Mga minamahal kong kapatid,
And so passes another week here in Manila. Filled with turkey dinners, a bus bombing, and buying a stove in order to rescue some starving sisters. Now let's hit the details.
So yeah, it was another great week here! It's still kinda strange to be here in the city but I think I've managed limit my mentioning something about Coron to like one every couple minutes or so. Sometimes I just like to say stuff about it to bug Elder Stirland cuz he's been in the city his entire mission and is DYING to go out to Palawan..haha
So our running around trying to get people to place to place has pretty much settled down, but the stuff we have to do in the office always seems to manage to more than fill our day. I'm starting to get a lot of the stuff figured out that we do pretty routinely, but I'm definitely still dreading the day that Elder Stirland leaves and I'm left here on my own, freaking out. haha It's hard cuz I'm like thinking back to the days and thinking about all the office work we're doing and it's hard to remember things specifically but I definitely remember that we were busy..haha We've got lots of stuff to do!
We've got over 60 apartments to manage and make sure everything's good and then if people wanna move we gotta help get the stuff done for the new apartment (apartments are the biggest headache "daw" (that means someone else said it and you're just relying information so in this case Elder Stirland is the one referenced by "daw." It's quite efficient, you see.), about 200 missionaries to reimburse and to make sure they get their support every month, President's payments to manage, all the senior couple's finances to keep track of, all the budgets to prepare and keep track of, and just lots of stuff! haha But when I think about all that stuff we have to do it's amazing how pretty much this entire mission's finances is kept track of by 20 yr old elders who generally dont have a whole lot of business background/preparation, it's pretty amazing and a testimony builder of the Lord's hand in all things in His work here on the Earth. It's tight, yo!
So Wednesday was cool. We got to go to the temple with our zone, and all that jazz. We were supposed to leave at like 6 so we could make it to the 7am session, but...we definitely didn't wake up till 6..haha So we left at like 6:40 and sped thru traffic (pretty much no speed limit here just lots and lots and lots of cars in the way) and made it to the temple for the 7am session still! It was pretty legit.
There was at least 5 people at the temple who told me that I look like David Archuleta, and then like a few more from church two weeks ago! So that was kinda weird, but he's like big here in the Philippines for whatever reason, kinda weird too..haha
Oh and also, I'm getting better at ordering pizza from Pizza Hut for Sister Stucki! I even made a friend (more or less) at one of the pizza huts. Cuz we called in the order on Wednesday and but the order was for Friday so on Friday they called us to re-confirm the order and Elder Stirland answered the phone just cuz he had it and they asked for me and he just said he was Elder Gadberry for simplicity reasons. But my "friend" was like is this Elder Gadberry? (Actually they say Sir Elder Gadberry..haha) And so Elder Stirland sighed and was like okay and handed me the phone. So yeah, me and her are tight. haha
Thursday I got my license! Got to drive on EDSA, which is where allll the traffic is, and it was great! We got back to the office and I got the pleasure of sending an email out to most of the missionaries about some finance stuff. And that definitely did not go good...haha I sent three emails before I was finished..haha One just randomly sent when I was half way through, the second one was what we needed to say but I forgot the attachment, and then the third was all good. So yeah there's def some room to improve there...haha
We got some good work in in our area on Thursday too! We don't have a whole lot of people to teach because we're like part-time full-time missionaries as far as that stuff goes, but the people we have are awesome! I talked with one of the member families there about Pawnstars for a while and I was like what?? There's Pawnstars here too?? Ugh! I thought I left that with Caleb and Jacob..haha But it was still legit.
And then...just like 8 hours after I got my license...I get pulled over..hahaha There's this illegal U-turn that we have to make in order to get back to our apartment from our area. Well you don't "have" to take it but it saves you like 5 minutes. I didn't wanna take it but the other two said just do it cuz they had never gotten pulled over (Elder Stirland told me to add, that I asked if there were any cops and they said no and that's why we made that turn). Welp. Lucky me. But being the charismatic, charming person I am...I talked to the cop, tried to give him a Book of Mormon (assist credited to Elder Stirland on that one. When the cop came over Elder Stirland threw a Book of Mormon in my lap), told him I was new, and sorry and not going to do it again, and he said he'd forgive me. SCORE! But yeah, def not making that turn again...haha
Friday, my driving adventures continued. I got the "honor" of driving on coding day. Almost all the cars here in Manila, can't drive on one certain day of the week in order to try and lesson traffic (to no avail) and our day is Friday! Well, we have to drive cuz we have to work, so we just be extra careful. I guess coding is kinda like wearing your seatbelt. For the most part they're not going to pull you over just for coding but that'll get hit on top of whatever it was you got pulled over for in the first place. But we made it all good. And then that evening we got a call from one of the sisters, telling us that their stove is broken and they couldn't cook. So that means, we don't get to work in our area, instead we had to rush to the mall before everything closes and try and find a stove for them. We had to run to like 3 different department stores before we found one that would work and then we grabbed them some McDonalds cuz we're awesome and thought that they might wanna eat, and took the stove to them. So we're like super heroes over here in the office. Boom-shocka-locka! (<-- anyone know that reference??)
Saturday was great cuz we didn't have to work in the office! We got to rock the area! At least for a while until we found out it was Elder Dietrich's (the Dietrich's are the office senior couple here) birthday and we needed to get back to the apartment so we could eat! Sister Dietrich made us spaghetti it was great! And I got to ride a jeepney for like only the third time in my entire mission! haha Well after the birthday dinner we went back out and worked! We had a lesson with a former missionary that is not very active in church but he's starting to come back. It was great! And then we tried to follow up on another one of their investigators and found him hanging out with all his drunk friends. Well Elder Stirland was talking to the investigator, Elder Spencer got this other guy that apparently knew them from earlier visits, and I got the rest of the drunken men... That was not my funnest conversation ever, but definitely one of my most interesting. At one point, they asked if I knew Tagalog. Well I've only been speaking it to you for the last five minutes....I simply said yes. And then one of them retorted with, "That's not true! You can't know Tagalog! You can't learn Tagalog in 6 months!" He seemed like legitimately angry about it...haha And then at another point his friend asked me where my visa was and when I didn't have it carrying around with me he repeatedly threatened to call the police or somethin..haha So yeah, interesting for sure. But let's talk about the Dietrich's and specifically, Elder Dietrich! They're awesome! They're from a small town in Indiana! Midwest, reppin it up! And they're name is Dietrich, just like the town, Dietrich! And Elder Dietrich is 71 one and he said like the thing he misses most, is his Harley! He's hilarious, and they're awesome! They really remind me of all those people I know back home..haha.
Sunday was great as well, of course. The Area Presidency has really set up the Philippines to do work this upcoming year! We had an Area Broadcast just a couple weeks ago and they set some really, really good goals for the church here. And I can already feel it gettin started in church with the leaders talking about it in sacrament meeting and the missionaries instructed to work in harmony with those area goals set for the members. It's going to be an exciting year! But one thing is weird...there's no water fountains here in their churches! I guess there's like no water fountains anywhere in the Philippines I was just informed! That's so weird!
But that evening we had a dinner appointment at the Mission Home for Elder Dietrich's birthday. And it was AWESOME! I had turkey!, mashed pa-taters!, a roll!, watermelon, and mango! And then desert on top! Oh geeeeez it was sooooo good! TURKEY AND MASHED POTATOES! Yeah, I can dig that part of the office.
Monday wasn't too exciting and all...just had interviews with President and experienced a bus bombing! Alright, we didn't like experience-experience it but pretty much! We were sittin in the office after we got done with all our stuff with President and it was like the middle of the afternoon and BOOM! We didn't see it but oh golly gee did we hear it and it like even felt it a little. We went outside to see what happened and didn't see anything but a bomb squad and lot's of security drove by and guys with M16s hopped out of the squads. So we just went back inside and continued our day. I guess what happened, we heard from Sister Dietrich today, it was a bomb placed on the bus triggered by a cell phone. And they think it's Alkaida or however you spell it. Sketchy-sketchy! But all's well of course!
So today's today. P-day on Tuesday cuz of all that jazz with Pres on Monday. I got my haircut =/ But it's my first decent haircut here! Probably cuz I paid like four times of what I used to pay! (but still only about five bucks) haha But they like washed my hair, cut it, and washed it again and all that jazz pretty legit.
So yeah, such is life. I'mma city boy now. haha But still urn to go back to Coron.
Love,
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures
1304-1307 -- My companions! Elder Stirland and Elder Spencer!
1308 -- Traffic!
1309-1311 -- A little bit of city
1312 -- Office life. hahaha (I've only had one!!)
1313 -- The temple!
1314/1315 -- Me driving!
1319/1321 -- Sweet Philippines Manila Mission stamp that I found!
1324 -- Traffic!
1326 -- Poor Spencer was tired
1329/1330 -- Birthday dinner in the Dietrich's apartment
1331 -- My license!
1332 -- My Sunday lunch! Now that was delicious!
1333 -- Birthday cake at the mission home
Yeah and other stuff! Sorry! I don't have the rest of the files on this computer
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