Pasko na talaga

Overall this week has been pretty good because it was Christmas and all, but not very productive seeing as the companions of Elder Butler and I aren't super excited to do the whole missionary work thing. Anyways, it was really good to talk to my family on Christmas and the little amount work we actually did do was good too. Also excuse the potentially poor quality of this email because we're rushed today.

Tuesday -

Overall, it was a moderately sweaty Christmas. The Christmas morning started with a great time of washing all our clothes because on our p-day it rained the whole day so we couldn't wash outside. During that time, the companions of Elder Butler and I went off and called there families (and friends and did all manner of "bawal" things) at the computer shop. They also took both phones like usual so we couldn't really contact them either when they were done. Elder Butler and I just ended up doing our laundry, snagging something to eat, and talking a while. Eventually we all went to the lunch appointment but it turns out that the nanay that invited us wasn't prepared, which is fine though because we had another appointment scheduled for a very close time anyways too. We just ended up going to the house of Tatay Bundalian, a member, and celebrated a birthday/Christmas party. We ended the day at the house of our fellowshipper Dan and had a dinner there. Overall, the whole day wasn't very "Christmasy" despite the claim of celebrating Christmas from September-January here.

Wednesday - 

On Wednesday Elder Butler and I called home to our families. We were allowed to call home any day from the 25-29 and we decided the 26th because it was Christmas back home. It was really awesome to see all my family, including Caylor even though he's also out on his mission in Des Moines, Iowa. It was good to tell them exactly how everything really is out here, and definitely a lot easier to explain in words rather than in emails. After doing that for a while, we all headed down to the house of Nanay Mabilis for our missed lunch appointment that she rescheduled. It was good as well. The day ended with us going to a cultural show held by the youth at the church.

Thursday -

The day started out with district council. It was a pretty typical district council as you might imagine. After that, we helped clean the church for a very long time because it was left an unusually huge mess after the cultural show. There was trash everywhere and it was a disaster really. I mean the church isn't really always that clean if I'm going to be honest, but it was abnormally bad. After that, we ate and basically, our companions (Elder Perez and Vaea) slept for a really long time... which resulted in a lot of personal study. Also probably at about 5:00 the sky turned really pink. It was super weird because the only other time it did that was before the typhoon, but nothing crazy ended up happening.

Friday - 

We had our district exchanges. Elder Vaea being the district leader told us that he and Perez were going on exchanges together and Elder Butler and I were too. As you can imagine, this was the most productive day of the week really. We ended up going to Elder Butler's area and teaching three lessons while everyone else we tried to go to wasn't home. So we ended up doing a lot of walking and only teaching a few lessons. It was also funny because both Elder Butler and I need to work on our Tagalog for sure, so it was weird that we went on exchanges together. Overall, even though we couldn't communicate perfectly it actually felt like a good spiritual and effective day. Also, during one of our lessons I basically said "Excuse us for our Tagalog" and a recent convert said "It's okay Elder Vaea doesn't really have great Tagalog either." Which is funny because he's been out here much longer than both of us and he and Elder Butler go out and work together but neither of them have very perfect Tagalog.

Also I found a good scripture in Alma 8:19-20 for getting meal appointments with members.

Saturday -

The morning we ended up doing some service in a rice field. We ended up wading in water/mud that sometimes was like 2 feet deep and planting tons of rice for 3 hours. Seeing as we weren't very experienced it also was really slow and hurt our backs. It was kinda fun, but also kind of gross because we had to go barefoot in this brown water with a bunch of snails, and spiders that crawled on the surface. We ended up getting super muddy and tired. It was awful but fun. I'm glad I did it, but I don't think it's something that I need to do again.

After that, we ended up having our baptisms at the church. Four people ended up being baptized. They're all people Elder Viador and I taught before he left, but they just ended up being baptized a little after he got transferred, so Elder Perez ended up getting some "free" baptisms. The first was brother Roldan Gaoat. He's someone we've taught for a while. He did have some problems with the Word of Wisdom that we did get sorted out. We also baptized his adopted daughter named Chu-Chay (Marimar is her real name) who's 10 years old. Along with those two we baptized a 14 year old named Mark Anthony Matas. We taught him all the lessons with Dan-Dan (Roldan) because they live on the same street and he is actually an employee of Dan's. The final person we baptized was named Mark Wayne Sengson. He basically was a member of a slightly less active family and just never ended up getting baptized before. He's 9 and we just taught him the lessons and he was already ready for baptism because he's already attended church and everything. We ended up having my friend and our fellowshipper Dan Solis baptize them.

There's this whole weird big story about that actually. So Elder Perez asked me "Can I baptize your converts?" and I asked "Why? We usually let them choose" and he became very offended. Anyways, on the day we went on exchanges he claimed to have asked Dan-Dan who he wants to baptize him. He said Dan-Dan chose him (which is highly unlikely since Dan-Dan doesn't even really know him) and he ended up calling the branch president claiming that I wouldn't let him baptize the converts. After this feat of drama he just decided to have Dan our fellowshipper baptize them, because if he couldn't baptize them himself, he didn't want me too either. I know that's probably a little confusing story, but lets just say it has been more than difficult with my current companion.

Sunday -

It was a pretty typical Sunday. We went to church, ate lunch, and then did a small amount of work after. We just ended up going to the home of Dan-Dan in Fugu.

Monday -

Which is today.. Basically we need to withdraw money from Aparri today and wash clothes. That's the schedule.

Pictures - 

pictures from a Christmas Eve meal, picture of Christmas day meal, pictures from the cultural show, pictures of the creepy pink typhoon sky, pictures from exchanges, a "spooky" cemetery we found on exchanges, cacti, the beach, baptismal pictures, and pictures with our fellowshipper Dan who's leaving for his mission on Wednesday this next week. Also some pictures from the rice field.