Dear Family,
Sarah, keep me up to date and tell me when we finally get a horse. My guess is we can't last 5 years in Avon without one. Yeah, I guess school is almost over, Rachel -- there's only how many years left? Guess what, we had a new investigator we taught this week, the Dominggo family, and they are great, but Sister Dominggo's oldest son can't talk. How great it would've been if I could speak a little sign language, but all I know is "thank-you". So I just said "thank-you" a lot. Family, sometimes writing these letters gets kind of hard because I can think of tagalog phrases that would add so much, but can't think of a good translation.
We had a service project on Saturday, taking down campaign posters. My companion and I were given bamboo poles with a hook on the end, usually used for pulling down mangoes, camatsile, star apples, santol, and other fruits. Posters were everywhere! Candidates had hung things in trees and telephone poles, and we were busy for four hours. You should see my farmer tan right now! I got burned BAD -- no sunblock, nothing. Tops of the feet, scalp, neck (that white shirt collar. . . ouch), and on my white legs. I turned really red. The Filipinos hate to get any darker as a general rule, and many express sorrow that after two years of walking in the sun, I'm going to lose my pretty white skin and become Filipino. They joke that maybe I won't be let back in the states when I'm dark. In a world where people use umbrellas to stay out of the skin and look for all sorts of ways to get white -- papaya, whitening soap and lotions -- imagine trying to explain sun-bathing or tanning salons! I tried to explain this week to an investigator, and to my companion, they were pretty surprised that people pay to get dark. I guess the principle is .. the grass is greener on the other side. They think it's pretty funny when I tell them that American's don't get dark when they're out in the sun, we just turn pink.
Interviews were great this week, but as always, too short. I look forward all transfer for a few minutes to talk with the Puzeys. They are so busy, I'm expecting that we'll get to talk after the mission as well, and not just for a few minutes.
Ah! The biggest news of the week -- Navaho Tacos! I bought the ingredients on Monday and on Tuesday I cooked, taking the pictures I just sent. While I cooked my companion made his mother's day phone call home. I was on cloud 9, that was the best meal of my life! I put that fake philippine cheese and some peppers in with the refried beans, sliced up some onion, cabbage, tomatoes, mixed that up in mayo and called it a feast. My companion liked it as well and we had enough to last us 3 meals. I made an extra one and gave it to Elder Thorn and the other Americans and got the recipe out. As much as I like the native foods, there's some home-made meals I'd trade my ties for. In the other pictures I'm sporting the cut on the forehead, inflicted by a sharp bamboo branch that was unfeeling enough to add to my misery in my hurried search for a forest "comfort room". I'd like to watch that in 3rd person. The best part was that for the rest of the night I was pulling pieces of leaves out of my pockets.
It is so hard to make it through the church services when no investigators make it to church. It wasn't the first week either. And we tried so hard! We had an appointment with the Mabanta Family, we were going to pick them up at 8:30 AM so we could all walk to church. We left PEC early to get there, and we were so happy because mom and the kids were getting dressed and preparing to come to church with us. But then Brother Mabanta came in at the last minute and said his boss had just called, and then Sister was nervous to come by herself, so they said it'd have to be next week. That was a heart-breaker! We went past another investigator that had promised to come and they were there but something had "come up" as well. By now I've got the gift of foresight -- We might as well just tell the investigators to expect something to come up on Sunday, it happens without fail. Sunday afternoon we visited with the Mabantas again and talked about faith in lesson three and asked what they felt they needed to do in order to strengthen their faith, and Brother said he knew they needed to come to church, and we set up another appointment for us to pick them up. But we're going to do more this week, and really prepare them to make it with us. Brother Capistrano has an ulcer and isn't in very good shape right now, he didn't make it to church either. There have been some great new investigators placed in our path this week. In all honesty, we struggle contacting all our investigators, and we run out of time every day. Our days are generally full of teaching, and I think we could teach a lot more if time moved more slowly, but we are really struggling to get all of the people that listen regularly to progress and keep commitments, especially coming to church. But we've got good things happening with the members as well, and we hope to involve them more in teaching and fellowshipping at church. We've actually got a one day mission activity that the bishopric set up this saturday. But that's all the news here! The week has flown by. Thanks so much for the news and I love you all a lot!
Love,
Elder Loren Peck
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