This week has been a lot better than last week. I am learning to really love the long bike ride to my area everyday. It gives me a good opportunity to release some stress and have some good times talking to my companion. My apartment is also starting to grow on me. I started thinking I was going to die because it was kinda gross and stuff but now I love it and it is becoming my home. We shower from a big bucket with cold water but it's not as bad as it sounds. We have a neighbor that rents the apartment to us and he is not a member but he is like an eternal investigator but he is super cool and comes and talks to us every night. His name is Brother Rito. He helps us do our laba (laundry) every week.
As for food, we cook most meals which means my companion and Elder Jaring the other trainer do all the cooking because they actually know how to work all the appliances and stuff. We have lots of rice and chicken and stuff which is really good. For breakfast we usually eat bread because they have bread shops on like every single corner. The bread is super good here! It is super sweet and they usually put sugar on it so it tastes super good. I think I am gaining weight haha.
The bike is not my bike, it stays in the area, but it is a piece of crap bike. One of the pedals fell off of the bike while we were riding home this past week so I to basically scooter it like 2 miles until we got to a barangay that was big enough for trikes to give a ride home. Pretty good times haha.
The work is kinda tough in our area. We have like 8-10 barangays that are spread really far apart. We are trying to focus all of our efforts in Anibong and Villa Hermosa which are the closest barangays to the church. We can't really visit people further that 1 barangay away because they don't have any way to get to church besides walking so that's good. Our branch is also like 1 year old so they don't have a lot of organization in the area so it is kinda frustrating. Like the 1st counselor in the branch presidency is less active and lots of members don't like how the branch is run so it is hard to keep people coming to church. Man do I miss the good organization of our ward. Aside from all these challenges we are working really hard to get the work going. My companion is pretty good with the language which is good but he is kinda introverted so we don't do super good at finding and I am super eager to talk to people I just don't really know what to say so I am trying to stay patient. We are still working with Hanna Kim. She is super awesome and we really want her to be baptized. She is also kinda my language teacher even though she is 10 years old haha. My coolest experience of the week was that we were teaching and I usually can never understand her because she has an accent and talks super fast, so I said a prayer in my heart that I could understand the words that she was saying. After I said amen I started listening and I started to pick up on a lot of the words that she was saying and I was able to bear my testimony about following the prophets. It was a great experience to me about the Gift of Tongues.
As for the language it is improving every day. I am starting to be able to understand like 1-2 sentences every conversation. I write down lots of words everyday and I am learning. It is super hard because there are lots of words that I want to say but I don't know how. I am really working on patience and then I remember that I have only been here like 2 weeks. But I am happy that I can at least introduce myself to people. They always freak out when I tell them I am 18 years old and they are always like "Taas" which means tall. It is super funny.
Thanks for the messages about digging in and having grit because I definitely needed that. I have realized that it is going to be hard but I know it is making me stronger and helping me grow. I love that word Grit, I was reading that letter you sent in the MTC this morning about Burke saying it takes Grit to get through the first few months and I believe it. The Lord is definitely helping me to have grit, courage, and strength.
We had zone interviews this week with our zone which was pretty awesome because I got to meet all the other missionaries in my zone. They are super cool especially one of my zone leaders, Elder Gunn. He is just super funny and cool. Since my companion is the district leader I will get to go on exchanges with the zone leaders twice this cycle and I get to go on transfers with the two elders that live in the apartment with me which will be pretty fun.
We also had a special mission meeting. I think that is what you saw all the pictures from. We had a member of the seventy presidency Elder Soares and Elder Haynie from the Philippines area presidency come and speak to us about focusing on exact obedience and working in the center of strength in our areas. It was fun because I got to see some of the Elders from my batch at the MTC. Everyone from my batch is actually learning Cebuano except for 3 of us. I think they chose the best ones to learn Waray-Waray haha.
We actually have zone conference tomorrow so I will let you know next week what we do there.
I know that God is real and that he loves his children. Even the ones who I am pretty sure have never seen a white person or left their little wooden house in the "bukids" of the Philippines. I know that this is the true church and that God is truly answering my prayers. I can definitely feel your prayers helping me on the hard days. I have realized that when I start trying to enjoy the little things when the going gets hard that my day gets so much better because I stop worrying about myself.
Love you tons!!
Elder Holmstead
Me in front of the Chapel in Anibong
A view from the Chapel (they have the greatest sunset here ever)
Chapel in Anibong
A "small" spider by the church bathroom
Missionary Devotional with Elder Soares and Elder Haynie @ the Tacloban Stake Center attended by Tacloban, Tolosa, Carigara, and Biliran Zones Sept 15, 2017
Tolosa Zone Missionary Interviews Sept 13, 2017
Tolosa Zone Conference Sept 19, 2017
Zone Conference Lunch Sept 19, 2017
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