Transfers

Transfers were… the worst. I thought for sure I'd be leaving; Elder Abuan was here for only one transfer. But he's gone now. He went to Guimba zone. I have a new companion. He's new, very new. I'm training him. I’m still in San Clemente. I will spend seven and a half months here in the best branch in the mission. My companion is super great. I taught him how to use an area book and weekly planning, and he has taken care of me ever since. And he can teach like a seasoned Filipino. I also haven't slept since Wednesday, it’s been.... Interesting.  I ate balut last night. We went to a funeral, they are so strange here. They keep the bodies in a casket with a glass case over it. Elder Bell is really cool, I like him a lot. This means nothing to you but he lives only a 50 peso tricycle ride away from me. That’s like a 7 peso bus ride. We have roughly 190 missionaries right now; President Martino wants to get over 200 within a few transfers.

 Sorry transfers were so bad, are you glad you stayed or hoped you would leave?  So now you will be there for another 2 transfers right? Because you are training?  What is your new companion’s name? Why are you not sleeping? How was the Balut? What made you try it?

I'm so glad I stayed. I never want to leave San Clemente. But I just don’t feel ready to train. My new companion is Elder Basilan. The balut wasn’t actually that bad. Just the fact that it is an underdeveloped duck is the bad part. I haven't slept because being a trainer is a lot of work. What made me try it is a kid on a bike was yelling "BALUT! BALUT!"

 Is he a flilpino and is he a brand new missionary?  You are ready to train because you were finally getting comfortable in your mission.  It is now time for you to grow.  Did you have a baptism on Saturday? Are you sending any pictures this week? 

He is filipino, and has been in the mission 5 days. We had a baptism but I forgot the SD card with the pictures on it. I don’t have any pictures to send this week. I will send the SD card sometime this week.

  Tell us about your week...Where do you go to pick up the new companion and how was the baptism?  We want to know more...

 We went to Angeles City, had some training, and then ate food with all the trainers and trainees, then came back to San Clemente. The baptism was awesome; he wants to go on a mission in 2 years. Three of my last four converts want to serve missions.

Last night I played chess with Elder Revillio (our new district leader) and he beat me in three moves. It’s been a really stressful week. I've had to lead the area for the last 2 months, and i still can't speak tagalog that well. It's getting better, but sometimes I don’t know certain words or don’t understand what people say to me.
My time here is up. I'll talk to you again next week! Love you!

Elder Williams loves and misses his cousins. All of them are at least 3 years younger than him.   He was always so good to play with them and make sure they felt important.  We decided to send a monthly craft from his cousins.

Fun crafts from his cousins

6 months

 

hello po

You are very early! How was your week? What happened to you this week?

Well I think I’m leaving San Clemente this week, transfers are coming up on thursday. To be honest, I’m distraught about it. Yesterday as we were leaving the church building, I felt that same feeling in my stomach that I felt when I left for college a year and a half ago. And the idea of going to a new area is frightening. We have a baptism on Saturday, I might not be here to see it.

I also rode on the back of a tricycle. Easily the scariest thing I've ever done. Other than that, nothing else is worth writing that I can think of. IT's been another awesome week of missionary work.   Actually I harvested rice filipino style, that was pretty cool.

That will be very difficult to leave you have done so well there and love the people. That makes it really hard to leave others behind especially when you have so invested so much time.  You will do well anywhere you go?  Tell us about harvesting rice? Kenz wants to know if we should count this baptism on her chart? Do you still like your companion as much as you have in the past?What has been your favorite experience so far on your mission? How do you cook rice? Do you have a rice cooker?

Harvesting rice was cool, i actually enjoyed it because it was in the late afternoon so it wasn’t super hot.  I'll tell you next week if you should count the baptism. Ask me again next Monday.My companion is still great, I wish him and I could just serve in San Clemente until he goes home. We have a rice cooker, but we generally just cook it over a fire. As far as my favorite experience goes, that’s a loaded question. I’m not sure I could think of one. If it makes you feel any better, I have a lot of traumatizing experiences, and twice I have said to myself I was going to die.  We have cooked it outside before, usually just at members homes. at our house we have a gas stove and a rice cooker.

Traumatizing experiences?  Do tell...and we would love to hear how you almost died

1. Well one time on September 9, 2011 I was on a bus headed to my area. When we got off the bus, elder casilac threw my luggage on top of a trike and told me to get in. My first time in a tricycle and we were in the middle of town. A big scary, dirty, polluted town with nothing but trikes, and no stoplights. Everyone just governs themselves.I think you saw the video of the traffic here. That was scary.

2. About three weeks later, we were going with the bamban elders to camiling to play basketball. To get from san clemente to camiling, we take a bus, and it costs 10 pesos. One morning as we're walking to the bakery, a scary guy in a stoner van pulls up next to us. He's playing loud music, has a beanie on, and tells us to get in "Camiling! Camiling! 8 pesos lang!" I looked at my trainer with a look of disgust and said "Anong gagawin natin??"

He and the other elders got in the van, and i reluctantly followed them. That was the second time I told myself I was going to die

We did think the trike video was a little scary especially the one where you see the traffic.  What city is your companion from? Where do you get your tagolog book of mormon? We have been trying to find one, did they give you one in the MTC?

They give us boxes and boxes of books of mormon. You could probably order one on the LDS website.

Did you get a chance to send the maps back?

nope i haven't. MAybe next week.

tatay just wants them back.  We will let you get back to missionary work.  Good luck this week.  We will pray for you and your comfort this week no matter what the outcome is.
Love you
That sounds weird when you say tatay. Technically it does mean dad, but they use tatay when they walk past an old guy and want to say hi. a more appropriate use in this situation would be papa.But I appreciate your attempt at Tagalog :)

Love you,

Elder Williams

Elder Williams with his current companion Elder Aubon

I learned three things

We love the Planking pictures.  We send him ours and he sends his it has been a fun tradition.

How was your week? What kind of things happened to you this week?   Are you teaching anyone specific?

 This week I learned three things:

1. Spiders have a knowledge of triangles at a level that humans could never even imagine to achieve. We cleaned out our back porch area (which hasn't been cleaned in probably 10 years) and made it look nice, so we aren't stuck in the house all the time. I saw some of the most impressive spiderwebs that exist anywhere in the world. I also hear spiders are not poisonous here and they make great "pets" for children.

2. College was great. I learned a lot from it. In comparison to my mission, I didn't learn a thing. At college, I learned to separate clothes by color and boil water for food. As of this week, I know how to actually cook real food. I can make maraming ulam. (which I will show you in some pictures later). I can also wash my clothes by hand. We have a member in our ward who does it for us, but she charges 300 pesos per week. If I do it myself, it will cost about 40 pesos per week. hopefully by my next area I will be able to do it well without any help.

3. Except for thanksgiving, I have not celebrated a holiday in 6 months. There is literally nothing in the Philippines that is the same as in America, and New Years Eve was no different.

Today on the hike, we ate ulam at kanin off banana leaves. I took a video of it, and you'll probably die when you see it.

How is your companion?

My companion is so great. I loved elder casilac, but I could be with my companion until he goes home and not have a problem. Me and him get along so well. 

 What did you do for New Years?

This is what happened on new years:

New Years Eve we taught one investigator, he comes to institute all the time and actually works with us sometimes. He's great. The first visit (after he came to church with a friend) we asked him to pray about what we're teaching. his response was "Hindi." we couldn't understand why he wouldn't pray about it, and then he explained he already knows its true.

After we taught him we had ice cream on our front porch (people aren't allowed inside missionaries homes) and then I went to bed.

New years day we went to church, I took a nap, then we had family home evening at a members home with elder and sister Roberts. They;re great.

Matt  wants to know if are you wearing your mission goggles and do you remember the story about the oats and barley?

You tell Matt of course I remember the oats and barley, but its good to remind me every few months. Tell him to remind me again in March. Ask him if the superhero is still on the corner of the library bookshelf.

Merry Christmas!

Two post in 1 day! I had a hard time writing last weeks post so it took me longer than just cutting and pasting Elder Williams email.  It was very emotional and every time I started writing I would cry so I had to put it off.

We were very blessed this Christmas to Skype with Elder Williams and get some time emailing! BONUS!
I need to explain the first part of Elder Williams email. He sent pictures while he was Skyping. These are pictures of Balut, chicken embryo cooked right before it hatches. He was telling us about some of the gross things he has eaten over the last few months. I asked him to not eat Balut because is was so disgusting. His answer was "will see".....

I hope you liked the pictures. ;)

We just got done looking at them!!! That is so GROSS!!! Did it taste gross?


I didn't eat it. it’s so disgusting.

ok good! That is really gross. We watched that on bizarre foods and it was the most disgusting thing next to the worms out of tree branches. Do many of the native elders eat those?

All the native elders eat balut. It's so gross. There’s an elder here from Arizona assigned in Bamban (the mountains, which means they're about 15 years behind the rest of the Philippines) and he's eaten cooked blood.
So far I’ve had boiled Herron eggs, snails (straight out of their bukid), frog, and small intestine of a pig

I bet the frog was interesting. The cooked blood would be absolute disgusting. That actually sounds worse than Balut. Not many people could eat that kind of food. Do the native elders like the candy you get?


Everyone here loves American candy. I'd like to assume candy is okay on the shelf as well, but it’s not. Literally everything but oil and soy sauce goes in the fridge, or something else will eat it before I will

Are you still able to run?

yeah we run sometimes, but missionary work is hard. I haven't felt rested since before my birthday

That is good! Missionary work is hard and if you were not being a good missionary then you would feel rested. You have so much time in your life for running and the Lord will bless you for being a good missionary.

I love being a missionary. I feel like missionaries have more of an eternal perspective than anyone else, but we rarely think past today, because it’s not important. we don’t have tests to study for or projects to complete, literally our only concern is our next appointment. It’s awesome.
I'm also really mad right now because the space bar just sucks on this keyboard

That makes Dad and I happy to hear that. You understand the purpose and know what is important and that is really the best part. Nothing makes parents happier than happy children.

Special Moments and True Christmas Spirit

I have spent the last few hours trying to decide what to write this week on the blog. Elder Williams' email this week was very short and too personal to share with the world.

I have decided instead to share a story about Elder Williams and Christmas spirit.

To start I need to give you a little background leading up to this "Christmas spirit"
Last year Kolton was given an opportunity to run cross country and track at college. He received several scholarship offers and ended up choosing TVCC in Ontario, Oregon. Ontario is about 5 hours away from Idaho Falls and it was very difficult for our family to have him so far away. We spent many hours driving to meets in different cities to watch him run his races. Many people thought we were crazy for investing so much time and money just to be able to spent an hour or two watching him run a race. Looking back now it was worth every trip we took and all the sleep deprivation.
While in Oregon Kolton was in a community that had very few LDS members. It was difficult for him to adjust to a life where the church was so small. The experience forced him to rely on the Lord and find his own testimony. The cross country team traveled many weekends so church could not always be attended. As a parent I worried about this many times, and found me being a pushy mom about religion for the first time ever. "Are you going to institute?" " Did you go to sacrament today?"....I am sure it became quite annoying.
Kelly and I got the chance to travel with his college team on the bus to Portland to NWACC'S. After 48 straight hours with his team it gave us a unique look at him and his testimony of the church. The difference between his college team and the high school team became very evident. One of the most amazing traditions his high school team did was to gather in a circle and pray before each meet. This tradition started back when Kolton was in high school and continues on today. Being at this meet with his college team was similar to the high school State meet. One difference was there was no prayer offered by the team. I knew at that moment Kolton had to pray on his own and find out if he really believed the teachings of the gospel. As the weekend went on many of the other team member kept teasing Kolton all because of his standards. I loved hearing this because I knew Kolton was living his standards, his testimony was growing and he was finding out what was important in life.
Soon after the weekend in Portland Kolton came home for Christmas and we could tell he had grown up and his life was changing. Instead of waking up Christmas morning and opening gifts, he gathered his two sisters and deiced they were going to let Kelly and I sleep in and make us breakfast. They worked like little elves in the kitchen trying to be so very quiet while making a very large breakfast. When our children woke us up they had made the most amazing breakfast of waffles, fruit, eggs, smoothies, and bacon. The breakfast was amazing and it totally changed the atmosphere of our home on Christmas. The focus of Christmas was on each other and not on the gifts under the tree. Even after we cleaned up breakfast we waited to open the gifts and enjoyed the feeling of peace in our home. I know everyone could feel the Christmas spirit in our home that day.
Our little boy was growing into a man and he realized these were the final glimpses of his childhood. He was beginning to recognize what was truly important in life.

As most parents know your children appreciate you more as they get older and the reward for all the hard work has payed off in sometimes just small moments.

12-11-11

HELLO!! :)

You are really early..how are you?

pretty good. I found out we can use skype on our P-day, which will be Christmas for you

I am so excited!!! Where do you have access to Skype?  Do you go to a members home or can you do that at the internet cafe?
What time can you Skype?

Dad wants to know why you didn't get transferred?
How often do you talk to the mission Pres?
Do you ever get to leave San Clemente or Cailming area?
What happened during your week?

Why are you so early?  This is fun because everyone is awake!

I will be able to use Skype in camiling, probably between 10:00am and 4:00pm my time at some super sketchy internet cafe. It's incredibly rare to find anyone, much less a member, with a personal computer. i can set up an account here but it would probably be more effective if you did it for me instead.

I almost never talk to the president, but I email him every week about the work here. The pictures attached are of the three people who got baptized on Saturday. One was a nanay whos' daughter is a member, the other two were eight year old kids who haven't been baptized.

I almost never leave Camiling or San Clemente, but for transfer day we went to Tarlac, its a huge city. I've been there twice in the twelve weeks I've been in the Philippines. I didn't get transferred because E. Casilac, my trainer, had been in San Clemente for 6 months, and that almost never happens so he was guaranteed to leave. Also if I were to get transferred, that would mean two brand new elders would go to that area. and that does happen, but its rare and totally sucks because nobody knows the area.

I don't know what to write about, everything is so normal to me its hard to know what to say. But on the bright side, i see about as many random strangers in a week as you would in a summer of vacations

We just love to hear about your week...So many crazy things happen to you. The town looks small enough it looks like you can get to know everyone.
How many other people do you email regularly?
Did you get any packages this week?
Kenz needs dates of and how many baptisms?

Every week I generally email you, my mission president, sometimes rowland and sometimes Alex and Caroline. About 578934 people told me I'd get letters and emails from them, but as of now, awan. (Thats an Ilokano word for "nothing.")

No packages yet, but maybe tomorrow? we have training in camiling with the AP's so maybe they'll bring it if there is one.

Here's all my baptisms:

Nov 20-1

Nov 27-1

Dec 10-1

The kids in the picture are super cute!!  You should just bring one of them home in your suitcase when you come.
Are you still liking the food?
Do you have any pictures with you at the Internet Café that you could upload and send?

The food is... interesting. I don;t mind it though. I would love to take a kid home with me, they are so great here. I actually rarely see mangoes, theres about 3 different kinds of bananas and papaya everywhere
my time is up

Mahal na mahal na mahal ko kayo! 

 Elder Williams

5 month mark!

What kind of plugs do you have for electricity?
We have really lame plugs that run 110 or something. no triples just doubles only.

What is your favorite sweet to eat in the Philippines? 

My favorite sweet to eat is Frootees, the candy I sent home ayoko kung bakit hindi nila gusto. But I also drink this stuff called "Chuckie", it's like the better version of Yoohoo.

What new Tagalog words have you learned?
As far as new words go, nothing new i feel like sharing, but the following words all mean rice, but it depends on the context how they're used:
bigas

palay

saing

kanin

And the word kanin also means "to eat." Cool right?

How are the youth in the Ward/Branch?  Are you making friends with them?

The youth here are great. generally every Saturday morning all of them go to the church and play games and just hang out.

What are some things that happened in your week?

Here's what happened this week:

Monday I ate pig liver. It tasted like... pig liver. It was like I had these subconscious expectations of what it would be like, and every one of them was fulfilled in the first bite. I don't recommend it. Somewhere in the Philippines had an earthquake, my desk was shaking a few days ago, and shaking pretty bad. But nothing happened to us.

There's a kid who's brother just got back from a mission, so we visit there a lot. This kid is 8 or 9, and his parents bought him an air soft gun. He spends the vast majority of his time shooting his dads chickens until  he runs out of bullets, then finds them all and does it over again.

We visited an investigator a few days ago who was super lasing and wanted us to teach him. We told him we'd come back another day and mentioned that alak and cigarillio are totally bawal, so he says to us "No, i don't smoke. Pero..... alak. gusto ko. I am... drink."

I feel like the more alcohol a Filipino has in him, the better he is at English.

My new companion is elder Abuan, he's so great. with me and elder casilac, we never had problems, but it was just kind of... kaiba sometimes because we were never comfortable with each other. Me and elder abuan get along so well, kahit minsan 'di-ko alam kung ano sinasabi niya sa akin.

I'm slowly starting to learn how insignificant time is. After this transfer, I will have been a missionary six months. That means I'm 25% done, even though I just started because its still summer time here. Last Thursday a bunch of new missionaries showed up, I feel so bad for them. I hated my mission for the first six weeks. 

On Wednesday our neighbors killed a chicken in their front yard. The dad sliced its neck while his son held the chicken in his arms. Such a beautiful bonding moment between a father and son, right?

HELLO!
I am glad you like your new companion?  Does that mean you stayed in San Clemente?  Time does go by very fast!  We keep thinking that every week.  I know when you were in Oregon it went by faster than we thought.  The chicken story reminds me of the time when "the guys" killed the turkey for thanksgiving.....The picture with of the families living under the bridge is sad.  I am sure you see so much poverty.  Are you sending anymore pictures this week?

Yeah i am still in san clemente, for at least 6 more weeks. I got a package today with the maps.  My new companion is great. this week was stressful because I had to take on all the responsibility of leading him around the area, but it wasn't too bad.