1st Week in the Philippines!! (Comp. Elder Saet)

1st Area:
Burgos
Companion: Elder Saet (Filipino)
Roommates: Elder Hale (from MTC District from Orem) & Elder Abitria (Filipino)

03/15/2010

i have one word to describe the Philippines "HOT" ok so i could tell you all about the philys but you wouldn't believe it seriously to start off its probably the best looking place on earth until you get to where there is civilization if you could call it that. The people are so so nice you ask them if we can share a message or anything and they're like sure --beats working! pretty much nobody has refused us at all. but everyone lives in these little huts seriously!! Our house is a palace considered to their houses with no floor. and our house is seriously roughing it.

we don't have any running water so we take a shower in the free flow which is like a spring just like the spring at the farm sort of. luckily for me elder hale lives with me and my companion elder saet and elder abitria there both natives as you can tell but they speak awesome english so it's a plus.

everyday we get home and i say so elder hale how was it and he just shakes his head and laughs. i mean it's way cool but so so different. me and elder hale lived the whole week off of 15 dollars and we ate out every single meal. seriously a hundred dollars here goes a long long way. everybody rides the water buffalos for work and stuff. they're called caribou but they're huge. we take tricycles back and forth to Roxas and Plaes but mainly we just walk walk walk. it's pretty crazy.

Here are some things i saw this week ... i saw a spider a little smaller than a tarantula on my mirror next to my bed (but we got him), i saw a cock fight twice now, a lot of the ladies aren't bashful when breast feeding not even at church, so you can image what i saw there! it's like watching national geographic. elder hale saw a rat in his room, i saw this guy fishing with this cool net that was cool, i saw 2 paved roads yesterday (2 besides the one by our house (that's a lot), i had these kids get me a mango from the tree. they find all sorts of things to do for fun like shooting mangos -- which means throwing rocks at the tree. i don't know what else to tell you! i saw a lot of new things. it's sort of like ecuador but way way more poverty and way way more shocking -- but it's fun if you can get past the heat and little showers. but i guess all the places have running water just not ours.

mother i need iodine tablets. they're these tablets you drop in water to purify it. it has to be the tablets cause people offer you glasses of stuff like Kool-aid and i feel so bad refusing so if i had those i could just drop in the tablet when they're not looking. anyways i think that's it. the families barely have enough to feed their families. some days they go with out meals. its hard to see.

also here they love white people a lot and to have a bigger nose is like the ultimate thing so every time we go to a house with a bunch of ladies they always like grabe pinakagwapo siya which is like he is the most handsome. haha! then they ask how i got a good looking nose weird huh. all the girls when we walk by just turn and giggle. everyone just stares at us. like when they pass! and it's not impolite to stare here so they stare. it's sometimes really weird. my president of the branch he keeps telling me to watch out!! he's pretty funny. anyways though my companions are done typing so we got to go!

i'll talk to you next week on sunday for you
love ya, jas