Allyson's Mission to the Philippines Baguio Mission: Things are Phine after Typhoon Luis

Hello family! I missed e-mailing you yesterday. Yes, power was out for a long time because of the storm and internet didn't start working in Agoo until this morning. So we are allowed to email you today. We were hoping President would e-mail our parents and say we will e-mail tomorrow, but apparently not. We thought maybe all of our parents would think we were killed by the typhoon haha.

Anyway, on Sunday there was a big storm. We had church with no power. Dark room, really hot, and nobody could hear because there wasn't a microphone and rain was pouring down. But it was ok. We only had 5 investigators come to church on Sunday. Church attendance was about cut in half because of the storm. Filipinos also have this weird thing where they refuse to do anything outside if it's raining. They don't want to get sick. I don't really understand that.

Then we went out to work and right when we were about to go to our first appointment the zone leaders texted and said go home immediately... you know how when it rains it seems like someone is sprinkling water from the sky or even a watering pot? This was just like someone dumped out a huge bucket of water. It was raining so hard and there was lots of wind. When we went outside on Monday morning, it kind of felt like when Kolipoki and the gang go outside after the big storm and everything is ruined... except of course much less dramatic. There are lots of trees down and some people’s houses were damaged, but everything is good. Yesterday we went out for p-day. Haha, missionaries were the only people outside. It was like this creepy ghost town.

Everything is fine here... we hung out at the beach for a couple hours yesterday…that was fun. Well, first we went to this part of the beach that was by all these houses. It’s kind of like a little shanty town sort of thing on the beach. We had to walk through the houses in flood water almost to our knee to get there... so the beach was pretty dirty…a lot of trash and the ocean was a little brown because of the storm. But then we walked up the beach a bit and it was really pretty. We had a great time just relaxing and watching the waves and eating rambutan (our favorite fruit).

The conference in Baguio was good. I didn’t have time to go to the store, but we did stop and get a hamburger so that was delicious and Sister Jackson is going to buy me some peanut butter and jam and send it to me, so everything will be ok. It was really good to see Sister Tune and Sister Dial. I miss Sister Tune. She was such a great companion. I was also pretty sad, because I realized that this could possibly be the last time I ever see her... she goes home in November. [Sister Tune is from Kiribati.] Also, good news from Sister Tune! Remember Alicia? We found her through tracting? She's getting baptized in 2 weeks! Hooray.

Let me tell you a little bit about our investigators. The H family is doing great. J and D are on track for baptism. They are so sweet. J has been reading like 5 chapters of the Book of Mormon a day and she said she usually has to repeat it because she sometimes doesn't understand it the first time. I am very excited for October 4. We’re teaching them the Law of Chastity later today. I’m not looking forward to teaching that to an 11 year-old boy. Oh well. Also, do you know about our other investigator with a baptism date? I can't remember what I told you about her, but we found out some more of her story. So she can't read, because she never went to school because she was abandoned by her parents and then adopted and then the adoptive parents were horrible people. Then they sold her to a prostitution club thing but she somehow escaped. So that's crazy. I can't believe the problems here. I feel really bad for her. She and her live-in partner are both going to be baptized but they need to get married first. Sadly marriage is really expensive here, so they still have to earn enough money to get married. Their baptismal date is up in the air right now. We are going to re-extend it this week. Brother M is set to be baptized October 25, and Sister J and Brother D are set for October 4.

Sister Glori and I are getting along well. She did get a little bit mad at me yesterday though. I had a couple vegetables in the fridge that I had forgotten to eat, and they were bad so I threw them away (one cucumber and one large carrot). She told me that people here are starving and I’m just letting food go to waste. That’s kind of sad. She told me this story about how when she was little, like age 10, she had to work so that her family could have food. She would make coconut juice and go and sell it at cock-fighting events so that her family could have food that day.

I also had exchanges in Bauang on Wednesday with Sister Tanner. This is now the 3rd time I’ve been on exchanges with her. It was good. I think I like Agoo better than Bauang though. While I was on exchanges, I was riding on the back of the trike. The trike driver was just zipping along and then bam! He ran over a dog. He didn't even slow down. No mercy. I yelled, and I could hear someone screaming. I thought it was Sister Tanner at first, but then I realized it was the dog. Meanwhile, Sister Tanner was on the inside of the trike and the window was blocked so she didn't know what happened. She was freaking out because she thought it was a person.

Also, it's really funny because in San Fernando there is a limit on the number of people on a trike. It’s usually 3 or 4 people. In Agoo there's no limit. So sometimes there are 5 inside the side car, 2 on the back plus the driver and two standing on the back of the trike, one standing on the other side of the trike and a few times I’ve even seen people on top. Then the trike has to go so slow because it is so weighed down.

Things are going well here in Agoo. Going back to Baguio made me miss it a little bit though

I'm about out of time. It is time for me to go to district meeting. Love you! Have a great week! I’m glad I got to email you.