October 25, 2010

Hello family,

Hello ... I am... In the philipines! oh yah!
(also hello to anyone else who may be reading this i guess)

um. well this week has been pretty bad in comparison to last week. In the work I mean. Like last week we had 36 lessons, and this week we had only 20.
For one we went to carbunatuon (or whatever, the place i sent the last email from) for zone conference. It was alright. had some people like the mission presedent and the mission presendents wife, and others give talks to us. They give us food every zone confrence, which unlike everyone else, am not really exicted for anymore. The food isnt bad. actally pretty good. some real philipineo food. But my body didnt like it much to say the least. With out going into too much detail, the usually 4 hour bus ride back home, which took about 5-6 because of the storm, had made it harder to drive on the now very bumpy ride (over the mountain), was a great battle for me, in defense of my pants. I belivie I won, but couldnt really be sure. I actally almost threw up a couple of times too. I found a bag, but I managed to fight it off. Anyways I got sick.. sort of, at least the sickest i have been. It lasted until about the next afternoon. But now i am doing fine. Whats werid is that kinda stuff doesnt actally bother me too much, after hearing how John had a similar experence, and still went a sold 2 more pest control sales that day. I figure if John could do that, I could still finish a night, and teach a couple lessions... less then clean (this may have already happend).

Anyways, I was getting to that the work hasn't been the best this week. we were gone till wednesday, which was part of it. Then there is an election, actally today. Something that happens every 3 years or something. Dont really know. But i do know that all of our investigators are at partys all the time, and its harder to teach. hopfully the partys stop soon. Also something annoying is, that this was the first day i was going to try to send a letter.... but the post office is closed because of the election. great. oh well, .. some day. I also hear it might take over a month.oh well.

Our investigoraters are .... good and bad. our family of investigators who, i thought was going to be able to be baptized on Nov 6., just got extended again. The father has stopped smoking, which is really good. But keeps missing church. The rest of the family is doing really really good. though. like the mother has great faith. She had a great burn on her leg, from some boiling water. her leg had boiles on it. still she has been coming to church. yesterday, her kids were there, but she wasnt. we were bummed, because the father was gone, and the mother. half way through sacrament meeting, she limps her way in, using an umbrella as a cruch. She lives at least 10-15, maybe even 20 mintues aways, for us, the missionarys to walk to their house. she must have been walking for over 40 mintues... maybe more. really cool. The kids are very active too. they are going to a stake youth camp this wedsday till saterday. Really cool kids. One of them actally has a guitar. I dont think he knows how to play it, and its made of wood... like someone just craved it out of a tree. but its old, really old. I tryed to tune it, which was pretty scary.. as i got closer to the right note, the string would make a noise like it was going to break. I got the first 5 strings. I didnt finish tuning the last (weakest string) yet. I might later. My compaion has some simplifed hymns, and so maybe ill play them for the family. Or teach richard how to play.

We have other investigaters we started teaching. lots of youth. which is good and bad. Good thing, all of our investioragors and members are really good friends. most are even going to the youth camp. The bad is that we are having a hard time teaching the familys still, and so its hard to figure out what we are going to do.

Dad asked me a couple of questions so i anwsered him... might as well share here too.

About the weather its been fairly hot. But i belive it gets hotter later (and its hotter in other areas). There is a lot of humitiy. I have ether gotten used to it, or it doesnt effect me as much as the others. prolly because I am used to always being wet anyways... so it just means i dont have to sweat as much. In my area (really close to beach), it rains every couple of days... to every other day. Ussally not all day, but i'll rain pretty good. Some times its gets pretty hard. I think the rain is nice. my compaion doesnt like getting wet tho. he also complains about the heat. hehe.

I havent had any here, (ice cream). I have had a chocolate shake, i dont really know what was in it. could have been ice cream.
They do have something called a halo-halo. I havent had one yet, but pretty popular. has corn and jello, ice cream i think, i think some times more stuff.
actally i have heard the ice cream tricycle play its muisc... but i dont really know what they sell.

About my companion...
He was a convert to the church 6 years ago. He has been on his mission over a year and 2 mouths. masbateno language is his native. he knows 6 different philipino dilaletcs, and english. Masbate City, Which is in southern luzon (or centual Philippines). Hes family is all members now. He is the first to be in the mission field. go to school and study education. work too.
oh this part i am adding - He calls me tigar every time i burp at him, prolly because of the tony the tigar shirt i have. Thats werid. But he thinks when i burp its werid, sooo its ok. And i have been getting good at making super burps. its sweet.

Oh so dad, there is a word here that I think that you would like. its 'grabe' (gra-be). Its an expression used here .. a good amount. I asked people what it ment for a while.. but no one could explain it. I think i figured it out.
I think it comes from the word, gravity (or my guess). Or heavy. Like the word you always say 'its not heavy, its your brother.' Its really similar for what i understand.
one meaning, people will tell me is that you use it to say, "thats terrible".
but its more like.. thats extreme (or.. intense).
Ill give a couple examples: Ill tell someone that i have 12 siblings. then I hear, gra..be.
or someone gets a really nice hit at mtc volleyball. 'graabe.'
If I tell someone that I left my watch on a bus and now its gone. 'grabe,'

anyways, I thought that was cool, because from what i understood from the word "heavy", its pretty similar. But they still use it here, a ton, unlike heavy. haha.

Well I think ill take off. I prolly forgot a bunch of stuff i wanted to say. oh well till next week.

Elder Dickinson