Visit from Elder Wakolo

ps: there's like a mission tour thing going on so that's why I'm emailing today. Elder Wakolo from the area presidency is having a little conference for us tomorrow and he's interviewing some missionaries. Apparently I'm going to be one of the missionaries he interviews so we'll see how that goes.

Daaaaang, sounds like you had a busy day and that you have enough meat for the next year or two. I must say I do miss moose burgers so I'm a little jealous. Also that's great that no one lost their home. Looking at the map and from what I've heard from everyone It sounds like it was a pretty dangerous situation. And it's awesome that Devin got hired by the division. He'll like totally have his life together by the time I get back.... weird. And I mean when USU by some miracle beats BYU it'll be even better because I heard how BYU is actually ranked this year.

Also for conference we apparently watch it the Sunday after conference which makes sense because we're actually like a day ahead here so it'll be Monday by the time Sunday conference actually starts. 

Also I didn't get worms from wiping with my hand. And ya you pretty much just take a pill and it detaches the worms from your stomach and you're fine. And ya I've been feeling a lot better so I'm sure they're gone. 

Ya the Typhoon pretty much missed the Island of Cebu so we're totally fine. We did just get a whole lot of rain the other day, like so much rain we were actually kinda trapped because we couldn't get to appointments because roads were flooding and then we couldn't go back to our balay because our street had flooded. So we managed to get to a 7 eleven and we just studied there until the rain stopped. and ya i heard about the landslide, sounds like you pretty much have heard just as much about it as I have though. 

And ya it's kinda annoying because the new people we are teaching are actually getting really into our messages but we can't teach them that often because we need kuyogs (fellowshippers) to be able to teach them and we haven't been able to get that many members to kuyog with us. But ya we normally teach in people's homes. Which really varies from person to person. There's a couple people with homes similar to homes you'd see in the US but then there's also homes where it's literally the size of like a handicap stall. The people here live very humbly. It doesn't matter to them the size of there house or anything like that. In fact some of the happiest people I've met live in the smallest of homes. They really appreciate the things in life that actually matter and that's why they're so happy all the time. They care more about the well being of others than they do for themselves and it's honestly really inspiring. 

The Language is still coming to say the least. My language in lessons is pretty good but I'm still working on being able to have normal conversations with people which is mainly just hard because I'm still working on understanding so when I talk with people I really have to piece together what they're saying so it's hard sometimes to understand. If people speak clearly I do alright with my understanding, the problem is that Bisaya is supposed to be a very hard spoken language in that you are supposed to speak very clearly and say all the letters and parts very clearly, but most of the people that speak bisaya don't do that so that's been great. 

 Oh I almost forgot, we had a baptism this last week. His name is John Cordova, he's nine years old and belongs to a part member family. He was literally the best to teach because we would just teach everything super simply and he understood very easily so that was great. So ya had my first baptism this week. Yaaaaaay

Oh it was also transfer week last week so we have new missionaries in my zone so that's cool. There's one sister from the new batch of missionaries that just got transfered into my zone so now I'm not the youngest missionary in the zone! (or the most lost with bisaya, yaaaay)

Sounds like you're having a pretty adventurous time back home. The house looks great. I see you've already turned my room into a guest room. Must be very quiet around the house. Hope you and Dad are getting used to being empty nesters. Hope Pepper is still kicking too. 

Gihigugma Tika! Tulo ka bulan hangtud makatawag ko kanimo! Yaaaay

(*translated: Three months until I can call you!*)

Elder Shirley

Oh I also ate these noodle things because I told a member that I missed spicey food because their food is mostly sweet here so a member gave me these spicey korean noodle things. They were pretty spicey. Dad would've turned red and started sweating a lot.

Typhoon, Worms, & Christmas

Hey so I guess you forgot to email me so that's nice and all. I'll try being detailed and everything but I guess I won't be answering any questions which'll make this a whole lot easier.
(*NOTE:  I did NOT forget ...Spencer wrote early & I was stuck dealing with a moose...)

Basta. So this week was interesting and kinda fun. We have a couple new people that we're teaching so that's fun. The first one is Terry and she works at our favorite bread shop so she's seen us buy bread their a lot. But ya so since we're there like literally everyday she started talking with us one night and now we've started teaching her. It's also cool because anytime we walk by the shop she calls us over and gives us bread and soda for free so that's been cool. We also started teaching another person that we met through a referral. Her name is Mylang and she was one leg so that was interesting. We've only taught her one lesson so far but she really seemed to feel the spirit in our lesson and to really believe the things we were teaching her so that was cool too. On Saturday we went on Exchanges again and I worked in Arlington again. We got to work in the Bukid (literally translates to mountain but it's also like a reference to jungly mountain foresty stuff.... just look at the picture) so that was awesome. I've wanted to work in the Bukid ever since I've gotten to the Philippines so that was really fun. It's a lot of walking to say the least. It's the end of our transfer this week. Some missionaries from our zone already said their goodbyes last Monday during district council. We got transfer calls today, no change for us siempre (of course) cuz i'm still being trained. We do have some changes to our zone though. They just split the Zone Leader's area into 2 so now we have 2 new elders coming into that area. Yay our tiny zone got a little bigger! Today the new batch of missionaries come in and the missionaries from my batch that were visa waiting are coming in too! We also have a meeting thing in Lahug (where the temple/mission office is) so we might be able to see them today. Oh it's also Christmas time here so pretty much where ever we walk we hear Christmas music. Also one of the Barangays (township thingys) already started going all out with decorations, like with a tree and Christmas count down and everything. It's been great here. The typhoon that hit the Philippines had very very minimal affects on us. The storm mostly hit Luzon which is like northern Philippines so we were only getting the outskirts of the storm. It was actually nice, there was like a good breeze and it didn't actually rain like at all in our area. Oh last week I got worms so that was interesting. I pretty much figured it out after my stomach hadn't been feeling that well for a little while and when i went to the mission office and weighed myself I had lost weight even though I've been eating a ton. But ya that's over so all is good now.

Hope you're doing well, I still love you even though you didn't email me. Hope everything is going well at home. Since you're making so many changes to the house and everything I'm sure you were about to tell me about how you now have a movie theater kinda thing in dad's loft now so you'll have to tell me all about that.

Love you! gihigugma tika!
Elder Shirley


Bukid


A ton of cats, because there are a ton of cats and dogs here


Christmas at Barangay Day-as

Too lazy/busy? to write a real letter ....

What do you do for your daily exercise?
Push ups, sit ups, planks, etc.... basically anything that you can do without weights.

Do you go running at all? Or would that be too hard in the city?
It's too hard in the city, I'd love to go running but the roads are always too busy or under construction soooo no running.

Is the elder who was in the hospital for Dengue fever better? (I hope you learned how not fun it is and are using bug spray!)
Ya the elder is doing great now, it's really just like a week of suffering and then you're fine. But ya again our area is pretty safe so no need to worry about me getting Dengue.

I didn't see any seat, or water tank on the toilet - how do you flush it? (Bro. Harman is VERY concerned about the whole no toilet paper usage!!)
So ya we just don't have a toilet seat which is no big deal and then to flush the toilet we fill up a bucket of water and just pour it all into the toilet and it all gets flushed down. It's a pretty classy system to say the least. And like honestly the whole no toilet paper thing isn't nearly as bad as what you'd think so ya you get used to it.

Did you ever tell me if your camping sheet is working out? Do you wash it each week?
The sleeping bag liner is great. You really don't need anything more than that, because it is soooo hot. I got some sheets just to have something to wrap around the mattress though because all the mattresses here have been through a lot. But ya I try to wash it every week but siempre (of course) sometimes I forget since it's upstairs and the washer is downstairs.

Do you have to hang all your laundry to dry? Your washer looked small, does it work good?
So as part of the washer there's a separate spin cycle thingy that dries the clothes pretty well. Like the clothes aren't 100% dry afterwards but it gets them mostly dry so we just hang the the clothes out to finish drying. The washer is kinda small but you really don't have a ton of stuff you have to wash each week so it works. It does a pretty good job but if we happen to get a stain or something on our shirts then we normally hand wash because it's more effective at spot cleaning.

How many missionaries are in your area?
So I'm a part of Central zone which is tiny. There are two districts and each district has 2 sets of elders and 1 set of sisters. I think I told you already but Elder Clegg is actually the district leader for our district so ya that's fun.

How many wards are you assigned to?
We are assigned just to one, Sikatuna. There's generally like 80 people in our sacrament meetings.

You said your companion has been there for 6 months - is that typical? to be in an area for that long?
Ya not really. Generally 3 transfers is like the longest you'll be in an area.... Elder Clegg will have been in Sikatuna for 5 after next transfer. But ya more typically you're in an area between 1-3 transfers.

Did Tak go to church? Has he committed to baptism? Tell me about another investigator....
you mean Nat? He didn't go to church but that's just because his wife came back from a trip and they needed to open their restaurant since she hadn't been there in a while. He's still interested. He's doing a lot better about not smoking. He used to smoke 3 packs a day and now he's down to 1 a week so he's doing great. He wants to really know if the book of mormon is true before committing to anything so he's really started reading and praying so he's definitely improving. I don't really have time to talk about another investigator so maybe next time.

Did you have a zone conference? Were you able to see some of the missionaries you came out with?
I actually had zone conference yesterday so ya I got to see Elder King and Elder Stastny again so that was super fun. It was suuuuuper long but it was pretty good. I have a pic of my zone infront of the temple so I'll upload that.

What is your favorite thing about the Philippines so far? What has been the biggest surprise? What's the most frustrating?
My favorite thing would definitely be the people. The food is also awesome but the people are amazing. They're just so happy and humble and they're really fun to be around. Biggest surprise, no toilet paper... we all thought that was a joke. haven't really been that frustrated with anything yet. Just enjoying the work, good and the bad. I mean I still don't understand people completely but the language is coming and I'm improving so I can't really complain.

Do you know where you will watch Conference in a few weeks? What time will it be broadcast there?
Honestly I only just realized that it was September so ya I didn't even realize conference was in just a few weeks. So ya probably Labangon, that's where are stake center is so we'll probably be watching it there. And ya I have no clue when we'll broadcast it.

Ya i got lazy this week so I didn't really want to answer in paragraph form. Plus I don't have a ton of time left because I tried to email other people first. But ya this week has been good. Looks like you're still having fun up in Alaska. I can't believe how different the house is going to be when I get back. Looks good though. Elder Clegg thinks that I shouldn't have told you that I don't have toilet paper because you'll send me a bunch of wipes now. Don't do it, I'll be fine. Send me treats instead. Oh I made a christmas list for you because I forgot to do it before I left. But I don't have time so remind me next week.

Love you! Miss you! Amping!
Elder Shirley


temple after session

Elder Clegg and I bored on a jeepney ride back to our area

Chicken Surgery

We have not really entered the rainy season yet, but we have been getting some good rain these past few days. It's actually been raining so hard that it's been flooding the streets and people's houses. We actually helped a car out of a ditch on our way to an appointment because the road by our balay is under construction and the water levels were so high that the person driving didn't see that one side of the road wasn't there anymore.

This week was pretty good. Last Pday we went to Plaza Independcia which has Fort San Pedro and nearby there's the place that holds Magellan's Cross for when he first got to the Philippines. It's actually encased in another cross now so the picture isn't of the actual cross but of the thing that's like encasing the cross. It was a beautiful area. We took lots of pics.

Sunday was interesting because we went to visit a less active member and he was in the middle of a chicken surgery with his son. Cock fighting is pretty big here and I guess that night he had the winning chicken. It got pretty cut up though so he was giving it stitches and stuff to fix it up. Last time we tried visiting him, he literally just walked away. So we took the opportunity of him sitting there working on his chicken to get to know him and his son. So ya we got to watch a chicken surgery. It was good though, he let us talk with him and teach him so it all worked out.

We have a few different people taking lessons from us right now. I'm just going to talk about one right now because it'd take forever to talk about all of them. Brother Nat is the one we are really trying to help right now. He's a 70 year old Tatay who owns a restaurant and lives a pretty simple life. He has actually been taught all of the lessons 3 or 4 times. He was first contacted by missionaries in 1978... so 40 years ago. He believes the church is true but his problem is that he really likes to smoke. He believes there is nothing wrong with smoking. He doesn't believe any of the science saying smoking is bad so it's been really hard trying to explain to him why he needs to stop. This last monday we taught him again and really emphasized the spiritual side of why he needs to quit smoking. He then told us, "Ok, there's 5 days before sunday. I'm going to think about what I've been taught and pray and read the book of mormon for the next 5 days. If I come to church this sunday, I will join your church." Elder Clegg has been in Sikatuna for 6 months now and he's been teaching brother Nat for all that time and he said that he hasn't heard brother Nat say anything like that before. It'll be interesting to see what happens this Sunday. I think he really believes though, and that he will come.

We have district meetings every monday and zone conferences once a transfer (6 weeks). My first zone conference is next week which'll be fun because then I'll get to see some of the people from my batch.

As far as personal study goes, I've started reading Doctrine and Covenants along with my reading in the Book of Mormon. I'm now in the Book of Mosiah, reading King Benjamin's address. It's a good read, pretty enlightening. I don't have time to write anything super specific about what I learned from it, but it's really enlightening if you take the time to really go through and understand all that he is saying.

Sounds like you had a pretty good week back home. I miss how beautiful it is there. We don't really have that many places that look good in my area since it's like literally as downtown as it gets. I love the pics, makes me miss home a little bit but the work here makes it worth not being home.

Gihigugma tika!
Elder shirley

Colon street (oldest street in the philippines)

magellan's cross









Fort San Pedro














Flood pics






We also went to the hospital this week because our zone has the hospital (Chung Hua) that like all missionaries go to when they get sick on the island of Cebu, and my area is the closest to it so we generally go and take stuff there for people. There was an elder in the hospital for Dengue so we stayed over night with him and then switched out with some other elders from our zone the next day. We also took lots of pics there because we were bored out of our minds.

Messing around in the Hospital