Everyone!
I arrived in Manila and the next day we got assigned our companions and areas. I have the privilege of opening a new area/island called Coron with my companion, who was an AP up until this transfer, Elder Hopkins. He is awesome! Coron is absolutely beautiful! We're the first missionaries here and there are I think like 5 members on the island.Question time.
"How is your apartment? I'm sure it's small, but how small?" -- Are apartment is pretty nice! Its weird because its brand new, they built it on top of Brother Arnold's (Our Group Leader) house and like everything in it is new. But its not like US new, but its pretty nice for the area. For example, we have a shower head, but it doesnt really work But at the same time we're missing a few like regular things like we dont have anywhere to put our clothes and unpack yet. And when we first got there we didn't have any trash cans but now we do. We've got 2 bunk beds and 4 desks so its pretty cramped. I'll send pictures sometime.
"Where is Elder Hopkins from and how much longer does he have?" -- He's from a middle-sized town in Idaho (I forgot what its called at the moment) and he leaves in six weeks! Crazy cuz usually you're with your trainer for 12 weeks.
"How far away from Manila is the island? How did you get to the island?" -- Umm I'm not too sure the mileage. Because one, everything here is in Kilometers. And two, we flew here and it took about an hour in a fairly small plane. And yes, its probably the same Coron as Wikapedia because I guess its a huge diving place. But on the airplane we could only have one checked bag of 20 kilos (44 pounds) and a personal item/carry on so I had to leave a lot of stuff at the mission office. That was hard to unpack and pack and unpack and re-pack again, but worth it!
"Are there any Western fast food places on the island like in Manila?" -- Nope! There's pretty much nothing from the "Western World" here.
"How many people live on the island?" -- Umm I think the estimation from people is about 36,000. But it definitely seems smaller than that but there's so much more to this island that we've seen yet.
"Are you two the only two LDS missionaries on the island?" -- Nope, actually we had another companionship open with us so we have two areas. Elders Osumo, a Filipino from Cebu, and Robbins, sadly a USU Aggie...haha But he's a greenie like me, but according to the members at church my Tagalog is bad, but not as bad as his...score!
"Are you going to be doing your own laundry or will you be able to pay someone to?" -- Well we would normally do our own laundry....but! So the first day we got here we stopped a tindehan to get some water and started talking to these really cool guys around 20 yrs old. They invited us in to their like store/driveway area and we scheduled an appointment to return that night. There's three guys and they are katulongs (helpers) for the store and house. And this house is probably the biggest one in Coron and so that night we met with the owner and those three katulongs. He was superrr nice and told us to come back whenever we wanted. And seemed pretty interested in the gospel. So he told us we could come and use their internet to email so we didnt have to pay for an internet cafe, and I guess he said we can use their washer and dryer even cuz we don't have anywhere to dry our clothes cuz its raining and we dont have space in the apartment. But the three guys came to church and are really progressing well! So we're really excited for them.
"What kind of food are you cooking for yourself?" -- Rice of course and different kinds of ulam (anything you eat with or on top of rice). So far its only been corned beef and sardines...interesting but decent.
"Being a brand new area, how is the investigator pool?" -- Its great! So many lessons taught and people met and everything. From just working Friday we had 18 new investigators and 7 more on Sunday so its going great! And just from working on Friday, my companion and I had 7 investigators at church on Sunday. It was great!
"Who is your district leader and how far away is he? How about the ZL's? Where are they?" -- Our district leader is Elder Osuma so he's right there with us. We have a district of 4. The ZL's I'm pretty sure are on Palawan which is the bigger island I think south west of Coron.
"How rainy has it been? It looks pretty rainy on
"How was the flight? and going through customs?" -- The flight was pretty good. I don't know nothing too exciting. And customs was pretty easy it was hot in there though haha
"What were your VERY first impressions once you got out of the airport in Manila? In one sentence." -- OH MY GOSH! This is it! Game time! hahaha or somethin a long those lines. Mostly just a ton of excitement.
"Is the island more rural or city?" -- Definitely all rural. Like we only have electricity from 1 pm to 1 am. We dont have running water about half the time too. And yeah, definitely super rural.
"Do they mostly speak Tagalog there or will you run into some English?" -- Umm its definitely almost completely Tagalog and there's even a different dialect here in Coron but its not too different....I hope.
"Did you get any of dad's letters when you got there?" -- Yes, I got two of them, just because I was at the mission office one night and Elder Swensen saw them and just gave them to me but thats it.
"What are your impressions of the mission pres?" -- Super nice and super humble I really like him.
"Most importantly, did you buy an umbrella? Or two..." -- Well I havent bought one yet...but President Stucki gave me one of his extras, so he rocks!
Ok I better get going that took forever!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
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