March emails

"My Berkada" [Sent 03/29/2011]

Dear friends and family,

Berkada means "gang" or "group of friends."

I have a berkada here in Siaton, which is great. There all just a bunch of little kids that hang out at the park and practice their tumbling, they are like 9 or 10 years old and speak surprisingly good English. They are super hilarious and they love me. Last night I was on splits with Elder Love (my district leader) and we were going to go back to his house for the night, but he wanted to see the park in Siaton (its not huge but its very nice) and when we were there, they saw me and ran up and called me Cuya Abbott (cuya means big brother) and gave me a big hug. Then we talked for a bit and they told me that I should come watch the movie in the park with them that Friday night. (the town plays a "hollywood" movie on a big projector every Friday night and it's free) I told them "pohon maayong lawas" which is what people always say when you invite them to church and they don't want to go. It basically means "god willing and if I feel OK." So I basically blew them off, but I don't think they got it. 

That was more or less the highlight of my week. I saw a lot of wildlife this week - not in a great way. One night we got home and it was rainy so there were a million spiders in my bathroom, some inside the toilet. And then one morning we were eating breakfast at a karnederia down the street and a rat ran across my feet. Then we saw a monkey when we were at a member's house. So that was all very exciting. Our investigators have been disgustingly stubborn these last couple weeks and none have been coming to church, which is a little discouraging, but we'll just press on. We finally got a hold of a Tagalog Book of Mormon for our Tagalog investigator. We're hoping that will do the trick, because she says she wants to be baptized but she hasn't been able to read the Book of Mormon really yet. Last night was fun since we are having a district activity today.  We had a district sleepover at the District leaders house. One of the best parts of Camotes was there were 4 missionaries in the house which meant it was a ton of fun. On the down side I slept on the floor with all the mostly dead cockroaches and my back was hurting like crazy when I work up. But once we are done here e-mailing we're going to go to some waterfalls which should be pretty dope. 

How are all you? Mom, sounds like you have had some crazy nights. Kaleb sounds like the most Kugihan missionary in the world, which is a good thing. My niece sounds super cute. Let Josh know that I'm doing great. I did like 35 push ups last night, so I'm pretty ripped. I got a letter from Tania I'm not sure if I mentioned that. Accidental Italics. 

Be good 

stay crazy

I just hit my 7 month mark, but I'm not trunky.

Gugma Elder Abbott

"Gisukahan" [Sent 03/22/2011] 

Dear Friends and Family,

Maayong Buntag!

This week turned out a lot better than last week so my moody blues are all gone. We are still working with Analin (she speaks only Tagalog) and she really wants to be baptized, but she has yet to make the step to coming to church. She said the closing prayer yesterday for the first time, which was great! The spirit was really strong and she said a great prayer which makes me think that she has been praying on her own. I'm pretty confident that she is going to be baptized, but maybe not this transfer. Then we finally got Amado's wife to understand the restoration. I think I told you all about how we watched the restoration DVD and Elder Cabrera shared about fruits of the prophets and she was confused and thought he meant the blackberries that he was picking in the first scene. That's a true story. So we decided to start from the beginning and work our way very, very slowly and finally Monday we taught about the apostasy and how if you don't have the authority to baptize or to act in Christ's name the ordinance isn't valid. She responded really well to our use of the Bible. It seems like her concern was she wasn't sure we studied the Bible. So we explained that we can't choose to have authority we have to be chosen of God, and Joseph Smith was chosen of God. She seems pretty excited to continue now. So I'm feeling pretty good about these next few weeks.

That's not to say I haven't had some trials this week. This Sunday afternoon we were riding a bus back from our appointment to pick up some members and visit Amado. I had the window seat was feeling quite nice and I had my elbows out in the breeze. Or more accurately one elbow, suddenly I felt something a little wet on my elbow. I inspected it and wasn't sure what I was looking at. My first thought was fish blood or something like that. The bus came to a halt and I looked up to the front of the bus and all at once I realized exactly just what had happened. A passenger about 7 rows ahead of me had gotten carsick, and had let it all out the window, and since the bus was moving quickly the wind carried it to my exposed elbow and part of my shirt.

It was disgusting and Elder Cabrera thought it was pretty funny. So, we went to Nanays house and I cleaned myself off. But it wasn't a total waste I learned a great word. Gisukahan (thrown up on).

So that was an experience. Every day I have experiences, but I always forget them and I'm getting really bad at writing in my Journal. So pray for me that I will remember and have the desire every night to write in my journal.

Also in your next email don't write about General Conference because we don't get to watch it until next week so don't spoil it for me.

Stay Crazy and Be good

Gugma Elder Abbott

"Heartbreak Siaton"  [Sent 03/15/2011] 

Dear friends and family,
I'm OK. The tsunami here was NUTS! Joke. It didn't even touch us. We had some rain last night, but hey it's the Philippines.

So, this one is gonna be pretty short, because not too much happened last week. Last night was interesting though because it was profoundly disappointing. We had one investigator tell us she was moving to Hong Kong last week. Then last night we had another tell us she was also moving to Hong Kong. Humph. So pray for Siaton. We have a lot of work to do. A lot of finding. A lot. Pray that all those stiff necked Catholics (they are great people) will be softened in their hearts.

Also, I love you guys. I hadn't heard if the missionaries [in Japan] were OK, so it was a nice update.

I don't have very much to write today for some reason, I can't remember anything big really happening. My companion is great! He reminds me a lot of Josh Anderson. Just Pinoy.

So thats about it. I promise a much longer one next week.
Stay Crazy
Gugma Elder Abbott.