so I worked in Aduas (the other side of cabanatuan), it was way fun. They have a flushing toilet! But man their apartment is tiny and so incredibly hot.

Saturday we went to Kaingin, that’s the bukid area, its super-layo. We went because there is this old lady out there whose husband died a few years ago on June 9, so they had a celebration. We just ate pancit canton and mangoes, it was pretty good. I love the mangoes here.

Sunday it rained so much our street turned into a deep enough river to sweep away a small animal, so we left the house kind of late after lunch.

P.S. did you get a facebook friend request from Gilbert?  I told him to add you.

Also, what am I going to do about college? I know that’s a long time away but if I remember right I need to submit the application by March.

I didn’t get the package, did you get mine? It should be there any day now

 well my time is up i  have to go now, hopefully you get the package this week! 

I love you!

Elder Williams

Before we left for the hike

Bonding moment with Dad

11 months....Lost Camera

Are you still there? Sorry we're late, someone thought it would be a good idea to get a bunch of missionaries from other zones together and play basketball, and then they all decided to shower at our apartment because it was so close. Then Elder Lozano went to the hospital because last week he got his pigsa (i don’t know the English of that) removed, so today he got the stitches pulled out.

That is crazy about your companion is he doing okay?  Was it his appendix? 
Right now I have Heather and Maddie over here at our house.   So have you grown at All?

haha no not his appendix. It was on his face. Not a zit, the bigger one.

I don’t know if I have grown, I don’t really have a way to check that at all. I lost tons of weight the last few weeks because I was throwing up and had diarrhea. What are Heather and Maddie doing there?

p.s. I withdrew about 3000 pesos last week. Not because I need all of it but I needed a little personal money and I get charged 200 pesos to withdraw so I took out a bunch

I’m not sick anymore, I’ve been fine since about Wednesday, but I think I’m getting lactose intolerant, which totally sucks. This has been a good week, but I feel like it dragged on forever.

Tuesday we had DL/ZL meeting with President Martino, it was super awesome. I love meetings with President Martino. They fed us super delicious lunch, but I don’t know what it was called. Then later that evening I threw it all up during nightly planning. Wednesday was super cool; we were teaching this less active in our ward that is like 22 and wanted to talk to us because he is having some word of wisdom problems. He lives in the only bukid (Field) area in our ward boundaries. So we had a lesson in the middle of this field, because he wanted to be away from everyone. It was super cloudy and I was worried our lesson would get ruined by the rain. Just seconds after the closing prayer, it starting raining harder than I've ever seen in my time here. probably the coolest thing that happened this week.

Saturday we had a one day mission with the youth and some relief society to reactivate the inactive, and I got paired up with the first counselor in the bishopric, he's super rich; we drove around in a car. it was weird, I haven't been in a car in almost a year. then we ordered food at this super super nice restaurant to take back to the church, that was also a bit weird, like I wasn't in the Philippines anymore.

I wont upload pictures for 2 reasons:

1. I sent a package last week with the memory cards in it

2. I think I lost my camera

 

I have no idea what happened to my camera, I can’t think of anywhere I could have left it or anything I could have done. One day I went to get it and it was just.... gone. But there weren’t too many pictures that I lost, because I sent all the memory cards home and had the new card in the camera.

I can probably buy one here, but I’m not sure how much they are or how good of quality they are. I will try to find a rechargeable one if they have them here.

well my time is up i will talk to you again next week.i love you!
Elder Williams