Cabanatuan here we go! (e-mail 1/2/11)

Howdy mom! How is that sunday night treating ya? Here I sit in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija Philippines!

 

This week has been wild! Thursday morning we got up early and bishop took us to the jeepney out front of municipial and we were off to Cabanatuan for transfer announcments.

Elder Daquipil and I got to the chapel at 5:30, early is on time and on time is late!  Then he headed off to Angeles city at 6:30 and  I was there untill 9 for the transfer announcment.  My new companion is Elder Nolasco from Mindanao the bottom island of the Philippines, and he's going to die, or go home, this transfer meaning!  I'm keeping up my one companion a transfer tradition up until next transfer!  5 companions 5 transfers. 

We're assigned here in Cabanatuan city! I'm dang excited to experiance the city life, but let me tell you I've felt pretty out of place being around some wealthier members here the past few days.   We have pretty ritzy areas, ward one and ward five, the subdivision we live in is called Kapitan Pepe, (peh-pay) our apartment is this two story thing with crazy Indians living next door who sing arabic songs, sometimes really loud.  That was a fun night, but it's a rocking apartment really.  We sleep upstairs and everything else is sa baba or below!  Elder Nolasco is fun to work with he's really good at speaking English so he usually speaks English to me and I speak tagalog with him.

 

Members always always give us food here!  We had this tasty palabok fiesta stuff one night with pork rind toppings, and these white noodles. 

Oh yeah.. and my last night in Rizal we went to see the Peralta family and their neighbor dude came out with this bowl and wanted me to eat what was inside!  It was bugs! He said they find them in the rice fields and then fry them.  I told Elder Daquipil if he would eat one, I would too, cause he has a pretty week stomach and he tried to trick me but eventually really did eat it so I took a bite of mine too! And it tasted good!  It was just really disgusting that I was eating a bug like the big bum part of the bug is what I ate.  I didn't want to eat the head, but it was crunchy and good and gross at the same time. Then that same night the same neighbor man brought out palaka, or frog and I ate that which was also good!  So it's been a wild week for eating crazy food!

 

There is an investigator here in ward 5 named Raul who is bald! and the most rocking investigator. He was taught by the Elders in Baugio city but then moved here to Cabanatuan and saw the Elders again.  We're just starting to teach him again! He really wants to be baptized and came to church yesterday and was just as happy as can be! Here in this area I get so many "up here's" or "high fives".   We walk through crowds of like 20 kids just yelling "up here" at you.  It's fun, also the past few days a little kid we walked by called me Mr Bean, I thought it was funny.   Our chapel here is really big too! It's a double decker with the sacrament room on the second floor then all the classes on the bottom floor, and I've got me a place at the piano seat again.

 

We had a fun time on new year too, it was crazy how many fireworks going off constantly from 5 until when I fell asleep at 11 or so.   Theres no fountains here,  just fire crackers and bigger fire crackers then big fire crackers that fly in to the sky then explode. I remember as we were going to sleep, out the window the house right next to us was lighting the big exploding kind of fireworks, whatever those are called, like at firework shows, so we had a little show. It was a fun new years. 

The first day here in the mission we had this amazing cereal called Wheat Bix, and that was the cereal I was really excited for my first transfer, but the store in Sanjose didn't have it. But this week we went to the store here, a big honkin store and they had it!  Only it's 200 pesos which is about right for cereal but (in the words of Elder Nolasco, "frickin' mahal") mahal is a strange word it means love and expensive , in this context expensive. But yeah, I'm excited for Wheat Bix!

 

Butt yeah! It sounds like Orem and Utah and the Hill fam and friends are rocking on! I'm excited to keep rocking on with you all and it's wild that it is 2011. Keep rocking on though!

 

Love Elder Hill