Kamusta po ang pamilya ko!
Wooow!! Finally in the Philippines, after 9 weeks at the MTC finally made it. Its crazy bonkers here!! Its awesome!! Haha Where to begin....well when I got to Manila they took us to the Manila mtc and we crashed there for a few hours, then we got on a bus for Cauayan for 9ish hours, the whole way I needed the bathroom, but the bus never stopped so goooosh I was hurtin haha. But we got to the Carlos's house around 7ish in the morning on Thursday, and we Chilled there for a bit the let us relax and take a good couple hour nap, I was sooo jet lagged. It was no fun. But then we got a quick run down of everything from Prez and Sis Carlos. They are awesome, President Carlos is a funny guy, and he isn't a huge rule stickler, he basically says that if it 1. Takes away from the spirit don't do it, and if Its against the white handbook don't do it. But then we got our comps, at the transfer meeting. My Tatay or trainer is Elder Kelson I am his anak or Child haha he is a pretty solid missionary though. My zone is Santiago and my area is Baluarte. After transfer meeting was over we headed to Baluarte, another hour drive! We got to the apartment and man it is basically a shack, the other missionaries said that it is the smallest apartment in the Santiago zone, its way small. We got a small study room, a small bedroom. Ha our beds are like 3 inches away from each other. Then we have a decent size front "living room?" Its pretty small. Anyway I am doing good here in the Philippines!! Its a way hard adjustment, harder then I was expecting, it is soooo frustrating when a Filipino is talking to me and I have absolutely no clue what they are saying. Its not even necessarily that I dont know what words their saying I know some of the words its just their accents are way tuff and they talk soooo fast. My comp has to feel more like a translator at times instead of a missionary, I kinda feel bad for him. We get alone pretty good though. He leaves in like 2 months.
Now on to our REAL investigators, we got some solid investigators, we have Tatay Balagbagan and his wife, we have Richard who we think may have autism. We have Daniel who is 16 and way chill he is a recent convert though or rc. We got the magalano pamilya. We have the Crisologo family, and we have John Nicole. The lessons that we have had with them have been going pretty good. Tatay Balagbagan is this old tatay that I feel way bad for he works in the Bukid (rice patties) but his knees are way weak so its hard for him to farm, so he cant provide that much for his family. And his wife, she is killin us she said that in order for her family to eat she needs to work in the palanki (local strip mall, its more like the local flea market accept way more busy and crowed). So basically its hard for her to come to Church on sunday cause if she doesnt she wont have money to feed her family. John Nicole is pretty solid, he is 15 and he lives with his Grandpa who is the is in the Baluarte bishopric. So he has way good support, he just needs to read the Anklat ni Mormon. The Crisologo family I havent had much contact with them, and the Magalano family they are a part time family that just needs to come to Church. Richard is doing well, the only thing is that he more then likely has autism or something cause he doesn't understand alot. But I think that the big role that he is meant to play in this world is helping his family maybe hopefully accept the Gospel. They listen and the usually join the discussion, but they decline our invites to Church and reading the AnM. We have some investigators progressing but we could do better, I don't understand why we don't go finding more cause we could totally get some more investigators. We will see though. The big thing that needs to happen here is ward support, we have decent ward support, we have about 80 people who come to Church regularly. But honestly they could be better like Tatay Balagbagan needs a ward friend but no matter how we try people wont take some time just to talk to him and befriend him.
Now a little about the Culture, people here are soo stinking nice, I haven't met a mean Filipino yet, they are all great, whats crazy is that most of them are poor and struggling but still put a smile on the face and are nice. All the ward members come up and talk to me and I can respond a little, then they ask "Kaya po ba mo Magsalita tagalog?" (Can you speak tagalog) Thats when I say Hindi, Hindi Magaling ako sa tagalog, bago ako sa Philippines. (No I'm not good at tagalog, new to the Philippines) Then they tell me that I will become good..haha. Oh also one of the first things that all Filipinos say to me is "your sooo white", and point to my super blond hair. haha its funny....kinda...Something else is everybody stares at us its funny, not because we are missionaries but because we are white. Transportation here is pretty cool too, they have these things called Tricies, that are just a motorcycle hooked up to a side wagon. Hahaha so we just jump on one of those to get where ever. And they are everywhere, thats probably the most used form of transportation. The streets are sooo stinkin crazy, there are no traffic laws basically you do whatever you got to do to get to where you need to go. There are lanes though...thats a good thing. The food here is Delicious. Rice, and chicken, and sometimes so other weird stuff like, my comp had fish head the other day, I already ate cause I went on splits. But I'm really not kidding the food here is delicious, every meal has rice and you eat it with your hands. What you do is take a piece of meat and clump up a little rice and then scoop it into your mouth. Its great I love eating everything with my hands. Oh and there rice is soo good here, its nice and sticky and soft, not mushy but sticky...it sticks to the hands pretty bad. Oh and there fruit is way good. They have a ton of diff fruits here that we dont. And they have mangoo trees and coconut and banana trees everywhere. Oh and its kinda jungly I guess, in between all of the bukids and neighborhoods are trees. Honestly its pretty beautiful here though, once you get out of Santiago. Lucky for me we are just out of Santiago, so its not too far. Oh they also have a Macdo or Mcdonalds in Santiago, its pretty good, the prices aren't bad and the food is good. Cant complain. All in all, I am pretty happy here. Its been hard at first, the first day was way hard but I'm adjusting, and once I can start getting tagalog down then the mish will just fly. All I need to do is study and speak as much as possible, I cant be afraid to make a mistake, and I am not going to lie I kinda am, oym's are hard (offer your message), mostly cause the tagalog, the people arnt rude in fact they are too nice they cant decline to your face, but when you show up to there house they hid from us..if they dont want to hear us.
Oh another Philippine culture note is, that any old person no matter whether you know them or not, you call Tatay meaning father, or Nanay meaning Mother.
Anyway thanks for everything, I am glad to be here and cant stinking wait to learn tagalog haha.
Ingat po kayo
Elder James
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