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.