28 December 2011

Elder Nay is trying to find the candy using many body parts!

We were able to talk to Michael via Skype for a little over 3 hours Christmas evening!  It was actually the 26th for Michael.  It was SOOO good to actually see AND hear him.  Apparently the Filipino people are fascinated with Americans.  Some guy kept looking in behind Michael's back  thru a gap in the curtain while we were skyping.  He even went and got a chair!  Finally, Michael pulled the curtain so his new "friend" couldn't watch our conversation.   Then he actually took pictures of us from over the curtain!!  What a hoot! So, no email from Michael to post this week.  The picture is from Sister Carlos's mission blog posted today.  It was taken at a Tuguegarao district meeting.  Elder Tangi had spread candy all over the cultural hall floor.  The missionaries were then blindfolded and told to find the candy--they got to keep what they found!  Not sure of the purpose of this activity but sounds fun and yummy -- way to go Michael! :)

19 September 2011

• Magandang Hapon!‏

Kamusta po Kayo?!

Sounds like an exciting week back on the home front! Thats pretty big news that there is going to be an addition to the family! I guess I won't be able to make it for the wedding. I'll try to be there as much as I can though in spirit! I tried convincing Bryan to hold off until I got home but he didn't listen-go figure. Glad to see that Bryan was able to pull out his creative and cutesy side to ask her. Now all you have to do is write checks for the wedding! Haha. In addition to that, sounds like a successful week preparing for christmas, mom babysitting, and dad taking a break from bishop stuff.

Well this is going to be a little shorter than usual because we were very busy today doing activities with our district and short on time. And I get to talk to you next week. It was my first time bowling in a really ghetto bowling alley with balls a little bigger than a croquet ball and no finger holes. The best part was the guy at the back that set up all of our pins and threw the balls back to us. He was pretty quick to avoid being hit a couple times. We also played pool which was pretty fun, even though I am terrible at it. 

The plan for next week is we are going to Tuguegarao on my Dec. 26th, probably at about 9Am my time. Who knows what that is for you, probably sometime on your 25th night. The internet is much faster in Tuguegarao which should be better for skype. If I remember correctly my skype name is mikeanaytor (clever, I know), so you can add me in advance and I can just add you that way. If for whatever reason that doesn't work or is really crappy, you can call on our cell phone. Of course there is probably about 500 other numbers you'll have to push for the international code and such. But, either which way I should be in some kind of internet shop around 9 AM on the 26th so we can email back and forth if we have to get things figured out. If all goes perfectly I'll just add you and call you on skype, so have the comp ready. Knowing mom, She'll make dad have the computer on about 3 hours before I say I will call, just to "be safe". Sorry dad! Haha. The reason I say the 26th is because saturday we are busy all day with going to baptisms and by the time I  can get to a computer on sunday, you will all be asleep (or being santa). And In Tuguegarao late at night it is hard to find rides back to Cabagan. So, that is the plan for next week! Hope you don't have to cancel any late night xmas parties. 

This week really wasn't anything too exciting here. The weather was very nice and cool and windy for me. Of course everyone else is still complaining about how cold it is. I didn't even realize how bad the storm was in Manila until I saw your emails. Nothing like that in this part of the Philippines. We were busy all day-from 9AM to 9PM Saturday traveling and doing baptism interviews.

Tomorrow we get to go to Cauayan for zone conference and christmas party, which means a lot of really yummy food. President Carlos called me up and asked me to give a little talk, so that should be a blast. You all know how I love giving talks. 

Thats pretty exciting about Young and his farewell-doesn't surprise me that he did a great job and lots of people were there. He is going to be a great missionary for sure. 

Well, thats the basic summary of this week. Next week instead of an email, we will just get to talk to each other instead! Start making a list of things you want to ask/talk about missionary life in the Philippines that I keep leaving out. 

Mahal Kita and Merry Christmas,

Elder Nay

12 December 2011

baby Bacod

Last visit to Bacod family with Elder Tangi

Looks like this frog croaked one too many times!

Walking up a street/river with Elder Sister and a member

Front gate

More flood

      Magandang Hapon po!‏

Kamusta po sa inyong lahat!

I have already seen a huge difference in my Tagalog in just the one week being with Elder Sister. Seems how he doesn't really speak English, I don't really have a choice but to spit out Tagalog every day. He is making decent progress on his English though. Another fun fact about Elder Sister is that he is 27 years old! He was baptized at 24, then left just a little before the 26 year old cut off date. That goes to show that for those people that didn't make it out the door at 19 or 20, thats just okay! The most important part is that at least you make it out the door. He was the only member in his family when he left, but now his mom is baptized too. Yesterday we were able to watch the Christmas devotional with the first presidency that all of you folks got to see a week ago. As expected, it was really good and the MoTab did a splendid job as always. Too bad the stake center is too far away to take our investigators to be able to watch and feel of the spirit there. 

It poured rain for a day straight and has been icy cold at about 70 degrees ever since with cloud cover. The rain was kind of fun, except it is really annoying having our street flood every time it rains. We literally can't leave our front gate without stepping in several inches of water. 

All of our baptism dates got pushed back again, but now we're shooting for 3 in January. It's slightly frustrating having to move peoples dates back so often but its good to know that when they are baptized, they are going to be solid and hopefully not go inactive just after they are baptized. That is still a big problem in the Philippines. I think a lot of missionaries cut corners and try to force them to have a testimony really fast so they can pass the baptism interview and drag them to church every week, but thats not at all how it should be done in order for them to build a testimony of their own. Some of our most solid investigators are still the Bacod family. They know everything is true and want to be baptized and go to the temple, but brother has a job from 6 in the morning until 7:30 at night 7 days a week, with absolutely no time off, meaning he can't attend church and be baptized. They were done with all of the lessons months ago and now they practically teach us when we visit them. We're just hoping for another job for brother. 

Mom-all I saw about the story was the headline which was something about a boy being pronounced DOA but now he is alive. Hopefully that narrows it down.

It was great to hear from Bill and Carol again! Glad to know the rain is finally putting an end to the boiling heat. I'm still waiting for support money from them so I can buy a tricy and avoid walking through all the puddles. 

That is funny about the relationship with Jenna and Milo. I'm surprised he's not a grumpy butt to her like he normally is with kids. I guess Nat and B are going to have to get a dog next! If nothing else, it will save some cleaning up around the high chair. Haha

Thats kinda cool and weird that dad got to go on a business trip. Its been a long time since the business trip days! 

So.... I hear that Young's farewell is coming up? That's great! Except nobody has told me where he is going yet.....

It is really weird to see Kyle all dressed up and doing doctor stuff now. I swear it was just a year ago he got off his mission! Crazy how fast we're getting old. 

Thats cool that dad got to go on another horseride. Really weird to think how the sun can be out and still be 40 degrees or below. Here if the sun is out, its guaranteed to be hot. Either hot, or blistering hot. Its decent though if there is cloud cover and a breeze.

I still have no idea about how the Christmas chat is going to work. I suspect I'll hear more info in the next week or 2. From what I've heard though, I'll just head to an internet cafe and call you on skype. It should be much cheaper that way. Hopefully my skype account still works! Haha.

Well, until next week,

Mahal Kita

Elder Nay

5 December 2011

Magandang Hapon po!‏

        

Kamusta po kayo?

Sa akin, buhay pa dito sa Pilipinas! haha. Well, just as expected, Elder Tangi is no longer here in Cabagan. 22/26 missionaries in the Tuguegarao zone had to go to Cauayan in 2 vans, plus the luggage of whoever was getting transferred. It made for a very squished ride and just my luck, I had to sit in the crack in between 2 uncomfortable seats. Its about a 2 hour ride from Cabagan to Cauayan. Once I got there, it was good to see all 4 of the other batchmates from the mtc. I had to laugh at 2 of them because they are already training. I also saw an Elder Allen that seemed very excited to see a familiar face. He is now with a fillipino comp on the opposite end of the mission. I'm in the furthest north zone, he's in the furthest south. I'm sure we'll cross paths sometime down the road though. My new comp is Elder Sister. Most people just look confused or ask him why his name isn't Elder Elder. One tatay was funny and just laughed and asked him why his name was Elder Sister. I don't think he really had much of a choice in the matter though... haha. He is a fillipino from Manila and hardly speaks any English, so this is definitely going to help me learn Tagalog faster. He really wants to learn English though so we've been helping each other out. And yes, he is almost a foot shorter than me. He is a really hard worker which is great because there are so many appointments everyday here. It's really weird in the Tuguegarao zone now because there are only 6 Americans now. I did get to weigh myself though at the mission home and what a surprise-back to my usual 165. I guess thats my destined weight. 

Its been very nice here for the last several days (at least for me). The fillipinos are still complaining about how cold it is. 

I was waiting to open the package until I found out if I was getting transferred or not. But now that its open, thanks for the food and random stuff! The christmas tree is already dutifully sitting on our table. I'm still not sure where the other 3 pages of the story you sent though... Haha. 

To make it to more appointments, we went on splits with some other ward members. It was weird to not be with another person with a name tag but it was good to get twice as much done. 

It was fun to see some Thanksgiving pics. Must have been really weird having the zip line up again! Haha. 

I can't imagine Mom being excited at all about tending Jenna for a week... That will be her first real tending as a grandma! You should try my advice a few weeks ago about diapers and tell me how it works. 

Well, thats all the exciting stuff from this week, which really isn't too much. Maybe next week I'll have some exciting story for you. Until next time,

Mahal Kita, 

Elder Nay

28 November 2011

                                                           Mooooooo.......

The flood just outside our house

      Magandang Hapon po!

Kamusta!

Gobble gobble gobble! Except all I heard here was rice hitting the plate. I know you're all jealous! Sounds like a good time was had by all with everyone being together and shooting away mom and Chala's birthday. Definitely no such thing as Thanksgiving and eating a lot of good food here. Just another day at work! It has rained here everyday for the past week and is very nice with a breeze and cloudy to keep the relentless sun at bay. I don't know if there is any such thing as a thermometer around here, but if I were to guess it has been between 60-70 degrees the whole week which has been very pleasant. Only to me and Elder Tangi though. All of the Fillipinos are complaining about how cold it is and actually putting on socks and long sleeve shirts and jackets and beanies. I only had to use a sweat rag once this week, which is a record low. Because it rained so much though, there are a lot of places that are flooded out. As soon as we step out of the gate to our house we are walking in an unavoidable puddle that is about 6 inches deep. After the first day of having my waterproof shoes filled with water I decided I'd switch to the Keens. Its been pretty fun. 

This week Elder and Sister Breese came to work with us again for the same tatay as last time (the eternal investigator). Its good having them come because they can relate to him and get him to think more about baptism much better than Elder Tangi and I can. When we go back, he asks us when they are going to come back. We are really hoping and praying that he will open his eyes a little more and follow through with our commitment to him to pray about it. Hopefully with the Breese's help we'll get him to commit pretty soon. The Breese's are pretty awesome-he is 79 and I think she is 72, and they are still kickin around like its not a problem. They also have a 2 year mission here but leaving in July, but then they're going to go on another one. What champs! It was kind of funny when they came because there was a miscommunication and president never told us that they would be coming for sure so they called in the middle of our weekly planning and said they were waiting for us. It all worked out though.

We went to Tuguegarao for 2 baptisms on saturday so that is always great. We normally take a van or catch a bus to and from Tuguegarao but seems how we ate dinner there we ended up not being done until about 9:15, when buses come only once or twice every hour. After waiting a police checkpoint for about 15 mins on the highway waiting for a bus to show up, the police stopped some delivery truck going to Manila and had us hitch a ride with them. It was nice because it was free! Too bad there's none of that back home if you need a ride.

Yesterday at church Elder Tangi and I got to bless the sacrament and give talks. Surprise! It wasn't too bad though. After the stake presidency coming in last week, the members are much more helpful in giving us referrals. I'm still not sure when we're going to be able to contact them though because we are already booked all week. 

This thursday is transfer day so we'll see what happens. Elder Tangi will most likely be getting transferred which will be weird for me to have a different companion here seems how he has been my trainer for 12 weeks. 

Today is Elder Tangi's birthday so with the help of some members, we're throwing a little party at a members house and inviting several of our investigators. Elder Tangi plans to buy several big tubs of ice cream for us all which is very expensive (at least for Philippine standards) so that should be yummy. 

Well thats about it for this week. Let you know what the news is with transfers next week. Happy baby blessing! 

Mahal kita,

Elder Nay

21 November 2011

Sewage...YUM!

More sewage

Fried Tillapia

      Magandang Hapon po!

        

Kamusta!

I can't believe it snowed 10 inches in Logan! Sheesh. Crazy stuff. I feel like it rained about 10 inches here over the week if that makes you jealous at all. We discovered several leaks in our roof so we were using buckets to catch the water. Thats exciting about Stu and Chala officially being back now! I hope they don't miss the sweat and pollution of Vegas too much. 

Well Elder Tangi and I didn't have a community service project this week...but we definitely had a cleaning project. Somewhere along our sewage line is plugged up, which means that a bunch of sewage came spewing out from the side of the house. When we first saw it it was all over the pathway at the side of our house, with some rather hefty piles in some areas. Imagine unloading the houseboat after a couple of days into a 4 foot hallway. It smelled really nice too. :) We went to our land lord to have him send someone, and a couple hours later a 65 year old tatay came up on a rusted little kid bike armed with a garden hose and a cigarette. He was all dressed up for the occasion too-tanktop, shorts, and flip flops. He had no shame whatsoever as he stomped through it and started moving stuff around with his bare hands. His idea of cleaning it up was using random supplies we had at the house to scoop it up and throw it in the field across from us. In his process of sweeping stuff up, sewage went flying all over the side of the house and the wall of the fence (not to mention his footprints everywhere he walked). After he shoved a garden hose down there a few times, he called it good and left. Luckily a few members came over to work with us, just in time to help us clean it up better. We made up several batches of big buckets of water with laundry detergent in it, and I was the one armed with a brush. I don't think I've ever been so up close and personal to poop before, scrubbing the walls and the walkway. It was definitely a day to remember! And no, it is not fixed yet. In the meantime, we just moved a cover to the gutter/sewage line on the side of the house so whenever we flush it just goes shooting directly into the gutter. Luckily in the Philippines we don't have to worry about the "we all live downstream" idea. 

Yesterday the stake presidency came and pretty much called the bishopric and ward members to repentance for not being more involved with the missionary work. There are about 460 members in the ward, and only about 100 that come each week. He also was on their case because there has only been 2 baptisms in this ward for the last year. The stake president was very bold during sacrament meeting by saying stuff like, "Can you not open your eyes? What are you doing? Do you not want a temple to be built in Tuguegarao in the near future to save you 11 hours of travel time? Why aren't you loving your neighbor by sharing the gospel to them?" Then he challenged each ward member to give us 1 referral within the month. I guess we'll see later if it made a difference. 

Last week on splits I felt like the senior companion because he knows just about as much Tagalog as me and we were in Cabagan so I was the one deciding where to go and doing most of the talking. It was a fun adventure. Under the new training program, all new missionaries are supposed to be prepared to be a trainer at 12 weeks so I guess this was good practice! Who knows, I could possibly be training Elder Allen! Haha

I feel like I'm a doctor already because people always ask me what they should do with their sicknesses and if certain things are bad for them. Its mostly just because I'm American-they think Americans know everything. Ha! Boy do I have them fooled. My favorite are when people ask what the laws are/how to apply to live or work in America. First of all, I don't think they really want to try to find a job in America right now, second of all, I've never had to apply for that before so I have no clue. But I have seen some pretty cool stuff here-tons of big bunions, chickenpox, and several big goiters/some other kind of tumor on the neck. Some of them are probably bigger than a baseball. I would love to get a picture of one but I don't want to be rude. 

Oh yeah-this is for Mom on saturday and Chala on sunday. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to the worlds bestest ever mom/Chala! Happy birthday to you! I think I sound a lot better when I sing it this way. :) That should be a fun birthday present to you, having the whole fam over. Minus me. But at least you will have several other newcomers to fill my space. I keep forgetting that thanksgiving exists and to celebrate you a eat a lot of good food. Don't worry, I'll try to have my helping of rice and if I'm REALLY lucky, I'll get some chicken.

Well, thats about it for this week. Have a thankful Thanksgiving and eat a lot of good grub for me! 

Mahal Kita,

Elder Nay

14 November 2011

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                                                               Service! 12 November 2011
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Elder Tangi's attempt to run across the mud without slipping
     
   
  
  
  
  
  Hauling wood

  
  

  
  

  
  

  • Magandang Hapon!‏

  Kamusta!
  

  I will start out by giving a wonderful suggestion to Kyle/Aimee and Nat/B about how to save a bunch of money on diapers. I know you are pinching pennies right now so I figured I'd try to help out. I got this idea from several people I have seen here in the Philippines. I call it the get out of the way method. Its pretty common to see naked little kids everywhere, and I wondered how people dealt with the loving pee/poop of the babies, especially when holding them. While talking to one nanay holding her baby, I came to understand how it works. All you do is hold the baby away from you and bombs away! Haha this nanay even tried to catch some of it so she wouldn't have as much to clean up on the floor later. It didn't even phase her while she was talking either, just instinct. Don't know if you are interested or not in my suggestion, but it's the best I can do to help you out when I am on the other side of the world. :) Haha I've had to dodge some surprise streams of pee, even during lessons. It makes it kind of fun. 

  I got your package of FHE ideas on Thursday, so thanks for that. I also got the Christmas package yesterday. Mail only takes about 2 weeks to get to the mission home, then a week or so after that by the time it gets to me. Usually I get the mail each Tuesday at district meeting, but this week we were lucky because we had Elder and Sister Russel (couple missionaries) come to teach with us and then the AP's happened to be through our area on sunday. It just depends on when people are going/coming from Cauayan, which is about 2 hours from here. We requested to have the Russels come teach with us for one of our Tatay investigators who is an official eternal investigator. He has been seeing missionaries ever since the first ones came through Cabagan in 1983. He is close to staying away from his coffee everyday, but not quite yet. We invited him to be baptized but he is "still thinking about it". He comes to church almost every week. It was a great lesson because they were able to connect with him and relate to him a lot better than we ever could, even though Elder Tangi had to translate the whole time. We could tell he really enjoyed it because he asked when they were coming back. 

  On saturday we went to Solana which is about an hour and half north of Cabagan to do another service project. This one was helping a member haul a bunch of drift wood from a field close to the river to a closer field that could be accessed by a jeepney. The mud was super deep and gooey. As you can tell in my picture, it was up to my knees. It was a very grueling but fun workout. 

  Elder Tangi and I are too busy that we don't know what to do with ourselves. People give us referrals and people come up to us and ask us when we can come teach them, but our schedule is already booked for the week so we just have to hope that someday we will get to them. We are trying to talk president into bringing another set of missionaries here but who knows. Our area is ginormous too, one of the biggest in the mission. If all goes well we should have 4 baptisms in December, and several more in the months after that. We have about 13 investigators/families that we are trying to see each week. It makes it a lot harder with E. Tangi being district leader because of the extra splits, baptismal interviews, and we have to attend baptisms of anyone in our district. This saturday we will be traveling/interviewing all day. 

  Well I am out of time. Have fun speaking in church this sunday! On the bright side, at least you know what your topic is and you actually have time to prepare. :) 

  Mahal Kita, 

  Elder Nay

  
  

  
  

  
  

7 Nov 2011

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  Planting pineapple
  
  
  
  
  
  E. Tangi & E. Malimali (both Tongan) staying in shape for rugby
  
  
  
  
  
  Pineapple racking with a stick
  
  
  
  

  Magandang Hapon po!

Kamusta?

Well, another week of everybody still alive, thats always a good thing. I can't believe that itty bitty Jenna is already crawling around! Whats up with that?! Sheesh. She's going to be going on dates by the time I get home! Haha. I enjoyed seeing the pics of Gracie too-especially the snot rocket one. I think she got that from her dad! Haha. Thats pretty cool that mom is on a federal case. So much for never being summoned for jury duty! That drive to SLC everyday sounds pretty miserable. I hope its a cool case to make it worth your time. 

Earlier today I sweat my guts out playing basketball with some investigators. Everybody thought I was good because I am 6'2"... boy were they in for a treat! Haha they kept expecting me to dunk it, but I don't think they realize that in order to be able to do that, you have to have hops and be good at basketball-I am neither. We played at the church, and the first thing they noticed was how clean it was. So all of those dreaded cleaning assignments are actually worth something! Here though the church pays a member to keep everything clean and nice. Try talking your bishop into doing that at home and see where that gets you! Haha. 

Sunday was my first time going to church with no power, so that was fun. Of course that means no lights, no microphone and no electric fans. The power was out for almost 24 hours, but luckily it was cool and rainy the whole time so it didn't get too bad. Its going to be weird going home and actually having power pretty much 24/7, 365 days a year. 

Elder Tangi had to go to Cauayan on Wednesday for a DL/ZL conference, which means I got to go on splits on wednesday. And because of travel times, it was just easier for us to stay in Tuguegarao tuesday and wednesday nights. While on splits, I had my first experience with a really stubborn tatay that didn't want to accept that we need faith and good works to be saved-just faith. After sharing several scriptures and analogies about why that doesn't make any sense, we could tell he understood it but he was just being stubborn and not changing his mind. We finally just told him to pray and ask God to find out for himself, and he said no. I don't understand why people are so afraid to pray. I can't think of one good reason why people wouldn't want to pray and talk to God.

I also almost had my first dog kick. Most dogs just bark and are really annoying, but this one came out from nowhere and charging at us with the look of eating us. When it got close I swung at it with my foot as hard as I could but it stopped just a couple inches short. Maybe next time. 

I had the privilege of eating some blood soup again. Elder Tangi doesn't mind eating it so much anymore and he said this one wasn't as watery as the last one so it was better. I decided to try it again just to make sure the batch I had was just really gross. This time I had some intestines with it though to get the full effect-they are nice and chewy. Turns out... I don't think there is such a thing as a good batch of blood soup. Maybe someday my tastebuds will be as immune as Elder Tangi's. 

I had my first community service project too which was pretty awesome. There were 10 Elders and 2 sisters that went to help plant pineapple and clear up dead weeds from a field. Definitely my first time planting pineapple. I never realized how sharp the leaves are on them-they are like a saw blade. Back home they must alter the genetics or something to not make it so poky. Clearing out the field was interesting. Our only tool was a stick. There must be a more efficient way to rake up dead grass. 

Well, time is up. Ingat po.

Mahal Kita,

Elder Nay

31 October 2011

An unfortunate butiki that didn't escape the door jam in time!

              

Diyos da fugag!

Kamusta!

Glad to hear everyone is still alive and doing well! Of course thats no surprise though because our family is the best in the world. The horse ride sounded like a blast! I see horses here all the time used for pulling a little cart as a way of transportation (its actually pretty sweet because its only 5 pesos to go anywhere in the city rather than a tricy which is 10) and the drivers seem pretty ruthless to them. I can't help but wonder what Kimbal would do if he saw the way the people smacked them around. 

This week I got to try a variety of interesting foods-some good, some not so good. I guess I'll start with the best which was fried banannas, then rolled in brown sugar. I could have eaten tons of them they were so good. I also had some fried peanuts which wasn't quite so good. Not sure if its because the peanuts are weird here or if the frying made them taste bad. I'm not sure where to place the last 2 because they were both pretty terrible. I was on splits in San Bernardo eating at a members house when they served 3 things: rice, water buffalo, and blood soup. The water buffalo would have been good if they actually served any meat with it... After grabbing a couple pieces, I quickly realized the only thing on my plate was bones, skin, and fat. I knew it was skin because I could still see the little hairs. Not wanting to be rude, I tried to choke some of the fat and skin down, but after chewing it a couple times I couldn't bring myself to swallow without gagging. It was just very chewy and not much flavor. Luckily there was a dog nearby where I could throw it to. Blood soup is just made out of blood from some kind of animal, then intestines. I couldn't bring myself to eat the small tubes that I knew were intestines, so I just stuck with a little bit of blood and it didn't taste very good at all. It was mostly just the texture that ruined it. Basically, for dinner that night, I just had a plate of rice. Yum.

Yesterday was stake conference and the Philippines area president Elder Teh was there because they split the stake and created a new one. He is a great speaker and he talked about tithing and was pretty blunt when he said that God doesn't ask us to pay tithing because he needs money-he has all the money ever imaginable. It is to prove our faith. And even though He is merciful and understanding about our lives, he doesn't appreciate people altering his commandment to only pay a couple percent rather than the 10% He asks for. It was also nice to see Pres and Sis. Carlos there to give us some Oreos. :)

Mom-the FHE ideas you supposedly sent never came through, so if you could resend them that would be nice.

Its pretty sad to see how young people start smoking here. If they only knew how much money they would save and how much longer they could live and how much happier they could be if they quit. I saw one little kid smoking so I asked him how old he was and he said 13. I wanted to just grab the cigarette out of his mouth and stomp it to pieces. I don't think that would create the best image for missionaries though... It was also really disgusting to see a group of teenage baklas holding hands and trying to look like a girl in every way imaginable. Its just sad more than anything to see people's lives ruined at such a young age. 

Well other than that nothing too exciting has happened. This week every hour in our schedule is booked out, mostly thanks to doing splits 2 days in a row and doing a service project. More on that next week. It will be really weird to see Elder Allen when he gets here. Elder Tangi will most likely be getting transferred so I should be in the transfer meeting to see him on his first day. But that isnt until Dec. 1. 

Hopefully the pics I sent came through. Time is up which means its time to say Ingat po! 

Mahal Kita, 

Elder Nay

        

         


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24 October 2011

Callao Cave

Callao Cave entrance

Callao Cave

An opening in Callao Cave

Magandang hapon!‏

 

6:21 AM

Kamusta!

Well, sounds like everybody is still alive over there so thats always a good thing. This morning we woke up at the crack of dawn again to go to Callao Caves. I might even be a morning person by the time I get back-how insane would that be?! Well, I guess with the time difference I would still be a night person so I'm still safe. The cave was pretty sweet. It is definitely the biggest cave I've been in. It also had several open chambers of light coming in from the top so that was neat. There is usually a bunch of bats in there but we didn't see any. Its about a 40 minute tricy ride from Tuguegarao, and since there were so many of us, I stood on the back the whole time. Our record on one tricy is 10 people including the driver.

One thing I'm still getting used to here is how early they start celebrating Christmas. For about a month now, I have been listening to christmas music and some people even have a few lights and decorations,but only the richer people can afford them. Its not even Halloween yet! Another weird thing-they celebrate Haloween on the 1st of November instead of Oct. 31st.

Last week was zone meeting so we all had a little interview with the president. Each time I talk to him, the more I realize how awesome he is. He is very chill and easygoing, and his philosophy about all the little rules (sunglasses, music, going to do fun things on P day, etc) is that if you feel like it will distract from your image and purpose as a missionary, then don't do it. Other than that, there aren't too many rules. It's just up to us to decide for ourselves what is best. He also said how sometimes (about once every blue moon) he writes and calls parents back home just to say hi. He is very loving. And Sister Carlos is a good cook, so thats an extra bonus. Haha

Yesterday at church there was a primary presentation. The ones here are just as entertaining as the ones at home-kids screaming into the mic, dancing around, pulling faces, sloppy dress, etc. I'm still getting used to how relaxed the meetings are here. Elder Tangi and I are usually in the Priests quorum, but they all left before it started so we just stayed in the Elders Quorum with a bunch of old guys and they just talked the whole time-no lesson. Then afterwards we're supposed to have our missionary coordination meeting, but for whatever reason that was cancelled. Hymns here are interesting-I'll just say that all of the wards back home I've been to sound like the MoTab compared to here.

I'm hoping that one of these days our neighbor will have some of their chickens and yiping dog for dinner because I can't remember the last time I've had a full nights rest. Chickens here squawk at all hours of the day and night. Luckily its not a big problem because I can fall back asleep really easily. I wish I was talented enough to be like dad and shove an entire ear plug into my ear drum.

Sounds like another fun weekend of stomping through the fall colors and watching the wildlife. The only big wildlife I see are water buffalo and cows. And instead of fall colors, I get to walk through coconut, bananna, and mango trees. Beat that! Haha. Unfortunately, I don't think the mangoes are in season right now, and I have yet to see some bananas on the trees that I walk past. Not sure if they have a growing season too or if everyone else picks them before I get to them.

Thats cool Kyle is actually doing real stuff now. I'm sure he could come here and find some people to practice on too. I see people all the time with big bunions and interesting looking toenails. Everybody wears the cheap kind of flip flops so I'm sure nobody has any arch in their foot.

Have a blast at the depositions this week. I've already been there done that! Be ready to answer the same question phrased in 500 different ways.

Well, other than the caves, nothing too exciting. Just very busy averaging about 7 appointments per day. It makes the time go by very quickly.

Happy B-day to B on his B-day this week. He's still my favorite brother in law! Haha. Happy being married for another year too! Glad to see we havn't scared him off yet. :) Happy being married another year to Bill and Carol too! Thanks for the updates each week.

Mahal Kita,

Elder Nay