Week #11: BACK to Laoag City and finally ate BIG MACssss!

Hello everyone!

So I'm here in Laoag. As promised by president Barrientos, I will be training. I will be meeting my new kasama (companion) this wednesday and will be travelling back to Santa Ana this thursday. So I'll be working in Laoag for a couple of days. By the way, I found contact lens cleaner. Don't need to send me any. Anyways, we had interviews this past week with president Barrientos. He asked me if I was good with computers, good with money, and can drive. So I told him yes to all then he told me he'll probably be putting me in the office in the near future. But training first daw. So I know what half my mission is going to be like. Apparently missionaries stay in the office for at least 6 months.

So this past week, while at church, there was a white guy! He's a cameraman for survivor. So that was pretty cool.

Unfortunately no pictures this week. I'll send it next week when I'm back in Santa Ana. The bus ride is super long. We had to leave sunday after to church to go to Magapit, where we stayed at the zone leaders place there overnight. We woke up at 4 am to get ready to catch the bus at 6 am. We finally arrived at Laoag at 1:00. While we were on the bus, this lady started preaching and praying. Me and Elder Castillo were saying we should give her a pamphlet and some of the sisters were saying we should give her a Book of Mormon. One of the sisters actually gave a pamphlet to the man sitting beside her. Oh, one of the pictures you put on my farewell video of Laoag has a long bridge beside the mountain. I've been on it! I just forgot to tell you. It's in Ilocos Norte on the way to Cagayan. It's actually a pretty famous bridge here. It's pretty scary riding on the bus, especially when riding around the mga bundok. (hills)

So now at Laoag, my temporary companion is... ELDER DEL ROSARIO manen. (again!) That's funny. 

Anyways, training should be interesting. I'm hoping to get an Ilocano companion so that way I'm compelled to learn Tagalog and Ilocano. If I have an american companion, the members will speak english instead. There's good in both sides. I just hope my Tagalog understanding gets better. Sometimes I understand really well, sometimes not. I'm good at speaking though. I really want to learn Ilocano though since alot of people in Santa Ana are purely Ilocano. This past sunday, we had to give talks and President Arreola, our branch president, asked us to try to speak in Tagalog. Obviously I can't.

Anyways, there's not that much interesting this past week. We had to stay inside because of elections. Monday we cooked spaghetti at a member's house. Thursday, we cooked pinapaitan at a member's home with beef, liver, tripe and intestine. I have pictures but I'll send next week. The pinapaitan was made with real ingredients instead of mama sita package. We used apdo to make it bitter.

We kept going to people's homes and they kept on feeding us mangoes. I've been eating so regular here that I lost weight. Sister Barrientos said I should drink more water so I've been doing that. While on the jeep yesterday, I saw a sign with the McDonald's logo on it and my mouth watered. Me and Elder Castillo were saying how we miss eating there so the first thing I did when I got to Laoag was eat Big Macs. Pretty unhealthy but it's ok once.

Anyways, everything is good here. The work is moving on but slowly. Hopefully it picks up in this new transfer. Love you all!!! At ingat kayo! (Take Care

Love

Elder Morales