Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Week #36: Mexican Food... Tacos and looking for Jonathan or is it Becky???

Hello and good hapon!

So let's see what I did this past week... Well we had interviews with President. The office elders and assistants did not get interviewed because he'll just interview us at the office. Sister Barrientos gave us a training on health and told us about this pill we're supposed to take every 6 months called Antiox. Basically what it does is that it kills the worms inside you and you poop the worms. So us office elders gave it a shot. It costs 102 PHP each! Mahal! (Not really... but to us it's mahal) After I took the pill, I was so afraid to poop in case I'd see worms in the toilet. There's a picture of the little white Antiox pill. It tasted like chocolate.

I also took this picture of the mexican restaurant in Laoag. It really tastes like mexican food. We we're taking duck face pictures because we danced itik-itik that day. We're almost done the dance but the steps are way weird because the counting is way off... Then we have american's trying to correct the dance steps, which they don't know themselves. It's throwing me way off. They're 8 counting a waltz step, which totally doesn't work... Whatever, it'll be fine. At least the main steps are complete, we can easily correct the counts. To get to the dance practice, we rode kalesa. That was fun.

So now, we have a lot of preparations to do for Christmas Zone Conference. Basically President told us we have to take care of everything. We also have to go make t-shirts made for all the office elders. So much work! It's even harder now. I have missionaries nagging me for Book of Mormons and pamphlets but unfortunately I'm super stuck since I have a ton of supplies on back-order. Hastening of the work but no hastening of supplies hehe. Office work is tough. I'll live hehe. We did have an office meeting on sunday and it was good. President reminded us that even though we don't have much baptisms in the office, we help other missionaries baptize others. He told us to sit back and relax sometimes. Then we ate tacos and filipino BBQ. And President was making jokes again as usual. It's always a good night when we have meetings with him.

So we found out about one of our baptismal dates. Gareth moved... but back to Buttong, which is either my area or the other office elders' area. We also tried contacting referrals and we actually found one. Elder Wood said he tried looking for her before but couldn't find her. They even asked this member, Brother Santos, if he knew her then but he said no. We asked last week if he knew her and he did. He pointed out the house for us and we tried the compound. They pointed to the house out back and as we walked closer, this lady said "Hello Elders, nandoon po siya." It's as if they're expecting us. The referral, Abby, was happy to have us there. I guess she was waiting for quite a while. So we set up a return appointment.

Elder Pincock wants me to mention that they received a referral and his name is Jonathan Lorenzo. The sisters in Laoag 3 said how he is a bit feminine. So they go searching for him asking around and people are going... "Jonathan...? Oh Becky! Over there" So they go and find this bakla and acted super feminine and ... yes that was Jonathan. He was super excited to meet them. They actually committed him to baptism. And it's good. He already goes to church. We'll see what happens.

Sooooo.... not much else interesting here. Oh yes, and we do have 1.5 hours now to do email... yet... no emails to actually read. So please tell people to email me or something. I feel kuwawa sometimes hehe. It's okay. Anyways, Happy birthday Alex! Hope it was good! And I totally miss eating that cake. Therefore, I'm expecting a whole cake of "Alex" cake when I get off that plane hehe. And yes... soon to be Happy Birthday for balong.. I mean Jordan hehe. I hope I'm still in the office for my next birthday. President takes us all out for any office elders birthday. Elder del Rosario got a cake for his birthday because he was serving in Laoag. They take good care of us so no worries.

Anyways, just send out that balikbayan box agad. The sooner it gets here the better. Basta, it's here :) Ok. Sige. Take care all of you! Mahal ko kayo! Ayo-ayo.

Elder Morales

Monday, November 18, 2013

Week #35: We went sand-boarding and ate sand! Lol!

So hmmm... what is interesting this past week. Well maybe let's go backwards in days. So yesterday we had zone activity. Part of it was in preparation for the Christmas Zone Conference. Each zone has to prepare a filipino folk dance. Ours is Itik-itik. So imagine a bunch of missionaries pretending to act like ducks. It's funnier since our zone is mostly foreigners. There's only 6 filipinos I think. And as usual when learning these folk dances, we spent like... half an our doing the entrance walk. The zone leaders planned for a second activity to go to the sand dunes so we didn't get much done in the dance... mainly the entrance walk and one part. (Probably a bad idea since christmas zone conference is in a few weeks).

So then we went to the sand dunes. We did sand boarding and stuff like what we would usually do on snow. I ate sand basically. I went down on the sand board and my board twisted so I landed face first. That was fun hehe.







And in terms of proselyting, we have this one investigator, we finally got him to church! We told him to come look at the job listings at the chapel and then we made him stay for all 3 hours afterwards. He enjoyed it so that's good. We visited him yesterday and found out he has to move! He's still moving withing Laoag except not in our area anymore. The same thing is happening to our other investigator. She has to move too! Both of them have baptismal dates! Oh well. We'll just refer them to the other areas. But what's good is that we have been teaching this family who have been investigating the church for 12 years. They have a baptismal date again. They're super active at church. The bad part is that nanay and tatay are not yet married. But we've been pushing hard for them to get their birth certificates and what not for their wedding. The best part is now, they are doing missionary work. We committed nanay's best friend to baptism. She sat in the lesson yesterday about fasting. She decided to try fasting even though she is a new investigator. It's great! Elder Wood said that he hasn't had a baptism here in Laoag City since he's been here. Hopefully we can change that.

So for today, we wake up to no water pressure. So we had no way of doing laundry or cleaning or showering. So we just took our laundry machine to the mission home and did it outside. We are pretty kuwawa today. It's okay. We got to have a hot shower at the mission home. I haven't had that in 10 months!

Oh by the way, what do you use to make your sabaw thick? Halimbawa, how can I make my sabaw thicker? Like for menudo or whatever? I've been cooking a whole bunch of random stuff. Masarap pa rin.

For the box, just send me whatever. I need pepto-bismol tablets though. Cologne is good too. I don't know if it'd be cheaper here. But yeah, Christmas decorations I would like before christmas but if you can't that's fine. Basta, anything in the package is good.

Anyways, tek ker! Lub u all!

Elder Morales

Monday, November 11, 2013

Week #34: Super Typhoon and we are safe!

Hello!

So we are safe here. The super typhoon hit down south in Visayas. I'm sure you got the email from the mission. I saw your response hehe. Anyways, apparently Auntie Jean is progressing here. The sisters are really working hard on them. Hopefully I hear more news about them. Hopefully they also find ate Karen. They told me they'd give me updates. Hopefully Uncle Lito softens up to the missionary lessons. Missionary work really starts at the home and that's what we're trying to really push for over here. Sometimes people are afraid when they hear of mormons because theres so many BAWAL! But they miss the fact that we really know how to have fun. Like for example, yesterday, we had the zone leaders and sister training leaders here and we played games. President Barrientos was really having fun! He was laughing so hard because so of the games are really funny.




Anyways, these past two weeks were super busy. We had the departing missionaries. There were 5. So it's kind of weird sending out missionaries. It made us a bit homesick but it's fine. What made it worse is that while we were waiting for the incoming missionaries, there was a returning missionary and he ran straight to his parents so it make us even more homesick. Then the incoming finally arrived. There's this one elder who is 6'9". He's extremely TALL!!! On friday, we had to bring all the new arrival's luggages to up north. So we travelled all the way to Aparri and stayed in Allacapan. It was a loooooooong drive. I drove there and drove back. It's a 6 hour drive. I got to drive on the mountain. It's fun. Going down, don't need to even press on the gas. Just freefall. Just press on the brakes a lot.

And again for office work, we had to do more arts and crafts. I put stickers on all the DVD players and DVDs to keep track of what we have. I had to keep calling all companionships to return all there stuff. So the desk in the office was filled with over 40 DVD players. That was fun.

We also weren't really able to teach this week. The incoming taught in our area and found our guy with a baptismal date. We always try to teach him but he's never there. But when Elder Prakash found him, they found out he's been waiting for us to go to his place. He's also been reading the Book of Mormon every night and has been marking it. It's pretty cool. Now we just need to baptize him.

Anyways, who's the new stake president!? I want to know. If not, I'll just check online. It's always there.

Anyways, send my regards to everyone. Send my regards too to Margareth and safe, even when driving.

Love you all!
Take care!

Elder Morales

Monday, November 4, 2013

Week #33 : So I got some really cool news!

Hello!

That's super cool! That's Elder Soriano by the way. I got to meet him several times! And that Scott is I think Scott Ramos. I've heard about him. That's super funny. While I was reading I was wondering why Scott was going to church there in LaSalle, but then I read that her brother served in Laoag, I knew that it was Elder Soriano. He was actually the past finance elder. Actually, a lot of canadians serve in the office, especially filipino canadians or whatever.

So I got some really cool news. This past week, I met one of President Barrientos counselors, President Rosario. He's from Vigan. I was working in the office and I told him I have family from there. And I told him that their last name is Altares. Then his wife was asking me about this person named Karen. I found out that she is the daughter of aunti Jean. So Karen married into President Rosario's family somehow. Long story. President Rosario also told me that he was branch president in vigan when inang used to attend there. So President Rosario's wife called ate Karen and made me talk to her and I did. It was really cool. Then i referred the sisters in Vigan to go teach her but they were already looking for her. President Rosario told President Barrientos and if i do serve in Vigan, I'll be allowed to go visit them there.

As for the my driver's license, I finally got it! It took a whole transfer and 9 visits to the LTO but I finally have it so now I can drive. So many problems arose when I tried to get my license.

1. Needed a translation because it was in French.
2. My Visa expired on the photocopy so I had to get the update.
3. The update wasn't long enough so we went to Batac.
4. In Batac, the translation wasn't official enough so I had to wait for the head officer for monday.
5. The LTO in batac was closed on monday.
6. The chief officer approved the translation but then, they wouldn't allow me getting a license because the name on my license is missing Jomar because it's on my passport.
7. Went to the LTO in Batac after getting an ACR but it was closed.
8. Tried again but then the something was offline so they can't process licenses.
9. Decided to go to Laoag LTO. Got it!

Whatever.. I can drive now.

So for Halloween, we had bagyo! (rainstorm)





It was pretty loud at night. We were on lockdown so no proselyting. It hit Sta. Ana first and was pretty strong here at night. It was really loud so we couldn't really sleep. The day before, the mitsubishi dealership finally put up it's sign. That night, I swear I heard it fall or something. We checked and it was destroyed!

As for work, we didn't get to teach much. We were out travelling to different places signing contracts for apartments. That takes up a lot of time. We also have to deliver furnishings to the new apartments. We have 29 new missionaries coming so that means we're opening up new areas. And we have one brand brand new area opening, San Juan. It's exciting.

Anyways, for the balikbayan box, it's not necessary to get all these stuff but here's some ideas:

  • Real maple syrup
  • Maple or chocolate fudge (check for maple stuff in front of eaton centre where the guy sells maple stuff. Not sure if he's still there)
  • Mentos (not mint)
  • Candies (Jolly Ranchers, get the ones from dollarama. They have different flavours and are really cheap. Also starburst!)
  • Chocolates, kahit ano.
  • Dried fruits for baking (if that exists, not really necessary)
  • Candy canes?
  • Candy cane hot chocolate.
  • More pictures!
  • Cologne maybe?
  • Pepto-bismol tablets
  • Peanut butter?
  • Poptarts?
  • Cereal?
  • Christmas decorations, just a bit.
  • Elder Pincock said he wants doritos.
Just try to go cheap especially at the dollar store. Best place for candies. Super cheap.

So, I don't need a white long sleeve anymore. President and Sister Barrientos bought us one each. I'm not sure if one each. All he said is that the office elders need to look good. I totally agree with him! And smell good too.

So those are my stories this week. Nothing else. Thanks for the updates! Love you all and take care!

Elder Morales