Week 9

Hello friends and family! Cebuano is very difficult! Just thought I should get that out of the way real quick. In during our visits I can maybe get like 5% of the whole thing. I have no clue what's going on the whole time. It's really rough. But I'm slowly but surely learning... I think.

After eating sardines with tomato sauce and rice a few times, I realized I should probably buy something else to eat. So I got some bread and mango jam and now it's literally my favorite thing ever!

On Sunday, they asked me to bless the sacrament and afterwards I bore my testimony in 100% Cebuano. I introduced myself, shared my favorite scripture (Jacob 2:18), talked about that scripture and then I bore my testimony. All the members after sacrament meeting came up to me and told me I was Bis Dak (Short for Bisaya (Cebuano) Dako (big) which basically means I'm fluent) So that was cool hearing, even though they were just messing with me haha.

Monday was pretty basic and it was my first time using a Philippino ATM. Automatic Tubig (water) Machine. Put in 1 peso and it dispenses water into a little bag. It's pretty neat. We also had district council and afterwards all of us Elders went to restaurant called Wingers for lunch and it was amazing! For 250 pesos (basically 5 US dollars) we could eat bottomless wings and fries. There were like 10 of us elders there and by the time we were finished, we had probably all gone through like 500 wings. It was so gooooood, mainly because it wasn't rice hehe. Tuesday morning, after we had just finished our first visit of the day, the ZL's called and told Elder Obena and I that we had interviews with President Pajaro at 2:00. So we quickly returned home, got a bite to eat, and headed over to the mission office. Elder Obena and I were the second to last companionship to be interviewed so we were there from 1-7 pm. I felt like it was kind of a wasted day but it was super nice because we were in a room with AC, eating some candy, and talking with others Elders/Sisters.

Today is my first real P-day, last Friday was a substitute day for all of us newbies. After the morning routine, we played basketball with some other Elders in our zone and after two quick games, all of us were just dripping with sweat. It was bad but they just told me to get used to it lol. The rest of the day will just be relaxing and shopping for more mango jam and then we'll have a few visits to finish off the night.

Sorry for the shorter email but I don't have too much time today :/