October 18, 2010

Hey,

um, again I will start with that I my worm count is still 0.

Yah. So I am in the Philippines. Oh yah. Ummmm hmmm

well some people were mentioning a typhoon or something. Right now I am actually back in carbernatuon, for zone conference. There is a level 2 typhoon warning here. I don’t know what that means. I think if its level 3 we aren’t supposed to work.

Anyways, today I am in carbernatuon... left baler, this morning at 5:30. For a 4 hour bus ride or something. Yah. So are at the mall for p-day, while we get some things done. While we were here, some missionaries went to a shoe store, to get some new slip on shoes (used for missionary work... laces have got pretty annoy... have to take them off at a lot of houses). It’s the most popular shoe I have seen with the missionaries. I looked at the price. 200 pesos. That’s about 4 bucks. Yah. I got some new shoes.

Well, about my area. Dipaculao . It’s pretty cool. Much less traffic than any other area I have seen. There isn’t an ATM in this city. I think there is a normal(ish) grocery store in baler, about 6 miles away. But there are plenty of tindahans (little street corner shops). Mostly we are on foot here. We go every other day between the south side and the north side of the city. There are a couple investigators that we take a tricycle to, but we don’t go there very often.

About food. Well I eat rice everyday breakfast, lunch dinner... that’s the good stuff. Well I try to eat it so much that my companion, who is Pilipino, got sick of it. Ha-ha. A couple of days ago we bought a whole chicken, some potatoes, and carrots. That with rice or this thing like Ramon noodles is pretty good.

Um well, this last week I think we had 36 lessons taught. From what I am hearing that’s a lot. Pretty much we have lessons all the time. We have 1 family, and another 13 year old boy who are getting close to baptism. One had a smoking problem, but has gotten over it, and there family has a strong testimony. The problem with them is the father missed general conference, and then this last Sunday, so they might have to wait longer now.

The teaching is interesting. Most of the time I understand about 1/3 of what’s being said, and if I guess about 2/3's. And then I am to teach. Yah. Hah I am getting better. We had another investigator who committed to baptism, but I didn’t know what he said. Yah... it’s kinda hard to teach when you don’t know what they are saying. Oh well.

Its kind of crazy some of the things that happen to us while we are out here. Good and... Weird. I’ll start with the good.
So we were walking to an appointment, and some family at their house said, "hey elders." or something. I or my companion weren’t sure who they were. He thought they were members or something. Anyways we keep going and go to Brother James. After teaching him, we are heading back the same way and they call out to us again. We go over to them, to talk, and they start by giving us 10-15 of these fruit things. I didn’t really understand who they were, but after wards I talked to my companion, and apparently it was 2 different families, nether one member. So I think we are going teach them later this week.

Another thing that happened. While we’re teaching a lesson, and just about to say the closing prayer, a nonmember and a member come over to the house we were teaching at. She said she wanted to hear the about the church. So we gave the closing prayer. And then she came in, and we taught her right there in the part-members house, we were already in. She is our most progressing investigator.

Well I think we got 8 investigators to come to church this Sunday, which was pretty cool. At church I blessed the sacrament in Tagalog. And I gave a short talk in tagalog. I am thinking now, that I should have went to my bag and pulled it out, instead of just winging it. yah, I am pretty sure they know my name and that I are from Oregon. That’s good enough.

so this isn’t one of the good things. kind of funny. though. So it was about 9:10, heading home. some guy is like elder elder. well he starts walking with us. I didn’t exactly know what he was saying, but my companion was saying that we needed to get home now. well he keeps walking with us, and it started to rain. So this guy throws his coat on my head, and runs under some one house roof-thingy. Well we go to him, to explain we got to go. Oh by the way, his coat was nasty! smoke, and a pretty sure he was drinking. He insists that we stay... and it starts raining really hard. hardest I have ever seen it rain. so we weren’t sure what to do, but he starts saying something to me, and my companion says hey, let’s just run. well I look back at the guy, and he is doing something really weird with his mouth, like he wants to kiss me or something. So I look back at my companion and we start running... really fast. hahaha. my companion couldn’t stop laughing the whole way. We had like 2 blocks to run, and people would tell us on the sidewalks (undercover) things like, Hey did you know it’s raining... haha... anywho, it was pretty funny. when we got back to the apartment, I locked all the doors, and my companion still laughing, writes under "elder Dickinson’s fan club members" 6.reynoldo. I was very scared that night. hah

hmmmmmm well, I haven’t figured out how this missionary work is hard yet. Maybe I have been just lucky or, I am still delusional, or am not working hard enough.

I mean we get up in the morning 6:30. eat rice. get clean from a nice cold shower (or scoop and bucket if we would like to). Then we get time to study, for a 2 hours. Next we go and try to make a couple appointments, or just go walk around and talk to people. Then from 12-3ish we are home because it’s too hot to be out. have lunch. language study. Then from about 3-9:20 we are at people’s houses and talking and teaching to people in some language I don’t understand. Then we eat dinner if we haven’t had it. then sleep which is really easy. usually am pretty tired by then. sun goes up at 6, down at 6 every day. meh.

oh well, I think that’s enough for now. ummmmmmmmmmm bye

Elder Dickinson