FIRST WEEK IN THE MISSION FIELD - WEEK 7

-




So my companion is Elder Connell, he is from Melbourne and he knows the people that I hung out with and I know some people who he hung out with. We are both similar in our personality and our humour. So not too much culture shock just yet. I'm living with two other Americans Elder Morris, who has 6 transfers left, and Elder Monk, who has 16 transfers left. My Companion is just about to reach the half way mark and he is currently a district leader. So your ten dot points were pretty easy for me to complete.

I miss the aircon in the MTC, all we have the apartment is fans and even at night I'm still pretty hot. My first day at church was so exhausting but the people all like me so that is good :) If I was at home and I was that tired I would of slept through every single class haha. I introduced myself to the ward yesterday and the ward got to know me after church as well. It was weird as they didn't use their piano as no one can play it. When they came up to me to ask if i could play piano they had a massive smile and then when Isaid no their smile just dropped and said okay. They all help me with my Tagalog as well which is really nice.

OH MY GOODNESS. since I've been in the flat we've killed 3 spiders and they were big spiders, like full on house spiders that you see on Facebook... But this one last night was HUGE and it was pregnant... we didn't want to kill in the house just wanted to capture it put it outside and then kill it and kill all the babies as well. BUT as we went to capture it, the spider ran under these sheets on the wall and no one was going to lift it up. so elder Morris was like ' SCREW IT!' and just smashed the spider with his thong. All three of us were in the opposite room and he was shouting it out 'ITS LIKE SAND MAN!' The baby spiders were going everywhere... we just saw him slamming his feet all over the ground. We got this spray out and sprayed all of ours rooms like really well, we didn't miss a spot, so hopefully they're all dead or they have left the house. So yeah 3 spiders down in 5 days. its the 6th day but I haven't seen a spider just yet. we also have mini lizards running around the walls in the house but we just leave them as they are alright. I'm gonna come back a man with no fear of insects.

I've been counting the days off when Joe leaves on his mission and I've been getting more and more excited for him! He's so lucky that he is going to a nice cold place though. I miss being cold so much. The only time I'm cold is when I'm having a shower at 7ish in the morning with cold as water from a bucket. Oh that reminds me, I'm proud to say that I have already cleaned my butt with my hand after taking a poo :) go tell my friends that. I thought this is going to happen some time in my mission so I might as well know how to do it , but its legit not even that bad. I sought of regret taking the 6 spare toilet paper roles from the MTC now... Jade probably speaks really quietly cause that's how most Filipino people speak. Not only do I struggle understand what they're are saying but its so hard to even hear what the are saying. 

How exciting for Casey to start her placements. When she comes home and complains about how exhausted she is, just say that's how Elder Herrick feels every day, probably worse TBH. Although you guys are experiencing the Philippines heat you also had air con and its not as humid either. The only way you will experience the heat is when you come to the Philippines. Its actually ridiculous how hot it can get. Like today during basketball I've never sweating so much. and it was so humid as well. It took me ages to cool down and that was in an air conditioned room in the chapel but the air con was old and really useless haha.

When we go proselyting all these kids just follow us, and they follow us for ages. We got into this guys house and all the kids just walked in as well. and they were so loud but the lesson still went extremely well, she said that she was going to go to church but she didn't... Here are some photos 

The photo with the three of us are my trainer and his trainer, we are all from Australia, the photo with 4 of us is because we are all Australian and that is Elder Hopoate (his brother played rugby for his left on his mission). and more pictures with kids.

Comments

  1. JulieDecember 14, 2017 at 7:12 PM

    MANY years ago (like 1974) we knew a Peter Connell in Caulfield ward. Maybe a relative.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BUSTOS BRANCH - BALIWAG DISTRICT - WEEKS 38 & 39

-
Image
Baliwag Zone Conference - 6 June 2018 It's not all fun and games as a missionary, Elder Herrick had to get his wisdom teeth out!! Post-T hird Molar Extraction - just a little bit puffy!! The culprits of all that pain!! Celebrating Elder Galaboda's (from Sri Lanka) 21st birthday in style!! I've been having this issue with my tooth for a while whenever I eat it hurts but for some reason only when I eat.  When I put pressure on it normally it’s okay. I went to the dentist three times and they thought I needed a new filling or to redo the filling. Anyway, I finally got an x-ray done and to finish the story I got my wisdom teeth out, yep all 4 of them. I only used injections and I was awake the whole time. The top wisdom teeth were fine to get out, but the bottom teeth caused a lot of trouble and pain. Although I had 6 injections for my bottom right tooth it felt like it was doing nothing, it was the painfullest thing I have experience...
Read more

MAPAYAPA WARD - FAIRVIEW STAKE - WEEK 14

-
Image
We have had a pretty good week this week. On the 16th of Dec we are going to be having 3 baptisms, 8,9,10 yr old. the 9 year old is the son of the grandmother and the 8,10 year old is son and daughter of the grandmothers daughter, so the 9 year old is the 10 and 8 year old uncle if that makes sense. They all passed their baptismal interviews so now we are really excited. The mum is actually a less active and she has been coming to church every week for the passed 5 weeks now so we just need to make sure that we keep her coming. As we were teaching the lessons to the kids, after the lesson finishes she would ask us some questions about the lesson. One time it was about tithing and how she doesn't pay it. she said 'I haven't paid tithing for a while what do I have to do to make up for it' or something along the lines of that, and this Sunday I saw her looking at the tithing slips so it really looks like she is starting to change. The grandma is a member so we don't ...
Read more

MAPAYAPA WARD - FAIRVIEW STAKE - WEEK 8

-
Image
The lessons that we taught yesterday I felt so good about. Our first lesson was actually during church. We were asked by the investigator and her boyfriend who is a member to teach them so we did. We firstly asked what she remembered about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and Joseph smith. But our real lesson was on faith. She has been praying and she hasn't received an answer yet. So we talked how not all prayers are answered straight away, and I gave an example of myself and how I didn't receive it straight away, but applying my faith and believing that it will be answered and by reading, being worthy and praying daily I was able to receive this answer. I also added it felt that the longer that i waited for, the better feeling i got when i received this answer. I also led my first lesson today, it was about faith again but i shared the story of Nephi and him retrieving the plates from Laban, i gave a bit of a background story and then we read from 1 Nephi 4...
Read more