Week #21 -We got Chased by a DOG!!!

Hello mom,

So today we walked to the waterfalls. I tried to drink the water from there but it's too hard to get to.

We climbed the mountain and walked on rocks. It was an adventure. It was such a long walk. I got blisters on my feet because of my tsinelas. Then as we were walking back, we all got chased by a dog.

We also had a Community Service Project on saturday and President Nicolas climbed a coconut tree and avocado tree. He's around 60 years old and he's still able to do that. He was in the army so that's probably why.

So we drank that fresh coconut water and ate that coconut meat. Masarap naman. Then I ate some pias from the tree. Sobrang maasim. I tried santol also. So many different fruits here. There's no mango. It's out of season. Sayang! Oh well.

Anyways, I got update back from Vigan. Uncle Willy is not progressing but auntie Wilma is. And they told me that my cousin ria quinto is progressing too. Ria took the missionaries to meet auntie Jean too. Arquelada right? Another cousin listened too. His name is Julius. I'm not too sure who they are. The sister missionaries there told me to write auntie a letter so I did. Just to encourage them with my testimony. Hopefully I will get more news from them. I told them to update me if they accept a baptismal date.

The work here is progressing, we have 5 baptisms on August 24. And they all came to church! Hopefully they continue. We have 3 more planned for August 31. We're super busy! All of September is just finding and finding. We have this whole other municipality in our area. So our area of Bangui B is huge. The people who live in Burgos attend Bangui. There's still no meeting house in Burgos. Work is going to be interesting.

Next week, we're going to purok purawan and to the biggest lighthouse in Philippines. There's a lot of tourist spots in this mission I find. It's nice. We're always busy on P-day. We're also going back to Laoag next monday.  So we plan on getting some McDonald's. I have to buy some rubber shoes because this area rains a lot. My socks and leather shoes get soaked. It rains pretty hard. Apparently it's baguio season. It's really nothing here. It doesn't flood. So we're pretty safe.

Anyways, I hope you are all doing good! Take care at mahal ko kayo!

Elder Morales

Week #20: 5th Bday Parties and we're getting stuffed!

Hello mom,  

Yeah, for uncle willy, he didn't really know I was here. I think knowing that I am here allowed him to open up to the missionaries. Previously, the elders were teaching kuya wonderboy. Hopefully uncle will accept on his own. At least the missionaries here are very masipag in the work. Vigan is a sisters' area so I'm pretty sure they're going to do good work in getting them converted. I'll refer auntie Jean and my cousins too. They could probably baptize the whole barangay and I'll just have to keep going to Vigan to baptize them.

So this past week, we had a baptism. Bea Francisco. She is 8 years old and she's pretty smart. I was surprised how much she remembered after we taught her. It's pretty nice. We've been inviting a whole bunch of people to baptism this past week and they all accepted. Our goal is to get 10 baptisms total before I leave Bangui at the end of September. Apparently Laoag is the highest baptizing mission in the Philippines. This is probably since President Barrientos is really focusing on getting baptisms. We are planning to achieve 1000 baptisms total by the end of 2013. Just keep praying for them. Uncle Willy recognizes that he has family members who are member. He even recognizes that inang is a member. I'll follow up with the AP's to know what's going on. He can't get baptized anyways if he doesn't go to church.

Hmm, anything interesting happened this past week? We had President Barrientos surprise visit us again. It's nice. As he was leaving, he said to Elder Gamboa, "Mataba ka!" Oh yes, in our apartment, we have Elder Wright and Elder Gamboa. Elder Gamboa is fluent in Ilocano. Taga Tarlac siya. So I can pick up some Ilocano from him. I just practice speaking Ilocano with the children. Basic phrases laeng.

Today, we also had a zone activity. We went to the Bangui windmills again. We played capture the flag and we played some random game. We play a lot of random games as missionaries. We then went to eat at some random calindera. I ate a lot of gabi stems and now my throat is itchy. Pero masarap pa rin.

In terms of teaching, we found a lot of drunk people here. They were telling us weird stories. Elder Clark was talking to one and he was saying how he loves reading the Book of Mormon. He's a devoted catholic and sometimes he says how after church, he'd read the BoM. Also, after reading the Bible, he'd read the BoM to learn more. He was also telling Elder Clark that after he reads, he feels so good inside. He straightened up his back as he told Elder Clark, like macho man kind of. And said he felt nice, then Elder Clark said , "Happy?", then he goes, yes happy. We are wondering why he's not even a member. Weird sometimes.

This past week, we had 5 birthday parties. So we ate way too much. Actually, we eat a lot everyday. 

Elder Gamboa is a good cook. We eat malungay at saluyot at random grass almost everyday. I prefer vegetables over meat. It's super healthy. Ang mga tao dito ay sobrang healthy dahil ng mga gulay. I have nice skin because I eat vegetables. I've been eating nice fruits too. Dragon fruit at rambutan at santol. Sobrang maasim ang santol ngem naimas meten.

So that's the news this week. Mahal na mahal ko kayo ken agannadkayo!

Elder Morales

Week #19: Bangui Windmills at the beach and other exciting news......Uncle Willy.

Kamustakayo!

So today, we went to the Bangui windmills. Nothing special. But the pictures are very nice. The beach there is nice too.

So this week, we finally got all our furniture in the new apartment! Finally! And before that, we had a surprise visit from president Barrientos. Just checking the new apartment. It's nice that we're closer to Laoag now. We do our withdrawal there now so we're looking forward to that.

Anyways, the work here is so interesting. We have this one old lady fellowshipper, Grandma De Guzman. She keeps taking us to her family members to be taught. Sometimes when we do finding, it ends up being her family member again. Elder Gamboa says she may be the first person in Bangui. She's so awesome! She feeds us all the time. We're even getting several baptismal dates because of her. All the people we teach are old people. We're gonna start looking for youth and YSA. The branch is lacking on that and we feel that some of the people are inactive because they don't have people their age. So we're planning to do a YSA activity or something for the youth or that general age.

Last saturday, we had a branch family home evening. It was actually really nice. The turnout was pretty good and we all had fun and food!

By the way, I got exciting news and I just forgot to tell you last week. As I was in Laoag for picking up new missionaries, I was talking to the sisters in Vigan. They are teaching Uncle Willy and he wants to be baptized. They also showed me a picture of him so that was pretty nice. I told president Barrientos about Uncle wanting to be baptized so he said that when his baptismal date arrives, I can go to Vigan and baptize him myself. I'll probably do it in the dagat(beach) so it would be much nicer experience. So I wrote uncle a letter to encourage him. Hopefully he goes through with it.

Anyways, hopefully you're all doing fine. I'm just trying to survive the rain here. It's nice here though. Lots of trees here. Anyways, love you all!

Elder Morales

Week #18: FINALLY Transferred to a new area. So exciting!

Hello!

So now I'm in Bangui. It's located in the mga bundok. North of Ilocos Norte. It's always raining here. The church membership here is mostly old people. So many old ladies like working with us here and keep on referring us to their family members. So we're probably going to have a lot of baptismal dates for old people by the end of July. It's good for us because we can fill our schedule with old people during the day time and young people during the night. That was the biggest challenge in Santa Ana, filling up the schedule during the day.

Anyways, it's kind of weird training again even though I didn't finish training Elder Bulseco. He's training too! There's a picture we all took at Laoag. It's basically a family photo without Elder Polgo. We call Elder Polgo father Abraham because he trained so late in his mission. And from his son he has more descendants. Very quickly too. Anyways, my new companion is Elder Clark. He's from Davao. But not really. He's from Seattle Washington. It's gonna be an interesting experience for me because I have to teach him Tagalog now. My Tagalog actually improved alot. I can understand and speak almost fluently. It's like my skills improve every transfer.

So in Bangui, we have a brand new apartment and we're 4 elders in the apartment. We're staying with the District Leader Elder Wright and Elder Gamboa. Elder Gamboa is Ilocano from Tarlac. He's fluent so I'm going to learn as much as I can from him. I only know a few things to say like: Ilocanonak ngem ... hindi marunong mag-ilocano ... ngem kayatko nga agisuro ti ilocano. That's about it.

While I was in Laoag, I got to work with the office elders. They didn't do much work. My temporary companion was from Visayas so we spoke Tagalog only so I guess that's how I really improved my speaking skills. We actually spent one whole day finding because the office Elders were too busy taking care of the incoming missionaries. I actually got to play basketball with the new missionaries one day. It's nice being in Bangui too because I get to withdraw in Laoag. The welcoming day for the new missionaries was nice. We had a huge dinner afterwards. The cultural hall was super decorated that it looked kind of like a debut so I told President Barrientos it was his debut. It was actually his birthday too. Well how about that.

Anyways, I hope you are all doing well. Work here is fun. Take care and I love you all!!

Elder Morales   

Week #17: I have BIG NEWS!!!

Hello family!

 

So I have big news to tell you. I'm in Laoag again and I'm training again! That's two trainees for me already. And I've been transferred to Bangui in Ilocos Norte. The past elders there were pulled out so we're starting fresh. That's twice for me. Santa Ana was the same. We had no idea where to go or what to do. Now I gotta do it all over again in Bangui. Apparently it's really nice there. That's where the wind farm is (wind energy farm). We passed by it on the way to Laoag. Apparently it's mayaman but they only have a meeting house there. It's kind of sad leaving Santa Ana. We had 7 baptisms coming up. That's for Elder Bulseco to work out. Oh by the way, he's training too.

 

So this past week, we kept on inviting people to baptism and they just keep accepting. But they're not just any random person we found, they are investigators who are actually interested. Some people just take some work but it moves along at their own pace. Now I get to work in Bangui. Meeting house again. No chapel. More work. Smaller area at least. For now, enjoy my time at Laoag.

 

So this past week, we actually cooked kare-kare. It took 3 hours to get the meat tender but we managed. It takes up so much peanut butter! But it was sooo good. We brought it to a member's house and their son tried it (first time) and he said "parang walang lasa". Obviously you need bagoong with that. That we made lumpia. They had the lumpia stuff already made at one of the stores.

 

So on thursday, at our district meeting, Elder Cahigao asked us previously to do a puppet show. It was so weird. It's because Elder Cahigao is going home and he wanted to enjoy his last meeting. Then on saturday, as we we're sitting in companionship study, president barrientos called us. We were aware it was transfer day coming up but we thought we were stuck in Santa Ana for another transfer. The training is supposed to be 12 weeks long. It only has been 6 weeks. So I answer, and president asks if I'm doing good and obviously I said yes. So he says, "Since you're doing good, we're going to transfer you to Bangui and you'll be training." Then he said, "How's Elder Bulseco?" He's good I said and then President said, "Since he's good too, he's going to be training too because you trained him so well." Hay naku! At least I'm closer to Laoag now. Santa Ana is so far.

 

Anyways I hope you're all good! Take care and love you all!

 

Elder Morales