August 25, 2010
Family,
I love it here in Cebu! First of all let me clear up what the Baileys said about the traffic. I don’t know what they said but they have to drive in it. That is probably nuts because it is so different than the US. But honestly it is fine here. I haven’t seen anyone crash yet, and I walk the streets downtown every day. It is crazy because there are not any rules... that anyone follows. Lanes don’t matter. Motorcycles go zooming past no matter when. The jeepnys stop all the time and people are always crossing the street. But they are used to it here. They are not like prideful Americans who hit someone if that person was at fault. They pull out into full traffic and everyone stops. It seems crazy that you can just drive across the road and the other cars yield to you, but in the Philippines that’s how it works. It is, most of the time, very efficient.
I have attended the temple once. We get to go once a month, even though it is in my area and only about a 15 min walk from my apartment.
Thank you so much for emailing, but we are only going to have 30 min from now on and if I spend the entire time reading, I cannot write much. And I have so much to say. So maybe just cut out the flab and tell me the same stuff, just faster?
No Mom I haven’t been to the waterfall yet. My last 3 p-days haven’t really been p-days. The move, the big leadership meeting today (for elder Clark) and something else the other day. We called a lot of temple referrals yesterday, and had made appointments for this morning. I have been working with Frankie for the last 3 days till 5 and tomorrow too.
I finally found out what they mean by the "rainy season". It was a lot like Washington rain for the first few weeks.... but hot and not a whole lot of it. Then last night, it went from nothing to huge drops of water coming down to within 30 seconds it felt like I was in a waterfall! Luckily I was at the temple grounds, unluckily I was planning on walking home then. So we grabbed umbrellas from the rack and ran across the parking lot to the chapel. By the time I got there (maybe 30 seconds) my left arm was soaked so that I could see my arm through my shirt, and my pants were soaked from my calves down. All of the stairs were waterfalls and the road turned into a river.
Finally it let up a little so we took a jeepny to our road, then a hubal hubal (motorcycle) to our apartment. It had pretty much stopped raining, and the road was fairly dry. Then we hit traffic at a little intersection that never has traffic. Our road, the same one the marcado is on, was a river of brown water at least a foot deep rushing down! I ended up having to walk part of the way to my apartment where I saw Elder Clark stranded with his leadership training comp who is staying with us for the week, in the guard booth at the gate. We walked home (they had to wait for me because I had the key) in the deep water. It turns out waterproof shoes hold in water really well! That was fun. :)
We still had appointments, and I did something I never anticipated doing on my mission. I went out teaching with my pants rolled up and in green 45 peso flip flops! Kind of fun!
We also went to an appointment almost at the end of our area in the mountains. I had no idea how big my area was! We rode a hubal hubal for an hour up and down mountains to get there! It was like 38 km out of the city! Super pretty though. I could see both sides of the island and both Bohol and Negros.
Our new apartment is good now. We figured out the water and spent a whole day cleaning it. The tile and wood floors are now shiny and we have all of the furniture we need. It’s nice. We still have a shower! But it’s cold... especially this morning. It was cold yesterday after the rain, and last night did a number on the water. But it feels so good to be clean after sweating your guts out every day. I sweat all day long unless there is a fan or air conditioning. I use my handkerchiefs a lot! They are usually soaked by the end of the day. And my shirt, and my pants. But good news! I just go my second pair of custom made pants today! These ones are super nice. The new ones are so much better than the tight American style. Definitely not made for the Philippines.
We have 3 progressing investigators, one has a baptismal date for the 18 of September, one has wanted to be baptized for a long time but her dad (not the best guy in the world... unlike mine) hasn’t let her yet. And the third has read 20 pages of first Nephi, but doesn’t have that assurity that it is true yet. We work hard. About 60% of the time our planned for lessons don’t happen because they aren’t home. But we still talk to a lot of people. I am getting a little better at Cebuano. I still do a lot of patient sitting with little clue what is going on, but I find myself understanding more and more, and being able to carry on longer conversations with people. It’s good.
I love you all!
Elder Schenk
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