So Wednesday we all got to the mission home and went through so orientation kind of stuff. Afterwards we got to go through the Cebu temple (since it's literally 100ft from the mission home) and do an endowment session (in english). It was super cool, the temple is absolutely beautiful, probably one of the most beautiful temples I've ever seen. It's on the smaller side it's bigger than the Anchorage temple so it's not that small. That night they had everyone that was going to be a trainer come and have dinner with us and talk with us. We weren't actually assigned trainers yet so Elder Stastny and I tried to figure out all the areas that the elders were serving so we could have an idea of where we'd end up. Dinner at the mission house is literally the greatest like lami gyud siya.
That night we stayed at a little hotel by the mission home and then the next morning we went back to the mission home to meet up with our trainers and then head out. They have like a little tradition thing were they have all of the trainees stand outside in a line and then while we sing Called to Serve our trainers come out and stand behind us. When we finished singing we'd turn around and we'd meet our trainers. So ya that was kinda fun. My trainer is Elder Clegg, he's from Cache Valley, Utah and he's been out for a little over a year now (I think he hit his year mark in July). After I got my trainer we just happened to be walking around the mission home looking for something and we asked Sister Pajaro (the mission president's wife) where something was and she said she didn't know but she invited us to eat lunch with her and it turns out it's next to impossible to turn down an invitation to eat, people will just force you to eat with them. But ya so day 1 and we got to eat lunch with the mission president and his wife.
We are serving in the Sikatuna area which is about as city as it can get. The people here are awesome. Our first night of teaching I got kinda lucky because we just visited with some members who all happened to speak amazing english. One of the them actually translates for the church. Then the other family we visited is like the filipino version of the brady bunch. They speak so much english that some of them don't even really have an accent. It's nice because sometimes in lessons I can follow along easier because the people we teach will use a few english words here and there but it's also hard because a lot of the time, since I'm clearly not filipino, people will just speak english to me which again is nice because I can understand but it also just makes it harder to learn the language because I'm not actually using it or listening to it. I do think I'm getting better though. The first couple days I couldn't understand a single thing being said to me but now I can actually catch enough of what's being said to understand where our lessons are going.
As far as food goes, we have actually only "cooked" for ourselves twice since I've been here. Any time we teach someone around lunch or dinner chances our they invite us to eat with them, so we've had a lot of meals with members. The first night we actually ate two dinners because they seriously don't take no as an answer. When we do eat we just go and buy Sudan (just pretty much anything that you'd put on top of rice, chicken, pork, etc) and then we'd cook rice and call it good.
The first couple days it rained a few times but it hasn't really rained since. It's not terribly hot or humid so that's nice. All of the missions in the Philippines are actually getting little washer machines because they decided that our time could be better spent than washing clothes by hand for 4-5 hours. So ya we have a washer machine. My companion is also the district leader so we've taken a couple trips to Labangon, where our stake center is, to do a blessing and a couple baptismal interviews. We just walk everywhere we go in our area but any time we need to go to the stake center, we take Jeepneys. I haven't taken a ton of pictures since being here so if you want to see what the temple is like or what a jeepney is then you'll just have to look it up for now.
Our balay is actually pretty big, I was surprised at house spacious it is. We don't have a shower, we just use a bucket of water and we don't have toilet paper so I guess wiping with your hand is actually a thing. The mosquitoes aren't too bad here. I've walked around all day after forgetting to put on bug spray and I'll maybe get like 1 or 2 bites all day so it's alright. We don't really get a whole lot of other bugs. I've seen some cockroaches in the streets and I wake up every morning and walk through a spider web but other than that it's alright. We actually had two giant spiders in our balay, elder Clegg said he's only ever seen those kind of spiders like once before on the island of Negros so hopefully we won't see more of them. For teaching and finding investigators we mostly work through referrals, but we haven't been getting as many referrals lately so we might try proselyting soon.
OK so now that I'm out of the house you finally decide to change my light AND you're getting a dog.... Apparently I should've just left the house for a couple months. I don't have a lot of time on the computer left so I'll keep this part short, but I love you! and miss you! The work is hard but it's enjoyable. I'm growing everyday. I hope you're doing well at home. I see probably like 100 cats everyday so I haven't really missed pepper all that much yet. There's also like a ton of dogs too. It smells pretty gross here but it's still an incredible place. I love it so much.
gihigugma tika!
imong pabarito missionaryo,
elder shirley
OK so now that I'm out of the house you finally decide to change my light AND you're getting a dog.... Apparently I should've just left the house for a couple months. I don't have a lot of time on the computer left so I'll keep this part short, but I love you! and miss you! The work is hard but it's enjoyable. I'm growing everyday. I hope you're doing well at home. I see probably like 100 cats everyday so I haven't really missed pepper all that much yet. There's also like a ton of dogs too. It smells pretty gross here but it's still an incredible place. I love it so much.
gihigugma tika!
imong pabarito missionaryo,
elder shirley
