February 16, 2015

hey mom and dad! Things are really great over here!! It's hot and humid so we're constantly sweaty but it's really fun. The language is totally different from the mtc, and it's pretty hard to understand people sometimes. I had balut and chicken intestine and the boiled blood stuff, there's a lot of crazy food here!! haha.

I'm in an internet café since there are no computers in our apartments. and don't worry,there's some good food here. I'm definitely not gonna starve at all and we're always getting fed.

We're busy every single day like crazy, even on pday so I won't have a ton of time to email you guys. A week before I got into the mission, the mission president decided to cut email time in half, from 2 hours to one hour so there are a ton of people to email and not any time to do it, haha!

I do have time to cook but very little. My trainer is Elder De Dios from Canada. His parents are both Filipinos but he didn't speak any Tagalog before his mission.  We sleep with a fan and yeah I'm sleeping really well because we get so tired from the day that we can't help but fall right asleep. From 1-8pm we're out teaching and finding people to teach and getting sweaty haha. There are four of us in the apartment so two companionships and our ward is really good. My first area is the Quezon City 1st ward.
I love you guys a ton!! I miss you and think about you guys a lot!! Ill "talk" to you all next week!!
  

 Elder Van Slooten trying on "balut" for the first time. (Balut is duck embryo, yum)

                            Henry and Elder Nawaia at the Manila MTC

                           before going to their respective first areas.


Elder Van Slooten's new mailing address:

Elder Henry Van Slooten
Philippines Quezon City Mission
Aurora Blvd. cor. JP Rizal St.
Project 4, Cubao
Quezon City 1109, Metro Manila, Philippines

January 24, 2015

hey mom and dad! this week has been pretty good! i have quite a few pictures to send. elder nawaia got to go to temple square and walk around because hes an "international missionary". they let all the international missionaries go to salt lake and see temple square because they may never get a chance to do it again. anyways he took my camera with him.

 also exciting news, we got flight plans!!! were leaving february fifth after all and were leaving at 3;30 am hahaha were flying to portland to tokyo to manila!! im so excited to get out of here! we skyped with a member in the philippines and taught them a lesson and the member was in quezon city! she spoke pretty fast but i picked up most of what she was saying hahaha she said "pogi kayo elder" hahaha not sure if i spelled that right though.    these are my travel plans!!!!

January 17, 2015

this mornings sunrise was cool. that last one is of elder peck during our temple trip last Saturday

January 10, 2015

 elder nawaia is really great and hes starting to get a lot better at tagalog, its probably really hard for him to learn tagalog while hes trying to learn english at the same time. im excited to get into the field though the mtc is getting very repetitive and its hard to spend your whole entire day in the same class room. we eat breakfast and then go to class. then were in class until lunch time. then we go to lunch then come right back to class. and then were in class again until dinner time. then after dinner we go back to class again until 9:30 at night. its a lot of learning and a lot of work but we are learning very fast. some of the guys on my district are scared to get to the field in terms of speaking and understanding capabilities. sometimes i feel that way too but i actually feel very comfortable with tagalog and think i could almost go right now. i know if i went into the field right now with as much tagalog as i know, i would probably get fried. the hardest thing about learning tagalog is getting used to sentence structures. its very different from english. im really trying to let go of all my english tendencies and only think in terms of tagalog sentence structure but i think ill be ready in a couple more weeks. were supposed to leave february the fifth but one of my teachers got an email saying we would leave january 28th. i hope we leave then. ill send a few pictures. i didnt take that many this week because everything is starting to look the same.

this was taken last sunday during the temple walk. they let all the missionaries walk to the temple and tour the grounds for an hour or so every sunday afternoon. we usually dont go because its been so cold but we decided we needed to get off mtc campus and walk around.

January 5, 2015

January 3, 2015

                                 folding laundry hahaah nawaia took this of me

 

 

its so hard to teach in tagalog but were teaching every day now so i am improving little by little. it can be frustrating at times but also very rewarding when i teach a good lesson.

but my communication is minimal.. i know how to say a good amount of things and i can teach a semi decent lesson but when investigators ask questions, there's about a 15% chance that ill be able to explain the answer in Tagalog which can be annoying at times. practice and experience will help me there, that's why when i get to the field i want a Filipino companion that doesnt speak english and i want my first area to be 100% tagalog speaking. i want zero english so that i can learn faster. i dont want to teach lessons in english or even half english haha i know itll be tough but ill learn so much faster that way

December 27 - Saturday

 this is my companion and me after he took out his endowments

in the Provo Temple

                           some guys in our zone in the residence

                      Elder Nawaia and I freakin out in the snow

              this is some of the people from our zone on christmas day

 

hey mom! i wish i could be in sf with you guys, but things are great here, its starting to get really fun because im more used to the schedule and the daily routine of things. i am making a bunch of friends here, its so easy to talk to people and make good friends with them. im looking forward to two years from now too hahaha im mostly looking forward to two months from now when ill be out in the field!! i cant wait to find out where my first assignment is. also tell dad this, i just found out that mindoro (the small island included in the mission area) is a non anglo area, meaning they only send native philippinos (Filipinos) to that area :( looks like i wont get out to the ocean on my mission but im excited to be in the city and in the mountains! i love you guys and miss you all. tell everyone i say hi!!

 

p.s.

also feel free to give my email to any of the young men or anyone that you think might want to email me

 

Henry's e-mail address:

 

henry.van.slooten@myldsmail.net