Wade in Tacloban: Broken Bike and Moving Apartments with a side of Exchanges

Kumusta an akon kag-anak

This week has been pretty good. They do transfer announcements tonight because we are finishing up the first cycle on Wednesday. Crazy how fast it has gone. I am 99.2% sure that I am staying in the same area and keeping the same companion. Training takes 12 weeks so if something crazy happens I will let you know.

As for this week it kinda feels like we were barely in our area this week because the last week of transfers is always crazy in the mission I guess. First we went on exchanges with the zone leaders again. This time I went with Elder Basulgan, who is from the Philippines so I spent a full day trying my best to speak only Waray-Waray. It was super fun actually and Elder Basulgan is super funny. We started getting chased by dogs in the area and he turns to the dogs and was like "come follow me and I will make you fishers of men" it was pretty hilarious. Also we spent some more time with Elder Gunn who is going home in a few months so I was filling him in on some stuff that he needs to check out when he gets home.

The other exchange that I went on was with Elder Hassan who is in my batch and actually kabalay with me. Meaning we live in the same apartment. We are both getting trained so we were nervous about anyone being able to understand us, pero the gift of tongues is real and we actually found 3 new investigators and got to teach like 5 lessons, it was a miracle for sure.

Crazy part of the week was we were on exchanges with the zone leaders and in the morning we get a text from the AP's saying they are coming to their apartment so we speed cleaned the apartment and then the AP's and President Argana came, because they are moving apartments but he comes up to me and Elder Roth and just straight up is like you need to move apartments you don't have enough privacy and you are too far from your area so we have been apartment hunting in Julita which is pretty tough. Their is not really a housing market in the Philippines because people usually just build the house they live in and never move so I will let you know how that goes.

Lastly, my bike has officially broken so now I think I will be replacing the bikes out of necessity and not just because it was a piece of crap so I may be withdrawing a little bit of money because I want a bike that will at least stay together as long as I am here.

Aside from that I am doing good. This week was a little stressful with all that has been going on but I am feeling great. The Waray-Waray is coming hinay-hinay. I guess sometimes I have culture shock at just how different the Philippines is sometimes. It's super crazy. Me and Elder Roth always joke how we could improve some of the funky things they have here. It's a good time.

Anyways, excited to get those packages. and yeah if it is possible to email some recipes that would be great. I want to try my hand at cooking filipino style. I am already learning a few filipino recipes and I am a pro at cooking rice now.

Love you tons,

Elder Holmstead