March 16th, 2015: Transferred to New Washington, Kalibo!

So, I did in fact get transferred.  My new area is...... drum roll please...... NEW WASHINGTON, KALIBO!!!  It is an area that is right outside of Kalibo city to  the east.  You will be able to see it on google maps if you look it up.  I just got here on wednesday, so I still don't know my area very well.  My companion is actually Elder Gan.  The same one who was companions with Elder Kellerstrass in Culasi.  It is kind of funny that I am with him again.  He only has 3 months left on his mission, so I will probably be with him until then.  We are actually the zone leaders of all the missionaries in Kalibo too.  So,  that should be interesting.  Three of my other batch mates are zone leaders too now.  Elder Orr, Elder Cuillard, and Elder Mudrow. Elder Kellerstrass got transferred to Roxas city, so I won't be seeing him anymore haha :(.  Elder Coronel is training a new missionary in Culasi.  Anyways, my new area should be pretty challenging.  The language here is Akeanon. If you remember in the Chicago temple, the temple greeter, the one that went to my same mission. He was saying that there was this language that was incredibly difficult.  You know you're doing right if your tongue doesn't hardly come off the bottom of your mouth. Yeah, that's the language they speak here. It sounds so weird haha.  I heard that they had a prince here a long time ago, and that he had a speach impediment where he couldn't make an "l" noise, so then they adopted the way he speaks.  It is pretty much impossible to learn especially because there are no resources on the dialect, so most missionaries that come here just learn Tagalog because almost everybody here speaks Tagalog.  So, that's what I'm trying to learn right now...Tagalog, which is almost completely different that Karay-a or Ilonggo, so right now, I can't hardly understand anyone or speak, so that's kind of frustrating haha, and I was just starting to get good at Karay-a too haha,but it's alright, its just a challenge.   We have a ward up here too.  It seems to me that the missionary work is a little slow, so we will see how much damage I can do.   

It's been an interesting week. A lot has happened.  Maybe the biggest highlight was the day after I got here in Kalibo, Elder Gan and I went with two Elders to Buruanga to open up the area for missionary work!  We picked them up from the bus and we slept in the couples, the Strengs, apartment in Kalibo, which was incredibly nice.  I took my first hot shower on my mission!!!  We got up early in the morning and piled into the Strengs truck and drove down to Buruanga, which is at the tip of the peninsula on the northwest corner of the island. It is so beautiful.  I knew that President Aquino was going to open up that area, so I really wanted to get transferred there and open up that area.  It just sounds so fun to open up an area.  Elder Gaco and Elder Lazaro are the Elders to open it up.  Elder Gaco was Elder Boligaos companion as the two APs.  President stuck two of the best missionaries there to open the area.  In fact, President Aquino extended Elder Gaco's mission without even asking him first in order to have him open up Buruanga.  Elder Gaco was supposed to go home this last transfer, but President extended him haha.  Btw, Elder Boligao went home this week, so won't be seeing him anymore. 

Anyways, we went the Buruanga Elders to help them set up their new apartment.  It was pretty cool.  I got to Boracay too!  The forbidden island!  The Strengs went there for a day date while we were in Buruanga and they brought us back some sand from the beaches there.  It is like white flour.  It is sooo nice. Then we could just see a bunch of hotels and stuff.   There were a bunch of fancy boats and stuff too and people para sailing and stuff.  

To answer your questions.  School hours. I'm still not really sure. I think school gets out for a month and a half here pretty quick. 

My companion is Elder Gan.  To be honest, he is a little bit trunky, but I'll whip him into shape haha. 

Chloe, people usually don't have any decoration at all. A lot of times though, if the house is concrete, they paint them really bright colors!  Most of the time though, people are very poor and have houses made out of bamboo.

Have a great week!

Saying farewell to Elder Coronel

Good byes to the Culasi Elders.  Elder Kellerstrass and Stuart have been together
since the MTC.  

"I have 3 house mates.  Elder Gan, Elder Palzario, and Elder Cruz and they are all crazy and way funny.  They are all Pinoy too.  They played a prank on me when I first got there.  I had all my luggage and stuff with me.  When we got of the jeepney, they told me that the apartment was a little ways into the woods on this dirt path, so we start going and we are just going everywhere.  There are houses around, but it was kind of in the middle of no where.  It took us like 20 minutes to get there.  I couldn't believe how out of the way our apartment was.  The next day going out for work, Elder Gan told me he was going to show me another way out that was a little bit longer.  We start walking and we walk around a little bend in the path and there is the road. That is when I realized that they made me haul around me luggage on that tiny dirt path when we could have just done it in 30 seconds haha.  These guys are a bunch of goons."

With his new companion, Elder Gan

Very different from the place in the last area where they went to church.  In Kalibo
they have a very nice Chapel.

Stuart found out the different between a hot dog and a hot dog
sandwich.  Hot dog sandwich has a bun and a hot dog
doesn't.  Haha.

What the locals wear for a fiesta.

If you look close you can see a big striped spider in the center of this photo.  Stuart
says the further north you get, the bigger the spiders.  He says he can't get over how big they are!