my flight was actually pretty nice. being in missionary clothes the whole time wasn't to comfortable but at least i wasn't cold. san Fransisco airport was really nice and clean and looked really trippy on the inside at some parts. but then hong Kong airport was even more clean and neat and i really liked it in there. it was nice weather outside as well. the group kinda got split up and i didn't see a few people after that, but it's alright. i got to say goodbye at the MTC anyways. i don't have my journal though, elder tomasi still has it. i'm trying to get it back, it might take a while though. it has all the e-mails of everyone at the MTC in there.
there are 4 other missionaries in my apartment, and then 4 missionaries next door. my companions are the zone leaders and the elders with us and next door are all office elders and assistants to the president. i'm in Bacolod 3rd ward which is the area where the mission office is. so i just walk for five minutes to the office everyday. normally, the office elders have the best misionaries, so i'm surrounded by a lot of the best missionaries in the mission. the office is where president Tobias goes every other day, so i might see him fairly often.
my first week her has been intense. we've taught about 30 lessons or so, which is about 5 over the norm. we've had a bunch of golden investigators who are really progressing. they'll probably be baptized in the next 4 weeks. the philippines is way different from back home. for one, there is no AC anywhere! except the church, supermarket(mall) and KFC and McDonalds. that's about the worst thing about being here. i don't get very many chances to eat, there is never any time. we use jeepneys to get around most everywhere. the area that i am working in is very poor. like where houses are literally just shacks built on the side of the road out of scrap metal and scrap wood. my apartment though is ok, no where near glamorous but at least it isn't a shack. no ac though, but we got running water and electricity. a lot of bug bites at night though. it's been raining a lot recently, even though it's the hot season (which sucks) but the rain helps take away the heat.
the language is very new and very hard to understand. it is NOT tagolog, it is ilongo. which they do not teach in the MTC. they are similar, but i have to relearn all the vocab and verbs and i need to understand how to use the new conjugations.
i ate a lot of really "different" food lately. so far, i've eaten a wide assortment or cleverly cooked dead animals and strange fruits. i'll get into the food latery, once i can take pictures. (i forgot for the past few times) today, i pulled out a rib rack from a pig that was killed and cooked just this morning. it was really good. tuikolavatu cooked it. i got to see lasalosi and vaimalu today. it was way good to see them again. it was just like old times, they still called me vin deisel and apparently everyone here knows that my name is vin diesel, even though they don't know my real name. they were the only polynesians there (at the tri-stake activity) so everyone pretty much associated me as being a poly as well. (even the polys) so i'm brown on the inside i guess.
i'm with elder gruninger, who is my "dad" or trainer, and also elder topete. and i'm elder gruninger's last companion. so that means that i'm "going to kill my dad" he's not too "trunky", but he's very experienced. they're both great guys and easy to get along with.
well my first week here has been hard but i'm slowly adjusting, hopefully things will get easier as the time goes by.
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