May 10, 2010 Hilongos Week 18

Morgan~
I never properly said thank you for all of your efforts in sending me
my CDs. :) These will last me a long while for many Sundays and
mission days to come! <3

Happy Mother's Day!
Happy Birthday Emily and Lizzie <3

The mother's day phone call last night was actually at 12 midnight.
haha I put the phone next to my bed so that if you did call, it would
wake me up. :) But I didn't know what time it was when you called,
except that it was past 11 until I looked at the clock afterward.
Hearing voices is so much cooler than email. It shows so much more
personality and emotion. :)

Today is election day in the Philippines. We've been hearing campaign
music for the past month in cars that drive around with the local
candidates. Everyone asks us who we're going to vote for, but I have
to remind them that I'm not a citizen. ;) Sister Malicdem says she's
going to vote for Sister Loveland.

I'm not actually going to go TO the Cebu temple for the dedication,
even though it's really close. 200 pesos (about $4) and 5 hours and I
can be there from Hilongos. ;) But of course, that would interrupt
the work here and Cebu is a different mission anyway. But I'm excited
for the dedication because this is the first time I'll be attending
one.

We're here with the Zone Leaders because we had lunch at a members
house, and she taught me how to cook Curry Chicken with Coconut milk.
Lami!! (Yummy!) And they said they were going to receive information
about transfers right now, so we're waiting on that. :)
S. Malicdem taught me how to make yummy fried fish during this
transfer, so I'm almost completely Filipina now. I also keep learning
Tagalog from her, because she uses a lot of Tagalog. And just two
days ago I realized that Sister Malicdem actually uses very little
English, but I never noticed until now because I've been able to
understand her speaking Cebuano-English to me (aka, Bisglish, because
Cebuano is also known as Bisaya here)

How's your Book of Mormon reading going? Our scripture mastery this
week is 2 Nep 28:7-9. It's a long one! :)

I love you all so much! :) Bye-byeee~
--
~the end~

May 3, 2010 Hilongos Week 17

Eva~
I noticed Elizabeth's haircut because of the blog posts that you
forwarded to me. There was a picture of Elizabeth, and her hair
looked conspicuously short.
And I thought that your comment about knowing what everything tastes
like was funny. I remember one time when we went to Jamba Juice and
they had that wheat-grass drink. We decided to try it to see what it
tasted like, and it tasted exactly like what I thought grass would
taste like. (Not yummy) The smell probably has something to do with
it.

Last Tuesday, we went to Tacloban city (the headquarters of the
mission) because a large amount of recent American missionaries had to
go and get finger-printed for our re-newing of Visas. So I was able
to see a good amount of missionaries that I had met in the MTC. :) And
I got to see Sister Dustin again! <3 Sister Dustin is already
training a new american sister, and she's only on her 4th transfer!!
If I had to do that, I would die. :S But who knows, at the end of
this transfer, that might happen, I'll be in the same shoes as her
when she started. ;P

I haven't had to learn Waray-Waray yet, but there's still a good
amount of time for that to happen... Sister Malicdem has been
assigned in Cebuano areas her whole mission so far (9 months). That's
pretty rare, because Cebuano is only about 1/3rd of the mission. The
other 2/3rds are Waray-Waray or something else.

I washed my clothes by hand again today~ My hands had pretty much
healed enough to where it didn't hurt, but it was laundry day again,
so of course i have some new spots that are rather raw. But it's not
as bad as last week! :D So it'll just get better from now on.

Sitting like a Filipino is hard! They manage to like... squat with
their heels on the floor. If I ever try to do it, I fall down.
Learning how to do that would come in hand in the event that there's
no chairs.

Have you ever wondered what happens to your clothes after you give to
the thrift shop? If they aren't sold in the thrift shop, it appears
that it's sold by the kilo to the people in the Philippines! And then
they have these large stands which is basically Filipino thrift stores
called Okay-Okay (pronounced Okai-Okai). The word means to like...
shuffle through, because you have to look through all the clothes in
the piles before you find a good one to buy. But they're cheap!
Woot~ Except for the purses, because the purses at D.I. are only 50
cents. :) Here, the items are usually about $1 or $0.75 equivalent in
pesos.

One thing I've learned as a missionary is how to learn how to speak in
public... almost on the spot. Ahhh! Sister Malicdem keeps getting
assigned to do that. Either because she's newer here, so the members
want to pick her, or because our Heavenly Father thinks she needs the
experience. ;P

Julius was baptized! He's been waiting for so long! :D He sure is a
joker-joker, but when it comes to knowing about the gospel, he is
amazing! He surprises us every time when he stands to give a
testimony because it comes out so sincere. :)
We have 4 (Irinia, Christopher, Janice, Agnes) more people who will
probably be baptized this month, (May 15) but we're not sure if I'm
going to transfer or not cuz I've been here for 3 transfers. Sister
Malicdem's "discernment" is that I will transfer. Haha, but if I
transfer, that means I will have 4 companions in 4 transfers! So I'm
not really sure about the likelihood of that.

Cebu temple dedication is so close!! June 13!! YAY. I'm really
excited to get a dedication ticket!!

I've started memorizing the scripture masteries because Pres. Malit
asked us to pick 100 scriptures, and since I never finished seminary,
I figured I should pick those ones. :) Today I worked on Ether 12:27
and 3 Nep 11:29 and can almost recite them perfectly~ :D
--
~the end~

I am a LDS sister missionary serving in the Philippines Tacloban area. I made this blog so that I may share my experiences with my friends and loved ones and anyone who may need to hear my story. My sister will be updating this blog with letters that I'll be writing home.