Thursday was an amazing day! The first thing we were able to
do was go to the temple. In Utah, the provo temple was closed the whole 6 weeks
i was there and the manila temple was closed the 1 week i was there too!!!
Super depressing. But the Cebu temple was awesome and beautiful. Now i can say
I've been to the Portland Oregon temple, and the Philippines Cebu temple hehe.
After the session was over all of us trainees went outside and sang"called
to serve" and then the trainers came up behind us and when we finished
singing we turned around met our trainers. My trainer is Elder Obena and he is
honestly one of the greatest people I've ever met. He's so funny, kind,
helpful, positive, and hard-working. The only rough part is his English isn't
the best and my Cebuano is terrible so sometimes it's a bit hard to communicate.
My area is Mapolo which is basically apart of Cebu. One scary thing is, unless
we have visits our curfew is at 7:00pm because there can be some sketchy stuff
happening outside. But I feel safe because I got God on my side.
When we arrived
to the apartment i unpacked and then we instantly got into planning lessons for
our visits THAT NIGHT! I was super nervous but excited. On our way to their
homes, more like huts made out of spare wood but I'll get into that later, i
drove in a jeepney. It was so tight and because I'm the tallest person here, it
was especially tight. When we got to the neighborhood, probably 20 kids ran up
to us and started giving us high fives. Here it's called "up here" and
i held a quick contest with all of them to see who could reach the highest,
none of them reached the top haha.
We met with a family and one of their
friends, Sister Angelica who's 14. Elder Obena taught most of the lesson but he
would let me read the scriptures and bear my testimony. And the interested people
would always want me to pray. It was super awesome being a part of the lessons.
I actually feel like a real missionary now haha!
Then we got back to our
apartment and I realized our shower is a bucket full of water with another
smaller bucket that you use to scoop the water and dump it on yourself. It was
a new experience for sure. Oh and by the way, the stories about people inthe
Philippines using their left hand for something that pertains to the toilet is
100% true. My companion laughed at me when I had to grap my tissues because
there was no toilet paper. It's gonna be rough here haha!!!
The people here are the most kind people I've ever met. I've
been here 1 day and I already think Americans are pigs haha. The people I
visited have ABSOLUTELY nothing. Their house is 1-2 rooms and each room is
their kitchen, living room, bedroom, and bathroom. Their whole home is the size
of my room back home. But they are still so happy and grateful for everything.
It's really taught me that materialistic items, money, cars, etc isn't true
happiness. Having a family and being around the ones you love is true
happiness. This church and this gospel is the greatest thing on earth. It
allows us to become closer to our friends and family and gives us peace. I'm so
grateful I decided to serve a mission because I'm having the time of my
life!!!
I love you all and I hope you are doing maayo g'yud!!
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| A meal I had at the MTC. The black stuff is pig's blood and it's been the only food I haven't liked so far. it was disgusting |
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| Me with balut |
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