Philippines Email #1: I'm in Noveleta !!

Sister Sevia - my companion (from Samoa)
She's taller than me !!

I have so much to tell you! So little time and a lot of pictures but I am sending this first. I don’t know if I’ll get to send you them. So we stayed in a hotel that first night in Manilla. Sister Vaka was in our room. But she left at like 4:30 in the morning so we had to say goodbye early. Cavite missionaries had to be up at 6.

Mom this place is crazy!!!! You would have a heart attack. Imagine Mexico but like two times as bad. EVERYWHERWE!!! Everywhere is poor. Even in the city it is poor. It is definitely an eye opener. Even with all the traveling I have done I have never seen anything like this. It is crazy!!! The traffic is worse than Mexico. And we walk out in front of cars to cross the road. Where I am, we don’t ride jeepneys -- there are none. Jeepneys are like busses with benches. Instead we ride mini busses -exactly what it sounds like. To walk in it we have to duck. We ride those or tricycles. I think they have them in Mexico. Motorcycle with a side car. Those are fun. So my apartment is pretty nice. JUST HOT!!!!! And our bathroom light doesn’t work so we do everything in the dark. My comp is Sister Sevia from Samoa. She is super nice. I love her and she is taller than me!!!!!! Haha.

This has been the hardest thing of my life.  I won’t lie to you it is SO hard!!!! I cried all Thursday morning and Friday morning. I wasn’t even like I want to go home I was like I am going home. I didn’t want to be here. It is crazy! I was not having fun. I was convinced that I was going to go home. I was thinking --18 months is A LONG time. But then I decided that I was going to be happy. And since then I have been fine. Trying to have as much fun as I can. And I am! Thursday was our first day outside of the apartment. One investigator is Jenny.  She is awesome.  She is getting baptized on Saturday. She found a random Book of Mormon and read it and decided it was true without even meeting with anyone. She is awesome! SO in the Philippines you can’t get divorced. Like it is illegal. So if you have a wife she will always be your wife. So you can get baptized if you are living with someone for a certain number of years or something. And that is her situation. Her partner is married so they have to meet with President Tye and prove that he is married. It is kinda weird.

So my ward is Noveleta. Probably the coolest place I will have all mission. THERE IS A BEACH HERE!!! Not much of my mission has a beach. Mine does. We teach people whose houses are the size of my bathroom and on the beach it is super cool. One guy apologized for his house. It was sad. He asked if since I am from America if I am rich. The way they live here is CRAZY!!! On Friday we did a community service project and painted Jenny’s house. It was fun. I liked it. I met my district. My district leader is from Washington. It was nice to see an American and talk to him. It is hard because in my apartment is a Samoan Tongan and a Philippino.  So when an American speaks English they pretend to have nose bleeds. It is just a cultural thing.  I get that all the time !! Whether I am trying to speak or just sitting next to them. It is frustrating. And people don’t want to sit next to me. On buses and stuff they only sit next to me if they have to. We get to walk across really cool bridges and stuff too!!!!! And we walked past somewhere and it is where they make salt. It is interesting haha.

So my comp has never been to this area. They call it shotgunning it. So we have the ward missionary named Brother Wilmar who goes with us to all appointments and shows us how to get there. He is awesome!!! Helps a lot because we would so be lost it if weren’t for him. On Saturday there was 3 baptisms!!!! I was like --wow some people on get 3 their whole mission. And they got that in one day!! Which is great because the Philippines are ready for the gospel!!

Sundays are hard because they are not as serious as we are in America. Lots of talking. It is odd. I had to go up and bear my testimony.

It was fun haha. That’s about all that I can do. Haha. They call me strawberry. One lady goes --oh come here my strawberry. So I’m not Mayberry I am strawberry. Haha

Everyone knows English. Well kinda. Taglish is a real thing. People will say tagalog sentences and then English like it is the same language. It is weird. So people speak English to me. It’s hard because I can’t learn tagalog that way. Which by the way is super hard!!!! I do not understand ONE thing.. I get too lost so at the end of lessons I just testify of whatever subject we were talking about. Hah. It will come I know but it takes time. Well momma --I love you and want to try to send you some pictures so I am gonna stop writing. I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!