04/26/2010 (Burgos Area w/new comp. Elder Pangan)

2nd Transfer!
New companion: Elder Pangan (from the Philippines)
Roommates: Elder Hale and Elder Hanks

(This first part of the letter was actually sent to Matthew. Jason doesn’t like repeating himself so combines all our emails into one now!)

Funny that you should say “don’t get attacked by rats” cuz this week right before transfer me and my companion were planning and a bat flew through the door and smacked the wall so we go running to see it. We took pictures of it and stuff then tied two hangers together to get the bat out. I gave my comp a pillowcase as a shield and the hangers oh and I have a flashlight behind him as a spotlight and we walk up to it and at first we’re thinking it can’t fly cause we throw paper balls at it and it just flopped around. So we get it hooked to these hangers and we flick it out on to the roof cause where we sleep it’s upstairs and it has a balcony over next to the roof of the kitchen and stuff so we flick it out on the roof and we’re just watching it and all of a sudden it starts to turn like slowly turn towards us and then it flies right towards us. So Elder Saet freaks out and holds the pillowcase up and does like this backwards shuffle and knocks us down and the bat bounced off his pillowcase and latches on to our screen door. We gather the courage back up and we go after it, after a little while we flicked it off and it flew off. But the best is at the mtc the old health guy that gives you the health spiel before you leave talked about bats and he said if you get bit by a bat you’ll get rabies and die so I’m think this thing is scary. But needless to say we survived.

But yes me and Elder Hale are still together we both got new companions. I got a Native again and Elder Hale got an American.

O and I baptized 2 of our investigators Saturday! Yep I got my feet wet. It was funny cause one of them was 10 years old and I said the prayer and got him like basically to the water but stopped cause he wasn’t plugging his nose so I was like plug your nose and finally he did and when he was under he let go and kinda freaked out. I pulled him up and he was smiling and was like that was fun “isa pa isa pa” which means “once more once more” haha! It was awesome! When he first got in the font he was splashing around and swimming and his mom yelled at him and was like “cut it out”. It was funny. His mom was explaining that he’s never been in a pool before so it was really exciting for him. Haha! But anyways I got to get going - love ya bud! Jason

k so my new comp is Elder Pangan. He’s a native so my Tagalog is getting way better. It’s pretty difficult right now. Elder Saet was really good at English so we talked a lot of English but now it’s different but it’s good. Like the first day I realized I can say way way more than I thought and now I talk to all our investigators about just everyday stuff and not just the gospel so its going to be good for me.

I did stay in the same area, Elder Hale got an American comp, Elder Hanks, but ya so we’re just working our butts off. Pouring sweat everyday, eating lots of rice, the usual stuff. It was cool at transfer I got to see everyone I came in with except Elder Riner but I see him like once a week so that’s ok. I felt bad for him though because he didn’t get to come.

Anyways, I don’t know what else to say but it was cool doing my first baptism obviously! I’m planning on sending pictures back home soon so you can see. Have a good week! o I almost forgot … but I need you to send me gold bond powder stuff just the body powder it prevents stickiness get the medicated stuff, they don’t sell any of that here. Also med short garment bottoms you can’t buy the kind I have here and medium tops the drop neck or V-neck thing whatever you call it. (Don't ask me what happened to the 12 pairs he took with him when he left just 5 months ago! He's probably wanting enough so he only has to wash them once a month! HEEHEE!) Then an Eastmans hunting magazine. Make sure it’s Eastmans, you can send the last 3 or 4 issues I've missed and that’s it.

love ya, Jas

Burgos District Mtg. 04/2010

Burgos District

Elder Saet - Jason's Tainer (1st Companion in the Philippines)!

04/19/2010 (Burgos Area)

Transfers: Probably staying in Burgos! Will find out who his new companion is next week!

Kamusta!

Alright so this week we did have our baptism. I didn’t actually baptize her but that’s ok cause I get to baptize 2 people Saturday so that’s going to be way sweet. But this Thursday is transfer so I’ll get my new comp this week. I’ll be staying in Burgos - they don’t usually transfer me if my comp is going home they usually leave one elder in the area and since my comp and Elder Hale’s comp is going home I think we’ll be staying. But anyways don’t worry too much about sending me that stuff right away I don’t need it that quickly and I know it’s expensive so take your time.

I’m going to get a disc of my pictures made soon and I’ll send them to you but how much was my memory card for my camera cause I can get them here and I think it might be cheaper and I’ll just buy memory cards to store all my pictures. But that watch was metal and black remember. But ya I don’t know too much else to tell you. I’m running out of ideas but I’m getting a pretty sweet hunting pack I designed made today. It’s pretty amazing we’ll see what the guy can do hopefully he can make it like I want it.

I guess Burgos and actually the whole Roxas zone is really remote we have one decent sized city and it’s in Roxas that’s where we go to email and buy groceries. Me and Elder Hale always have huge boxes of groceries and we try to squeeze on the jeepneys with all our junk it’s pretty crazy. We rarely have time to do anything fun on pdays really like Matthew does but that’s ok the whole week is an adventure in itself. I think it’s mainly cause there’s not too much to see in our zone. The cool places to bisita are in other areas like the rice terraces and the jungle so I’ll get to see them when I get transferred so I'm glad I got the flat lands first.

Elder Hale fell in a 12 ft deep hole the other night I wasn’t there but he got home and was just dyeing of laughter. Here they don’t have street lights and they didn’t take a flashlight and there’s this huge hole that is for drainage when it rains like crazy and he was walking & talking and fell down the hole and of course his companion freaked out and was like o my gosh but Elder Hale was just fine. He is just glad he stopped sliding before he made it to the lake of death which is the most nasty water full of garbage and junk … so luckily for him he didn’t take a swim he stopped short! I guess it took him a while to get out of the hole though haha. He came back all scraped up and dirty, but was just in hysterical laughter. It was funny to hear the story.

But I’m hoping you spell check my letters first cause my spelling is embarrassing! Haha! I don’t know what else to tell you, the language is coming along. o but my favorite investigators are this group of girls like 9 of them from 16-24 years old one of them is like 34 though they’re so funny though! They die when we show up, they’re really loud and excited but they’re like the gwapos are here, hurry up and sit down, grab them some snacks and clean chairs. They’re so cool! They listen and keep commitments. It’s just usually a riot before and after our lesson. It’s fun though cause it’s like teaching 8 lessons in one cause there are so many people. When I say like a long part in tagalog and not just a couple of words like a whole part of the lesson they clap when I’m done and are like very good. It’s funny! But anyways I got to get going!
Love ya guys.
Elder Ward

Elder Ward's Zone! April 2010

04/12/2010 (Burgos Area)

Sounds like things are back to normal. I did get the package -- just got it the other day those tablet things are good but the thing is I don’t have 4 hours if they offer something to me I got to drop it in and hope for the best it’s so hard cause they like spent their whole days salary on the little thing of punch and packet of crackers. It’s hard to be like sorry I’m too good for your water so I usually say a little prayer and gulp. That’s what everyone else does so we’ll see how that goes! But anyways I don’t get in that predicament very often cause they usually serve us soda cause a liter of soda costs the same as a packet of tang. Sodas way way cheap here.

I absolutely love these juice drinks called “fit n right”. They have all sorts of flavors but they’re way good cause in the states if you get watermelon flavor or something like that it always tastes really sugary and it’s not really like biting a watermelon but here these juices are exactly what flavor they say they are. See if you can get them there. I want you to see what I’m talking about. The watermelon is my favorite or blueberry grape it’s good to but anyways I bought one of those and I was so mad cause they’re like expensive so I was like man I love these things but its crazy expensive -- then I realized it’s only 40 pesos which isn’t even a dollar so I realized it wasn’t that expensive just everything else is ridiculously cheap.

But ya I got some way sweet brown pin stripe pants made. They’re maganda I know you know that word mother (I think it means BEAUTIFUL).

But as for conference -- I absolutely love elder Holland. He cracks me up! I was just upset that he had such a lame topic but it was still way good. If you haven’t seen it listen to it it’s way good he’s funny. But it’s on pornography so not very exciting but still good.

I was way excited this week cause one of our investigators this lady came to conference they have been teaching her since before I got here and she has never once been to church and she finally came. It was awesome! Also the other 2 we are baptizing this weekend and next came too. Conference was in English for me and my mission pres speaks only English in meetings and everything so that’s good. He says that everyone needs to learn English so that is help for the natives I guess.

As for food I miss I couldn’t even start k imagine every food you like in the US actually no imagine all the food in the US period.... ya they don’t have it here seriously though they don’t have any of it. The only thing I have found so far is obviously soda and stuff and those mentos candies. That’s seriously it! They don’t have bread like us … they don’t have ham and cheese, they don’t have milk, they don’t have anything seriously I’m not even exaggerating they don’t have it here. I guess though in some other areas they have American stores that has all American food and in Manila they have fast food places like us but not here in Roxas and especially not Burgos.

Pictures aren’t going to be a problem just I want to know how much a package and stuff is going to cost. I can make a disc and send it home. My shoes are fine -- my socks all suck though honestly and they don’t have socks here well they do but they’re like nylon socks like girls nylons but ankle socks cause see they wear flip flops here doesn’t matter if you are driving a trycycle or playing basketball or working in the fields doesn’t matter you wear flip flops. You can get nice dress shoes and flip flops here and that’s it -- up to size 10 only of course.

But anyway that’s all I got for this week! I’ll talk to you next week
love ya Jason

PS: This is the email I sent Matthew I hate repeating stories.

That’s cool you're in an awesome area that’s way cool! I haven’t bought any of the belts yet but I will. The backpack … you need to pick 2 colors for me to make it sweet or rainbow or whatever. I need at least 2 colors and I don’t know how much it cost to ship it but I’ll figure that out also.

Ya ... We have a baptism this week and one next week so we'll have 2 pretty quick. The other 2 if they go to church for the next 3 weeks then they can be baptized also.

I’ve got a story for you … this week I got chased by a medium sized cow. Here they tie there cows up like they do a dog. They put a stake in the ground and tie it up then they leave it to roam on a long leash. My companion and I were walking through the field and all the sudden I hear grabe and my comp goes flying past me and I look back and the cows at a trot coming after us. I started running it was funny cause Elder Hale was watching from the road and him and his companion where just dying of laughter. It was funny and I saw a huge long poisonous snake that these guys killed with rocks haha they’re crazy.

It’s going to be pretty fun to return here! There’s 3 things that are crazy …

A. Toilets its like a short bowl on the ground and to flush it you fill a bucket of water and dump it down. The worst part of it being so low is you can get charlie horses while going to the bathroom and die cause you have to squat way way down there.

B. They have these little lizards called botikis and you live with them. No joke - they’re everywhere inside the house but they’re little cool lizards so it’s really just fun.

C. It's freaking hot (but you’re getting used to that) and we have rice for every every meal - No Joke! – breakfast, lunch, dinner, RICE.

But anyways that’s all I got for this week o except for Elder Hale baptized this lady in the river. His very first baptism and he did it in the river! How cool is that!!
Anyways talk to you later!

Elder Jason Ward and President & Sister Villanueva!

On April 5th we received a letter from Jason's Mission President letting us know that he had arrived safe and well in the Philippines along with 5 other missionaries. Jason arrived in the Philippines on March 10th .... I am sooooooo very grateful for the internet - I cannot even imagine having to wait one month to find out if he made it there or not!!

(Notice how tall Jason looks .... I bet he is loving that!!!)

04/05/2010 -- Burgos Area

k well I’m in Burgos its like the ghetto of the mission. It’s all flat no mountains and its rice fields forever and everyone is super super poor. but I went on 3 exchanges this week I went to roxas which is a bigger city it has like a small mall and stuff Burgos has one tiny place to buy fresh food like vegetables and stuff. It’s actually someone’s house that has like 3 tables in front of it. its bad though cause they just throw like chicken and a bunch of fish on the table and then they will put it on the scale without a bag or anything then vegetables on the scale right after so it’s definitely not sanitary the whole Philippines could use a lesson on sanitation haha but seriously also there is one little restaurant and here they don’t have restaurants that you can sit down and order what you want. they cook everything in the morning and then put it in a glass case and you choose what you want out of the case and they serve it up. There are always flies and ants in the case also so it looks gross. We just bless it and hope for the best. ya but in Roxas they have a Jollibee’s and its like a McDonalds or Wendy’s but they only have like 2 hamburgers and then like a bunch of Philipino dishes. It’s good though cause you can order it and it comes out hot.

But anyways I don’t know about the pmg. My friend, Elder Harman, has it. I just know he got it sent to him in the mtc so I have no idea but it’s small and light and identical to the other ones. i don’t care if its not approved.

but anyways so my mission president is way way cool. He’s so relaxed like he doesn’t have special rules that aren’t in the handbook he has never sent a missionary home either that anyone knows about. He doesn’t have rules like no eating dog or balut or the blood stuff and he doesn’t have rules against transportation stuff either so it’s pretty sweet.

Sounds like England was a blast. we could use some rain here everything is way dryer than usual and its not that green here cause of the drought and its harvest season so it looks kinda dry. Everyone says it usually is way pretty and it’s never been this dry ever so we’ll see I guess. they all are scared cause they say when its this dry for a long time the floods come so they’re all just waiting for it.

but i found out some new stuff to buy -- a huge mansion here it cost about 90,000 dollars and that’s for the land and house so its pretty cheap here for everything. This week we got 1 investigator to church is all but we have 4 people with baptismal dates. So the baptisms are coming shortly.

Ya i can teach a lesson on my own its just not grammatically correct but they can understand me. the good thing is the national language here is English so they sorta understand some english so they talk in Tagalog and they plug in English words everywhere so i can usually understand what the subject of the conversation is but i cant really catch any detail. i understand white missionaries though that speak Tagalog really well cause its easier to understand but here they really speak illakano so alot of the time they mix in illakano words that i have no idea what it is but everyone can understand and talk Tagalog and they don’t speak illakano at school so they’re good at it to but one good thing is when i teach I’ll talk and when i don’t know the word in tagalog i just say the English word and keep going cause thats what they do and it makes it much easier. but the language is coming pretty fast and everyone says that our class out of the mtc was way more advanced than their class. everyone says we’re the fresh stud batch cause its like we have been here already a while cause are tagalog is good. the good thing is in the US if someone cant understand you they get frustrated and angry here they think its the ultimate compliment that your trying to learn their language so everyone always says thank you for learning our language or thank you for taking the time to learn our customs and stuff so that’s cool. I wonder if it’s like that in South America. o and everyone eats here with their hands so we eat with our hands at members house unless they’re more wealthy but the restaurants give you silverware.

no it hasn’t rained here forever. i did get to help dry the tobacco leaves that was cool! I have a bunch of pictures I’ll send you later. but they say the tobacco is to make soap not cigarettes haha i don’t believe that one bit haha. But here they’ve got to do whatever they can to survive and make some money.

We are not supposed to pay anyone to do our laundry for a while cause it is helping us become self reliant but I guess it’s only for a while just so we can do it ourselves for a bit but laundry sucks like seriously its the most terrible thing. I have just been pouring a bottle of bleach in a bucket with water and letting it soak for a while but the rest you have to sit there and scrub all day seriously it takes about 2 hours. I’m usually the quickest cause well like you said i don’t care that much how clean I look. haha just enough to get the sweat soaked out. haha

I have spoken in church twice now -- my first week and last week. so ya i get lots of Tagalog practice. conference is this week Saturday and Sunday cause they have to wait a week to get it translated. We’re about an hour bus ride from the mission home. it takes awhile to get packages. but anyways I got to get going and no i haven’t gotten the package yet give it a couple of weeks but anyways i will talk to you later! have a good week!
love ya
Jason
and almost forgot … send me another black watch like the one i got at walmart the cheap one and then like a watch on a carabineer like Matt’s that I can put in my backpack and also can I use my green debit card at atms and stuff here to pull out pesos. figure out how that works k! talk to you later

Letter to Andrea:

Off course i ate the dog are you kidding! I’m becoming a filipino nagiging ako ang philipino haha but anyways my comp has never eaten dog before and he has never been outside the Philippines either so its like a delicacy -- just joking. It’s cause he is from Manila and they can’t eat the dogs there cause they are really really dirty and have worms but here they are ok so they say....

but anyways i found out that the area I’m in right now is the ghetto of the area I’m in the flat lands and its covered in rice fields and everyone is super poor we have a nice church and usually about 40 people show up to church. there is only about 5 people in the ward that hold the priesthood the 3 branch presidency members and then 2 of their sons who are like Eric’s age haha so ya we have to bless the sacrament every week. relief society here is big though all the males are always working so they don’t really have priesthood class here they just have ward council every Sunday this week though they had all the people in one room except the kids and they talked about this great plan. They’re going to help the members become self reliant the branch is going to give each family 1 male chicken and 2 females and then a bunch of different kinds of seeds. it was so funny listening to them talk about it … they keep joking about it and were like what if i get hungry and eat the male right away and then the president was like then you won’t have any chicks to eat later. it was pretty funny!

It’s hard though cause here everyone actually speaks illakano but they understand tagalog and can speak it and their national language is English so you have like 3 languages in sacrament and every where else that they’re trying to speak. its hard to figure it out I’ll hear an english word that they pronounce weird and I’ll ask them what the word is in English and they will say that it is English and I’m just like o i see. It’s crazy! It’s still hot as crap here and we have some rats, cockroaches and giant spiders living with us and the power usually goes out once every other day for 5 or 6 hours. if it goes out at night I’m done for cause I’ll just pour sweat its rough. but anyways i don’t mind dark purple … but i got the coolest backpack ever its green and blue and it has jrw cauayan on it. It is so awesome it cost 9 dollars

but anyway its pretty cool here or i mean its pretty awesome here its definitely never been cool. haha but ya hopefully the kids are good and you guys had fun
love ya talk to you next week jason