Philippines Cauayan Mission

Monday, April 30, 2012

30 April 2012


Magandang Hapon po!
                                                                                                     
Kamusta po sa inyong lahat!
It's been a pretty crazy day and I'm emailing a little later than usual. The Assistants to the President decided to join us to go to the same family we went to last week and have the coconut party and lunch. One of them previously served here and it turns out that the other assistant knows them from before the mission, so it was a nice little party. We then had to go to Roxas to get our haircut because it turns out that there are no good barbers here in Mallig. In fact, the couple that are here are all parlor shops run by gays, and we know this because we got our haircut here a few weeks ago and did not want to repeat that experience. 
As usual, our week flew by and super busy. Tuesday we went to Cauayan for the Faith Factor activity and Elder Llorin had to feed me a bowl of pudding while he was blindfolded, so it was fun. And tasty. All that night I was going back and forth from the bathroom because the lunch (that I ate a nicer restaurant that should have been clean) obviously didn't set well. It's always a blast having stuff come out of both ends at the same time.
This area is definitely a lot different than Cabagan because life is VERY simple here. Basically, if you or someone in your family doesn't work in a rice field, you don't live. And there isn't that much money in it for them, so people are well off if they have a cement house and a floor other than dirt. Most of the houses are the size of our office or smaller. Dinner appointments are usually a little more interesting-a couple nights ago I ate a bird smaller than my hand that they had caught and cooked the same day. It tasted alright, but there wasn't much meat. Most of the work here is focused on less actives, and we only have a couple investigators because we are constantly trying to reactivate. But, the investigators that we do have are pretty awesome and super nice. With only about 50 people coming to church (on a good week) out of more than 300 members, there is plenty of work to do. But, the people here are always over the top nice, even if it's obvious they don't have much themselves. 
You asked more about Elder Llorin-well, he was baptized about 2 years ago and he is the only member in his family except for one of his brothers that has been inactive for a long time and has no interest in coming back (which is actually how the missionaries found him). He is a good cook and very nice, and his goal is to become a movie writer someday because he is sick of watching all the crappy Fillipino movies. Haha. 
It's a good thing I havn't sweat to death yet-I'm pretty sure all I do every day is just drip and wipe my face. The people here are saying it's 40 celsius, so when added with the 90 %humidity, it equals sweat. At night we just lay on top of the sheets and hope there is no brown out to make the electric fans turn off. Otherwise, we wake up to the imprints of our body on our sheets from sweating. Ice water is our best friend. 
Well time is a little short today. Good luck to Kyle on his adventure to Tuba City. And Mom, seems how I know you will be asking about Mother's Day next week, I'll beat you to it. We'll just do the Skype like we did at Christmas, probably on your Sunday evening/night. That way you don't have to pay to call our cell phone. 
Mahal Kita,
Elder Nay

No comments:

Post a Comment