Week 3 done- 04/01/13

kumusta!!!! Week 3 is done -going to be week 4 here pretty soon and I can't believe that I've  been here for about a month time has just been flying. Its probably because we wake up at like 6:30 and don't go to bed til like 11 at night work hard, party harder hahaha (joke). But this week was kind of slow not to many lessons which is totally fine. We have our first baptism this Saturday so I'm totally stoked for that. Its for sister Rexy she's totally awesome we committed her to be baptized for May 4 but we just straight out asked her if she believes in what she's learning and she said she's prayed about it and got an answer to what we are saying is true.  Ayos!!!!  Here are some numbers that the Mission President gave us.  We have 271 Investigators with baptismal dates.  We have 401 progressing investigators and 150 new investigators.  These are for the whole mission but they are amazing.

So a little bit about my area:
 My area is the city or town of Sipocot. It's about a 2 hour bus ride north from Naga city in the Camerines Sur area. So basically they don't have any streets they have one big highway that leads from Manila to Naga all the way down to Legaspi which is the bottom of the Luzon island. So back to my area we have a centro which is down town basically and its  busy 24/7; cars, "tricey" a motor cycyle with a side cart those are fun when you ride on top hahaha. A lot of jeepneys for transportation and buses to Naga. Everyone walks everywhere. There are no Americans you'll get lucky if you see one but they are usually "dom" dirty old men who want a filipino wife.... yuck. And its currently summer so its pretty hot Im lucky that I got to endure hell week in full pads in 110 degree weather because this is pretty close to that just really humid. You Lose about 2 pounds a day from loss of sweat; no joke. Talking about weight loss I lost about 10 Pounds since being here. Its from "LBM" loose bowel movement  mmmmhm... fun stuff basically its because of  the unfiltered water and unclean and crazy food I eat. 

The food consists of yup rice for every meal, fish, chicken, dried fish, and I've had corn beef in a can which is so far my favorite. And yes I tried the Balut the fermented duck egg, and yeah that was insane. Basically it looks nasty its black white and yellow. you slurp all the juice form the egg first then you eat the yoke??? It's just pure protein and only for the champs... Chuck Noris has nothing on me, it was okay its just a hard boiled egg but an old hard boiled egg with little cute feathers and yeah what ever else is in it. fun stuff you should try it! But those are my meals and delicious fruit; the shakes that are to die for... ahh the best and they have  this thing called Halo Halo its a shake with gellitin , fruit, vegetables, beans oats and what ever is in it its amazing. 

So the people are cool; most of them, some don't like us but thats okay we just say "whats up" to them. The worst though is when they whistle at you like a dog, dude I'm seriously gonna lose it! But the members of the church are awesome they feed us, play with us and yeah "sobrung estig". So fun giving the kids "ophere" which are high fives we are basically rock stars to them. The apartment is okay-"lan" its got a roof, a stove and a "CR" a bathroom its actually pretty nice compared to our surrounding area. But 2 nights theres a thing called a brown out which is a power outage and we were baking in that apartment at like 2 o'clock in the morning, Elder Finley and Elder Pascual came to our apartment  because their apartment is so much hotter and we had a sleep over.. hahaha. But you gotta be careful with thieves about 4 days ago at night we caught some one trying to break in our back door but we scared them away, got my filipino fighting knife and was ready to do some work, it was a special remembrance from Elder Makahele.   Gotta be careful here, they found out that I'm from America and Mexican so they call Americans 'joe' because of the GI joes that were stationed here back when, but they like to call me Hermano hahaha so that my nick name here. But I feel bad for the panoys  because they live in so much poverty. They live in bamboo shacks with barely any running water, electricity is limited and they work so hard for there food you"ll have kids at night ask for food. and when we got to Brcy we see them at the dump looking for food,super sad. So I feel like crap when we don't get water in the morning to shower but you just gotta look for the positive. This week was crazy for Holy week they do some crazy festivals for Easter they sometimes whip themselves, crucify themselves and other crazy stuff. They just don't understand there are other ways to show your love to God and Jesus instead of that.crazy but not too much of that stuff here just a lot of traditions and prayers. I got to give a fireside about missionary work which was really fun. We practice teaching with the members and thats was cool. But thats all I can think of right now its not completely boring you find some fun. Everyday day is different but you just gotta remember that its good to always have a smile on your face and have a good attitude and you'll be okay. The language is coming along not great, but at least I can contribute during the lessons. I'm so looking forward to this week should be good got a baptism and zone training and next week we get trainees  training down in Lagao Legaspi! so fyi if you get called to the Naga mission the best area is Legaspi so your super lucky if you get called there its beautiful and its got everything ahh so jealous.  But the mission is splitting in July so know one knows where we will be.

Well this wraps up another awesome week here in the Philippines. I miss you California so much and I appreciate everyones emails! It's really the only way to chat back and forth with me because mail is expensive and sloow Love you ALL and be Praying for you ,take it easy and stay classy California or wherever. "engot po"

Shout out to "Nana" love you
Abby..."Easters" haha funny
pops "lead from the front"
moms "love you and thanks for the candy hehehe"

My funny/not so funny moment this week:

 So were chilling out with some firemen at a fire station just talking and playing with kids and watching the river and having a good time. We start talking to them to find out they knew some missionaries from Naga city and they were former investigators of the church so we started talking to them a little more about the church. Half way through the conversation  I felt it coming LBM (loose bowel movement), so i told my companion we need to go. he said hold on because he was getting the info from the firemen i told him CR NGYON!!!!!  which basically mean now.  Needless to say I ran all the way back to our apartment, good thing we were close so I made it.

 To add to the festivities they're shooting some fireworks off right now so Im gonna go watch Love you ALL talk to you soon. BYE

fireworks reminded me of Disneyland  ahhh