Week 2 in the Pines!

Hey everyone how is everyone doing im am doing good for the most part i thought i knew some Tagalog but apparently i dont cause every time someone speaks i cant really pick it up its really annoying but anyway so this week is my 2 week here in the Philippines so lets see what has happened so far
well first off since last i wrote my companion name is elder dela cruz  he is a phillipino he is from sebu and he is the district leader haha which really doesn't mean to much he never pulls that card of leader but he kind of decides what we are doing which he is the sr companion so i ll trust him 

so this week well i am eating plenty of rice a lot a lot of rice its part of the diet here so we have a few investigators here not to many i main focus here is to get less active members to come back to to church so we don't really get to teach new investigators but we have a few so they are really going well we had 3 of our investigators come to church with us this Sunday which was pretty good so the mission here is tough sometimes mainly because i don't understand the language yet sometimes i wonder why i was sent here but i got to stop having negative thoughts and try to press forward so here is an average day for elder ward 

First i wake up at 630 am then exercise or at least try to then after that i have breakfast at 730 then at 800 i have personal study where i take an hour for my self and study the scriptures and preach my gospel and some me time then after that its about 900 then we have companion ship study which were we share what we learned from personal study sing a hymn then we pray then we read out of the white handbook and learn the rules the rules are there for our protection then we study together then at 10 its language study where i try to understand the language hopefully one day i will understand it then 1230 we have lunch which is something with rice in it go figure haha then after lunch we head out around 2 and go to our appointments and preach by the way and tract and fun stuff till 900 we head home have our daily planning for the next day i write in my journal and get ready for bed that's an average day for me in the Philippines   so then that's what i ll do on a day to day bases 

what else hmm well the members here are really nice always coming with us to help us teach its a good thing too or it would be Elder Dela Cruz teaching all the time and they also feed us too the people amaze me here how small there homes are and how much poverty they have here and they are such a happy people here i dont fully understand why yet maybe when they see a white American they like to laugh at him who knows 

so another fun fact of the Philippines is that it is rainy season right now and that means it can rain at any time no matter how clear the sky may appear earlier in the day and another thing in the Philippines is how do you flush a toilet here well you have to fill the bowl with water thats right folks now working flushing here and another thing is ask makayla this she will tell you in our apartment there is water for EVERYTHING she should be able to tell you what that means hint wala something that every bathroom has in the states  and your left hand is not always clean haha hopefully that was enough information 
so then well i am going to be honest here for a second so one day after i was done with the CR i filled up the bucket of water and when i bent over to pick up the bucket my notepad with a lot of my notes in it fell into the bucket of water and that was a last straw and i broke down in tears because i am not getting this language down like how i would like too and its really hard to be here its just so different here makayla and dan probably went through this too not knowing what to do and what is going and it is frustrating not knowing what is going on and it made me wonder why i was sent to such a difficult place for me i am on the other end of the world not speaking the language and it is really hard here sometimes cause i really dont have anyone to talk to about this cause my companion hasnt really had to struggle with the language or going to a knew place so i went to my knees and asked for help we all could use a good cry every once in awhile so hopefully it comes soon i dont want to let down everyone and the lord cause i cant understand what is going on so hopefully the language will come soon
so i know sa pamagitan ng pagbayad-sala ni jesuscristo i can do this i ask for your prayers or suggestions if you have any
so MaKayla i have been keeping up in writing in that journal you gave me and the pages are filling up so soon i will need to buy a new one the camera you gave me for some reason the lense wont close so i think i ll have to buy a new one so anyway i ll be sure to send a couple of pictures 

Mahal po tayo  
PS i am in san manuel in the urdenta zone 


*CR means comfort room which what they say for bathroom there.  And Zach is referring to the fact that they don't have toilet paper there and that some people will use their hand to wipe themselves.  Yes, gross to us but totally normal in their part of the world for those that cannot afford toilet paper.  

He made it!!!

Kumusta po kayo lahat hello everyone made it here in the Phillippines okay what long flights we had to get here so first after i get done saying hello and goodbye to everyone (sorry i didnt call grandma and grandpa i didn't have my address book to get there numbers) so i hung out with sio for a little while then i get on the plane so then i get on there so then i got to sit by sister walker and this guy we didnt know me and sister walker sat by each other the whole way there too the Phillippines so anyway 
so this guy i was sitting next to asked me a question or two about who i was and what i was doing and asked if i was mormon and i replied i am then i told him i ll be gone for 2 years away from my family preaching the gospel then we talk some more about our church i asked him what his religious beliefs were he said he is catholic and a devoted one at that he proceeded to tell me his children had friends who are mormon and really likes our culture and how we have high standards and said in this world were morals are almost non existent he really likes how we conduct our selves then he asked us some other standards we have then i told him about how we wait till we are married till we have sexual relations and about the word of wisdom how joseph smith received revelation about that way before we were able to know how tea tobacco would effect our bodys cool thing right then he asked has my other family member served missions i told them about makayla and logan how they served missions and how they loved it when i talked more i told him about how god is our loving heavenly father and that he is our father and he loves us so much he gave us more prophets i told him it makes more sense that god would give us more prophets he gave prophets such as adam noah moses jesus christ there has been many prophets on the earth so i told him it makes more sense to me that he would give us another one and guides us today then i tell him about how we have 
the plan of salvation told him we lived with our father in heaven then how we come to this earth to receive bodys and we have a veil so we dont remember so we can make our own choices cause we have free will or agency then i told him about the point of being here is to get ready to meet god and the purpose of our temples i asked him if he is married he said he was happly for 20 plus years and i told him in our temples he would be able to be sealed to his wife for all time and eternity i told him that his whole family could be sealed to him then i continue to tell him after we die we either got to spirit prison or paradise and told him that those who were not following the commandments and the rules of the world such as obeying laws go to paradise then those who break all the rules and wicked go to spirit prison where they have a chance to hear the gospel and change in that place then i told him about how we are then resurrected in our perfected bodys i also told him anyone with any illness or physical problems would be cured then i told him we are judged for our lives and sent to 3 diffrent heavens or kingdoms then i told him the meaning of the 3 different heavens then he asked me what if my wife was unfaithful to me he asked me that a few times through the time i was explaining the plan of salvation i told him she had a chance to change if she did and if your both living the gospel she most likely wont cheat on you then he asked what if she is unfaithful and i am faithful then i told him he would be able to visit her if he wanted but she couldn't visit him in the highest kingdom 
then we talked some more and told him we believe in a trinity that god jesus christ and the holy ghost is 3 sepret beings
He really enjoyed listing to me and i just talked to him for the last 15 minutes until we landed he told me to vote for romney haha it was pretty funny and encouraged everyone to vote for him got off the plane and we went our seperet ways and then sister walker kind of bragged about how good i was at teaching and everyone was asking me about it she said she was proud of me haha 

then when we got off the plane at lax elder browns mom directed us around talk about an confusing airport so we get to the right gate and get on the plane from LAX to HK then were on that plane ride for 15 hours i think slept for 8 and awake the rest then me and sister walker talked for most the flight we became close friends then man next to me asked me who i was and what i was doing told him about our church and we only talked for 10 minuets but it was still good then we got of the plane and straight to the gate to the plane to manila then we get there and already loading we get on the plane and start flying me and sister walker flew by each other again BTW by the way i got the middle seat every time go figure huh 
the guy next to me asked about me and what i was doing in the Phillippines told him about the plan of salvation and about the book of mormon read som scriptures to him and sister walker was egerly listing to my conversation with this phillipino it was cool to teach him too then we get off the plane and we get on a bus for 6 to 8 hours to baguio then we get there in urdeneta and meet the AP assistent to the president and met the mission president and his wife they are really cool it was nice to finally get there then we have a quick dinner then we go to the big house for the elders and we go to sleep then the next day we have a meeting with the mission president i really like him he said we are similar and asked me if i thought my weaknesses were a bad thing and i said yes and then he told me of a scripture in ether 12:27 then we ended our meeting 

sorry i am out of time but i will tell you more next week love you all thanks for reading my exciting life right more next week

Last email from the states!

hey everyone i get to get out one more email before i get out of here its our last saturday here at the mtc and were off to the Philippines in 2 days can you believe it i sure cant haha i am so excited and i just cant hide it haha music i cant remember a lot of things of the outside world, So we have not a lot happen here at the MTC its pretty dry here sometimes but we had in field oratiation basically its getting us ready to go out the field all those english speakers it was so much easy to teach now that we didnt have the language barrier its so much fun plus our guro he gave us a Talk he has being talking about for weeks he told us we will be like rockstars out there and just told us its not about you focus on the people which is a great message
what else has happened well we as a district took photos with our guro i dont have my camera on me so you might not see them for a little bit as you saw my travel plans so we get to leave soon i cant wait it will be so much fun not the plane ride mainly because its such a long flight then when i get there, there probably will be some culture shock as well its going to be so crazy but i know i will love it cause i am going to an excotic country i am trying to debate wether or not to get a phone card but i probably will well who doesnt want to talk to me hopefully i remember everyones number haha if am that smart
well it is offical i have gained some weight here at the mtc i swear they put some crazy fattenting agents in this food pero but its ok because i will be sweating 24 7 i ll loose that weight and then some its will be ok
plus i also get to eat all this food everyone is been sending me so hopefully i cant fit all the wheight in my bags plus whats stupid is they only allow 15 pounds for my carry on how dumb is that thats just unamerican is what that is haha oh well what the challange is finding cool things in the pines
Sorry everyone this one is short but when i get to the pines keetakeets mahal kita haha love everyone

FLIGHT PLANS!!!

Kumsta po tayo how has everyone been doing i hope everything is going pretty well how was great grandmas birthday party i hope she had fun how is she doing by the way i hope she is doing pretty good and no problems so i went and had a great week like usual we all had some fun this week i cant believe that my mtc experiance will be over soon i ve been here for 8 weeks start of my 9 and soon i will be in the phillippines is going to be so exciting and shock all at the same time its so crazy how fast time goes by when your here your always doing something so the time will fly by all day one day it maybe felt like an hour for my long days here the only time i get to myself is when i sleep for 8 hours or try too at least my body just doesnt like to sleep
what else happened so last week for our speaker was this brother from the 70 and he is german so is his wife it was a lot of fun  to listen to his wife her English was pretty bad but she made us laugh and brought such a sweet spirit even though i wont be an expert at the language of tagalog when i get of the plane what is important if i can bear testimony of what i know thats all thats going to matter one of the things she said was were all on the same sheet of music , what i think she was trying to say was were are all on the same page
it was really nice to know that the language wont matter but what will matter is how the spirit can teach them and that proved it right there

another thing was we as a discrict had a little group insite which was really cool i learned so much from everyone in our district we have elder swenson whos pretty familar with a lot of things then elder boyd he is pretty good at the language of tagalog then we have sister shuemman who is cool then we have sister walker who basically is a native speaker and wont admit it then elder morgan he knows so many facts about the most random things then elder kuavakua he is tonggan hes pretty chill but he cant leave with us because his acl and mcl is torn pretty bad the docters dont even know how he is walking then we have elder hansen but i call him elder handsome haha he is the coolest person i think in the district just a really nice elder and he plays pretty good golf he said his best games was a 67 which is pretty good i hear then its elder leonard he is a bit of a drama king sometimes and cool sometimes and a big flirt sometimes then theirs my kasama compaionan he s cool and theres me not to important (jokelang)
So the big NEWS is here FLIGHT PLANS
so we leave the mtc at 430pm our flight to lax is at 822 pm we leave 17 sep 2012 flight number 1211 incase you want to know the important one
from lax we arrive there at 925pm then i departure from LAX is at 130 am then we say goodbye to our district we separate we arrive in hongkong at 715 am leave at 805 am then to the pines from there and arrive at 955 am
LV slc 822pm 1211
AR LAX 925pm LV LAX130 am 881
AR HK 715 am LV HK 805am
AR manila 955 am
flight numbers 1211,881,907,
6 more days and i am off o the PHILLIPPINES  excited ako so next letter is going to be for the field of the pines love you all

Pictures from the MTC

 

 

Zach's 1st district at the MTC

 

Enjoying his MTC food!

 

 

 

Temple Trip...

 

Zach's 1st companion Elder Contreras

 

Week 7!!!

kumusta po kayo everyone has it going its going good here at the mtc like ussuall i hear 2 people  are having birthdays happy birthday to both of you david and great grandma so this week we have been doing some crazy things
well to start lets sse we got 3 new districts so we are no longer the newbies here at the mtc plus when your here for 7 weeks and start of my 8th i dont think we are new at this mtc thing i am so excited we get our travel plans sometime this week soon we get to venture out to the field and start living like a phillippino it will be a blast i feel so cooked up here but i know when i get out there it will go by so fast just like my past few weeks i have been here i am so excited that i get a chance to go there and meet new people and give them the chance to hear about the church i cant believe that i get to go too a place like the pines  it will one of the best things  to happen to me yet in my life im excite so excited
Now
for some tagalog makakadamdam po ang pagmahal ng mga tao sa phillippines  tayo ang mga ankak ninya pwede po ba kayong panalagin
something for dan and makayla to have fun with that
lets see oh tomorrow we get to host tomorrow for the new missionarys with there dork dots haha it will be fun to help them and show around the mtc letting them how it goes in the mtc like i was in the mtc i didnt get to choose my bed cause i got there last thats what i get for eating all that food at tucanos of all that masarap pagkain delicious food anyway whats life like in Babylon its kind of weird not to know whats going on in the outside world whats gregg up to or samantha i hope all is well with them how s was liberties babtism i havent herd much about them so nothing too crazy happened here
i hope all of you got the letters i sent out i am a bit of a slacker when it comes to writing letters but i am trying to be better at that sorry that it takes me so long hmmm lets see well sorry this letter doesnt have alot of information in it this week was kind of boring here

i do have one more story so this morning we had temple breakfast so i had 3 sausage then a waffle a omlet and hashbrowns and biscutes and gravy the food is so goo at the temple its so work it haha i m  going to get fat oh well when the food is good
i want to thank everyone for sending me letters and all the care packages and for all the support and prayers its sometimes hard here but theres experiences help you grow for sure i love it and hope that everyone gets a chance to do the same its definitely the best choice if you are thinking of going or not so Go if your wondering if your should or not well i am out of time i will send some pictures not as good as issiah but there ok long haha tagalog  ingat po