Pheliz Navidad

Oh no! I just realized I forgot my planner. That has everything I was going to tell you and my grocery list! Dang. Anyway, we had a mission Christmas party/conference last week. Some people from Utah that are the medical advisor for Philippines came and talked to us. President Balledos spoke too and he was so sweet. He is so humble and willing to learn. He just could not stop praising these people. He just respected them so much and was so humble. He was also very sweet because he told us that we probably miss our homes but he said he misses his home too but he and Sister Balledos are trying their best to help us. And he just talked about how much he loves us. He is so kind.

Then we had a great big fancy meal including lechon baboy (whole roast pig). One of the APs asked who was adventurous enough to try the brain. I volunteered. It was pretty mushy. And then the best thing ever happened…Pres. Balledos let us watch a MOVIE. A real movie! Not a church movie. A real one! We Are Marshall. It was a delightful, inspiring football movie with Matthew McConaughey and Jack from LOST. It was so wonderful. We also had a gift exchange and performed our Christmas presentation. The 3 wise men [the three American sisters] did a bang up job.

Sister Ackerman and I get along great and are having a lot of fun. We are also learning so much from each other. Sis. Ackerman is great. We understand each other and help each other when we're having a hard time. The language is still a bit rough, but I'm really glad we're companions. I am learning Tagalog much quicker than I did my first 12 weeks. Sometimes it's a little rough though... we can't fully understand some things people tell us, especially when they're trying to be discreet or imply things. For example, we are still not sure if a less active invited us to her house for Christmas or not, haha. We're hoping her son who is active will remind us. If he doesn't we'll just show up. Apparently that's how it works here on Christmas. Everyone just has a whole ton of food and you just go visit everyone. We have a few invites for Christmas, but we're hoping to score more.

Caroling here is so different. It is every single night and people just go to someone’s house and start to sing outside. Then they sing until the person comes out and gives them money and then they leave. People ask us about caroling in America and they can't believe it when we say that it's free.

On Christmas day we have some sort of zone training/meeting in the morning. There might be an uprising from the missionaries if our zone leader makes us do a role play on Christmas. Then after that, we are invited to Sis Salvatera's sometime during the day, also we need to stop by and see some other people.

You would not believe how well some people treat us. The kids just run up to us and shake our hands and pretty much everyone greets us "magandang hapon po, sisters." We went to the birthday party of this baby of a less active family. They sat us inside the house (everyone else was outside). When we got there, they went and stole the table from outside (took it away from all these really old ladies), dismantled the table to fit it in through the door, set it up, and gave us the hughest plates of spaghetti and pansit and a giant slab of birthday cake and this Filipino jello stuff (all on the same plate). Then they just talked about how much they love missionaries and how nice we are for like an hour. People love us. One of the members that always works with us said we are her new best friends, she made us cards, she went to an SA conference in Vigan and brought us back key chain souvenirs and she asked us if she could call us "atae" (a term for older sister) after our missions. She is the sweetest!

Generally, I am feeling pretty good about the way things are going. In my new area we get around by walking. We can walk our whole area if we want because it's so small. Sometimes we take a trike if we're in a hurry or if it's raining really hard. The ward members love us and I like being in Sevilla B better. All the members are pretty much in our area so we are able to develop better relationships with them. I am so glad I'm companions with Sis Ackerman because we love each other a lot and are always there for each other. The language is getting better. When one of the members works with us she just says "bawal english." bawal means forbidden. So we learn a ton of Tagalog like that. Sometimes church is difficult to follow—too many languages...English, Tagalog, Ilocano.

Basically we just got punted the entire day yesterday. We only taught one lesson (to a recent convert), everyone else couldn't because they weren't there or were hiding or busy or something. But it's ok. We found a maybe golden investigator last week. Actually we found her before that but we taught her again last week. Last time we gave her a Book of Mormon, then this time we taught the restoration and when we got to the first vision she just said, "oh yeah, and then Joseph went into a forest by his house and prayed and God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared". So she read the introduction and into 1 Nephi 1. She also said that she has been investigating lots of other churches but that none of them feel right. So I hope things work out with her! She’s also the kindest person ever.

There’s a very popular church here. All I know about them is they hate Mormons and they keep telling us our pictures of Jesus aren't accurate (don't know why that matters too much) and they go to church like every day and have an even stricter "word of wisdom " than us and they are apparently dunked under the water repeatedly until they "see the face of God" to be baptized.

 

I hear New Year’s is just as crazy as Christmas and that's why we have curfew at 7 for December 24, 25, 31 and January 1. Oh no, the ward members found out where we live and they are planning to bring us a banana cue and camote cue on Christmas (fried banana and fried sweet potato with this delicious brown sugar stuff) after our curfew. That's pretty against the rules, but it's not our fault! We just won't let them inside.

Love you lots and I will talk to you in a couple days!