11-18-12

hiiiiiiii. So there’s a reason I'm so far behind in my letters... I haven't been keeping up very well in my journal since Elder Bustillo got transferred. I write down important things in my planner so I can record the details in my journal but because of transfers and ZLC and everything else I've been way behind. But eventually I'll catch up so don't worry! Today we went to the Philippine Carabao Center I'll upload some pictures.

Carabao is tagalog for water buffalo I think... I don’t know but they are everywhere, they breed them like cows here.

I saw the picture of Dallin Baker with his mission call, that’s so awesome!! Man it’s weird that when all my friends get home all their younger brothers are leaving and I'm still here.

The work in my new area it’s great. We had a baptism two weeks ago (but my camera was full so I didn’t get any pictures) and we have one this weekend, so I’ll take pictures. It’s certainly not as hard as my last area, I really enjoy it here.

Nov 12

Today we went biking at the college, it was fun but the bikes probably haven't been used in 50 years. Sister Dullete didn't know how to ride a bike so we taught her how. Afterwards we went to the Philippine Carabao Center, CLSU Extension. It’s like a small branch at the college for research students. Afterwards I got a haircut and we had FHE at this less active members home, it was fun and all but we played this weird counting game and every time you lose you  get charcoal smeared on your face.

Nov 13

There was a storm today, but nothing too bad here because we're away from the mountains and far from the shore, so it was just rainy. But by the afternoon it was gone. The less active we visited yesterday helped us work today at a part members home, all we do in this mission is baptize mga bata because the Area Presidency wants us to focus on part-member families, so we just reactivate part member families and baptize their children. At our last appointment we tried to teach this family, but their daughter lost her cell phone and they were in the middle of arguing about it when we showed up so we just left and said we'd come back another day

Nov 14

We had DDM in Guimba today, which was fun. I like this zone but we always have to travel. I want to go back to Cabanatuan or Camiling where I pay 10 pesos for transportation instead of 50 pesos. Then for lunch we ate Jollibee and I had Shanghai Rolls with extra rice. We also taught a recent convert family today, they fed us a snack that was bread ,but it looked like a banana cut into fourths down the center. It was good I guess, I don’t really know what it tasted like. 

Nov 15

I worked with elder Bell today, best day ever. It’s been over 6 months since I've been able to work with him, today was great. Some old guy yelled at us today: "Hey, where are you walkin-walkin??" So we talked his ear off in English. When we could see he was having a hard time, we switched to Tagalog and he was surprised and gave me a weird high-five after that. Like his hand and mine didn't make full contact, but his hand kind of slid down to my elbow. it was great. Then some drunk guy told me to teach him the gospel but I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. He was using some weird mix of tagalog/ilocano/english, I kept asking this kid on the street what he was saying. So taht was a lot of fun. Then we went back to the place where the family argued about the cell phone and they fed us spaghetti and we talked about the Cebu mission, that s where our Branch Mission Leader served. I guess for them they could watch Disney Movies on Christmas. That would be fun but make me so trunky.

Nov 16

We ate lunch today and Elder Garcia ate so much I thought his stomach was going to explode. He's getting really fat and comments on it all the time, but in their culture it’s okay to mention how fat someone is. Today the wind blew our neckties up and I saw his shirt, the buttons were about to burst.

Nov 17

Today we went to this really far place and met about 15 families who are less active because they can’t pay for a trike anymore. They all told us for years they've wanted to come to church but if they don’t work they don’t eat, so they are super nahirapan. Anyway we took all the branch missionaries and some trikes and went out there and told them to read the Book of Mormon again.

Nov 18

Today 165 people came to church, that’s the highest attendance I've ever had in my entire mission. The second highest was in San Clemente with Elder Casilac, we had 156. I found out today this church has a basement; it’s a bit creepy and super hot because nobody uses it. This afternoon we went back to that far area, (it’s called LingLingay) and held a special sacrament, I guess our branch president got special permission from the district president. For dinner we ate at a members home, we had Chicken and Pork Adobo. Then her husband asked me about the premortal life and said Satan was better than God (read Moses 4:1) because Satan came 'before' God. So I had to explain to him that’s not what it means. He didn't get it for like twenty minutes. Yeah the ice cream comes from water buffalo milk. Next time we go I’ll take more pictures for grandpa. Today I didn’t take too many because I'm 100% sure you've all seen cows on a farm but next time I'll take tons of pictures

well now I’m out of time so I’ll talk to you next week. I love you!