Short Update and pictures

Real Good Food
This week has been pretty good. we have had a lot of good food. on
monday we went to a FHE and they had Real CAKE! haha it was really
good. we have also been making better food. we eat a lot of chicken
now. this morning we were also invited along with our whole zone to a
members house for lunch. She had so much food! it was super good too.
we had Sprite Float. it had sliced oranges, sprite, and vanila ice
cream in it.

Better Late Than Never
not too much has happened this week. because of all the
christmas activities and celebrations going on it has made it kind of
hard to teach our investigators because they are always gone. This
week our ward had a Christmas party. we invited alot of our
investigators to come. It was supposed to start at 3 on saturday. and
we had a lot of investigators there at 3:30 but almost none of the
members showed up until 5. ugh! haha the bishop tried to come up with
games to pass the time but all of our investigators were super board.
the Christmas party was actually really good when it got started. The
Single Adults, young women, primary, and Missionaries in our ward all
presented a dance or skit. haha for our skit we acted our the song.
Hardest thing Ive ever done. It is about missionaries. we only
practiced once so it was kind of bad!

Jake's Bathroom

here is a coconut we got. Elder Payne used his Machete to cut it open.
we made a shake out of it later. Haha

Fields

My trainer with a trainer

Ward Christmas Party

 

Short Update

Christmas Concert and Zone Conference
Anyway this week we had our Christmas Concert. All the missionaries in
the whole mission came to Laoag for a day. haha some missionaries had
to travel 6 hours on a bus to get to and from the conference. man i am
so glad that i am already in laoag. we had a ton of missionaries stay
in our apartment during the conference so it was always hectic and
hard to get ready in the morning. for the Conference we went to a
college with a huge field and we played sports(capture the flag,
rugby, ultimate frisbee, soccer, and basketball) I only played rugby
and ultimate frisbee. It was super fun but also super hot. After we
went back to the stake center in Laoag and all the zones did thier
skits and dances. haha it was pretty funny. 
 

Pictures

Everything surrounded in the green Highligter is our area. pobacion is
the City part of Laoag.

 

these kids came to our apartment and sang us christmas songs so Elder
Payne gave them little stuffed animals! haha

These are all the elders in our Zone

picture of our road

us walking through a jungle! haha just kidding i just took the picture
so it looked that way. haha

these are all the sisters in our Zone+ our dance teacher! haha

Life in the Phillipines

Reaching Goals By Faith and Works
This week was pretty good. We worked really hard because we set a goal
to teach 32 lessons this week. It is the standard that our mission
president has set for our mission. it is hard to get but we talked to
everyone we saw and we got our goal. we also got 33 new investigators
this week because most of our proselyting hours this week we just went
finding. this next week we are going to go back and try to teach all
the people we found this last week. hopefully they are all still
interested. haha.
The Philippines Through Elder Hickey's Eyes
The Philippines is actually exactly what i thought mexico or some
other poor latin america country would be like. I love talking to
people and seeing them progress and become closer to our savior. The
toughest thing about being a missionary here is just that so many
people don't follow our commitments. We have a Investigator (Janine
Maximo) who has a baptismal date on the 28 but she hardly ever comes
to church. All of our investigators are like that. we have 9 with
baptismal dates but none are going to be ready for their dates because
they don't follow through with the commitments we give them.
especially coming to church. Oh man there are so many things that i
realized that we have that many other people don't clean water, clean
environments, and we don't need to worry too much about the
cleanliness of our food in america, another big thing is health. So
many people here are sick, We see usually two crazy people, two or
three people with huge growths on their bodies, and maybe one person
missing a limb. usually a day. Everyone is too poor to get medical
treatment. I don't think they really have many traditions. they just
get to gether with thier families and set off fireworks.yeah we are
having a ward Chrismas party supposedly either me or my companion is
supposed to be santa! haha That might be bawal but i dont know. The
best thing that happened this week was that we had a inactive family
in our area come to church! we have been teaching them a lot. the
worst thing that happened this week is that we found out that one of
our investigators with a baptismal date basically can't get baptized.
because she is a live in ( people who don't get married but live
together.) and she cant get married because her " husband" is married
to someone else. and here in the Philippines it is next to impossible
to get divorced. It would be great if she just left the guy, but they
have lived together for five years, they just built a new house, and
they have a kid. Hopefully she will but it is going to be very hard
for her if she does.
A Priesthood Blessing Miracle
oh yeah! almost forgot. we had a really cool experience this week. We
were teaching Janine Maximo and her Grandma was their. And she was
really sick. So we offered to give her a blessing. She seemed really
happy that we asked. So we gaver her one. A couple days later we came
back and Taught Janine Maximo again and she told us that her lola
(grandma) felt completely better that night after we left.

Life in the Phillipines and Some Pictures

Sick Companion
Well this week was pretty good. My companion was still sick for a
couple days. Our mission president took us to the hospital to check if
he had Denge Fever, but we never went back to get the results so we don't
know. He is better now so we have been able to get out more this week.
I also went on splits with our district leader. I was with E. Bertiz
he is a really cool guy from the Philippines and he is super
short,  it was fun. 

Church

Church is good I don't have any callings/responsibilities. I spoke the first week I got here but it
was really just my testimony. It is very loud because the
parents don't control/take out their kids when they are crying or
screaming, but it is still good.

Thanksgiving and Teaching

My who zone went to KFC for
thanksgiving but everyone didn't have much money so we didn't eat
too much. We are teaching the same people but we also
did a lot of finding.  Dana Bona and Janine Maximo are
probably the ones who are progressing the most. It is frustrating though
because Dana's "Live in" is holding her back so much! For one, they
aren't married and he doesn't want her to go to church. ugh, men here
are so dumb sometimes, all they do is work, drink, and smoke.. But
Janine came to church this Sunday It was awesome because it is so
hard to get people to come to church 

Life in the Philippines

There is no hot water in our apartment,  we have a
bucket in our bathroom with water in it that we dump on ourselves when
we shower. Laundry takes so long! It seems like we are always
running out of clothes so sometimes we have to wash enough clothes for
the next day at night before we go to bed. 

 

Adjusting to the Phillipines

Hot!
This week was good.  It is soo hot here.  It is hot even at night, we sleep with our door open and our fans on full blast! and Im still hot! haha but its alright I think I am getting used to it.

Companion
My companion has been super sick for most of last week
so we stayed at our apartment more.
Language
Not knowing the language is the hardest thing right now becuase if
anyone speaks super fast (so all the Philippinos do) It is so
hard to understand and respond. Teaching is good.  I usually teach some of the lesson.  Most of the time I do not understand what they are exactly saying, but I usually get a gist of what is said.

Weird Foods
I ate at some member's houses this week and ate some interesting foods.We had a wierd Illicano desert where you dipped sour mango
slices into a spicy vinegar.  We ate frog at our Ward Missionaries
house. It looked kind of gross but it was actually really good.haha
they also have a desert called halohalo wich is basically ice cream
with anything they feel like putting in it (beans, bananas, funny gummy balls, and noodles). It tastes ok,  but  I dont like it because there are too many textures.

Our Blessed Lives
I was thinking a lot about how blessed we are this week-
how lucky we are that we live in America. Everyone here looks at
America like the richest place on earth and in many ways it is. In
America it is so easy to get by, here people literaly live day to day
on very little money. It is so sad! There are so many people who have
almost nothing and its all they have ever known.
Shopping
To answer your question.  We usually shop at a super market which is like Walmart.  Yes they have McDonalds and Seven eleven but that is it for American fast food.  Mostly they have a lot of local food chains. 

Missionary Fun
For Christmas all the missionaries in our mission are coming to Laoag
for a conference. Every zone needs to prepare a folk dance and a
skit! Our dance is really funny because it is really girly so
all the elders look so funny when they do it. It is called something
like the "graceful duck" or something haha! Our Zone practiced on
Monday and after we all took a jeepnee to some sanddunes that are
close to the sea and we sandboarded haha! it was super fun

Laoag, Tricies, and Sand Dunes

 

Second Interview With Elder Hickey

Hey Everyone! its good to hear that you are all doing well. here are
some answers to your questions.

So what do you normally eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
We usualy eat rice or noodles with ulam (anything you put on the
rice or noodles) sometimes we make curry, put hotdogs on the rice,
sometimes chicken, etc.
Do you know any Flipino missionaries who have family or
friends affected by the typhoon?
no there is a philippino missionary in our apartment but i dont think
he knows anyone that far south.

Have any missionaries from affected missions been transferred to your mission.
nope not that i know of.

What’s your daily schedule like?
Well we usually study from 8-1 then we proselyte or teach from 1-8.

What do you spend most of your time doing?
We usually spend most of our time trying to find our investigators
with baptismal dates. It stinks because everyone is so hard to
find. The sisters who were in our area before us didn't really write
down exactly where everyone lives.

What’s your companion like?
He is super patient. He is also really funny i like him.

How is your health?
I am doing really good i haven't gotten sick yet.but on monday everyone in our apartment ate balut and my companion was sick all the
next day, so we stayed in the apartment the whole day.

Is the Tagalog there similar to what you learned in the MTC?
yeah but they speak really fast, and they all have accents. so
sometimes its hard to hear or understand them.

How big is your area?
It is really big actually we have some areas in the city and a lot of
bukid (farm) areas. Our area goes out to the sea but we havent been to

that part of our area yet because it is so expensive to get to. Our
mission president told us to go out to that area only once a month.

What have you done since you have been there - contacting, member
work, less-active work, service, etc.? 

We havent done any service yet,but we are going to. we have been doing a lot of contacting, and
finding investigators.

What do you like most about the Phillipines and the people there?

Everyone is sooo nice! It is so wierd because we will walk up to a
group of rough and tough looking men and start talking to them and
they are super polite. People here will never tell us that they dont
want to hear our message they will just listen to be polite.

Another thing that is kind of funny about the Philippines is that they
really like Americans. It is wierd they all want light skin like us.
The mothers love us and try to feed us all the time  Also they
will often call us Joe because of GI Joe's and aparently they think it
is the most common American name haha.

Hickey Happy Highlights

Investigators
Here is all the highlights from this week.  We finally
found a couple of our investigators that are really progressing this
week. One is Dana Bona she is a young mother living with her husbands
family. she has only been taught a couple times but she is really
interested and always has a lot of questions.
We never have a felowshiper to go with us to teach her so we have only
taught her a couple times. Another Investigator Janine Maximo. She is
so ready to be baptized. She has been taught everything and has a great
testimony but she hasnt been going to church consistently.
One thing about people here they dont like to go to church because
many of them live far away and they don't want to spend money on
trycies, its frustrating. 

Hide and Go Seek

Also people will hide or run from us. It
hasn't happened to me very much but people will hide in thier houses
and not answer the door sometimes even if they know we have seen them.
I heard a story of some elders who saw one of their investigators jump
out of one of his windows to hide from them. haha. I have also heard
that they will pretend to be asleep ahah. Apparently they will open
their eyes to look at the elders but close them and pretend to be
asleep when they come in. haha. They are too polite to refuse lessons
so they just try to avoid them.

Awesome Ward

Anyway... we are in a ward. Tthere are three wards in Loaog. 

Our bishop is really cool, he is super energetic and happy all the time. 

He went and fellowshipped with
us on friday. We also have a great ward mission leader. He is kind of
inactive, but he works with us a lot. He took us around a
area that we had never been to and introduced us to the members in
that area yesterday.

Mr. Bean

 HAAAHAHA  I almost forgot  so aparently I look
a lot like Mr. Bean. I think its because my shirts are really
loose and i don't do my hair because I sweat too much. but everyone
will call me mister bean. ugh. I dont like it but it is also really
funny. My companion loves it! but he dosnt know who Mr. Bean is! can
you send me a picture of him so that i can show him? Just so he
can appreciate it more!

Sand Dunes

Today  we had a zone activity where we went to some
sandunes near the sea and sandboarded so no pictures today, definitely
next monday though!
 

Mahal Kita!

 

 

Arrival in Phillipines Interview

How long did your trip take?
A: We left Monday morning at 9 and arrived in Loaog around 8 pm wed.

local time.

So, what’s it like?

A: It is Hot, Humid, and very pretty, Everyone is really poor but they are
the nicest people I have ever met! When we are walking around to
appointments and we pass a group of kids they will follow us or give
us high fives. It is super funny everyone stares at us because we are
white! haha!

What was your first impression when you got off the plane in Manila?
A: HOT HOT HUMID HOT! haha actually Manila is very busy city, the traffic
is crazy, most of the time it seems like there are not any
traffic laws at all.

What was your impressions when you got off the plane in Laoag?

A:We got picked up by our mission pres and then we took a Jeepnee
to his home. its really hot and humid here.  I am in Loaog city everyone

lives in really small beat up houses.  They are sometimes made out of plywood, 

concrete(only), and random peices of material. Also there are a lot of

jeepnees and Trycies ( their kind of like taxis but its a motercycle with a side cart).

It is very green, even in the city, but not as jungley as I expected.

Seen any creepy bugs yet?

no not yet I have been told that the big bugs and spiders are usually
out in the country side.

Who is your companion?  Where’s he from?  How long has he
been there?  Do you like him?

My companion is Elder Payne. He is from Utah. He is super cool and he has been out 3 months and  he is very patient and good at teaching.

What is your living quarters like?

It is actually really nice we have orange tile floors, two bedrooms,
the kitchen, and study area. It used to be a sister apartment but they
changed it to a Elder apartment for some reason.

Are you in a ward or branch?

We are in a great ward! the Bishop is so helpful and hardworking you can
tell he loves missionary work.

Does your apartment have toilet paper?

yes we have toilet paper, in fact the mission president made it a rule
to have it, so don't worry.

What’s your pet monkey’s name?  Have you seen one yet?

Ha ha we do not have a monkey.  I have only seen one and it was chained up to someone's wall

Have you eaten a balute yet?
No we were told not to and I don't think i will.

What’s the grossest thing you’ve eaten?
I haven't eaten anything gross really. The food here is actually really good!  I eat lots of rice and lots of Ulam (everything and anything you put on rice to

make it taste good.)

What the best thing you’ve eaten?
Hindi Ko alam... we have eaten a lot of good food.

What’s your mission president like?
He is great. He is Philippino. He is super nice and funny he
expects a lot from us, but I think he is great!

How many missionaries in your mission?
I think 198

What % are sisters?
i dont know 1/3 to 1/2  maybe.

How was your first week?

It was a good week, but I realized how bad 

I am at the language.  Our area (Laoag 2C)
is really large and my companion is just as new as I am to this area so
we spent most of our time trying to find investigators. It is challenging
to find anyone here because there are not any street signs or
house numbers. We get lost a lot. We did find  a lot of potential
investigators.

What are your impressions?

Everyone is very poor, but they are all so humble and kind! I
love the people here, I haven't met anyone who was rude. Not
exaggerating! The rudest thing someone has done is said that they
didn't have time to listen to our message. Usually they just listen
because they are so polite and don't want to offend us.

Did your area experience the typhoon or was it too far south?

No our area was not affected at all. It rained a little bit on
Saturday.

Flight Plans and True Memory Foam

Anyway we got our flight plans! holy cow!  I cant wait and at the same time I wish I had another six weeks in the MTC to learn the language! Getting the flight plans kind of made me feel completely inadequate with the language for some reason. We go from salt lake to Seatle to Tokyo to the Philippines! Then we take a small flight from Manila to Loaog. Its crazy it seems like we havent been here that long but we are almost leaving!  

An elder gave him his memory foam before he left that his family had sent him.  Jake will pass it along to another elder.  Funny things they do in the MTC.

 

Picture with Sister Willaimson, Jake and Natalie's friend from highschool, she is going to Canada, Spanish speaking.

 

A Unique MTC Move

Main Campus

We moved to the main campus.  I like the Main Campus a lot. There are more showers, and they work better, and the classrooms are huge! Each one has a flat screen TV in it! Main is a lot more busy than west. Although we have the exact same schedule there are so many people that it feels more hectic and crazy.  I also like the indoor gym at the main campus! the gym over at west campus was just a parking lot with lines painted on the ground for basketball and foursquare. They also had a sand volleyball court, and we got to go to the field to play soccer. It is so nice that we get to stay inside and not freeze haha!

 

Daily Activities
Today my companion and I got hair cuts. I will try to send a picture. They give them for free. Last saturday my district did a session at the temple it was really nice. We are going to do another one today, I think. that is another thing I like about main... it is so close to the Temple! Today we got a paper in our room which told us that summer attire ended so now we are expected to wear our suits everday everywhere except on P-days and in our classrooms! UGH! hahaha everyone in my district only brought one suit so we will all be wearing the same things every day. Oh well. 

Classic Map Picture

 

MTC Groups

 

Superbowl Conference

Conference

I was able to see conference! it was great!  We walked over to the main MTC to watch it.  I loved how so much of it was focused on missionary work! It was such a cool experience watching
conference in the MTC!  It is like the super bowl. Everyone at West campus had to walk to the main campus to watch it which was nice, because we got to get outside.

 

MTC

The language has not has been too difficult, but we have had to learn and memorize so much! Its good though. the Tagalog is coming slowly but surely. There are six elders in my district including me. The food is a lot like the food at the cannon center . My two teachers are  Brother Kaka and Brother Carrol.

Jake and His District

Jake's First Letter From the MTC

My companion is from L.A. Califronia.  I have no sisters in my district.  My Tagalog teacher's name is Brother Kaka.  Learning Tagalog is super hard.  My teacher never speaks English.  Ther are also so many words that we learn each day.  It can be very hard to remmeber any of them.  The food is all right.  I live in the Rain tree mtc.  The cafeteria looks like one of those portable classroom buildings.  I have seen sister Clifton, Sister Benson, and Sister Knapp on my first day.  I am doing well so far.  It is a lot of work and there is not much time to write or do much else.  I kind of need a watch and metal hangers.

 

Today was Friday and it was the first day that we had a normal schedule.  We finally got an hour to exercise, however my companion does not like to run so we played basketball after some encouragement from the rest of the district.  We also ended up playing four square and volleyball which really did not feel like excercise.  I had to teach an "investigator" in Tagalog.  I basically wrote the lesson, translated it and then memorized it.  I still forgot a lot of it and had to use Taglish (Tagalog mixed with English).  It was all right but it is crazy how much there is to learn!  Tomorrow (Saturday) is my pday, so I will be able to email!