Monday, October 7, 2013

Wk 28: GENERAL CONFERENCE WEEK!! :)

Area: Bata
Companion: Sister Neis
 sister lucson! she wanted a picture with us :)
 ahha because she thinks we are beautiful! 
i need to get a picture with sister pearl her daughter too so you can see her 
she's a return missionary and works with us sometimes :)
(I told Jenna her hair looks good- she never wears it down she said)
"my hair is like a lion and falling out like crazy but i'm glad you think it looks good :)"

my whole batch from the mtc!!
Except for sister roos because she left too fast when we were getting finger printed :)


Well, i said a lot of what I wanted to say to mom. Maybe she'll share it with you :) haha but for the time i have left. I write what i didn't tell her. 

This week... We had the specialized training from president for sister Neis' batch!! It was really good! We learned a lot about studies and everything! I forgot my notes from it, but i did learn a lot! and learned a lot more about the ward and everything! it was cool! we also watched the atonement video and how it relates to missionary work again! it made me cry.. again. It's so true. If it wasn't easy for Jesus Christ, why would it be easy for us?? I love the leaders of this church and I am so excited to be able to watch conference this weekend!! :)

We went to the Relief Society broadcast and one of our investigators, Sister Analia came with us! She is super cute!! She was suppose to get baptized on the 19th but then she didn't come to church yesterday. :( but we tried to go visit her 2 times yesterday at different times and she was working with her husband. We haven't been able to contact her yet, but hopefully tonight we will. She was doing so good!! She was excited for conference also, but her husband isn't too into us either, but we will see exactly what happened when we talk to her, because she said she'd come. But she is excited and loved the relief society broadcast! :) When we showed up at that at the church. We were about 15 to 20 minutes early and the church was still locked, but there were 6 missionaries and sister analia. haha it was funny then someone pulled up about 5 minutes later and let us in. It was all set up and they started it with just us there. :) it was kind of funny but then people showed up. It wasn't full... but more people showed up. It was kinda cool though!! :) Exactly what sister Analia needed :)

We also went to do fingerprinting, and i saw my whole batch. :) And I saw sister Sanders!! Ah! I love it! It was super cool and is super cool seeing people you lived with and grew to love before on the mission. It's kinda crazy thinking that everyone here, all the missionaries, feels like your family. When in all reality, I didn't know any of them when i got my call or before i left obviously, but they are such a huge part of my life right now. :) I love it!! :)

I am running out of time, but we have 2 baptisms on the 19 of Tara and Richmond. They are children of a less active but come to church with their great uncle and aunt (the villanueva's) the one with the recent convert, Elijah. He also wants to go to the temple soon! He may be able to go to baptisms with the YSA at the end of the month :) He wants to take his mom's name to the temple for Zusie (his girlfriend) to baptize! I hope they end up being able to go. It does cost travel money though. Don't ever take advantage of the temple being so close!! Go as much as you can! I miss going so much! I love the temple and I know this church is true!!

We also have 2 baptisms on the 26th which are Julia and Jizalyn. They are from the cuaresma family :) I love this work and Hope to continue everything becoming better at following the spirit and just being the best missionary i can be!! I love you all!! :) Have a wonderful week!! :)

Love, Sister Smoot 


(these are questions & Jenna's answers)

(describe the philippines)
i honestly don't know how to explain the philippines... it's different. the cars drive around like crazy people just cross the road when they want and stop the cars. you ride in jeepneys tricycles and c-cads to get around.. you can't understand it unless you come here.. maybe one day we can come back and i can show you :) haha it's a really cool culture. people who have not very much.. maybe a little one room house made out of bamboo and they are so happy and love life :) 

(weather?)
it's warm.. but it's getting cold. It's hotter then home, but you go somewhere with ac and it gets freezing like church or something and it's like 26 degrees celcius whatever that means. but it's cold! but it's good here :) gets hot but we have umbrellas and it just fine and feels good then the next second it's pouring rain. like the sky just dumps out a hugs bucket of water. lasts about 5 to 10 minutes then stops. that's always fun! :) haha especially when you're teaching a lesson they have tin roofs and you can't hear anything but the pounding rain on the roof haha :) but it'snice! lets just say we have a super nice house here for living in the philippines. no ac and cold showers... but i'm use to it. i'm just lucky to be living in the "rich" part of bata. I feel bad sometimes saying i live in camilla. (camillia)

(do you walk all the time?)
yes pretty much i guess you can say. We walk to all our appointments except for once a week we go to abcasa which is far so we ride a tricycle or if we are in a hurry going from tunay to pinetree... but other than that not usually

(do you use your flashlight since it gets dark so early?)
sometimes.. i'm getting use to the places i walk and our cell phone has a flash light for the harder areas where i need it, but yes i have my flash light too and i use it every now and again :) but some places are lit. 

(food you eat on a typical day)
i eat... hmm fruit in the morning. lunch depends. sometimes pancit like top ramen if we are in a hurry if not we will make chicken with adobe like some veggies with soy sauce and vinegar... sometimes mashed potatoes (legit potatoes that we boil and mash with a little butter and milk) and some grilled chicken just on the stove! it's good :) and just switch off for dinner. sometimes we try to make stuff up. we eat eggs too sometimes :) i'm starting to eat more eggs i love eggs! especially with magic sarap just a little of that brings out the flavor.. namit!! :) and other than that... We eat oatmeal for dinner and i use to eat it for breakfast but now i'm eating fruit for breakfast sometimes i have pb and j. i do miss our homemade jam but here i eat mango pineapple because strawberry isn't as good and they don't have raspberry... we just eat whatever we feel like and whatever we have?? sometimes french toast on sundays :) i can't think of anything else...

(how much $ do you get a month?)
3700 pesos... (divide by 40 and you'll get it in dollars) i thought it was every 2 and 16th but i was just told last week that someone gets it out every other week and they've been fine and it's come out for them... so maybe i'll start doing that because when it lands that there's 3 mondays in a month it starts being hard for me, but it did come out for me last week :)

(any funny things that happened?)
well... we have random funny things happen every day.. you know you're in the philippines when.... but today coming to robbinsons (a mall) we get on the jeepney and just wait for more people and right before we are going to drive away someone older brother walks up and says to the driver wow! you have some beautiful people riding your jeepney today. Then looked at us and said guapa guapa! haha it was funny. it was all in illongo, but when you turn it to english. it sounds really funny. i'm not sure if it's exactly what he said, but he told us we were beautiful crossing the street also.. haha it was wonderful.. we love being white.. the only place you can be called fat and beautiful :) but american's are different. sister neis got her, "you're gaining wait" a couple times this week. but she's a twig!! and yes people say she looks like taylor swift :) haha was there a comment or something?? or just you thinking that? (I saw a comment on the Bata missionaries page)

(eat anything weird?)
nope! most everything is good here. I ate this one fruit that was like a crunchy hard bitterish lime but it was super sour and left a weird tingling feeling in my mouth and throat haha not my favorite but it wasn't bad it was kind of a fun taste! but other than that everything here is really good! 

(i think i got out of order,.... but i'll answer the questions i haven't yet)

(how much to ride the jeepney/trike?)
it's liek 5 to 7 pesos unless you go far it's like 10 pesos -- per person) 

(I know you do your own whites, but what do you pay to have the rest of your laundry done?)
we pay like 100 pesos for someone to do our laundry in our ward. if i send my sheets i pay 150.

(do you sing in English or Hiligaynon at church?)
we sing in english.. it's the best most of them are tone deaf and they sing different in english. the rhythm is also different sometimes it's usually acapella unless you're in sacrament meeting. or we have a piano which isn't really in any of the rooms. so the leader sings the first like then says "ready sing" usually is really low too.. alto is difficult when that happens. :) haha

usually we teach in illongo. every once in a while if they understand english we can share in english. All our trainings are in english. and at members houses and all the people we are working with now know english so we talk in english. it would be a lot easier to learn illongo if we didn't talk in english but that's what they like to do here because you're more successful if you know english.

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