Three Little Birdies

Hey you should email me sometime soonish if you want to ask questions or anything. But ya for now I'll just type up my week.

So this past week was a little chaotic kay we just had a lot going on. So Elder Clegg and I are assigned to teach this one person so pretty much every wednesday after Pday we are doing exchanges so that we can teach him together so that's kinda cool. Right after exchanges with him, we had interviews with President. President likes to hint at what he kinda has planned for you the next transfer and he talked a whole lot about training sooo I guess we'll see what happens.... The one sure thing is that I'm staying in Sikatuna for at least one more transfer so I'll be there for like at least 6 months. Then the next day there was a District Leader Council (DLC) so I did mini exchanges with Elder Hugo (a brand new trainee) while Elder Guiuo and Elder Garcia went to DLC. Then just yesterday I did exchanges with the Capital Elders and I worked with Elder Manu in Capital. It was pretty fun, we did a lot of searching for people kay he whitewashed the area (both of the elder's are new to the area) so he's been searching a lot for less active members.

But ya this week has been pretty good. We have a baptism this Saturday for Shawn Cabibil. He's 13 and he's probably one of the most receptive people to the gospel I've ever met. So ya I'm really excited for that this weekend. But ya that's pretty much it for this week.

I've noticed that often times when I've prayed and asked for comfort or support that I start to remember song lyrics and it's honestly been pretty comforting. Like just when thinking of this week and everything that I'm going to have to face the song three little birds came to mind and like just as it goes I realized that "every little thing, is gonna be alright." I don't know that's medyo cheesy but like hey whatever keeps me going I'll take it.

I hope you're doing well and everything, love ya! Miss ya!
Elder Shirley

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well since I already sent you the other email I'll just directly answer your questions here....

In your last email with elder Clegg still there you said you had a bunch of new contacts- any of those working out? Still on track for a baptism this Saturday?
I can't remember what those new contacts were but ya right now Shawn will be baptized this saturday and his family is making progress so that's been awesome

What new things have you done for p-day? does your new comp know how to make the mango floats the right way? Has he taught you how to cook anything Filipino?
Last Pday we just played basketball kay we had to work out exchanges and all that, this Pday we are meeting up as a zone to work on our skits and stuff for Christmas Conference, which is like a zone con but all the different zones have a skit that they perform so it'll be interesting to say the least. And I think he might know so I'll talk with him about it and see what he says. And ya we don't really cook that often so not really.

What are the families like there? small? lots of kids? do grandparents live with families?
They're all pretty different but it's not that uncommon for people to have really big families. and ya sometimes grandparents live with families, I guess it kinda just depends.

What kind of jobs do the people in your area have? How long do kids go to school for? is college even a thing for most of them? Are there trade schools?
Um a lot of people in my area work at call centers for like phone companies, then there's also construction, teaching, breadshops, sari-sari stores, just kinda pretty much anything. The school system here is kinda set up different so people can graduate high school at like 16 and be done with college at like 20ish so that's cool. Here no one takes out lones for like college so if you go to college you have to have the money to pay for the semester up front.

have you been able to do any service for the members or people in your area? How often do you get to go to the temple?
The one time we tried doing service for a member they told us they wanted us to work at their place at 5am and then they were asleep when we showed up so ya haven't really done any service. And all the missionaries on the island of Cebu get an opportunity to go to the temple quarterly, but that's only if you're on Cebu, if you're on Negros or Sigijor then you're just out of luck.


E Clegg and a jug that has chicks in it from a member's house


Exchanges with E Hugo

FHE at institute that E Guiuo and I taught

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Three Little Birdies Lyrics:

Rise up this morning, smiled with the rising sun
Three little birds, by my doorstep
Singing sweet songs, of melodies pure and sure
Saying, "this is my message to you"

Singing: "Don't worry about a thing, oh-oh
Cause every little thing is gonna be alright, yeah yeah
But don't worry about a thing
Cause every little thing is gonna be alright", yeah

November 6, 2018

So last week Elder Clegg and I celebrated finishing my training/12 weeks with drinking a little sparkling juice and burning my 12 weeks pamphlet so that was fun. 

I got my new companion, Elder Guiuo, this last Thursday. He is from Quezon City, Philippines so he's a filipino but he originally only spoke Tagalog so he had to learn Cebuano here as well. He's in his last transfer right now so he'll go home in December. It's only been a few days since I've started working with him but we're still progressing the area. It's been nice kay since he's been in the mission so long he really knows Bisaya so he's been helping learn a lot of new words and phrases and stuff. 

Right now we're working really hard to finish the lessons with one of the people we are teaching so that they can be baptized on Nov 17. He's doing really good and there's only a few lessons left for us to teach so it looks like he'll be getting baptized on that date! 

Sorry I don't have a lot of pics or stories from this last week. Hopefully I'll have more to share next week, but that's all for now.

(I asked about a video on Spencer's google drive that had Elder Clegg hoping on a broom)Ya elder clegg was trying to make one of those videos where it looks like you're riding a broomstick but ya he failed jud. Hahaha.  

Oh and ya thanks for all the pics of everything, I love seeing pics of y'all/home and what not.  And it's good to know I can look forward to a trip somewhere after I graduate ;)

(google hangouts for Christmas call?)
I'm pretty sure google hangouts is bawaled (forbidden) for us so I don't think that'll be how I call y'all. I'll still be here for christmas and I already know where I'll be facetiming you so I'll talk to them some time and ask. Or you can add them on facebook or something, they're like super nice and friendly and are kinda like family for all the missionaries that serve in Sikatuna. Their last name is Osumo but I'm not a 100% sure what the mom's first name is.

Love ya! Thanks for all the support and everything!
Elder Shirley

Oh and I got to play basketball with the district this morning so that was fun. It's cool kay a new batch of missionaries came in so there's a new elder in my district so I'm not the youngest in the district anymore! Yay! It feels really nice actually, hahaha

Ward Members in the area


Celebrating completion of 12 week training!

ps my companion is the one in a grey shirt and yellow shorts in the basketball pics

October 30, 2018

Sooooo we just got transfer calls! Like literally this morning. Elder Clegg will be transferring to San Nicolas and he'll be Zone Leader for Central Zone (Our current zone) so ya he didn't make it very far. I'll be followed up by Elder Guiuo, he's a filipino that's in his last transfer of his mission so that means I'll most likely be in Sikatuna for the next 2 transfers.... so I'll be here for a while...

But ya finished 12 weeks and all that so that's been awesome. This last week we actually went around looking for a new place to live because our landlord was going to raise our rent so we couldn't afford to live there, but thankfully they decided they're going to not raise the rent so we'll be able to live in our same balay. Yesterday we had to pay our water bill which we can normally do in a 7-11 but we went to like 8 of them and none of them were working so we had to go all the way to the bottom of our area to the actual water maintanance building to pay the bill. It was like a DMV on steroids... it was so bad. OH and a member wanted us to come do service at her house at 5am so we woke up at 4am to get there at 5am and then we got punted. She was asleep jud. We were soooo tired.

This past week was actually really good though. One of the member's in our ward and his sister/friends staying in his apartment for a few days while they were coming back from a vacation and Elder Clegg and I got an opportunity to teach them. It was cool because they actually preferred to be taught in English so we taught everything in English and then they were actually all really religious so they were really intrigued by our message. That's the thing here, like everyone is actually really religious here so we actually find people that are really interested in what we have to say. It's awesome. OH and a former investigator of ours like out of the blue contacted us and now we are teaching her again. It's been really good.

If you want to try what I've eaten a lot you'll have to look for "giniling" (cebuano) or it's also called "sigsig" (Tagalog). You could also just get Lechon Manok, that's another good one. But ya just make sure you eat a ton of rice with it or it's not filipino. And ya if the typhoon hits Luzon then it doesn't effect us at all so all these typhoons that have been happening have had zero effects on my area.

Alright that's pretty much it for this week, my computer is kinda spazzing out so I can't really send pics right now.

But ya I love you! Hope you're doing well and having a fun time with dad in Hawaii!
Elder Shirley

The bugs really aren't that bad ...

man so many questions... so little time.... I'll try my best to answer them but we'll see how long my motivation lasts.... 

Sige, so the ward is awesome. We have like 16 Ward Missionaries that are like crazy helpful and awesome so that's been great. The members really want to help others and to build one another up so that's been cool as well. They really push a ward missionary effort here which has been really nice as well. Right now we've been teaching a lot of new people recently. We have this 13 yr old that we're teaching and through him we've started teaching like 8 other people so that's been awesome. 

Advenutres..... I don't know, we made a better mango float last week so that was chill. I think we're trying again later today. 

mmmmmm oh so kids here will fight spiders. Like they put a couple spiders on a stick and will have them fight. So a bunch of kids have like a spider collection and will fight and trade spiders. It's soooo weird here. 

Personal study I've been reading a lot in Alma and trying to use the missionary stories there to improve myself as a missionary. 

So I like really love the food here. It's amazing. But the people here are so nice and awesome and friendly and like dang I don't know they're hard to describe but they're great. I can't wait until I can really speak and understand the language so that I can really grow closer to the people I meet. Also I've only had like 2 companions so far so it's kinda hard to have a favorite. 

The bugs really aren't that bad. As long as we have a fan on us while we sleep the mosquitoes don't really bother us at all. We've had a couple spiders in our house like once, about 10 weeks ago. We have cockroaches but we spray the house down with bug killer every few weeks so whenever they come into our house they just kinda die. 

The sun actually isn't bad here at all. I'll admit that I haven't really been using sun screen but i haven't burned once since being here. 

Ya again not a ton happened this week. I'm on my last week of 12 weeks and I'm soooo ready to be done. Transfers are coming up next week so I should find out who my new companion is by next wednesday so that'll be interesting.

Love ya! Hope you're doing well! Enjoy Hawaii! The hardest part about serving on an Island is that you can't actually enjoy island life so that's been annoying.
Nahigugma ko nimo!

Elder Shirley

Round 2 of mango floats

kid's spider collection

probably the only time I'll ever eat at Pizza hut while on my mission (it's sooo mahal as missionaries)

 temple after interviews

 new family/ friends we starting teaching and the FHE we had at their house

 

Ward missionaries at an FHE

General Conference .... yaayy!!

Daaaang sounds like you've had a busy week or so. Also ya what in the world are y'all going to do with all of the meat that dad will be getting? you'll need like 3 more freezers. glad he's having fun though. The Family we would visit in Valdez was the Baczuk family, they're cool. You should say hi to luke for me, he's a senior so he'll be one of the older priest there. 

I must say it's kind of nice not having to deal with getting cold here. It is annoying how hot it is sometimes but really if you just drink water it's not that bad. I don't know if the garments arrived yet because we don't really go to the mission office that often. Also I meant they're not the right kind as in they're not the dri-lux kind, that's the kind I like. But it's alright, I really just needed more garments so I'm sure they'll work. The stitching on some of my garments just hasn't been the greatest so I've been getting really big holes in the seams of my garment bottoms so I've had to get rid of a couple of them. Oh and sometimes when it rains my panyo (sweat rag) will be in my pocket and it'll turn my garments blue or green or whatever so ya I had to get rid of some of those garments as well.

We finally got to watch General Conference yaaaaaaay!!!! The leadership is a little walay claro sometimes though so we actually showed up like 2 hours early on saturday because they didn't tell us they changed the time. It's cool all the changes they're making with everything. Really starting to push more of a family aspect to learning the gospel, it's cool. Favorite talk.... I'd have to look at my notes but overall I just really liked how they talked a lot about taking on the name of Christ. Between that and families they had a really good theme going on between all of the talks. Sunday we did have an investigator come to watch conference with us, he came for the afternoon session but, 20 minutes before it started, there was a "brown-out" (That's what they call Black-outs) at the church so we lost all the power in the church and didn't have any gas to power the back-up generator so we ended up not watching the afternoon session at the church. We did get to watch it eventually at a member's house so that was cool.

Oh sunday I got to baptize one of the sisters' investigators so that was cool to. The building still didn't have power when we did it so we did everything by flashlight light so that was quite the experience. 

And ya they don't really have a lot of holidays here. They don't celebrate Halloween or anything like that, so they don't really have any holidays from september-december. That's partly why people start putting up christmas decorations so early. 

I go on exchanges with other elders probably 2-4 times a transfer, this transfer it looks like it'll be more like 3 exchanges. I actually just had an exchange this last monday and I lead the area for the first time so that was cool/stressful. My companion will actually have been in the area for like 8 months by november.... no, that doesn't normally happen... Normally the longest your in an area is for 3 transfers, he's been here for 5.... maybe 6 or 7. Hahaha jokes, he'll most likely transfer out but it's really fun to joke that he won't. 

Last week we tried making mango floats.... It only takes like 4 ingredients.... yet somehow it still ended up really bad.... long story short we're trying again today.

I can't think of anything else that happened at the moment so that'll be all I say. Hope you're doing well! Thanks for all the love and support! Of course I miss you but i'll see you in like 70 days so I'll be fine. 

Love you! Nahigugma ko nimo!
Elder shirley


Mango float....




Not at all how it's supposed to be...




riding a dyip with other missionaries


Baptism




Riding on the back of a dyip because all the other missionaries had already got on and there was no more room for us


Visiting a member

Average life of a missionary

Not a ton happened this week, we have a couple new people we're teaching, had a could people we had to drop, pretty much the average life of a missionary. The area is still moving forward though. We started teaching this 13 year old guy and he's really been getting into the lessons and he's been inviting all his friends so that's been cool. I went on exchanges this last monday with Elder Gutual and that was interesting. He's actually from my batch so we basically had 2 trainees in an area. He's bisaya daan (like he already knows bisaya) so between the 2 of us we had some good lessons. Later today we're going to try making Mango Floats so that'll be exciting. But ya sorry I can't really write much. It was just a pretty mellow week. OH the office tried to tell us that 6 people got dengue, it was really just 1. I think they just try to scare us into using bug spray here.

Anyways that's pretty much it, I'll try to write more next week.

Sounds like you're doing well though and that you had a good time in utah. And so UTah state won???? ha in your face.

Love you! Gihigugma tika!
Elder shirley


And then we also had to chase a goat off the church property and I snagged this pic


I got a small set of scriptures and I made a box for it out of liahona magazines....








Then I took some more nametag pics for ya...

Another week gone...

My week was alright. 

For my interview with Elder Wakolo he just asked me about my family and about how I was adjusting to the field. 

Last pday we mainly just got groceries and then walked around and found 8 barbershops that were all closed so we didn't get a haircut last week. 

For conference last wednesday it was just like a normal zone conference except that we had Elder Wakolo do all of the workshops/teaching so that was cool. He's awesome. As part of the mission tour he essentially went to all of the zone conferences so everyone got an opportunity to see and hear from him. 

yes i'm taking lots of pics and writing lots. (in fact if you could send me another memory card thing for my camera that'd be great) 

The hardest part of my mission has probably just been not understanding/being able to speak the language. It's really hard to do the work/grow closer to others when I don't understand what they're saying or they can't understand what i'm saying. But it's getting better. I'm still improving and getting better and I know I'll get there some day so I just keep trying. I actually haven't really missed home at all, at least not yet. There's been a number of missionaries that it's been really hard for them but I haven't really had a problem with it yet. 

The rainy season has started but it generally will only rain for about an hour about every other day so it hasn't really gotten that bad yet.

I do carry my photobook with me but I haven't had a ton of opportunities to share it. Generally when getting to know people we try to focus the conversation on them, not on ourselves, so I don't show it to people that often.

This week we started teaching a couple new people and we've had kuyogs so we've been able to teach more of our investigators. Hopefully the work will continue to pick up. Right now the work is doing better in some areas than others but overall we're doing pretty good.

I'm pretty kapoy {exhausted} so I'll probably just send a ton of pics now. oh we also went to a family day thing so hopefully I can send some of the videos from that.

Gihigugma tika!
Elder shirley

Cebu Heritage momument. featuring Lapu-Lapu the one credited by the Philippians to have killed Magellan.








president pajaro, and sister pajaro - ME - elder wakolo, sister wakolo,




Mango float (cake looking thing)

a gang that we generally deal with 2 or 3 times a week

more floods

the river outside our house after a flood

Exchanges with Elder Sudayon and another flood

a street that we end up at a lot