Another week past (e-mail 4-11-11)

Hey yall!

It's another week past, and the buhay is still rockin!

I would like to start the recap of this weeks events with last Monday and the wildness of our after noon that day.   First we walked to Ambalingit where we had scheduled a family home evening with an less active family. The Jose family.  Our ward mission leader was in charge of the snack and had gotten some sticky rice from them and then took it to the palengke to be grinded up and then had dropped the large mass of sticky rice dough off at the families house. This is where we walked in on the scene. Nanay seemed kinda tense because they had this large blob of rice to take care of and we had invited some ward members to attend as well. Turns out they were making some delicious soup stuff.  What they had to do was roll little balls of sticky rice out of the whole blob, so we jumped in and started rolling little rice balls. At the Jose family there are 3 older kids that are girls then 3 younger kids who are boys. The 3 boys and I were putting the rice stuff on our face. Those little kids are funny. None of the members ended up coming, so there was a great deal of left over rice ball soup. Nanay gave us this large Tupperware case of it. 

Conference was righteous, we were able to be on time to all of the sessions! It was enjoyable for me. I enjoyed Elder Christofferson's talk about the chastisement. I've been able to look back on past transfers and see that the transfers where I learned the most was when my companions would tell me what I needed to do better.  

One rather interesting thing about this week was that a member died in Mamonit and the bishop had us come to the viewing.  Funerals are pretty different here, the viewing was in the house and all the neighbors were outside the house gambling and then all the gambled money goes to the family. Some other members were there too and we sang some hymns then went on our way.  Then the bishop asked us if we could come to the service the next morning and asked me to dedicate the grave. So the next morning, we rode a trike out to the house again and some members spoke then we ended the meeting. Then the old wife stood up and was wailing at her diseased husband in ilokano.  Then they had the death march and they all walked behind the hearse to the grave. Then they took the lid back off the coffin and stuck some flip-flops, a blanket and some cigarettes & lighter in the coffin, put the lid back on and everyone left. Then the funeral workers took him to the cement box and we dedicated the grave then they slid him on in. Pretty interesting. Then Elder and I went back home.  We must have both eaten something wild because that morning at around 2 we both woke up and had to go to the bathroom then after the funeral it continued, LBM 4VR! 

I talked to a man on the bus this morning who was pretty awesome He was surprised I could understand him and was asking me all sorts of questions, why I'm in the Philippines. Sadly, his stop came and he got off, but he was a cool dude. Yesterday we were in a trike coming back from conference and I got talking to the man I was crammed in the side card with, and he told me he was the former mayor in Mayantok. Ha ha, so I invited him to come unto Christ! He was to busy, but a real nice mayor man. Wellp! Here's some pictures there for y'all:

On the road to Ambalingit, a waiting shed.

We did karate in it. 

Me and nanay Jose, enjoying some fine rice ball soup.

Me in some dry rice patties in Barangay Rotrotook, ilokono kasi. 

This week I have eaten a lot of jackfruit.  Once or twice we had it mixed in to our food. That stuff is dang good and slimy!  Last night we visited bishop and he had all these seeds from the inside and you can eat those too. It tasted just like a big bean! I miss mexican food quite a bit, anything with cheese. My mouth is watering! Milk and cheese is not too popular here. That's alright. I remember my first transfer, buying cereal and powdered milk. Having that it kinda ruined the whole Philippines cereal thing for me.  I just eat rice or noodles now for breakfast. 

All the cows (mga baka) utters here are respectivley small. and they're all pretty boney looking around the hind quarters.  We saw one cow this week that had it's back legs all covered in poop. It reminded me of a battle worn cow that's seen it's days. After that we talked to this old dude who didn't speak tagalog, which was interesting.  I think this week I'm going to try and make some salsa, we'll see how that goes!

Love ya lots! Keep on that strait and narrow

Elder Hill