July 12, 2015

This is a watermelon shake that costs 20 pesos. i don't think I've ever had a more refreshing drink in my entire life. sometimes my comp and i just sit down and drink one of these and take a break. its so nice cus you can buy them pretty much anywhere. very convenient for when you're super hot and super sweaty ( April, 2015, really hot summer months in the Philippines start in March to about end of May. Rainy season starts about May, typhoon season about June to about October)

  my kabahays! (housemates/companionships) except for elder de dios. we had exchanges so elder tampac (far right) worked with me today. we couldn't go out and work the rain outside was too heavy so we decided to stay in and have a kabahay picture (May, 2015)

 this was our most recent baptism! Jaime Cariaga. we baptized his wife a few weeks ago. definitely one of the coolest guys ever ( April, 2015)

 this is Jeslyn Bada Chua our most recent baptism woo hoo!!! shes from the tacloban mission and her native language is waray so sometimes its hard for her to understand some of the words we say to her but shes super awesome. (May, 2015)

on the rooftop of one of our recent converts house. its super tall and the view (as you can tell) is super cool. you can see all the way to the buildings of pasig and manila and you can even see some of the mountains in morong and rizal waay off in the distance. i was super scared in this picture and thats probably why my smile is a little nervous hahaa! (May, 2015)

 i dont know if you can tell but im super sweaty in this picture. also there are a lot of weird animals here (May, 2015)

 me at the temple! im frowning because my face was about to melt off in this picture haha! (May, 2015)

these are my kabahays! no one really knows how to speak english except for me haha. (May, 2015)

  also i hate chickens. they always peck your legs when you walk by. im gonna try and pick one up someday (May, 2015)

 had to say goodbye to elder nawaia last week :( we were in the same zone but now were probably going to be in different zones. btw in the picture im wearing a long sleeve and i almost died from heat stroke. ( ran out of clean short sleeve shirts or hung shirts outside to dry and got rained on, which you never do when rainy season comes) (June, 2015)

 outside the house of one of our investigators. the little boy in the middle is probably one of the cutest kids ever. his name is lawrence and his parents recently got baptized. (with his new companion, Elder Salisbury, who's going home in a couple weeks) (July, 2015)

kids playing in the rain. it may not look like it but it was raining so hard. the place where they were playing actually flooded. we left right before it flooded but jeepneys couldn't pass through it. (July, 2015)

 

we get to play bball a lot. its funny because the rims are sometimes just 7 ft high and pretty easy to dunk and people are so amazed when two American missionaries come and dunk a couple balls haha i have a funny picture of that actually, the dunk isnt that good but the people watching me on the side look so funny (July, 2015)

July 12, 2015   (Henry's latest e-mail. apologize for the lack of updates)

Hey family,

     this week was just another week of work.  sometimes i feel like every week is the same and i have nothing new to tell you guys but it has been raining a ton this week and it flooded near our house pretty bad. if it had floodeed just a little more it would have reached our house. most of our neighbors couldnt get to their houses.  there was a guy with a canoe taking people to their houses for a few pesos. i wish i could send a picture but the computer here doesnt have an outlet for camera cords! oh well hopefully next week ill be able to send some pictures. 

     i dont know if i told you guys this but in my ward right now (qc 3rd) theres a member that used to be the old mission president of the tacloban mission! his name is president malit. (the missoin president before him - president trask  - helped the tacloban become the highest baptizing mission in the world! just a random fact) but president malit is so good at missionary work.. obviously haha but he works with us a lot and really helps us out. were so lucky to be able to work one on one with an old mission president in the philippines. in a way we have a huge advantage over other elders because it's almost like we receive twice the training. hes super awesome and were really lucky to have him.
     i'm learning a lot about how to live with someone 24/7. when you and your comp get along well, mission life is good. so the mission has been really awesome for the last transfer becuase elder salisbury and i get along really well. 

     also uncle jeff and aunt laurie sent me girl scout cookies! my comp and i were very thankful for that! tell them i say thank you! a few nights ago i was talking to a lady in our ward and shes been to indonesia before! (the philipines is so close to indonesia) and i was asking her about the language and she said that she could understand some of the things the people were saying. indonesian and tagalog are very similar in structure and even a lot of vocabulary words are the exact same she said. she told me if you know how to speak tagalog, itll be easy for me to learn indonesian. i was clearly VERY excited when she told me this. when i get home im going to do all i can to learn indonesian haha i want to be able to speak it! that would be so cool if we go there some day!! but well see if what she said is true haha. 

     anyways that was my week basically. oh and btw my shoes are all falling apart and the biggest size they have here is size 11. i might have to get shoes made from some guy but ill figure it out! i love you guys!!