I'm glad you got that video! I'm so tired all of the time haha. But especially that day, because of all of the traveling. After we got to Manilla it was like 5 hours of drive time to Lupoa - which is the area where I'm serving. It is the northernmost part of the mission, but very far away from the ocean haha. It stinks all the time here but not because of the volcano. We're actually very far from the volcano. Any questions feel free to ask!! I will be able to email you every Monday!!
Okay, so for mailing things - you can only send it to the Mission home and it stays there until the next time someone in our zone is there - then they deliver it to the zone leaders and the next zone conference we are able to get it. The mail system is pretty lame I must confess, but that's the least of my worries! The Mission home address is:
1827 Gumain Street, Redwood Villas
Clarkfield, Pampanga 2009
Philippines
This first week has been so flipping crazy! Definitely culture shock. Everything is different here. It is hot, humid, smelly, bugs everywhere - but the people are absolutely awesome. I can feel God's love for them every time I meet someone new. That is a surreal feeling. I've already met and taught a lot of people in what little Tagolag that I know. It's definitely humbling because I realize truly how much of the language I don't know. I can hardly understand most of what the people are saying here. But some of them speak a little bit of very broken English. haha. It's awesome.
The first night I was here, I counted 18 spiders in their webs - haha That's the craziest thing for me. Nobody seems to notice how many bugs there are. I'm starting to get that way as well. My new companion is excellent! His name is Elder Dela Cruz. He's a native Filipino who's been here for 11 months. We work well together - I'm good at talking to random people but I don't know what to say after I greet them, and he's good at speaking but a little bit shy so it works out great! Everything is going well. My favorite time of the day is personal study time. Because I get to study the Book of Mormon! That Book is so true and there is a real power that radiates from it's pages. 1 Nephi 3:7 - the Lord will provide.
I'm excited for the coming adventures. Remember how much I need your prayers and love!! I miss you tons and think of you often. Give the family my love please :)
Mahal ko Kayo!
Ingat,
Elder Blackham
P.S. Make sure to send all packages through the Postal Service, and NOT Fed ex because if it's not just regular Postal Service it will cost me 60 dollars to receive it... Thank you!
P.S.S. the pics - the first one is of me at the airport in Taipei, the next one is of all of us going to Angeles - the couple missionaries are the bomb.com, the last one is of my zone. I look weird because I ran into the picture; my camera was on timer haha. I'll be sure to take more and send them next time!! Also, The things some of the missionaries are holding are bowling balls haha - bowling is so weird here! The balls are grapefruit sized and you have 3 tries every time.
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