30 Days left!

Hello!

I Know. In 30 days I’ll be in the states and honestly that frightens me. haha.  I bought some souvenirs this week!  Also I have a few questions:

1. Do I need to bring home any shirts , clothes or anything? Like what if I come home with two white shirts and just my suit and leave everything else here

Tag-ulan started this week. Except in the mornings we hardly see the sun anymore. On Tuesday we were eating at a birthday party and the rain came down like a hurricane for about 40 minutes then stopped. By the time we got to Kuya Baldos house, the rain picked up again so malakas I didn’t think we would make it home. On Wednesday we had DDM in Guimba at 10:00am. at 9:00 E Cope, E Fort, and I held a Leadership Training Meeting with E Kunz and E Weimer because the're both new District Leaders. most of what we taught them was the things E Neilson taught us back in February. We ate lunch at Jollibee (na naman). We taught Sister Montero (our recent convert) but itwas no good because her kids were having a circus during our discussion. Her bunso cried and cried and cried because I wouldnt give him any money. On the way home we saw the Francisco Family and they invited us to dinner. Also today was E Bellens birthday. I never in a million years thought my mission would even be close to ending. 30 days from now, I'll be at the mission home getting ready to leave. Patay talaga. 

Its been about 6 months that I've been teaching a Sister  the LA who married a Joe, and I'm just now beginning to understand her concern. She doesn't know how to help her kids embrace the gospel again, and she feels its unfair if she comes back into activity and her kids won't follow suit. She wants them all to come back sabay-sabay. On the bright side, we saw the a Family I really love today! They've been in the bukid for the last two months and haven't come to the bayan so I was super excited to see them again.
1. The Lord will do anything and everything to continue His work. He truly cares about all His children, He truly directs the affairs of His kingdom, and He has provided for our salvation.

2. Filipinos prioritize other people before themselves like no other people in the world. The Family got home maybe 2 hours before we stopped by, and before we left they gave us mangoes and probably 1 kilo of bigas. They don't have any kuryente in their house and they have to cross street to get water, ganoon sila kahirap. And somehow they still find it in their hearts to give us food without us even mentioning a thing.

Friday morning I woke up and said "Sleep has not yet fled from my eyes. I need to walk around before I pray so I don't fall asleep again." So I walked outside and the crazy guy who shouts all day and night walked past our house and began shouting. I was so afraid that he saw me and was coming to the house that my heart skipped a beat. But on the bright side, it helped me wake up. E Batoy and I worked together ,and E Cope worked in Guimba 3 because they had a baptismal interview. We couldn't teach anybody because everyone was at MYC in Pangasinan, nakaka-bad trip!

Saturday we worked in Franza and saw our branch on their way home from MYC, so they gave us a ride back to the bayan. This afternoon we got punted a bunch, ngunit ganoon talaga. 

ok cool. so i decided i want to run Cross Country at BYU after I am finished in Oregon.  but their cross country team is incredibly fast. ok we're out of time. talk to you next week. i love you!

 

Mothers DAY!!!

hii. Sorry we're late we couldn’t find a shop that was open because today is elections and elections here are kind of dangerous so a lot of places are closed

do the days go by fast for you guys? I sometimes kneel to pray at night and say "how can the day be over already? i just did this!"  This Saturday I only have 30 days remaining. 

This was such a lazy week once Elder Bellen left. I had no desire to do anything at all. On Tuesday I followed the Munoz 1 Elders around in their area while we taught. At one member family, we convinced them I couldn’t speak a word of Tagalog when we got there. After the opening prayer I took the lead during the lesson and they realized they'd been fooled. That evening we had dinner at a members house and printed off the transfer announcements, my new companion is Elder Cope. On Wednesday we had transfer announcements with the zone and then ate lunch at Kitchen West. For most of the day Elder Elep packed up his stuff, and we played Uno while waiting for him. Then we ate dinner at Nanay Deveas home and the power went out. Again. On Thursday, the Forts took us to Cabanatuan to get our new companions. Elder Cope came all the way from Paniqui, so I got to spend most of the morning at the Stake Center. Most of my time there was spent talking to Elder Amante, he is the missionary who replaced me in Gabaldon. Around 1:00 we made our way back to Munoz. Elder Cope is way good at teaching. He is so good at the Bible I was hanga sa kanya. (impressed) On Friday basically everyone said to me "why haven’t you been coming to our house lately?" because I was in Munoz 1 all week. On Saturday, a member worked with us and around 5:30 he realized his key to his motorcycle was lost, so we re-traced our steps that we'd taken the entire day and didn’t find it. The next morning, he came to our apartment and said "I forgot yesterday that this is an old model, almost any key will start it." So then we all had a good laugh about it and he took his motor again. 

22 months.

cooking eggs in the mission home.

Elder Williams and President Martino

Hello! I am glad she took pictures of me at ZLC. I also want you and dad to come here so we can meet Pres and Sis Martino.   It doesn’t matter when you come either way as long as you meet them.  I will just skype on P-day like last time. I'll try to skype around 9am our time, but I'll email you as soon as I get to the internet shop. 

This was a pretty good week. Last Monday we went to PhilRice and had a tour, it was one of those things that makes me wish you were here because you'll never see something so cool. We stopped at the museum and learned about the different types of rice and the way it’s farmed and the new technologies they have for rice farming. We also learned the Philippines can only produce about 70% of the rice that it needs as an entire country, roughly 30% of the rice is imported from other places. So PhilRice's objective is to get enough rice to make a giant storage if something bad ever happens they have rice to spare. This week was also ZLC, but this was the first time that Sister Missionaries have ever attended, so now it’s called Mission Leadership Council. President Martino talked to us about the Apostasty and Restoration.  We spent the night at the mission home, and the next morning (Wednesday) we went back to Munoz. By the time we got home I was feeling terrible and had a bad fever, so I just took some medicine and went to sleep. I woke up around 6:30 and couldn’t stand being in the house any longer, so we taught one lesson and then came home. On Thursday I woke up and was feeling good enough to work, but while we were working I felt terrible and my mind wasn't working the right way. President Martino also called us and said he needed some more information for the marriage he would be performing this weekend for us, so we spent time running back and forth trying to get it all together. On Saturday we had the wedding and baptism, President Martino married the couple that we are teaching and the wife was baptized right after.   After the baptism we had a small reception and then went to Tara Mindos (a swimming pool/ resort) and the branch fed us lunch. Elder Bellen spent most of the day getting together some last minute things before he left, so Theody (a branch missionary) and I played Uno for awhile. Then we met the Munoz  Elders for some ice cream, and then went home. On Sunday we went to church, and Elder Bellen was picked up around 1:30. I worked with the Munoz 1 Elders the entire day, and when we got home I didn't know what to do. I spent most of the evening walking around the house wondering why the time goes by so fast. 
My time is up!  LOVE YOU

kewl

kewl! (that's how you pronounce it in Tagalog) I have a ton of pictures I'm going to send. I need a favor...can you send me a recipe for crepes? I am not missing American food at all. Actually this is Elder Bellens request. No I haven't heard a thing about skyping. when is mothers day? Today we went to PhilRice, the research center here in munoz. I'm sending pictures right now.  I haven't sent any for a long time so I took a bunch this week


This week we went to MilkaKrem and saw the San Jose Zone, but I forgot my camera! On the bright side I saw Patrick Wilson, that was awesome! He looks alot different than I remember; the last time I saw him he was a skinny kid with shaggy hair. But he looks a lot better all cleaned up and everything. On Tuesday we had interviews with President Martino. I still enjoyed it, but we sort of get the short end of the stick in Munoz. We are the last zone in the mission to get interviews (except Baler but its far away so he takes an entire Saturday to do it), and before he comes to us he interviews all of San Jose Zone. So understandably he's tired and a bit worn out, so I feel like he was sort of rushing through the interviews a bit. But he taught me two powerful lessons during the interview and said this: "If you can learn to master these, you'll be a CEO someday. At worst, this will keep you from mediocrity your whole life." Also this week (Wednesday yata...) A pulubi (beggar) came to our house and asked for bread or rice or clothes. Elder Bellen offered her bread and her response was: 'May pa-laman ba?' (Do you have something to put on it?). The three other missionaries in our apartment are on a no-rice diet, so I am having a hard time. Its so weird not having rice for lunch. We went with Elder and Sister Fort to do house checks, it was great to sit with Elder Fort and talk about all sorts of things, like whats happening in the Church worldwide, WWII, and carabao. This Friday was one of the most nakaka-home sick days ever. We visited that less active that came from America, this Sister  fed us homemade pizza! I told her all kinds of stories about when I was little and we used to make our own home made pizzas for dinner. Saturday we had a CSP in Linglingay, I got sunburned pretty bad. We cleaned up next to the riverbank and also at the school. For dinner on Saturday we ate with a  family; isda na naman, super masarap! Sunday was full of meetings and eating appointments. Today the same Sister made us lasagna! today was even more nakakka-homesick than a few days ago, I loved it!

archaic track

 

 

I just love my missionary

I am going to start calling all the blog posts flashback Moday's.  We hae not gotten new photos for quite some time. 

 

hello.

This week was awesome. For the first time in since I've been here I had the chance to run around the archaic track at CLSU, kapanget! (its an awful track). We went to San Jose this week because Elder Bellen had to get a chest X-ray since he's pauwi na. (going home) the guy who took us around on a trike charged us more than he should have because I'm an American (they call it 'white tax ' here). Sister Costales had her birthday and fed us spaghetti with singkamas, masarap! (delicious) Also we went to a birthday party and while we were eating, a niyog (coconut) fell from the tree and landed right in the gitna (middle) of the table. The pancit I was eating went all over the place, but nothing broke and nobody got hurt.

This week we also met a lady who is a house help for an old couple in Anaheim, California but came back here for vacation. Also she's super rich and when we started talking to her she let us in and told us how her boss in America is Mormons so she got baptized but here she cant go to church because she's good friends with the Methodist Minister here in Munoz. So she's living a double life. But she made us cookies and told us next time she'd invite us over for lasagna. her house it so nakaka-homesick, she has tons of Betty Crocker cake mix and American Cereals and Krusteaz pancakes.

Remember that family we're teaching that isn't married yet? They went to Cabanatuan this week and got their birth certificates fixed and right now they are taking care of the final details so they can get married on May 4, E Bellen's last day of missionary work.

There's a new restaurant here in town and when we went there to try it we met the guy running for Mayor here in Munoz, malambot pala siya! We bought a blender to make shakes, and after about 5 minutes it stopped working so we thought it broke. It turns out that products here truly are Filipino made, so the engine in the blender just overheated and after about 10 minutes started working again. At this speed, we can make about one shake every ten minutes.

I only have 59 days left. kamote. (sweet)

ha ha if I even found a Filipino girl to marry grandpa wouldn't even entertain the idea. I don't know about transfers that's a long time away.

flip. I don't have any pictures, sorry. We went running this morning and then played basketball afterwards. I brought my camera but forgot my memory card.

WHAT???  I would LOVE to be roommates with him. I don't know if you know him but he was one of the best runners Firth ever had. I remember once my freshmen year at the Arco race he beat everyone by several minutes and I thought he was the fastest person ever.  Man this is so weird talking about stuff like this. I just want to be a missionary forever and not worry about things like this. anyway my time is up so I'll talk to you next week. I love you!

This week the email contained very personal experiences so he asked me not to share with everyone. He did express how excited he is to see his little cousins that are not so little anymore. It will be a really fun summer for Jordan and Kolton to reconnect they have such a great bond. Counting the DAYS!!!!

Kolton and Jordan

We went to Tarlac this week and Elder Bellen took his English test, he scored Advanced Low. (which is pretty dang good, most missionaries get Intermediate Low.) This week was tough, I was really discouraged on Tuesday and Wednesday, my motivation to work was at about zero. Mabuti na lang we watched General Conference this weekend. We taught one investigator this week, Ronel, and during the lesson all his friends showed up on BMX bikes and wanted to go riding. It made me want a BMX bike really bad (nagpaparinig lang ako.)

hay naku(my goodness) my companion only has 20 days and then its me, I'll only have something like 45 days when he's gone. I feel like I still should be here one more year.

It sometimes seems surreal that you will be home soon. We are excited but it seems like it went too fast.

i know, right? sorry about last week, we got incredibly busy. Now were in San Jose because my companion had to get a chest X-Ray before he goes home..

Last week I bought pizza for everyone and then they paid me back in cash (that way I get personal money without having to pay 200 pesos withdrawal fee) so I could buy stuff to bring home. I bought some stuff, but I'm hearing rumors that I might get transferred, because there will be a new Filipino AP next transfer the current one might get transferred here, which means by May I could be in a new area. I don't know, its super magulo. Anyway, I don't want to buy anything until I'm sure na I'm staying here. I still have to get my X-ray next transfer, so that means I still have another day to go to Cabanatuan.

I don't have pictures to upload...

I don't know about the transfers, its mostly just tsismis.(gossip) Honestly, I don't ever want to leave Munoz. This is different that leaving for college or a mission, because I'll never see these people again

OK starting now I'll work on planking. when do i have to sign up for school? do i have to do anything?

thanks for visiting TVCC and checking on classes for me. it helps me more than you probably know.

OK. well if i need to do anything let me know. anyway we have to go get E Bellens test results so I'll talk to you next week
I love you!

 

 

We did not get aqny new pictures this week so I decided to repost some of my favorites.

 

 

 

Mar 24-April 7

Sorry to all you faithful blog followers.  I let the blog go to the wayside for the week so we could help Elder Williams youngest sister Kelsie run for student body president (she won!) and help McKenzie with some health issues and senior project.  I only write this so when Elder Williams reads the blog he knows why we skipped a week.  I am also going to add this weeks email into this post because it was so short.  I hope to have pictures on here by the end of the day.   

Wow. I wish my week was that eventful!

I didn't get transferred. Elder Bellen and I are still companions, and this is his last transfer. So that means I'll still be here when he goes home, then I only have one transfer. What I'm trying to say is this is my last area. By the time I go home I'll have been here for 8 and a half months.

Elder Bellen goes home on May 5th. So on May 9th I get a new companion and we will be companions until I go home. That’s okay with me, I love it here. Also its way better because everything I'm not taking home with me I can just leave here. I want to leave enough stuff that I won't need to fill two suitcases full. Most of my socks and polo’s (shirts) and other things are so ruined it would be saying (pity) if I brought them home.

Yeah I think so to. But I guess I can’t do anything about it, whether or not we feel like it goes fast, and its only 2 years, right?

Wait I do have them pala.(wait) The baptism was good we even had a piano and almost started on time! I remember one time in Gabaldon the sacrament meeting started on time and I was shocked.  Well President Martino starts on time and we're not ever late but the people here come 20 minutes late for a meeting and are actually on time.

March 24

Sister Montero came to church today, I was so surprised! I honestly didn’t think she would come, but she brought her kids pa! Today we had SMC with President Martino, bilib na bilib ako sa kanya. I hope someday I can be like him. lahat kasi ng (all because of qualities), nasa kanya. For dinner we had Adobo with pineapple, petsay salad, ang langka. Last supper ko ito kasi, kaya gumastos naman ako.

March 25

This morning we went on a tour of PCC, it was way cool. They talked about Carabao coming from other countries and how they use the Carabao milk to help farmers and other things. My grandpa would love it here. I might be getting transferred, so we didn't go to Friendship just in case. We had FHE at the Sylvia Family, and President Sylvia gave us some really old church songs, like an old album called Bounce Back and some Afterglow classics. napaka-corny.

March 26

Patay. (sad) I'm not getting transferred. And neither did Elder Bellen, this is my last area. This morning we taught a less active, Brother Cuizon. He said he doesn't come to church because he wants to grow his hair long. In the afternoon we worked until 6:00pm then got the transfer announcements. Kuya Baldo fed us hito and lumpiang masagana.

March 27

Today we had DDM in Guimba, and since E Elep is in Guimba the Forts gave us a ride. This old lady today after a lesson looked at me because she wanted me to pray and she said "I like you." Elder Bellen had a really hard time not laughing, because the word for want and like is the same in Tagalog, but he knows the difference, so we laughed about that for a while after the lesson. We had two dinner appointments today, one at the DeGracia Family and one at the Gasmena Family. I love Munoz/

March 28

Super tinatamad kami. I don’t know what’s happening but I don’t like it. Sister Newigham told us she's coming to church this week, I hope na matutupad iyan. WE had three eating appointments, pancit lang ang pinakain sa amin

March 29

One of our investigators, Rey, told us today he believes in Joseph Smith because he "read it in another Bible". I don’t know what translation he's reading, but it’s not King James

March 30

What a day. This morning was Angelica's baptism. She brought her friend Franco, who is actually the reason she's being baptized. Today

April 7th 

I  don't have much to say because naubusan kami ng oras. sobra.

Anyway, we ran into problems at the mission office because when Sister Martino tried to log into the testing center it wouldn't let her, and before Elder Bellen finished, two other missionaries came into the office so we were way behind schedule. Anyway after he took the test and Elder Adao took the test, we went to SM Tarlac and ate Pizza Hut with Elder Weimer (who was in Tarlac because of a trip to the dentist, I think his tooth cracked or something). Then we got on a bus and came to Cabanatuan, where I am emailing from right now. After this we still have an hour left of travel back to Munoz, super astig ang missionary work! So this weeks email isn't that great, sorry. Next week though we're not doing anything so I should be able to email for much longer. Anyway, tell everyone I love them and I'll see you sooner that you think

Love, E Williams