Mission Adventures in the Philippines: May 25th- Being Chased By a Strange Creature and Getting Shoe Stolen by a Dog

Dad: do the Filipinos hunt animals or having hunting seasons? I haven't heard of any sort of hunting season here. I don't think it's allowed. People here just eat fish, chicken, and pig, sometimes beef.
Mom: can you tell us a funny story? So, last night, we had a lesson and then when we were leaving, we were putting on our shoes, but I couldn't find one of my shoes. So, I guess a dog must have taken one of them or something. We went back this morning and it's no where to be found, so now I have no shoes left. I came to this mission with three pairs. The two black ones are wrecked and now a dog took one of my last pair. That shoe had my one custom insole for my ankles, so I don't really know what to do about that. I'll be fine without them though. Maybe the worst part is though is that we had to walk home maybe 2 miles because there were no more tricycles. I borrowed a pair of their flip flops but all of their feet are so tiny so the shoe didn't cover my whole foot. So, it was a little painful to walk home. Oh, and we got chased by some weird animal while walking home. We heard something in the grass making some really weird noises. Kind of like a cat-snake. haha. And then it came out and started chasing us. We just started sprinting away from it because it was coming for us. I still don't really know what it was. It had big eyes and ran on 4 legs. It kind of had big ears too. It was like the size of a cat kind of, but we both agreed that it definitely was not a cat. It ran really weird, kind of like a monkey would. hahah. We both kind of have different descriptions of it but we can both agree that we have never heard anything like it before and that it definitely tried to eat us. hahah.

Connor: what was your favorite thing when you went to Nauvoo? I just remember the pioneer trek being really fun because it had rained a bunch and it was super muddy, but Nauvoos awesome. It has a cool feeling and of course the temple there really brings a special spirit.
Oliver: When you talked about the Filipino choirs, do they sound like the Asian people singing on the Christmas Story? Yes, exactly like that.
Chloe: what is the closest temple? And do people get to go very often? There is a temple in Cebu. There are regular temple trips, but usually in order for someone to be able to go to the temple here it takes a lot of financial preparation. Also a trial of faith usually.

So, on Tuesday, Elder Beticon went on splits with 2 of the sister companionships on an assignment from the President because they were having some contention problems, but it was so weird because we had to go in their apartment and stuff and then just working with the sister missionaries was so weird. It was weird haha. My first experience of that.

Oh, we had a service project this week. We helped build a concrete house, but what we did was pretty brutal. We moved a pile of dirt and rocks from outside the walls, to about 20 feet away, inside the walls, and all we had to work with was two shovels, and a bunch of concrete mix sacks, so Elder Beticon and Elder Palzario would fill the bags with dirt and Elder Tracy and I would carry the sacks and dump them out. We did that for 3 hours in the sun. And it is so hot here right now. One day I think it reached 42 celcious which I think is close to 110. And it's humid. So brutal. But, I have a little more respect for all of the construction workers here, but I really think that someday, I could make a LOT of money off of the wheel barrow here.

Hmm, oh, the weather has been really weird in our area. We are quickly approaching the rainy season, but it still hasn't come. But, for the last four days, there have been massive black clouds to the south with tons of lightning and thunder, but no rain. Above us is just blue skies and sun and heat, but to the south has just been thunder and lightning for 4 days. It's kind of weird.

The missionary work has been really good this week. We gave a Book of Mormon to these three girls, maybe 23ish at a barbecue stand, and followed them up four days later and they had read so much of the Book of Mormon, and they understood well what they read, which is impressive for Filipino's. They were frustrated at me because we didn't go back for four days because they had so many questions and things that they didn't understand. It's awesome. I underestimated them when I first met them, but they are awesome and really have a lot of questions about the gospel. Our first lesson with them was almost 2 and half hours just discussing the Restoration and what they read in the Book of Mormon. It's just a lot of fun for us to teach people that are actually interested and keep commitments and ask questions. A lot of times, people really would rather be doing something else than talking with us, which I guess is understandable. Anyways, that's about all I got for this week! Hope you all have a great week!