Hey! Family!
Wow it is so crazy it has already been a month in the mission. My month mark was yesterday on the 7th. So it is 4:06 pm here right now. I attached some pictures finally! yay!
Yes! Mother Father I got your packages. One of them came a few weeks ago. The last one with the Valentines monkey came this week. Thank you so much. I am also getting all of your emails too.
Thank you for the recipes. I actually have been eating oatmeal in the morning too. This morning I made oatmeal with coconut juice. It was really good.
Tell Elder Swartz not to worry about vitamins they give us endless vitamins here. And yes mom I have been taking them.
So just tell friends to send me DearElders.com. I am planning on just writing them letters through the pouch back and just family through email.
For pictures I will just have to send you my cards or something or if you sent me a usb with a bunch of storage I might be able to store them on there maybe. For now I will send you my card which is full.
So I decided you guys haven't heard alot of what it is like here. I will type up my journal entry. It is kind of negative, but don't worry I am not anymore, I am an official Filippino. And I am an official Man now. I will tell you about that later.
"Alright so our apartment looks like a haunted house from the outside.
As you walk in there is a huge spider stuck in the screen door. The living room is nice but very messy. The whole house is really a pig-sty. The bathroom is a dump. There is a sink, shower head, and toilet all in the same tiny room. If the shower was on while you took a poop you would get wet. (It’s now to the point where I get wet no matter what I am doing in the bathroom. Everything leaks.) Most people here wipe with their hands. I have a thing for toilet paper so I borrow a roll from the Mission office every time I visit. Anyways I don't dare not wear sandals in the bathroom, its beyond words. I’ve learned to love it now though. We wash our dishes by hand everyday in our messy kitchen. Many times there are ants all over eating left over Uga (dried fish) We constantly have a fan on us, because it is so hot and wet here. I keep my toothbrush in the fridge so ants don't get it. I have a nice wood frame bed with a soft thin mattress pad thing. My sheet has signatures of other missionaries. We have another bathroom right off our room but no one goes in it because its even worse. I listen to it drip water at night. There are these really cool lizard gecko things here. We have a ton all around. A few are smashed in our door, with the spider. Our apartment is right by the main road so the cars race by making really loud sounds. When we are going to bed it is like we are blasting off in a spaceship every 5 minutes because it’s so loud. Our beds rumble. If the roosters aren’t crowing at 11:00 pm, they are at 4:30 am. We live not a foot away from around 30 roosters. The whole “morning only rooster crow thing” is a myth. They scream every time of the day.
All right so our area is beautiful. We live in a small town outside the city of Bacolod about 30 minutes north. (For Kyle my address is EB Magalona Tabigy Street between the bridge at the gas station.) Most houses are made of either bamboo or cement. For transportation we use tricycles. They are those motorcycle + carriage vehicles. I am too big to fit comfortably in them so I usually ride on the ledge over the wheel.
Alot of times I almost hit into things on the side of the road. Tons of people squish on them. It is super fun. Better than riding a motorcycle:).
Their houses are very close together. They don't have any of the utilities we have.
Everyone, including me, washes their clothes by hand. It is quite the process. We get the water from a pump in the ground. We then hang them up to dry.
The rice fields are beautiful here with lush green grass rice and palm trees. The ocean is in our area. Some of the houses by the ocean are elevated on just bamboo poles alone. In one of our investigators homes the bamboo bends frighteningly low when I step on it. I am always scared I am going to maul over their home. When it rains here it rains in small spurts. It will be completely dry then in a second it will rain. Then 30 seconds later it will stop in a snap of a finger. The rain is also misty.
It is really trashy. Everyone puts their garbage everywhere. Pretty gross smelling sometimes."
That was my January 21st entry.
This week I went on splits 3 times. So me and either the Bishop or a member named Tommy. It is hard going on splits when you can barely speak the language.
We have two wards: The EB Magalona Ward and Manta-angan Branch. The Bishop of EB is quite the guy. EB is a struggling ward. Haha we watched a movie in Sacrament two weeks ago too. That’s what it’s like.
Well, there is still tons to tell you.
I love all of you so much!
I hope that everything is okay with Ashton, poor guy. I will pray for him. Tell everyone I love them.
Till next time!
-Elder Kirschbaum
