Monday, April 11th, 2011

today is transfer day, for me at least. i'm moving to bacolod 5th ward, which isn't too far away. it's still in the city and i'll still have water, electricity, and most importantly, i'll be getting air conditioning. i'm excited for that one. i'll be in president Tobias' ward, which means i'll have to be on my best behavior. which i don't think will be an issue, but it'll be interesting seeing what happens out of that. i won't be able to see the baptisms of any of the investigators, they'll be whitewashing this area (which means every missionary leaves and they put in missionaries that haven't been there yet) so they won't know anyone here. normally, at least one missionary stays so he can show the new arrival where everyone lives and such.

in between conferences on saturday (which was probably friday night for everyone back home) i went to get a coconut from one of those street stands. on the way back, while i'm sipping on my coconut, a fight starts breaking out on the basketball court down the street from the stake center. so i just grab some of my snacks from the conference and watch what i can and sip on my coconut. we didn't see much, but the police came by fast. that was my first time seeing them and they literally came by about a minute after the fight ended.

i've realized that the philipines is basically like mexico except everyone is asian. i am defintely grateful for everything in america. everyone treats me like a giant here. i'm big already but when you add that they're small, it makes for a new godzilla movie.

i'm slowly getting used to the heat and humidity. i'm also struggling with the language, which right now is ilongo. sometime in my mission i will also learn sibuano. but when that happens, i'll be out in the jungle. the city is pretty nice, it's not rich by any mean, but it has it's own personality. kinda like some of the poorer areas in anime shows like ghost in the shell. it's coll to see these places at night. i only wish that they allowed missionaries to ride around on razor scooters. it would make walking soooo much easier and faster.

also, if anyone could send me either a flash drive or SD card with all the songs from violin string quartet, i would also love you. i've gotten a few songs from them, but not all. i don't really get the time to go online and do all that.

one thing i hate about this place is that there are a few bible bashers. they'll act nice and invite you into their house and then start trying to poke holes into our religion. i could fight with them on it because most of their arguments are stupid and easy to refute, and then i could tear apart their religion, but that isn't what Jesus would want. you can't convert someone unless the holy spirit is there and when there is shouting and yelling and arguments, it doesn't do anything. if they want to fight, they won't listen to your message. so when that does happen, we look at our watch and wait for them to finish and politely tell that that we are late to another appointment and remind them that the lord's time is valuable. it helps for people to see that we can be the bigger men and not argue with them, especially because most of the houses here are clustered together and people can watch you inside their home.

i alos hate the way people treat animals here. the other day, i was walking to an appointment, and i heard a small voice cry out. i was on the side of the rode, so i investigated it. and i heard another cry, so i went towards it and found a bag with a kitten inside it. someone had tied a kitten inside a bag and left it on the side of the rode. i let it out and it and thought it was gonna run, but it just sat there for a second looking at me, so i pet it. it didn't seem to be injured, i don't know about broken bones but it seemed alright so i let it go. the area where i found it had a few cats and it was big enough to fend for itself so i'm sure it's doing just fine now.

i'm still waiting on my journal from elder tomasi, so until then, i won't be able to write to anyone from the MTC, mainly because all the E-mails were in there and i didn't want to write in anyone's because i was always tooo busy as district leader.

well anyways, i'm getting ready to transfer today because someone is going home and i'll be his companion's new companion. thanks for all your support!

Monday, April 4, 2011

"hey joe"

the two most common word that i'll hear on my mission. so far i've been "hey joe"-d at least 10 times a day. i don't know exactly why they say it, i just know that it originated from the GI's who came to the Philippines during world war 2.

a mission is just like one big camping trip, it's true. everything i do feels like something i'd do while i'm camping, except i'm camping in a city. i do everything that a mission is, but when i come home, it definitely feels like i'm camping. i'm sure it'll feel more like that when i leave the city and go out into the bush.

which by the way, i'm living in barangay 32 which is inside bacolod city. i have no idea where that is but i'm there. maybe you'll be able to find it in google maps, i donno. i'm about a 20 minute walk from the sea, so it's wayyyyy humid. and supposedly, this isn't even as bad as it gets. oh and it's hot, which also sucks. especially for someone from phoenix. coming from Arizona going into the jungle/city of bacolod is a big change. i miss the desert.

i may be transfered to a sibuano speaking area next transfer, which is in a week. i hear that it's colder over there and i'm hoping and praying for relief from this heat. it wouldn't be too bad if it wasnt for the humidity. the humidity here really makes clothes stick to you no matter what. i'm wondering if cotton shirts would stick less... let me know if you know. i have no way of cooling off, i'm always out and there isn't any AC in the house.

since i'm in barangay 32, i'm kinda in the middle of the rich and poor sections. in the poor sections, you'll see cock fights every now and then. i haven't watched one but you can tell who raises them to fight if they have a really high roost. they have the chickens jump up there to sleep so they're stronger and better able to fight. there are a lot of stray animals too and beggars, it's really sad to see a lot of that. these people have no way of escaping the situation that they are in because they were born into it and that's all they know.

we mainly try to look for the rich/learned/wise people in order to find future leaders of the church here. the church is still young here, so they need the best leaders available. which isn't to say that we don't speak to the poor. we definitely do all we can to bring them to the gospel, but unfortunately for many, their situation keeps them working everyday to live. i've taught a lot of my lessons in the poorer sections and it's really humbling to see the difference of lifestyle that these people have. it really makes you appreciative of all the things that you have in america. like washer machines and showers AC(my most missed appliance) and full sized things. many of the food and other essentials are miniaturized. by that, i mean that if you took something from the travel sized area and made it just a little bigger, you'd get what they have here. everything is small.

i'm grateful that i have things here like electricity and water and internet access and a decent bed. hopefully i'll have that come next transfer.

a little bit more about it in bacolod, the police are pretty much nonexistent. they have security guards, which i assume are also police, but they always stay in places like banks and McDonalds and the supermarket (which kinda feels like America) so i'm not sure if they are actual police. the traffic here is decent, there are no lanes and no laws and people walk in the middle of the street all the time. whenever i'm walking, we always have to be in the street (because there aren't really sidewalks) and i feel like im gonna get ran over every ten seconds. there was this one member, karen, who had her brother die in a motorcycle accident in manilla and didn't have the money to travel or an id. so elder gruninger and elder topete bought her a ticket and made her and a fake id and off she went.

so far, i have yet to try balut. but am going to this week. balut is a chicken egg that has a dead chick inside of it and then it's smoked in peanuts (sometimes) i've tried different fruits, like this one sour apple tasting one, it's basically like shoving ten sour apple warheads into your mouth. don't know the name though. pretty much every meal here has rice, coconut oil, soy sauce, and vinegar.

i'm no longer sick. i had to stay inside for a while because of my illness, which i didn't think was too bad, but the doctor ordered it and then sister tobias said that i had to adhere to it so i did. it definitely helped me to recover because i've been sick for the longest time and i've been unable to get any rest.

they think that the rain here might be contaminated by the Japanese nuclear power plants (mainly rumors) i think we might be a little far off for it to affect us, even with the wind currents. there are also rumors of soda companies putting magic sugar into their drinks, which apparently is really sweet and only needs like a few drops to flavor something, but it's bad for the kidneys. again probably just rumors.

oh and on my way here to the internets cafe (al gore invented that) i saw part of the panaad parade. which is a big festival that lasts for a few days. the floats were nice but i think we missed a bit because we were riding in a jeepney.

i found a nice little music box thing from cd-r king because i fried my adapter to my cd player (put a 120 volt into a 220 volt socket, didn't realize because my other adapter worked 120-240). i need to put music on my flash drive though. violin string quartet is really good, elder topete has a lot of songs by them. they are basically a cover band which doesn't do the lyrics, but rather uses violins for everything and they do good bands like taking back sunday (before everyone started liking them)

by the way, dear elders do still work here. i learned that the other day. also, if anyone could send a football (preferably NFL or NCAA type, possibly 1005 style) i would love you forever.

well that's about it for now. i wrote a lot and it's about time for me to head out of here.

Monday, March 28, 2011

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.

one more thing...

i would also like to thank everyone for the love and support that they have shown. as i make my way across the ocean, it'll be much harder to write unless it's e-mail. so before i go, i want to say that i love you all for what you have done for me. thank you.

Monday, March 21, 2011

well this is useless for me now, but in a few months, jake will be coming here so another website to check out would be MTCdelivery.com.

my address in the philippines should stay the same (maybe) but if it changes then i'll try to put it up here. they'll most likely forward the mail to me anyways.


Well, i finally beat that record for bench press. i beat it last week by bench pressing 150lbs 110 times in a row without resting or stopping. unfortunately though, when i did beat it, i was doing it as a trial run so i didn't have anyone there to record it. i tried going after it again a few days later, but i didn't allow myself enough time to rest and heal up. i only had a week left so i ended up going for it every gym period. i thought i could get it just by pushing through it on a good day, but every day last week, i could only get to around 100 or so. the reason being was that i overworked my deltoids, which isn't a bad thing. but they were and still are pretty sore. it doesn't matter too much to me anymore. all i would get would be my name on the wall, which would be pretty sweet, but i already know that i beat it anyways.


still a little bit sick with strep throat again. Hopefully it won't affect my health while I'm just getting into the field.


i'm gonna miss the MTC, it's been my home for the past 3 months and i've shared some amazing experiences. i'm gonna miss the people here the most because they have been like family to me for the past three months. but i'm ready to go out there and preach the word of the lord. i may not be as prepared with the 4 languages that i'll be speaking but hopefully i'll pick them up soon enough.


i wasn't able to see an apostle for my last week which is kinda a bummer. but i did get to see jefferey r holland which was good enough to make me not care about seeing another.


well, i'm about to head on out and take my bags to the front. i'll be out the door at 4:30 pm,
i'll leave salt lake city at 7:55pm (21st) to san francisco and get there at 9:00 pm. then leave from san francisco at 1:00 am (22nd) to hong kong and get there at 6:45 am (23rd) i'll leave hong kong at 8:00 am to manilla and arrive at 10:00 am. then leave manilla at 2:00 pm and arrive in bacolod at 3:15 pm.

Monday, March 17, 2011

things over here are going great. it defintiely feels like my last week here, i'm ready to go to the philippines. i'm still studying effectively though. i kinda need it because i don't feel prepared to teach in tagalog yet. but i've pretty much learned all that i can here. a lot of what comes next is trial and error, the language is the only issue and i'll be learning it the entire time that i am over there.

since this is my last week, i'm not sure if i'll be able to get anything posted next week because i leave on monday which just happens to be my p-day. fortunately, i'll be leaving at 4:30 so i should have enough time to write down a quick goodbye.

this past week for me has been pretty good. for a while i had made mountains out of molehills in trials with some of my district members. the reason being was because this is such a good district that we don't actually have any issues. our teachers even tell us that the other districts are no where near to how obedient we are. so because of the perfect example which we have been setting, i became concerned with some of the attitudes if some mebers of the district. in retrospect, those trials were solved rather quickly and i was able to keep my district unified. i guess alot of it has to do with the fact that this is our last week here. some of the feeling have been that we can slack off a little bit. an example of this was when one of our teachers didn't show up for class. some members wanted to just play a vocab game. but i ended up conducting the class and went through our daily routine of hymn, prayer, spiritual message, handbook, and then reading of the book of mormon in tagalog. all in all, our teacher was 30 minutes late and got back just in time to finish our book of mormon reading. i was kinda scared that i would be teaching the lesson, which i was about to do. but i was glad that i kept the district on task.

the weather here is no longer freezing. the snow is all melted and there are a few little flowers popping out of the ground here and there. it's a lot different looking than from the first week that i was here. but like my first week here, i'm sick again. i've been coughing up a lot recently and went to the health clinic and got some antibiotics for it. hopefully it'll clear up before i go to the philippines.

i'm hoping that for my last week here, i can see another apostle tomorrow at the devotional. the only one that i have seen so far here was Jefferey R Holland, which had a nice enough talk that i wouldn't be too upset if that was my only apostle that i saw here. he's pretty much the man.

Mom, by the way, i got the tie that you sent me and i love it. thank you, that was exactly what i was looking for. salamat po para sa ang pinakamagandang korbata. gusto ko sa magdamit na iyan. i was also hoping to get a few more ones like those or some that look like tribal ties but also in different colors. i'm sure that i'll find plenty of ties there to buy at very cheap prices, so i'll keep an eye out for them. on a side note, apparently they sell those wooden watches somewhere in arizona. also, i'm gonna be sending some stuff home for which i'm not gonna need (like my sweaters and heated blanket) so look for those in the mail. some stuff will also be going to people as gifts. so be sure to get in touch with the finlaysons about that.

Monday, March 7, 2011

today, i'm just gonna talk a little bit about what it's like here at the MTC. there hasn't been much going on in the way of events going on. that kinda happens after spending 9 weeks here.


on wednesday, i gave my first blessing to someone. it was elder tomasi. he was sick and had a lot of trouble breathing. i told him to go to the health clinic but he didn't want to so i let him stay in his room while the rest of the district did service. i got called back and he wanted me to give him a blessing, along with his companion elder leishman. i got changed and annoited the oil and assisted in the blessing. it was my first time, so i wasn't really prepared but it turned out well and he eventually went to the health clinic. he's from tonga, so it may be the cold mountain air or the elevation or also the different sicknesses here. whatever the case, he seems to be doing better now. it was a good learning experience and i'm glad that he asked me to give it to him.


at 6:30 i wake up and get ready. i need to be in missionary attire by 7:00 which is breakfast time. although i never eat breakfast because i've always hated how greasy the food is for most breakfast meals. 7:30 is pretty tricky here at the MTC because our schedule is on a weekly basis. tuesdays we'll have gym, wednesdays we'll have service, thursdays we'll have personal study and other days, we'll have class. it goes on like this pretty much the entire week. but i've pretty much gotten used to the schedule where i know what i'm supposed to be doing at what time for each day.

so since everything fluctualtes, i'll just say what i normally do in a day. i'll have study for 3-4 hours and gym for 1. i'll have class for about 6-7 hours where i'm learning the language, and also teaching the lessons in tagalog.the rest of the time is used for breakfast, lunch and dinner. we have about an hour at night to prepare and an hour in the morning to prepare as well.

at 10:15, it's is quiet time in the residence halls. and at 10:30, it's lights out. normally, i don't get to bed till 11:00 because people are still up. and i also wake up around 6:00 because i'm a light sleeper. so not as much sleep as i'd hoped, especially with waking up in the middle of the night. but i've gotten used to it.


president mckiff is the 1st counselor to the MTC president. every devotional and fireside he'll be sitting there and most of the time, he'll be conducting the meeting. the reason why i'm talking about him is that he has the worst whistle while pronouncing his "S." i didn't really notice it until my companion Elder Gagnon pointed it out to me that he does that. him and elder tuitama have imitating his whistle every now and then and it's pretty hilarious. it's also funny to mention that the other night, elder gagnon was saying the companionship prayer and he kept whistling, which was completely accidental. i told him that he was gonna end up like his hero and he replied "sssweet" completely on accident.


there is an ice cream here that i'm sure britni would absolutely love. it's called graham canyon, everybody here loves it and i tried it and i liked it too. even though i don't like sweets, it was pretty good. it basically tastes just like biting into a graham cracker but with ice cream on it. i remember Britni also getting into the finlayson's pantry and grabbing graham crackers, so this might be something to try to find for her.


if anyone who is reading this knows of a way to send "in and out" and/or krispy kreme donuts, please talk to my mom. i know it can be done because plenty of people have gotten krispy kreme in the mail. but i don't know how... the in and out may be tricky because i think someone from the outside world needs to drop it off... i've also heard of called2serve.com... i think that may be how they get the krispy kreme donuts here.


also, if anyone wants to send a care package... ties, address stickers (so i can just slap a sticker on the mail and send it off) dried bananas, beef jerky, or donuts would be nice things to send. and pictures!


oh yeah, mom. i forgot to mention that my watch broke. i played too much volleyball with it. it still looks cool and the time on it works but the hands don't work very good anymore. could you try checking jc penny and see if they still have the same watch? it's a JF watch. if not, it's alright. i'll probably be buying a few watches in the Philippines. oh and can you try to find a way to get return address stickers for me? (for when i'm in the phillipines)


a few quotes that i read and like about my stay here;
kites that fly the highest, fly against the wind.
anyone can be successful on smooth seas, but it is the victor of the storm who gains the true honor.

some more things that i want to do when i get home:
use my skills with the tagalog language (MTC teacher, FBI translator, etc)

well i'm pretty much spent now, i don't really have very much more to write. anyways, keep the letters coming, it's nice to hear from home.