Maray
na hapon po! That may be the wrong spelling but that is good afternoon in
Bicol! And it happens to be one of about 3 phrases I actually know in Bicol –
the other two are good morning and good night. I think I am going to
stick to just learning Tagalog for now and see how that goes before I work on
Bicol. But I hit my one month mark in the field this coming Thursday! Crazy!!
I am writing this email to you from a small internet café with blue
walls, lots of spiders, 15 computers and lots of loud tagalog being
spoken. The café is located in the town ‘center.’ Each town has a center
area and this is named accordingly because it literally is the center.
This is where all of the tricey’s wait for customers and where most of the
little shops are located and there is also this giant concrete stage type thing
where at night (if they can get reception) they project Filipino TV and
everyone gathers to watch. It is the same concept as a drive in movie
except no cars. No one really has computers here so everyone goes to do
their homework or get on facebook or in my case get on ldsmail at the internet
cafes. Usually I have an audience of a few children that stare at me for
a good 5 minutes before returning to their internet-ing. To answer your
questions: I am emailing most of my friends instead of hand written letters
because it is so much faster than snail mail, it is also more efficient in
terms time spent writing on P-day. I write a mixture of personalized with
snippets from what I write to you. Copy and paste is a wonderful tool. It
is fun to hear from everyone though and in a way kind of nice to know all
letter writing will be done on one day…. It helps with focusing the rest of the
week instead of wondering about mail. As far as sister cabanag
unfortunately her family is not very good at writing to her… she does write
previous companions so that is good. I feel so bad about her fam not
writing though. I wish they would; I pray every night that they
will. Our P-days consist of companionship and personal study in the
morning. After that I usually work out and read through talks and clean
up a little bit. Laundry takes about an hour or more depending on how
much I have. My hands get torn to shreds every Monday from washing in a
basin, hopefully they will toughen up and calluses will form at some point.
Haha, apparently I am too American.
Well
we have entered into what the locals call the “BER months” meaning SeptemBER,
OctoBER, NovemBER and DecemBER…. This also means we have entered the rainy
season. And the rain did not waste any time. There has been
at least one, if not more, torrential down pour every single day. I
have never seen rain like this before. We have been out working on most days
when the rain hits and we have to huddle against a building with our umbrellas
in an attempt to stay dry. Most of the time it is a failed attempt and our
skirts get soaked. I guess there is a low pressure typhoon forming
somewhere meaning it is not a typhoon yet but there might be one this up coming
week. I also experienced my first earthquake this last week. There
I was standing at the sink in our house washing the dishes after dinner when
sister cabanag very frantically said “sister! Don’t move.” I turned around
expecting to see a cockroach and noticed the scissors hanging on our cabinet
swaying back and forth. Our front door was open and began picking up
speed and swayed as well. It was the strangest feeling. It wasn’t
too bad luckily, nothing broke and there was no damage in the city which is a
blessing. Here we go, the adventures of the Pines! Hah.
Rona
was baptized on Saturday!! It was so amazing! We had a combined baptism with
some of the saints from a near by area. The font is in our chapel and
takes about 3 hours to fill because of the slow flow of water from the
nozel. The elders had gone over to fill the font earlier in the day and
when we arrived about 45 minutes prior to when the baptism was supposed to
start the font was filled with dark brown water! It was so dirty you could not
even see the bottom of the font. We frantically called the elders and I
guess because of all the rain, dirt had gone into the tank that fills the
font. There was nothing we could do. We apologized to Rona and she
was a good sport about it – we made jokes about her body not being cleaned
through baptism but her spirit would. I am still adjusting to the
Filipino time clock… meaning we start everything an hour late.
Haha. I don’t think I am going to kick my bad habit of being late to
everything on my mission; in fact it might even get worse. So the
missionaries in our district always do a musical number at baptisms. I
suggested we sing Joseph Smith’s First Vision to the tune of Come Thou Fount,
they in turn volunteered me for a solo. I fought it and bargained down to
half and half but mom and dad, those voice lessons you paid for when I was in 9th
grade finally came in handy as I stood in front of the congregation and sang a
solo. Horrifying. Once again, no comfort zones on the mission.
We
did a service project on Friday; we helped a woman clear a large area of land
that had been overtaken by weeds and bushes. I learned how to weed using
a machete. It was quite the experience I must say. Also, I am also
currently working on perfecting the Asian squat…. However, I think you must be
tiny and Asian to successfully perform this squat. But I did my best to
practice as I hacked the weeds with my giant knife. This woman has 10
children and after we finished all the kids ran and chopped down coconuts from
a nearby tree for us. They used the machetes to make a hole in the
coconuts so we could drink the milk and then split them open and eat the
meat. Yum. It was tasty. As I recall it is quite difficult to
cut open coconuts but these small kids were able to do it with one slice of the
machete. The fruit here is delicious. My favorite are the mangos
and the pineapple. (Apples, grapes and oranges are expensive because they
are shipped in, so we don’t buy those.) I have also had quite a few random
crazy looking fruit one being: Guyabano. It is giant and looks like
dinosaur skin on the outside and then is super gooey inside, it tastes pretty
good.
As
I may have mentioned before I stick out a little here in this far away
land. All of the kids always exclaim, ‘Cana!’ Which is short for
Americana. Also they all recite “whash your name?” aka What is your Name.
They don’t really want an answer that is just the only thing they know how to
say well in English. I have been thinking about this phrase while I have
been here though. I don’t use my same name as I did when I was home, my
first name is obsolete. My name has changed, I am now sister
Christensen. That is my name. But more importantly is why that is
my name. Every morning I fasten my black name tag onto my shirt.
Without this tag I am incomplete, I have no name. The name of Jesus
Christ is nearly as big as my own name on my badge. It is because of the
importance of this name that I now carry a different name. I have become
fascinated with this aspect of the doctrine of Christ, the name of Jesus
Christ. In the church we take upon us the name of Jesus Christ in
every prayer, ordinance and covenant we make.
Elder
Maxwell says: “How proud we ought to be, in a quiet way, that we are
members of the church of the most selfless being who ever lived. How
proud we ought to be to belong to a church that makes specific demands of
us and gives us specific things to do and marks the strait and narrow way, lest
we fall off one side of the precipice or the other. I am so grateful that
God loves us enough to teach us specifically. The Gospel of Jesus Christ
is specific because God cares specifically for us…”
In
the times that are exceptionally challenging for me and on the days when the
Tagalog is especially slow to come I think of how specific this experience is
and how proud I am to wear that second name on my black badge everyday. It
is a crazy adventure every day. Most of the time I have no idea what is
going on but I just smile and try to love people with my eyes. I am
grateful to be here and hopeful everyday that I am fulfilling my purpose as a
missionary even though I cant say very much.
It
is good to hear from you all and of course I love the pictures! What a darling
family I have. I take my picture book everywhere and everyone pours over
it in amazement at all the white faces. Hope all is well with the
millcreek road gang!
I
am trying to send a video us riding in a Tricy but i dont know if it will work.
The pictures are of Rona's baptism and me and sister Cabanag after church
yesterday.
All
my love,
Sister
Meish
No comments:
Post a Comment