Week 14 6/16/13

So this week has been pretty good, we found 2 new investigators, estig! But the only thing so far that has been bad is the rain, or the bagyos. Everyday I have been just getting drenched form head to toe, walking through mud and yeah starting to wish I was serving in America so I could feel normal. Not Being able to have air conditioning when ever you want in 100 degress weather is horrible, taking bucket showers is not too fun, sleeping on the floor is not to fun either but I have too because its cooler that way. 
I have ants and other creatures just attacking me too which isn't too cool. The cool thing is I've lost weight due to the walking like 10 miles a day over hills, in the jungle, in rice paddies.

Drenched!

 I also have to hand wash all my clothes, cook my own food, can't really go to fast food restaurants out here. And the bathroom situation I just can't talk about, its too nasty.  But the work is what keeps me going. Seeing people change there lives is what keeps me going, if I know I have made a difference then I feel good. If this is what gives me the right to come home with honor then this is what I am going to do for the next 2 years, its not my time but the lords. 

Its so far the toughest thing I have ever had to deal with not so much physically but the emotional stress is killing me. I feel like I have aged at least 5 years form being here. The people here in Buhi are the bomb, my favorite is giving the kids high fives every time I see them. They think we are rock stars! Their smiles on their faces are priceless and no amount of money can buy that type of happiness. So far me and my comp are "bosses" we get along real good and yeah most of our down time is us either dancing or just messing around and most importantly working out. But yeah early this week I was on our balcony and our window is open sideways and its metal and I wasn't paying too much attention and I hit  my head on the edge and cut it open, its not to big but I definitely felt the metal inside my brain, it tickled, but yeah no stitches just poured some alcohol on it haha.

Just a small hole..

 Our area is really pretty and I really like it here.  This week I was asked to give a talk at church, I did the best I could do in Tagalog in the end I am pretty sure they understood. hmmm ano pa? every Monday we eight missionaries lift in  Iriga city and thats pretty cool. Today I got Shakeys pizza they got one here in Iriga so got myself a large. And yeah talked to a lady who used to live in San Diego while we were at the eye doctors. It was pretty fun to talk with her. This week was the last time to talk to President and Sister Bliesner they leave next week and then come our new president and his wife. Um but yeah, good week just hanging in there trying not to get bored. But yeah just wanted to say happy Fathers Day to all the dads out their, your the best! ito po lahat para sa ang lingo na ito. maaraming salamat para sa ang mga email. Engot po (Translation :this is all for this week, many thanks for the emails, good bye.)

My new companion..

Elder Llorens

Week 13 6-10-13

So this was a awesome week! Tuesday I went to Naga to meet my new companion. We got there early and that was cool because we got "Jolibee"  which is a filipino Mcdonalds. After we went to the mission Office to meet my new companion Elder La'ulu from Australian he's Samoan and he's pretty big!  He plays rugby, estig! Then we heeded to my new area called Buhi which is in Irigia and its the best area here in the  Naga mission. Its probably the most beautifu spot. Its this little area surrounded by mountains and it has a big lake called Buhi lake! haha I have a sweet new living quarters our house is a 2 story and from the balcony you can see Mt. Mayon the volcano. The cool thing at night its gets cold enough to use sheets! Lovin it!

View from Balcony

Me and Elder La'ulu  are sort of opening a new area. Elder Finau who is in my batch from the MTC and Elder Cawit from Negros Occidental in the Philippines are our house mates and they control the "lake sector" which is the towns around the lake and the Centro. Our job is to basically track around the hills and the jungle  work from the middle out, our are is called the "mountain sector". And yeah the last couple days right after lunch time its just been raining hard on us.Its beautiful in the morning then bam! RAIN. the last couple of days after I have come home I have been just soaked and my shoes just full of mud but its super fun especially when you have to jump over huge puddles or you have to sacrifice and walk through the "swimming pool". HAHA

The members are great and the church is really strong here.  Back in Sipocot we only had like 50 members come but here in Buhi there are 80+ and thats great! We already have a really good investigator and she's awesome, she went to church this last Sunday and after while we have been teaching her she says she's been getting goose bumps and we just tell her that's the holy ghost telling/confirming you what we are saying is true. The language is really great and the work is going to start getting harder this first week was kind of finding our area and trying to scout around because Elder La'ulu says this is the first time going to some of the farther areas outside of Buhi. But yeah good things are happening here in Buhi our meeting house has air conditioning and they are building a chapel soon so we don't have to use the meeting house so I am really excited about my new area and hope I get to stay here awhile.

This morning we went to Iriga City and thats a cool place. We played basketball with the young men and after wards did some gym time because they have one here. Then we got Mang Inasal (all you can eat rice)!!!! Also I have 2 new Buhi bags the lady does it here in Nakabuhi "Buhi" and I was excited to finally get them. My new district is Astig!!! I have 4 sisters in it .Sister Abarabar and her comp Sister Ganzagan who is being trained. Sister Tumagoy who is in my batch she's a filipina and she's training Sister Birk from Utah and we have the Zone leaders Elder Duatin and Elder Patino both Pinoys, and elder Finau who is my batch from the MTC and his comp Elder Cawit. But its funny talking to sister Birk she's just still confused thats she's in the Philippines and all that is going on around her. But yeah time has been flying here and i have been loving it!!! And also loving serving the Lord here in the  Philippines. Great things are starting to happen here in the Church and I am grateful to be a part of it in helping people to come closer to Chist by helping them to receive his restored gospel here on  Earth.

I would like to thank all of those who have supported me on my journey. And thank you to those who email me. I am sorry if I don't email you back, but i just want to say, Mahal ko po lahat sa Inyo! Nagpapasalamat para sa inyo. Alam ko na buhay and tagapaglightas at nagpapasalamat nagmymysion dito sa naga philippines mission.mahal tayo ng dios! Marami salamat! Kitikits, Engot Po kayo. (Translation I love all of you! I am thankful for all of you . I know that our savior lives and I am grateful to serve my mission here in the Naga Philippines mission. God loves us all! many thanks! See you soon. Good bye to you.)

The sign says: "Only dogs can pee here" LOL

Shout outs :

 Happy Fathers day to the best dad ever! and Thank you to all those that have served and protected our country especially WWII. (This week on Wednesday is the 

Philippines Independence Day.)

Mahal ko kayo,

Elder Llorens

Week 12  6-3-13

Big news this week! After being in training for 12 weeks in the Sipocot area I have been transferred to a new Area in the Iriga Zone. My new area is called Buhi right next to Buhi lake.

 Buhi is the best area in the now Naga mission, so yes I'll be staying in the Naga mission and will stay a Naga knight!  You can look up Buhi Lake on google maps and see where I will be. For those of you not familiar how the mission works, it goes like this: You train for 12 weeks with 1 companion in one area, then after your training period you are eligible to be transferred to a new companion/area every six weeks. My new Companion is Elder La'ulu from Australia  he is half Australian and half Samoan..so excited. Also excited about having a 4 elder apartment.

Benabentes Family

 So for my last week in Sipocot we kept busy but didnt' have a ton of lessons.  But I  got to see all the members in this area  for the last time. Kindof bittersweet, I will miss some of these families alot! So like half way through this week all us Elders  ran out of money so we pretty much ate all of my food from the packages I got form my birthday (thanks mom!) and yeah luckily I had money left over to last us for 4 days so we had  a lot of canned food. blech!! But I did get one last dinner at Nanays Benabentes and yeah that was good she made pork but it tasted like steak I don't know how but "eyah" it was GLORIOUS!!!!!!!!!!! So we taught a less active this week and  we were talking to  this guy and he just starts speaking in really good english to me soo we started talking and he said he has an "auntie" who lives in SoCal and asked me if I knew where Alta Vista was..HMMM and I said it didn't sound familiar ,but it really did , (need to remember this was in like filipino accent) so later after thinking about it  I was pretty sure he probably lived in the same housing complex as me because I lived in Alta Vista, so yeah that was pretty random. I also saw an American this week in  town and started talking to him and I guess he married here...he used to live in michagan and now he owns a rice company that is here so that really cool. .....

So some funny moments: This week we were "river" contacting and after we got this guys info Elder Parohinog fell into the river HaHa!! glad he could swim! Then at  the next appointment we were watching the Restoration video with this family and Elder Parohinog and the son were sitting on this wood bench it was kindof sketchy from the beginning that why I choose a different seat, hahaha but yeah half way through it broke and we couldn't stop laughing. then... um last night me and Elder Finley did a photo shoot and that was fun we made these different poses and yeah one shot was a Harry Potter tribute so I drew a lightening bolt on my forehead (see what we resort to to entertain ourselves?) and so we  just ended up with some really funny random pictures so ill send those later but  that was a good time!

So I'm going to get packing, getting ready to meet my new area and basically start a new chapter of my life here in the mission. We had a lot of less actives  come to church Sunday so that was a way cool last sunday. I bore my testimony also because it was fast and testimony so that was "estig" definitely going to miss some people and hopefully I will get to see them again.  You never know how the seeds you have planted will grow, hoping to see some results in my time here.

Shout outs:

To Dean Anderson for his mission call to Talahasse Florida, you are going to love it! Way cool!

Love,

Elder Llorens

Week 11 5/26/13

Alrighty then...here is my update

This week was by far a good week!  We got 20 lessons in, 20! and 3 new investigators.  It is really starting to rain alot here. Every night you get to see the lightning and thunder while looking at the stars so yeah at night it gets really pretty. On Wednesday I went on exchanges with my Zone leader he's in charge of my whole zone. HIs name is Elder Kornegay and he is from Mesa Arizona and he is a boss. Basically we talked about life and about what we both miss. I talked to him a lot about the US Surf Open and all the crazy cool things you can do in California and he's told me about all the cool things you can do in Arizona. So that was way fun totally got a little home sick but it was way fun to hang out with and American in the Philippines and talk about guy. The next day we needed to open 
the church up for another district meeting in our zone. And on the way to the church on the bus they had Iron Man 3 playing on the bus. What the heck? I got way jealous so we started talking about movies that came out when he was on the mission and he wanted to know how the Dark Knight rises was and I told him about that and what not. So the next day was Thursday and we just had regular District meeting with the Zone leaders and that was cool. Afterward we got Mango/Manga shakes that are literally the best thing my lips have ever tasted in my life it  "felt good on my Lips"!!! We had a young man in our ward get his mission call to the Cebu Philippines east mission so that was way cool he's going to speak Cebuano; I'm so happy for him. So the food is still a struggle, If you are reading this have pity on me because I literally have nothing good to eat (LOL) send me american food, because I just used my last macaroni and cheese and Pop tarts. Boo hoo!  But last night I had some good chop suey so not complaining to loud and on Friday night I usually make some fried chicken and lemonade so yeah the only thing is missing  is just french fries. But I'll survive.
This upcoming week we get new companions and find out about  transfers. Hopefully I get transferred to the legaspi mission but pretty sure its not going to happen.Where ever I end up I will work hard and make the best of it. Saturday me and Elder Finley went on exchanges and that was fun we worked pretty hard and of course it starts raining on us and both of us forgot our "payos" = umbrellas. So we got a little wet, haha!
So here is my funny moment for the week.  I was speaking English to Elder Jacobson and since I don't speak English very much funny things tend to come out of my mouth! Wait that happened even when I spoke English every day, oh well anyway.. I was trying to tell Elder J that my dad was the "Chief Of Police" instead I said "peace of leaf"! Hmmm? 

So here are some shout outs :

Happy Birthday Shelby!
Congratulations Dylan Moh! Spokane Washington Mission totally cool!
The one and only Brian Sutherland, loving my sticks!

Keep the email coming, they are super encouraging!!

Mahal Ko po Kayo

Elder Llorens  ( thumbs up Sign)( hang Loose Sign) Winkey face;)

MUAh MUAh chup chup

President Blisner and missionaries

WEEK 10
5-19-13

So this week was good and bad.  On Tuesday I was super homesick after talking to my family on Monday for Mothers Day.  It rained all of Monday so we couldn't do laundry and ended up doing it on Tuesday instead.  We did go out on Monday, we used the skates (I am still working on getting a picture) then hiked up this big hill to get to a members house.  During our visit she gave us like 15 pounds of bananas, we had to haul home..we were dragging!  Once we were home we got haircuts, I will have to admit, not my best one. They use straight razors here which is cool I like the way they feel, but I don't like not knowing if you will survive the shave and haircut or die, from a shaky hand..hahaha.
That night we went to sleep to the sound of more rain and thunderstorms.  The next day we had zone conference, that was the best part of my week getting to see my good friends from the training center again Elder Finau and Elder Pickford, and got to meet some new missionaries. While we were there you guessed it, it started raining again.  At zone conference we celebrated all the May birthdays and we each got a snickers bar.  I need it!!  I have lost 15 pounds..poor food quality and nasty water will do that to you.  :/ When zone conference was over we headed to the mall, and I finally found re-fried beans and taco seasoning! That was legit!!  We ate McDonalds and hung out for a while singing songs and just talking.

So we finally headed out to the buses and we ran into our whole zone, I guess the busses had stopped running so we called our leaders and they came down and got us.  We fit 17 missionaries in a 12 passenger van, Hey you got to do what you have to do.  It was a fun ride and we even stopped and got ice cream from a 7-11.
So I told you we found someone to do our cooking, so I dropped off my refried beans and taco mix to her and we had a glorious meal!!  On Friday there was like a fiesta going on so we got to eat alot of food, but didn't really have any appointments that day because everyone was partying.  We went out to the town of Brcy, and had a lesson and found a new investigator.  That was cool because I got to teach and I could tell my language is getting better. After we taught her she told us that she is moving so that was sad..On the way home I got to ride top load (on top of the vehicle ) I almost got a ticket for this once at school haha, but here it is legal so there! It was cool. We also had a lesson with these little boys.  They are awesome they take care of themselves all day, feed themselves watch the house and do work around the house, they were super cool!
So Sunday was no fun, I was suppose to give a baby blessing but the  Area President decided to do it instead, which was fine but then I got told to give a last minute talk and there was jsut a lot of drama going on that created stress and more stress for me!! But thats basically how it is on your mission, stressful and how well you deal with it is how well you will do on your mission.  It is soooo hard, let me tell you! But worth it.

Please keep the emails coming, they are keeping me sane!  I know I keep saying that but they are.
Okay I will talk to you guys soon.

Love
Elder Llorens

Week 9  5/12/2013

Sorry for the no letter last week I just had a small problem and I apologize for that. 

But this week was really sweet; this morning I was able to Skype my family and talk to them for a little bit. Can’t believe how different it is not being able to talk or to see them everyday. But the good thing is everything is cool at home and I like how the time has been flying so far, hopefully it keeps it up.

So my Birthday was on Saturday and we just worked because if we didn't it just gets really boring so we went out and got a foot long Filipino hot dog and worked. As for a birthday gift to myself, I got a machete (itak) and its legit man, I have been just doing my will on the jungle around me. ha-ha swoosh swoosh " wala na" (no more).  So for my birthday dinner we have a member who used to be a cook for American and Australia Spanish businessmen. Anyways she’s the best cook in the Philippines. She asked what I wanted and I said, “BBQ Shrimp with garlic butter to dip, Italian Spaghetti with ground beef and my favorite fried sweet potatoes (kemote), its the Philippians hash browns".

So yeah I was full that night dropped like 1000 pesos that night for everyone but it was worth it. And afterward they sung happy birthday for me and at the end they said that they have a Philippians tradition and as soon as they said that they threw flour at me, which was really cool.

And a scary thing is today Election day in the Philippians. And horrible things have been happening. The politics here are just the crappiest I have ever seen. They pay people 100 pesos to vote for them and then that's a ton of money for poor people and a lot in general. And if they find out you don't or if they found out you didn't vote for the right person they’d shoot you. They do drive by shootings or they'll just shoot you on the street in front of everyone. I have already heard like 3 gunshots go off right below our Internet shop so yeah I didn't think it was this bad but it is. So we are not really going go out today really. This is going to be a quick message and just like to say thank you to everyone and love you all.

Shout out to Jake Levine; Happy Birthday, and thanks to Brian for the lacrosse heads;  I have them on bamboo sticks (estig)!

I really appreciate the letter and happy birthday emails. They meant the world to me and I would just like to say Happy Mother’s Day to all the great mothers out there. It’s getting a little dangerous now so I’m going to get off now. I love you all. And hope all is well at home. 

Love,

Elder Llorens

Week 8      5-7-13

Due to computer issues on Seth's end we are using this as our update this week..

Elder Llorens was not anywhere near this incident, but it highlights the danger of hiking up this active volcano.


This is the volcano that just erupted...hasn't erupted
since 2010.



May 7, 2013

Associated Press: Five climbers have been killed after one of the Philippines' most activevolcanoes rumbled to life, spewing room-sized rocks towards them.The group of nearly 30 climbers and their Filipino guides had spent the night camping before setting out at daybreak on Tuesday for the crater of the Mayon volcano when a sudden explosion of rocks, ash and plumes of smokes jolted the mountain, guide Kenneth Jesalva told ABS-CBN TV.

He said rocks "as big as a living room" rained down, killing and injuring members of his group, some of whom were in critical condition. Jesalva said he rushed back to the base camp at 914 metres (3,000ft) to call for help.Among the dead were three Germans and their Filipino guide, said the Albay provincial governor, Joey Salceda. He added that everyone on the mountain had been accounted for at midday, except for a foreigner who was presumed dead.

Eight people were injured, and the others were being brought down the mountain, Salceda said.
Ash clouds have cleared over the volcano, which was quiet later in the morning.

"The injured are all foreigners … They cannot walk. If you can imagine, the boulders there are as big as cars. Some of them slid and rolled down. We will rappel the rescue team, and we will rappel them up again," he said from Legazpi, the provincial capital.