Week #3 Zone Conference and some cave exploration on our P-day!

 So the past week was great. We had zone conference on tuesday and learned a lot there. Our mission goal is to baptize 1000 souls by the end of the year.

Our companionship goal is to get 20 by the time Elder Polgo gets transferred, which is in about 8 weeks. We already had 3 and we have I think... 5 or 6 with baptismal dates. We have been told we should be inviting people to baptism at the first lesson since that is our purpose as missionaries. President Barrientos also told us, because our area is so huge, we might be getting bikes here. Anyways, highlights of the week.

I've actually got to ride a coliglig this week. I have plenty of pictures for you to look at.

Also today, we had a zone activity. We went into a cave inside the bundok. It was pretty creepy in there. Extremely dark.

We had plenty of dinner appointments, mostly fish and rice. Delicious. I also had a coconut from the tree today. The missionaries at Santa Teresita have a buko tree in their backyard. There's so much coconut water inside! We also ate berries from trees. It's pretty cool. Also yesterday, we were on our way to a lesson and the walk is about an hour but these people in a truck stopped for us so we got to ride inside.

The people here are really nice. And mom, I need uncle rodel's address asap. The missionary is leaving soon.

I'm starting to recognize some Ilokano now. It's so weird. Apparently it's Tagalog with missing letters and massive abbreviations. Anyways, we've been working hard here. Anyways, I hope everyone is doing fine. I'm getting darker cause there's never any clouds. I went on exchanges this week with the zone leader and we ran into some RMs and they told me I'm their blood since I'm half ilokano. So now I gotta learn Ilokano even more now.

So yeah, sending mail may be a bit difficult here since its pretty expensive. I'll probably send mail in one big batch. And to send mail to me, it has to go through the mission office. We're supposed to be looking for a 4 man apartment here because we're supposed to have 2 more missionaries in Santa Ana. That's gonna help out a lot. So that's the news for the week. Take care every one and I love you all!

Elder Morales

Week #2: It's VERY HOT!

 March 18, 2013

Hello family,

How are you all?? The weather is getting hotter and hotter now so it's crazy. So I gave my camera to one of the youth in the branch and she went crazy taking pictures of random stuff so there you go. 

There's just so many pictures to send. So anyways, we had our first baptism last saturday. The work is picking up here which is pretty cool. We already have 4 people committed to baptism. One investigator that previous missionaries have been working with for 2 years finally decided he wanted to be baptized except his asawa <spouse> won't let him. So we have to pray hard for him. The main thing we really focus on here is families.

Anyways, last week we had a dinner appointment. We had fried rice and fish. And we ate with our hands. Reminded me of home. It was fun. So yeah, I've been cooking and experimenting with foods here.

I cooked caldereta today and last week pinakbet except I used too much bagoong so it was way too salty so I kept adding water to dilute it. 

All we've really been eating was pancit canton and rice and alot of mangoes. We have all these powders for foods but it takes time to cook it. I told Elder Polgo that when I have a puti companion, I will make the pinapaitan.

Oh, also, can you get me uncle Rodel's home address? There's a missionary here and he's from Winnipeg and I told him to go reactivate uncle. The missionary is going home soon. Hopefully I get sent to Vigan one of these transfers. Apparently it's really nice there. Where I am involves a lot of walking! All the Barangay are far apart. 

All the animals here are so loud. The dogs keep me up at night and the roosters wake me up too early. I'm getting used to it though.

one of the dogs that keep me up at night

one of the many loud roosters that 'wakes' me up too early!

So these next few weeks I'll try to take pictures of the Philippines. You can see the mga bukid and mga bundok where we are. And the ocean also. And the islands far out in the ocean. I realized I had no camera case so I made one out of an old sock. Then Elder Polgo gave me his old camera case cause he's going home soon. Anyways love you all! Ingat kayo!

Elder Morales

he wasn't really going to eat it i'm sure :)

boys love to collect beetles

 PS...More pictures. There's pictures of the baptism and most of the branch. Oh so let me tell you about the baptism. 

We practically fit most of the branch into one vehicle and drove to Baua which is a 30 minute drive about. The branch president here is awesome and so diligent. So there were about 15 people in one vehicle. Elder Polgo sat in the trunk of the van. We also brought our two investigators with us who have a baptismal date. So that's an interesting side note!

Oh and p.s. Can you send me that Ilokano dictionary i told you about? It'll help me learn faster. Tell jordan nevermind the hair gel cause they have it here.

Week 1: Finally reached the Philippines!

 March 11, 2013

Philippines here we come!!!

So its my first week in the Philippines. Sorry I couldn't email last week.

Us Filipino Missionaries cant wait to serve our parent's hometown!

Yes! It's a plane!

We arrived on monday so we couldn't get access to a computer. So mondays are p-days. We arrived in Manila sunday night and stayed at a motel then we had to wake up early for a flight to Laoag.
We had to walk off the plane in Laoag by using a staircase. It was pretty interesting.
Then we arrived at the mission home and we stayed there overnight. They cooked us good food then it was off to a 6 hour car ride all the way to Santa. Ana.
My first area. It's the start of the summer season over here and its getting hot but we're lucky since we got the ocean breeze. Sta. Ana is the furthest part of the mission. It's really up north. So we got to the apartment and it was trashed so we spent the first night here cleaning.

Finally got to cook dinner. So this week I basically cooked chicken adobo and then i cooked menudo.
They have spices here I could just throw on the food. I'm just gonna experiment a lot with the cooking here.

So I most possibly will be staying in Sta. Ana for 6 months. I told president Barrientos that I have family in Vigan and he said he might send me there to go find my family so find uncle's address. President Barrientos is a very funny guy and he's very nice too.

My trainer here is Elder Polgo. He's pure filipino from Visayas and he can speak Ilokano also so I'm picking up a few things now and then. So in Sta. Ana, the people here are telling us to be very careful at night because of the kumaw (kidnappers). So no one is really answering when it gets dark.

Anyways, I hope you are all doing fine. The first day here was just very interesting. Well first thing it was extremely hot in Manila. Luckily where we are is cool cause of the ocean breeze. First day at Laoag we had lots of filipino food. I actually had Jollybee's today. We ride the trike and jeepney a lot.

Our area is so big that we can't walk everywhere. It's REALLY big. Anyways, what makes things more interesting is that we reopened this area of Sta. Ana so we have no clue how to get around or know any of the members here. So we went out to start proselyting and when we got to the area of Palawig, we decided to stop at a random home and they turned out to be members. We took tatay Senecio with us to go teaching and we found two sisters who's cousin is a member. So we taught them and we got a return-appointment so that's good. Later Elder Polgo told me they let us in kasi sinabi nila that I was pogi. < they let us in because they said I was handsome. Lol!>
Actually alot of people say I'm guapo lol. I have to be careful. So afterwards, we taught several less actives. The second day, we went to Visitacion (It's bawal <forbidden> at night for some reason) and we stopped at a random place again and they turned out to be members!
The Lord really puts people in our paths. It's really cool.

Anyways, everytime I introduce myself, the people starting referring to boxing because of Pacquiao vs. Morales. So maybe I'll joke around and say "Ako po si Erik Morales" or "Siak to Erik Morales."  <I am Erik Morales>

 I'm learning Tagalog from the children. It's pretty funny. So there's just a ton of photos I'm sending. I can't caption them. Too much. Anyways, best way to contact me is by email. I'm not sure how to send out regular mail yet. Anyways, take care everyone. Mahal na mahal ko kayo! <I love you all!>

Elder Morales