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.