Another week gone

September 25, 2011


Another week gone and here I am again emailing all of you. Does anyone else feel like the time is just flying away? I swear it was just yesterday I sat down and emailed all of you and now here I am again. One of these days, I'm not going to get to sit down on Monday and email everyone about my adventures as a missionary. That day, unfortunately, is approaching far faster than I would like it too.

One of my most unique experiences this week was a quick trip to Iloilo. My current companion injured her back several months ago when she fell really hard on the tile flooring in the Oton apartment (my current companion and I both have the same previous area). This injury is still causing her a great deal of pain, so we went down to Iloilo for a day to have her back checked again to see what might be the cause. This meant two bus rides in a single day, each 2.5 hours. It was pretty fun stuff, but definitely left us both feeling very car sick. Now- for the adventures that occurred in between the two bus rides.

We left at 8 in the morning so that we would get to the city as early as possible. The morning was bright and sunny and looked like we would have perfect weather the whole day. We eventually showed up in Iloilo and visited the office so that we could work out some reimbursements we both needed. Next, we enjoyed an amazing lunch at the mission presidents house. Sister McBride is allergic to both sugar and MSG, making fast-food restaurants off-limits. So instead, the amazing wife of our mission president cooked us lunch and then we headed off to the doctor. We learned that Sister McBride may have to go to Manila to have her back treated and we are currently waiting for more information about that. Then, we got to tack a trip to the grocery store in SM City, a large mall in the area. This trip was approved due to the allergies mentioned earlier. The grocery store in the mall has several imported foods that don't contain msg or sugar, so my companion is able to eat them. We had lots of fun finding all the health foods and looking through the imported cookies to find ones without sugar. We then headed back to the station for the bus ride home.

The bus ride home was probably the most unique part of the day. It started off with me sitting beside a nice old man and we began talking about the Restoration of the Gospel. Suddenly, I learned that he was a member of a church called Iglesia ni Cristo. This surprised me a great deal because they are generally very stand-offish and don't talk religion with us. In fact, this was the first time I had met a member of that church who was willing to talk to me. The conversation turned to the Book of Mormon and I pulled out my Hiligaynon copy and offered it to Brother Dalipe (that's his name). He was absolutely stunned that I would be willing to give him my book for free. He took it and flipped through it saying, "Basahon ko ini, basi matunan ko damo" (I will read this, maybe I will learn a lot). I bore testimony that I knew he would learn a lot and told him to talk to the Elders where he lived if he ever had any questions about what he was reading. He was such a sweet old guy. As the bus started to empty out, the conductor decided to come back and talk to my companion and I. He was nice, but really silly too. Sister McBride, wanting to know how much longer we had till we reached San Jose, asked him where we were. His response was, "Sa bukid" (in the mountains). To which she replied, "Gani, diin sa bukid" (of course, where in the mountains). He said, "Sa tunga, nakita mo? may bukid didto kag may bukid didto" (in the middle, there is a mountain there and there is a mountain there) saying all of this as he points out the windows to the dark mountains on either side. We finally arrived in San Jose and went to climb off the bus to discover that our box of healthy food was gone and in it's place was a box that definitely wasn't ours. As Sister McBride describes it she went into "serious mode" and got names and phone numbers and a promise that if the box wasn't found the bus company would reimburse us for it. Fortunately, the box arrived the next day and we were informed that a lady in the bukid was very happy to have her box back. We were also very happy to have our box back.

So- that's the most exciting part of our week. Other than that, just typical life as a missionary. Oh- and it's raining again. One of the wonderful things about rain in San Jose is that the road outside of our house turns into a river whenever it rains. Isn't life fun!

Palangga Ko Kamo!