Dreaming in Tagaglog: Manila MTC

The schedule and everything runs a little different here at the Manila MTC. Because of this, I probably won't have this email formatted exactly the same as the previous ones because I don't have the planner I used for the last few days at the Provo MTC. I'll just give a summary of the trip going to LA, staying a hotel, and then flying to Manila and my first impressions and stuff here.

Monday (from Provo) -

So on Monday, we woke up and by 10:15 we were heading to the travel office to leave the MTC. Right before we left, we were informed that instead of having an 8 hour layover in L.A. we would be staying the night there because our flight to Manila was delayed. After being informed of such, we then proceeded to leave the MTC. It felt weird to get out into the "real world" with all kinds of stuff going on. We hopped on a bus that drove us down to the Frontrunner, then we rode that for a while then hopped on Trax. We were dropped off right at the airport. We then made our way onto our flight at L.A. On the flight I was in the middle of two people which wasn't super enjoyable, but it was only little over an hour long so it wasn't so bad. I was sitting by one other elder named Elder Hall and then some guy who immediately put on headphones when he sat down.

Once we made it to L.A. we then continued on our way out of the airport. We waited a very long time for a shuttle to the La Quinta hotel that the church had booked for us. It took forever and it was strange to not have perfectly structured and scheduled supervision. Eventually, we got to the hotel at about 5:00. We stayed the night there and I was roomed with Elder Burton. I talked to my family on the phone most of the night and my family also ordered us Domino's and had it sent to our room. It was nice to have to go in a hotel rather than sit in the airport for an 8 hour layover. Having the delayed flight turned out to be more of a blessing than a fault.

Tuesday and Wednesday (because of time change) -

We woke up at like 6:00 in L.A. and showered and ate breakfast. We left the hotel at about 7:30 and hopped back on a shuttle to the airport. We got there and went right to the Philippine Airlines terminal. As you can imagine there were a lot of Filipino people there and it was kind of cool to hear some of the Tagalog that we'd been learning in real use. It took a while but we got through security and everything with a decent amount of time left to eat and sit down by all 72 other missionaries going on the same flight to Manila. That gave us enough time to eat and stuff before the 16 hour plane ride. There weren't many options and we ended up eating Panda Express. The last American meal we had was just Americanized Asian food haha. Anyways, after that we got shuttled out to our airplane and took our seats. I was placed in between two people again... I can't imagine a 16 hour flight is enjoyable anyways, but I'm sure that it was even less enjoyable when you're stuck between people. I sat between an older white guy, and then a Filipino lady from Cebu. She could speak English but not Tagalog so I couldn't practice Tagalog on her unfortunately. I talked to her a bit though in English and she seemed really nice. She asked my name and stuff and I told her Elder Hunsaker and it kind of got us on the topic of the church and stuff so I talked to her a little bit about my mission and stuff. She had no idea who or what we were so that was nice. Anyways, the flight consisted of lots of scripture reading and attempts at sleeping. Also, since we had screens, there were lots of movies and stuff that I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to watch, but I did see missionaries all over watching all kinds of things, some that I wouldn't imagine you'd even want to watch when you're not on a mission. There was also a Tetris game that you could play and I looked on it and it had a list of high scores of people and stuff. There were tons of names that were of Elders and Sisters I know. I tried to sleep on the flight and it was super painful and difficult. I regret this, but I eventually watched a movie.... oof.. It wasn't anything crazy, it was only Disney and was Monsters University. I justified this to myself because my dads mission president back in the day allowed them to listen to church and Disney music. You see it would be so easy for me to not mention watching the movie in the email, but I figure that I'm gonna try and keep the history as accurate as I can.

Anyways, after a long period of time... lots of attempted sleeping, reading, and watching one Disney movie, we landed in Manila at 6:00 here. Our whole flight was just in sunlight. While we were getting off, we all had several Filipino passengers warn us to keep our hands on our pockets and stuff. We got out, went through customs and stuff and then finally started to wait for our baggage. It took FOREVER. Eventually, we got it and went outside where there were several buses waiting for us. Our MTC President Carlos was there too. It was cool because we rarely saw president Martino in the Provo MTC but here, we see our MTC president frequently.

The drive to the MTC took a couple of hours even though in reality they said it should have taken like 30 minutes. The driving here is crazy. There are lines on the road, but I'm not even sure why they bother to paint them because no one even pays attention to them. All the cars got really close to bumping into each other and mopeds were swerving in and out of traffic. It's pretty insane. By this point, it was pretty dark though, so we couldn't see much other than the streets. After we arrived at the MTC we were given a packet of stuff and told who our new companions were. They said they tried to switch most peoples companions, but I just ended up with elder Witt again.

The rooms at this MTC seem nicer. The floors are all tile and the beds are way more comfortable. We also have our own toilet and shower in our rooms instead of a community one. I think I prefer the community one just because it allows for faster morning prep, but other than that, it was pretty cool. Anyways, we basically wrote in our journals and went right to sleep. It was the best night sleep I've had so far.

Thursday (today for me) -

This morning we woke up at 5:50 (because our schedule here is 6:00-10:00 not 6:30-10:30 like Provo) and went and ate breakfast. This meal consisted of rice, egg, hotdogs, slightly off colored milk that tasted like water, and finally some toast with strawberry jam. Nice. After that, we went to the temple across the street to schedule for an endowment session at 3:00 later today. Once we got our session scheduled, we then continued to go through some meetings and orientation and things. We also met our new district (which just consists of people going to Laoag) and our new teacher.. I don't remember his name, but he's sitting like two feet away from me right now and I don't want to awkwardly ask what his name is right now... Anyways, we also had a MTC campus tour thing. It's way smaller over course... Also it's crazy humid here as you'd imagine. You go outside and within a minute you're sticky.. so that's awesome.

Pictures -

These pictures consist of lots of different airport pictures, my meal, the buses and stuff we were on and just a bunch of overall travel stuff, also a picture of the temple and stuff we took quickly. There's also a whole bunch of different pictures that I'm sure you can figure out what they are. Normally, I would spend a little more time throwing this email together, but at this MTC, we're on a way tighter weird schedule.