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!!

Finally....in the Philippines

KUMUSTA!!!!

I'm here!! I still can't even believe it; it doesn't feel like it's quite real yet. But I have SO much to write about so I'm just going to start and bust it out. So sorry, no pictures this time but I'll work on it for next week. First of all, that place is crazy, talaga, but I LOVE it! The traffic is out of control. People play frogger like nobody's business and I'm so shocked I have yet to see an accident. Coming from the airport we rode in a shuttle and there were multiple times where we almost crashed. It's pretty hilarious. Main types of transportation are Jeepneys, which are just old army jeeps that they decorate and have routes around the city, Tricies, which, just picture a beat up old motorcycle with a side car attached and then image usually 2-3 philippinos on the seat and then 3 to sometimes 5 shoved into the side care. Haha, it's like seeing how many people you can fit in a telephone booth. Too funny. The area I'm in is Tandang Sora; it's basically a ton of houses and some markets and stuff. But it's definitely pure city. It's super dirty, and most the time smells like an outhouse, I have to be quite honest. But I don't really care because I'm just glad to actually be here! The houses are tiny and connected with all these little tiny alley ways. A lot of the people really have nothing in their houses. The whole thing is about the size of my room downstairs, sometime with an upstairs, sometimes not. Sometimes they don't even have a complete roof or complete walls, but then again, here you don't really need it to be perfectly enclosed because it's so hot all the time.

My apartment isn't too shabby at all. We actually have one shower with a shower head, so that's nice. The toilets don't flush though so you have to fill up a bucket and pour water into the toilet to get it to go down. Whitney might have some problems in this place :) haha. And there is toilet paper! Honestly though, if I had to go the other way, I'm totally up for anything. I pretty much get eaten alive every night, whether I wear bug spray or not. You should see my legs. They're covered in bites and of course I don't have enough self control to not scratch them. 

My companions name is Sister Schardt. She's from California and she was actually in the Manila mission and got transferred to the Quezon mission when they split a couple months ago. This is her last transfer here so she'll go home in 5 weeks. That means I'll have 2 trainers. It's been good with her though. She's very organized, which of course I like :) and she's a hard worker. She's pretty uptight though and likes to correct me a lot, which is ok because I'm new. It's super hard though because she is horrible at Tagalog. It's frustrating for me because I can't understand what they're saying back to me because they talk so fast, and about half of the time she can't tell what they're saying either. Needless to say, kind of hard to teach effectively when neither one of us knows what's going one. It's hard too because I don't want to copy her because I know she's doing it wrong. That's how bad she is. Even I can pick up on her grammatical mistakes and that's saying something because I'm absolutely horrible though. I feel bad for her though because that would be hard to have been here the whole time and still not completely understand the language. I am not going to let that happen with me. I will learn this language, if it takes all the brain power I possess. And I'll learn the correct way to speak it, not just enough to get by. That's my goal. Anyway, it's been good though. I'm still trying to learn how to teach some of the lessons and I'm really halting when I speak. haha, sometimes they just tell me, "speak english!" and I tell them no, I'm trying to learn. It's so funny. It's hard though because I want to street contact or talk to people in jeepneys but I can't because I don't understand their responses and sometimes my companion doesn't either. We're dealing with a major language barrier here.

They people here are so nice; seriously though. You can pretty much say hi to anyone and they'll at least acknowledge you. The first things they say to me are "maganda ka" which means, you're pretty and then they mention my rosy cheeks, my eye color (they ask if I wear colored contacts) and my hair. They think my hair is beautiful which I just sit and go, you've got to be kidding right!  I look like a Q-tip! Oh my goodness, you should just see my hair. I have NEVER seen it this curly ever and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. So I don't do anything. Haha. The weather is hot. You pretty much sweat just sitting there, but I thinks it's because of the humidity more than anything. I drink so much water, I swear, but I never have to go to the bathroom. It just sweats straight through me. It pretty much rains everyday. Sometimes hard, sometimes not. The food is good. Everything that I've tried so far anyway. My body is kind of having a freak out though because all they have here is breads, cereals, rice, meats and a little bit of vegetables. Fruits are pretty expensive in the cities so we don't get them as much. I'm just craving a juicy apple or to knaw on a cucumber, no joke. But I'm scared to eat veggies uncooked here because it's one of the ways you get parasites the most. Maybe I'll splurge and get an apple though. Yep, that's what I'm going to do. 

Ok, now for the fun stuff. Our investigators are awesome. We have about 12 people we're teaching right now. Honestly, there are not enough hours in the day to do everything that we need to. There's just so much work to be done. Even with the mission split there's still about 6 million people in our mission boundaries. yep. My favorite investigator right now is Jeyar. He's golden, honestly though. They taught him one lesson before I got here and gave him a Book of Mormon, so that would have been last week, and already he's almost through 1st Nephi, has read all the pamphlets we've give him AND done the additional study at the back of each of them, came to church with us yesterday and committed to baptism. This is going to sound crazy, but when I first met him, you could tell there was something different about him. He had a glow, a good feel. I don't know how to describe it. But he's ready, I just feel it. I hope everything goes through because he's about 21 so that means future priesthood holder and future missionary. Yes. It's the most rewarding thing in the world to see how happy and excited he is about it. That was one thing president said when he was interviewing me. He said, There's so much work to be done here and so many people are prepared and I've thought about it a long time. Why don't we have pass along cards or other resources for the Philippines. And he says, I think it's because the structure of the church just isn't ready for it yet. It needs to be stronger. So that's what we need to do…make strong converts that make strong wards so that it really can boom. I love it because when I walk down the streets I can just see how much these people need the gospel. Just for hope or to know that there's something more, you know. I've loved it.

My mission president is amazing. He's pretty soft spoken, but he knows what he's talking about. According the Sister Schardt, he's way strict, but I say go for it. If we're going to do the Lord's work, let's do it his way. So I'm ok with that. Just a few other weird culture things. We have one long term investigator that hasn't been baptized yet because her and her husband aren't married. They have 9 kids and have been together for about 30 years. That's pretty common here. Oh yeah, and the little kids are the greatest! They are honestly the cutest things in the entire world! Tell Whitney, if she wants to make brown babies, marry a Philippino because they have the cutest kids ever. They'll flock around us when we walk down the street and ask us all these questions. My favorite is "wash you name?”.  Haha, too funny. Anyway, I'm out of time. I'll save the rest for next week. I love you all and I hope everything is going fantastic!

Mahal na mahal ko kayo!!

New Address for the Philippines

Candace wanted me to post her new address. Also if you choose, you can also use dearelder.com. This will send it pouch for free and it is very easy to use. You can choose her mission from the drop down menu.  I'm not sure about the delivery time on either of these methods...we will learn as we go:)

Sister Candace Weller
Philippines Quezon City Mission
Oritgas Center, PO Box 13873
Emerald Avenue, Pasig City 1600
Metro Manila, Philippines

Things I've Learned...

Kumusta Aking Pamilya!

            So, I’ve decided I really need to be better at sharing spiritual experiences.  I talked about that with a sister the other day and realized I’ve been pretty horrible at that.  I’m usually pretty good at updates and other tid-bits of info; not so good at the “what I’ve learned part.” so, in order to a leave myself from this guilt, you get this letter.  Yay!

            Ok, so I really only have two things for this week.  The first is Elder Holland’s talk, remember, the one I told you about forever ago?  Anyway, I’ve just been thinking about it a lot lately because I’m trying to come up with a mission “mission statement” before I leave.  It was honestly such a great talk.  It’s called “missions are forever;” it’s a talk he gave here @ the MTC.  There was a lot of great things from it, but a few of the things I loved were that first, he compared our calling as a missionary to the same as being called as an apostle.  At first I was like, whoa are you sure?  But then he went onto explain that the next 18 or 24 months we are dedicating our lives to him.  We’re leaving behind our nets, those things that matter to us in our lives, to serve him.  And we won’t ever get this opportunity again...to not worry about anything else but serving God.  I’m seriously so excited for that opportunity.  Life is just too hectic and it’s hard to focus on what’s really important.  But here, that’s all I get to do and love it.  I was thinking about it this week though: They always use the scripture from D & C 4 that says “with an eye single to the glory of God.”  And it just hit me this week; if you put that with Moses 1:39, God’s work and Glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.  And that’s what I get to do for 18 months… I get to make His work, my work.  It’s so awesome and it’s like this big flame inside me.  Ah, I just love it.  It really helped me to realize and know what my purpose is and what I need to do on my mission.

            The other thing that I really liked that he talked about was how this is the Lord’s work, so we have to do it his way.  There are rules for a reason.  And I just feel like it goes for life too.  If we dedicate our lives to Him, we have to do it His way.  That’s just how it goes.  Last thing that I really liked was when he asked the question, why is it so hard?  Why is it hard to be better, to follow Christ, to change, and why is it still hard when we are doing everything we need to?  And he just said, I’m convinced it’s not easy for us because it wasn’t easy for Him.  We’re not the church that hands out Salvation easy.  You can’t just jump up in church and claim to be saved.  It’s because salvation wasn’t cheap.  Ever.  It was bought with the blood and life of our Savior; so why should it be easy you know?  If we truly claim to be disciples of Christ and be as he was, it’s going to be hard.  We have to walk where he walked and become perfected as he was perfect.  It was just a really big realization for me.  It’s hard to change those little things that I know I should change, but just don’t feel like it, you know?  But if we do, we get something so much better!  And it’s so worth it in the end.  Seriously, it was an amazing talk.

            One thing that I’ve struggled with here is one of our “investigators.”  Our teachers play real people they taught in the Philippines and then we teach them as Progressive investigators.  One of our investigators is “Paul.”  He’s a total intellect.  Likes to meditate in the morning, studies anthropology, has studied basically all religions, has read the Bible, B of M, Koran, you name it.  In his study of the “Mormon” church, he even read works by Bruce R Mckonkie.  The guy really knows his stuff.  But he’s not a brat about it.  He just is open and accepting of all people.  And maybe it’s because of my studies and what I did for my major, but I really struggle with telling people like that that they’re basically wrong.  I sympathize with him; I think it’s great that he’s read the Koran and meditates in the

morning.  I think it’s great that he’s so interested in understanding other people.  And it’s like it splits my heart to tell him that, “no, there’s only one way.”  I known there’s only one way, I know that with all my heart, but it’s hard.  But this week I realized that it boils down to, do I love this person enough as a child of God to get over my own reservations and show him the way?  It’s not about me being right, or him wrong, or whatever.  It’s about showing the way and letting them choose.  When they know so much, it’s like you can’t teach them anymore because they need to feel it.  They feel it by the authority and power of truth that we have because if they see and feel that, then they know that this is something different.  That was something I’ve been thinking a lot about this week. 

            But yeah, those are a couple things.  Honest to goodness, it feels like, when you have those moments where you learn something that you know will change your life forever, it feels like I have one of those at least every other day.  It would take forever to tell them all.  But I love it, I’ve learned so much here and I’m so excited to head to the Philippines!

            One more story… just for Ryan because I know he’ll like thisJ. So we were sitting out studying @ the tables a couple days ago and Elder Larsen comes walking over.  And Elder Gallacher looks up and goes, “Wait, that’s my sweater.  And those are my pants!  Is he wearing all of my clothes?!”  And he was!! Haha.  He had taken all of Elder Gallacher’s clothes and put them on, just like Joey on Friends.  Funniest thing ever.  Then he got hot after a while so he started taking them all off and Elder Gallacher goes, “Is someone filming this? Not very often you get a strip tease in the MTC…”  Of my goodness, so funny.  I knew Ryan would appreciate that:)

            Ok, so I didn’t get this letter sent out quick enough, which is a good thing because I just barely got your Dear Elder letters today so now I can answer back.  Tell Whitney it was probably inspiration:).   Ok, so just to answer questions and requests and such since I have to hand write this… First, BRILLIANT idea with the phones!  Seriously though.  Just send it here with and instructions and then I’ll just toss it when I get to Hong Kong.  Genius I tell you.  Tell Twit thanks for looking for the skirt.  I really don’t need anything else, yeah, I’m getting super board with my wardrobe, but I just don’t really care.  Less is more, especially when it comes to packing.  Haha.  And I figure if I REALLY need something new, I’ll find it there.  For the phone call I’m pretty sure I can call anyone that falls under the category of “Family.”  So I’m pretty sure I’ll call both Chanae and Twit too, if Chanae just wants to join @ home, that’s totally cool.  But for Twit she’d probably have to drive up after school and it’ll be late so tell her it’d be ok if I just called her so she wouldn’t have to drive all the way home.  Tell Chanae she better be there or else…J   Salamat! 

Love you so much and I’ll talk to you soon!!  Love Candace

FLIGHT PLANS!!!

Aking Pamilya!!!!

I have only two words for this week.....FLIGHT PLANS!!!! I can't even believe there here!! It's about time, I swear we checked the mail about a million times yesterday before they finally showed up! Haha. So here's the deal. We leave Tues, August 16. Out first flight leaves SLC at 8:30 I think and then we go to San Fran. There we have a layover from 9:30-1:30 AM.....This will be the time I'll be calling you so you better just plan on staying up late because I plan on talking. It just happens to be what I do best. Then we head to Hong Kong, have a 2 hour layover there, and then to Manilla!! Seriously, I'm so excited! I can't lie though, I'm a little bit nervous. I don't know this language near as much as I need to or should by this point and I'm still a little nervous about my teaching; but I've decided I just need to have a little more faith and in the end who cares, I'm actually going to the Philippines! I'm just ready to be a real missionary you know; don't get me wrong, I've loved the MTC, but I'm ready to really speak the language and teach real people that really need the gospel. It's going to be awesome. I'm so sad though because one of our Elders, Elder Gallacher, just found out yesterday that he has a hernia and he can't leave with us. Yeah, found that out about 30 minutes before we got our flight plans. I just wanted to cry for him. He gets surgery in 2 weeks and then it will be another 2-3 weeks after that for recovery. I feel like I'm leaving part of my family behind. Poor kid. It'll go by fast though, it seems to do that in here.

 Now for getting my stuff out.....They haven't given us our adjusted schedule, which is annoying. But just from previous groups leaving, I think my P-day will be this next Saturday, the 13th? I won't have class til 5ish, so if Skanchy could meet up with me anytime before that, that'd work great. If not, Sunday sacrament meeting is over by 2:45 and then devotional isn't til 7 so anytime between there. And I'm sure we'll have time on Tuesday before we leave. I think we get that whole day to prepare and get everything packed. So yeah, call him and ask him what time would work best for him and then just DearElder it to me? If I find anything else out, I'll write a letter and send it snail mail. Oh yeah, and tell him to plan an extra 20 minutes or so into his schedule when he meets me so that I can actually talk to the kid for a second :) Salamat.

Ok, other things. Yes, I know the McKiffs. I've only met sister Mckiff in person, but they're part of the MTC Presidency so we see them a lot. Crazy small world. .

Now for this week! It's been a good week.  I can't lie. Last Sunday I got to speak in sacrament meeting. They randomly pick two people each week and you have to give a talk in Tagalog. No pressure right? Well, it gets even better. There was a sister visiting the MTC from the Philippines that wanted to come meet us and hear us speak in Sacrament meeting. Lucky me, right? haha. I did ok. I still am struggling getting the words to come out of my mouth, but it was good practice. Sundays are funny though because all of the sisters in the MTC really break out their "cute" outfits and I swear, all these girls wear heels! I just sit there and think to myself, A: where in heavens name are you going that you think you can wear a pair of heels around for 14 hours a day. Visitors centers, they have to be. And B: How the heck are you going to fit that in a suitcase that can only be 50 lbs? There's not room. It bewilders me, I have to be honest. But also pretty funny.

Our speaker this week for the devotional was Gerald N Lund. Haha, I just laughed because honest to goodness, No one knew really who he was. And I was sitting in a room full of mormons! Go figure. It's was good though. He talked about faith and the process of faith. If i had more time, I'd fill you in, but alas. Walang horas.

So we got some new roommates this week. For the past little while sister Losefa and I have had the whole room to ourselves so we're once again adjusting. It's kind of nice just having two people. Anyway, ironically enough, one of my roommates is Alicia Watterson, you know, Brian Green’s girlfriend that I met who's headed to Taiwan and already knows Chinese? Small world. And then our other roommate happens to be really good friends with our teacher, Brother Nordstrom. Haha, yes! Which means we got all the dirt on this life. This week we're going to start "operation-freak-out-Bro-Nordstrom-with-how-much-we-know-about-his-life". Haha, we're just going to drop random facts here and there and see how he reacts. It's going to be hilaroius. Oh the things you come up with for entertainment in the MTC :) Anyway, times up. Mahal Mahal ko Kayo!!!! Til next week!!