Manila MTC and Laoag

 Basically, my whole email got deleted because of crappy connection so I have to keep it short now. I had more info than even previous emails so I'm pretty upset with this internet.. You'll have to learn most of what's going on here with pictures alone.  Anyways,   because other Elders are waiting and the longer I take, the more pisos we have to pay. Anyways, Manila was good, and Laoag is crazy. We already have several investigators that have been taught  a little before I got here. So far it's been good and I've even asked one lady to be baptized. We're planning for October 20, but she needs to show up to church and stuff. We also got  a new investigator which is awesome. It's my first legit investigator I guess that I didn't just stumble into. 

I got assigned to the Ballesteros a area which is 5 hours from Laoag. My companion is named Elder Viador. He's a Cebuano so Tagalog isn't his native language and sometimes it's a little difficult to communicate because he's not great at English, but everything is good.

Anyways, there's no electricity here because of the typhoon so we use candles at night. Because it's hot at night we leave the door open and mosquitoes eat us up. We shower outside on our porch out of buckets, and we also flush the toilet with buckets. It is the hottest I've ever been in my entire life. You can never cool off because lack of AC. I haven't had a cold drink of water for a while either. Everything is hot, but it's been an awesome experience so far. Difficult but awesome, the ward loves us a lot and we do lots of fellow shipping with members of the youth. I've never seen so much poverty in my life as I have the last few days, but I'm super excited to be here. We wake up to the sound of school children playing Despacito on glockenspiels and drums every morning. It's been weird and crazy. There's so much I have to say but because the poor internet deleted my email you'll only be able to find out what happen when I come home and you can read my journal in like 2 years.

Notes from Mom

Brodie sent quite a few pictures, but we were unable to access them. I have to say networking and my super sleuth skills are coming in handy. I was able to find a few pictures.We were actually very fortunate to receive an email from him this week. He is in an area that was hit really hard by the typhoon, and he could be without power for over a month. We are praying for him and the people in his area that this is not the case. There are two Filipino missionaries and one American missionary that he is living with right now. The American is Elder Butler that went into the MTC the same day as Brodie and they started their mission journey together.

Here is a response from Brodie to an email I sent him. I told him that we would be praying for him and that I hoped he would be sent to an area that has power (that didn't work out like I'd hoped).

Haha thanks. I love you too so much.. Not having power is hard. Actually everything is super difficult here and painful except for the joy the people have. It's fun to share the gospel, and it's gonna be a really hard adjustment. Let's just say shower outside, no toiletpaper, no electricity, no AC (which we never will have), and no fans is hard. Not to mention the language. Anyways though, it's good.


Here are a few pictures that were shared with me.