Home Sweet Home! Welcome home!

Home Sweet Home! Welcome home!

To the rescue!

To the rescue!

After the storm

After the storm

P-Day Hike

P-Day Hike

All wet!

All wet!

Flooding

Flooding

Bagio, Tropical Storm

Bagio, Tropical Storm

A day to remember!

A day to remember!

Zone or General Conference

Zone or General Conference

Elder K and gummies

Elder K and gummies

Street sitting

Street sitting

Jogging on the beach

Jogging on the beach

Elder K 21st Birthday

Elder K 21st Birthday

Birthday Mango Icecream

Birthday Mango Icecream

Elder Verzo - Big Boss!

Elder Verzo - Big Boss!

Elder Verzo new comp

Elder Verzo new comp

Mission Tour

Mission Tour

The Best Zone Ever! My comp circled

The Best Zone Ever!  My comp circled

Teaching with Elder Misbach

Teaching with Elder Misbach

Leganez w/Pablero Family

Leganez w/Pablero Family

Zone Leaders Conference

Zone Leaders Conference

Iloilo Zone

Iloilo Zone

Filipino Smile

Filipino Smile

Elder Misbach's back

Elder Misbach's back

Elder K face

Elder K face

Big pig!

Big pig!

Clothes dryer on the beach

Clothes dryer on the beach

The Seduco Wedding!

The Seduco Wedding!

Hookey bobbin in the Philippines!!

Hookey bobbin in the Philippines!!

Three Iloilo kids

Three Iloilo kids

Iloilo lil boy

Iloilo lil boy

Happy mug shot

Happy mug shot

Digging it

Digging it

Grocery Shopping

Grocery Shopping

Airport scene

Airport scene

Iloilo Trio!

Iloilo Trio!

Yum yum green and all!

Yum yum green and all!

The Fearless Duo

The Fearless Duo

Hiy-ya!

Hiy-ya!

A little out of focus, but happy!

A little out of focus, but happy!

Heleman Warriors?

Heleman Warriors?

Baptism Rhea, Geneva & Dave

Baptism Rhea, Geneva & Dave

Me and Elder Booth w/face paint

Me and Elder Booth w/face paint

Sheryl's Baptism

Sheryl's Baptism

Baptized in July

Baptized in July

Basking in the Light

Basking in the Light

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Week 4 :)



Hey Family!
I can't believe it’s almost been a month in the Philippines. Time flies so fast. It is weird to think I was in the MTC last month. Things are sure different than the MTC. There definitely isn't the bounteous selection of food here. Well I actually I take that back. There is lots of food here it is just weird parts of an animal. This week I ate more chicken intestines, skin, and feet. I also have been getting good at eating a whole fish. I took a grody bite of a fish mouth the other day.
Alright so the Philippines is the most beautiful place ever. If you can get past all of the garbage in the streets and the sewer running everywhere. We have investigators that live way far away from our area right next to the ocean. It is so unreal. I will try sending you pictures soon.
Things have been going alright. I am trying to learn the basics of waking up and working out, eating a good breakfast, drinking lots of water, washing my clothes, remembering who my investigators are, and communicating with anyone.
I had a journal entry that described what the Philippines is like and I was going to type it up but I forgot it. Maybe next week I will give you an idea of what it is like here.
So I committed my first person to get baptised. I was really excited and kind of nervous cause I didn't know how she would react. Her name is Sister Sesbrano. She is a 19 year old girl with a family. She says she is really really happy and feels that the Book of Mormon is true. At least that is what my companion said. Because I can't understand anything anyone says yet. Well anyway I committed her to baptism. Himoon mo bala magpreperar para sa pagbunyag. Will you prepare your self for baptism? And her head went down, and she started saying all of this stuff I didn't understand. I just turn to my companion Elder Torio. I guess she was already baptized into a Catholic church and went inactive, she didn't want to do that again. She also said her family was Catholic and she just wasn't sure. Well that was that. She said no. We are now working on resolving her family concerns. We have been teaching more of her family which is nice.
Still lost in the language but I am sure it will come soon enough. I can buy things from the store and commit people to baptism. What else do I need to know?
Well I love you all so much.
Gotta go preach the Gospel. Halong.
-Elder Kirschbaum

Monday, January 25, 2010

Palagpat! Week 3



Palagpat!


Hey!!!!!
Oh man, the Philippines is quite the place. I still haven't quite adjusted to the big time change.  Around 8 o’clock I get super exhausted. It is also hard not to take a nap during the 12:00-2:00 fiesta thing everyday. My companion Elder Torio naps every day and tells me it is essential. I refuse though.
I will try to answer more of your questions.
How’s the language, and your companion?
The language is pretty discouraging right now. I feel like I am not progressing at all. I made a new plan to study the language this week during Personal and Comp study so hopefully that will help. It is coming though. I am pretty hard on myself.
Are you eating ok and are you getting used to the heat?
Eating has actually become quite a difficult thing.
So far I haven't been eating breakfast, or I will just eat some rice. For lunch I will have some bread from the local market. It is really namit (delicious). A lot of times we will eat at a members house, rice and chicken and some sort of fish. My favorite meal is UGA. It is a dried small fish. The head is really crunchy and you have to spit out the hard bones. You don't even notice the eyeball. It is quite painful to eat, really salty too. My companion loves them so we eat them often. They don't waste anything here. They have meat vendors all over the streets we will eat at also. So far I have tried chicken intestine which is really good for real, and chicken skin namit also. The heat really isn't that bad.  
Have you gotten our package?
I haven't yet. The only mail I got was dearelder from a few friends.
Do you have some new investigators?
Yes, we have new investigators every day.


Kyle,
We live in an area called EB Magalona. It is about 30 mins north of Bacolod City. I am not sure of our address though. (I will try to figure it out.)
The humidity is actually lovely. The temp isn't bad at all. And yes I have seen a nasty spider. The other day my companion shook one from his towel. It was the size of a medium pancake. It was quite the smash.


Well I wish I could write more but my companion needs to get on. Next week I will just tell you about everything that is going on here and more about the Philippines. Sorry it is so short. I will try to get more done next week. We still only have about 30 mins to write and read. It is hard to get it done all in thirty mins. Well I love you all. Talk to you soon.


-Elder Kirschbaum

Monday, January 18, 2010

2 Weeks In


Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:28:28 +0000

Hey Family!
So there is so much to tell you, some spiritual, some not. Okay here I go. :)

This week we had a baptism. Her name was Maricel Arcangel. I think she was in her twenties. Elder Torio had been teaching her for a little while. Even though I didn't teach her much it was still really amazing seeing her be baptized and listening to her testimony.

We were also supposed to baptize this little girl named Jazine. She is 12 years old and is really excited. Her sister went to the hospital so she was gone for a little while. We couldn't get her baptismal interview done so we couldn't baptize her. She came to the church all ready to be baptized and we had to tell her she couldn't. She was so sad she cried. We will baptize her next week though.

I am just starting to get to know what is going on.  I was lost for a little bit. I didn't know who was who and where they lived. It is getting better though. The language is coming along great. This morning I taught the first 3 principles of the 1st lesson in Ilanggo to my companion. I felt pretty good about that. I can only speak super simple sentences but I can now put things together. I take around a note pad and ask my companion questions all day. That has been the biggest help with the language. I was able to get a grammar book the other day too. That should help also.

My companion Elder Torio is a really neat guy. He speaks English pretty well so he helps me alot. He is from the northern part of the Philippines. I forget what it is called.

So I saw a fairly sad thing happen this week.  I am sure there will be worse. We were waiting for the bus to go to one of our areas. There was this old guy holding a bag and a stick walking down the road. All of the sudden out of nowhere he slams the bag on the ground and starts beating it with a stick. Maybe I shouldn't tell you this. But I will. There was a dog in the bag. The dog started yelping in pain. He continued to do it until the dog died. He then just dumped it on the side of the road. I went to check it out after he left and there were three other dogs by it. The Filipino people don't like dogs as much as we do I guess. Pretty sad.

Anyways the area is so beautiful. We have a fairly big area so we have to ride those motorcycle carriage things. I am of course too big so I usually am on the back or sitting on the side over the wheel. It is really awesome. It is almost better than driving a motorcycle. We drive those to the cluster of houses and then walk from there.

All of the houses are scrunched together. They are really small. No carpet or cement, just bamboo. I guess people there don't usually see American Joes so everyone stares at me and smiles.  I just say Maayo Hapon and give them a high five. I don't quite yet have the skills to hold a meaningful conversation with them.

Thank you for praying for me. I definitely need it. Everything is going well. Just the occasional rough day. I hope all is good with everyone.

I am excited for Josh to get his call, and Mckay to go to the MTC in a few weeks.

Love you a lot,
Elder Kirschbaum

Monday, January 11, 2010

1st Week EB Magalona



Family,
Grabe naman! I am in the Philippines. There is so much to tell. I got here on the 7th late at night. Traveling here was a blast :). The fourteen hour plane ride to Taiwan wasn't too bad. It didn't really feel like 14 hours. I pretty much slept the whole time. It was sooo weird arriving in Taiwan. Everyone was Asian! And I couldn't understand anything. It is fun being the only white American. Everyone stared at us. We had a little while to kill in Taipei so we walked around.

The flight to Manila was the best flight of my life.
I sat next to this super friendly Filipino lady on the plane. It was my first experience with a Filipino and she was extremely nice. She laughed at everything, and when she laughed she would cover her mouth to hide her smile. She was a really cute lady. We talked the entire flight. I showed her pictures of you guys and she shared some of her Asian food she was bringing home to her kids. We finally got on the topic of the church and she had a bunch of questions about the judgement and what happens when we die. I talked to her about the resurrection and how everyone is resurrected and receives a perfect body. I told her about how we would be accountable for our works here on earth but we could be forgiven. She was really scared of the judgement so I told her about repentance. It was just a really natural conversation. By the end of the plane ride I had gotten her address for the missionaries and gave her my Book of Mormon and committed her to read 3rd Nephi 11 and Moroni's promise. She lives in the northern part of the Philippines so I probably won’t see her again, but it would be cool if the missionaries could teach her.

So when we got here we stayed the night at President Tobias house. We had a lovely Filipino dinner. And yes I ate fruits and vegetables and all that gross stuff.
I am over that.  There are grosser things to worry about like the raw crab someone gave me. I had to split the head of the crab open and just go for it.

The next day we had an awesome breakfast and went to the transfer meeting where we met our companions. My companion is Elder Torio. He is such an amazing guy. He is a Filipino. He is really good with the people. He gives everyone high fives and is really chill.

We rode a Ceres (bus) to our area EB Magalona. It felt like a dream. It was so beautiful. Palm trees, jungle huts, little Filipino kids running around everywhere. It is unreal. It has been such a rush. The Philippines is the most beautiful place!

Alright, so we got to our apartment and It ROCKS! It is super ghetto. It is a mess but I quickly got used to it. The coolest thing about it is there is a wicked spider in the screen door smashed. The bathroom consists of a toilet with a broken lid and a shower that drips rusty water and a sink that might be mistaken for the toilet. The shower is in between the sink and toilet and just dribbles water, cold water. It feels good though cause it is so hot and humid. It is so small that I pretty much shower over the toilet.
I don't dare take off my sandals when I shower. Oh yeah and no toilet paper. We won't go into that. The gospel is true.

So we have 5 baptismal dates coming up and around 4 more progressing investigators. The first lesson I taught was in a bamboo hut with a bunch of little kids running around. We sat cross-legged on the ground and showed them the restoration video.

All the little kids just stare at me. They see very few Americans. When we walk to other appointments the little kids gather and give me high fives and call me Joe. I guess Joe is the American name to call Americans.
HEY JOE! I just give them high fives since I can't understand a word they say. Ilonggo is completely different than Tagalog. I am definitely lost. So I feel like I am in a movie or something.


There was one time I was walking down this village path and 10 little kids come up to me and started talking to me. They kept on following us. I was like the leader of the pack. It is so fun. I feel like a celebrity. Oh man the little kids are the cutest.

You can tell a big difference in the families that have the gospel and those that don't. They need the gospel so bad. I wish I was able to speak.

On Sunday I bore my testimony in church a few times. When they called me up to the stand they can barely say our last name. It’s funny.

I was able to play the piano for Sacrament Meeting since nobody can play. You were right mom. You knew that would happen. It was good though. I didn't mess up too badly.

Well I am doing awesome. I am a little sweaty and tired and itchy and I have rashes and other diseases but I am doing good. The space Olympics is not canceled in the Philippines because they are that awesome.

I love you all so much and I hope you are doing well. We are so lucky to have the gospel like we do. It makes such a difference in the peoples lives here and I know it makes the same difference in America.
Kabalo ko ini.

That is the extent of my Ilanggo now. Love you.
-Elder Kirschbaum