Manila Temple for P-Day

Family, Hi!!

Holy Hannahs, has it ONLY been a week? ! I feel like it's been a month and I'm not even kidding when I say that. I have SO much to talk about and I know I'm going even going to be able to touch on the half of it with this, but we'll try. First of all, Boo-Boo, look at you all GQ with those glasses! I'm a fan, good pick :) I'm excited for Ryan for school and just hope that he loves it. I put his name on the prayer role at the temple today. And I'm glad that JT came to visit. I sure hope he's doing well with his family and adjusting to home and everything. The deal with the OFF lotion, it doesn't have deet in it at all. Apparently it's pretty much impossible to find deet around here. So I might have you send bug spray for Christmas. I'm good for now. Good thing we came prepared :) So the deal with PDay is that it switches with the week. Most of the time it's on Monday, but for temple day, it's on Tuesday, which is today because, well, the temple's closed on Monday. Then during transfer weeks it will be on Wednesday. So that's the deal with that. I haven't quite figured it all out quite yet actually.

Ok, so here we go. First of all, so last P-day after I wrote you, we went grocery shopping, home, and then did laundry, by hand I might add. I'm going to be a pro by the time I get home from here. Oh yeah, and p.s., the sheets that I brought, the blue ones you know? They're made out of miracle fabric, seriously. They dry in 4 hours. That's unheard of in this place. It's usually at least a day. Anyway, did laundry and then we had a dinner appointment. So as we're walking to the dinner appointment, it's rainy season of course, but it's still bloody hot (don't know if I can use that as a missionary :) but I have the chills. Weirdest thing right. So we have the dinner appointment and by the end I'm sick to my stomach and my body is starting to ache. Not good. So we go home and I just go straight to bed. Then the next morning, I wake up after a horrible night's sleep and start getting ready for the day, still SO cold and have chills, achy body. Not good. So we took my temperature and I had a fever of 102. Oh my goodness, I was so sick for the next 4 days. You name it; I had it. Fever, chills, headache, achy body, diarrhea, stomach ache. Seriously though. It was awful. We just stayed in and I slept all day long. At first we actually thought it was Dengue, but I honestly believe it was just my body shutting down and saying no more. Jet lag, diet change, sleep change, weather, stress. I think it'd had enough. One cool thing though, I can actually say I was cold for once in the Philippines!

By Friday though we actually could go out and work. We've had a hard time with our investigators this week. None of them have been really progressing as much as we'd like. You know Jeyar, the one that was doing so well? Well we go to teach him on Saturday and he was drunk. Yep. I think he feels awful about it though because he sent us an apology text that was forever long the next day. Haha. We haven't been back yet to see him, but we'll see. Yesterday, we contacted some referrals and did some finding. We got the ward directory and have basically just been going through and finding all the members, active or not, visiting them and then asking for referrals. It's been crazy. Yesterday we had a referral from headquarters though so we go and contact the man and we get there and figure out he's deaf. And he doesn't know Tagalog either, just English and ASL. And his wife is deaf too and his daughter knows just a little ASL. So we're in this little tiny house on the floor, trying to go from English, to Tagalog for his daughter, who's then translating into ASL for him. Talk about crazy language boundaries. But you wanna know the cool part? Even though we couldn't communicate with him, basically at all. The spirit was still there. You could just feel it. I love that about our

message. You immediately start talking about it, like really explaining to someone if they'll actually give you the chance, and they can't help but feel the spirit too. I love it. So we're working on our investigator pool right now. It's been fun. It's hard and it's hot, but it's so rewarding when you finally find someone new.

The language is a still a huge challenge right now. It's SO weird because they literally speak Taglish, which is just a mixture of English and Tagalog. Sometimes they don't even know what the Tagalog word is because they've always just used English, never Tagalog. We were at dinner and no one knew the word for bowl. They just always call it "bowl". So it's hard figuring out which words I need to know in Tagalog or which ones are just English. It's pretty funky. It's just because it's the city though. Out in the provinces it's deeper Tagalog. One of the Philippino sisters I live with who is so stinking cute, she told me the other day that I'll be fluent and sound like a Philippino in 3 months. She said my pronunciation is perfect and if she closed her eyes she wouldn't be able to tell I was white. Haha. She's too nice. Hopefully it'll be less than 3 months because I don't have that long to learn it. I need it now. It's weird being American here. Especially since my companion and I are both American, we stick out like sore thumbs. It's the best though when they figure out you can speak Tagalog and then they all start freaking out. They’ll actually call us "mga puti" which just means, the whites. Haha. It makes me laugh. It's been hard getting over the culture barrier with teaching. They teach you all these things in the MTC, which are all good thing, but applying them here is TOTALLY different. Like, they say, talk to everyone. Well, if we did that, we honestly wouldn't make it out our front door. They teach you how to approach someone and start a conversation....totally different it. It's just weird figuring out what's ok and what's not. Man, those state side missionaries have it SO easy. They have no idea. Even if they are learning Spanish, at least they're not learning a culture in addition.

Ok, so just for some funny things I've noticed being around here:

1- They put the funniest things on their walls. Like spongebob stuffed animals and barbies. Haha. Not kidding. It's hilarious. No family pictures either. Not even the rich families.

2- They have roosters on leashes everywhere. I think they may be fighter cocks?

3- McDonalds is call Macdo (Mac-dough) and they have a sink and soap to wash up right when you walk in the door. They also have spaghetti there with hotdogs in it. Which actually is pretty good.

4- They all raise their eyebrows to say yes. It's weird to get used to because at first you're like, "did they just not hear the question?". And it's kind of creepy if it's a man and they raise their eyebrows while smiling at the same time. Always makes me feel like they're hitting on me. Which if they're drunk, they probably are.

5- All the women wear knee highs to church. Ok, not all of them, but some. #1- why, it is HOT?, #2- they don't even pull them up to their knees, they just wear them like socks. So funny.

Ok, that's all for today. I have to write my letter to President now. I'm sorry I haven't been able to really tell about all my spiritual experiences and investigators yet. But I'll start next week. I still feel like I'm trying to just fill you in on the culture and everything that's just so new to me. I'll be better next week though. I love you all and hope everything is going oh so well! Mahal ko kayo talaga!!