Monday, January 2, 2017

Fruit Pies, Insta Meals and Dinner Appointments

Hello Family and Friends!

The Christmas season has been here for me since 2 months ago haha.  Although last week, I got the surprise of my life.  I was in the middle of closing out for the month, an extremely long and tedious process that involves me usually recounting the money 4 times so I don't have to say I'm missing 20,000 pesos (don't ask why I say 20,000, basta I fixed it! :) 

Elder Estuaria and I were invited to have a Thanksgiving feast with the Senior Couple Missionaries!  I gladly accepted and to be honest, I think that was the best meal I have had since I went on my mission.  Also, you know how I never ate the fruit pies back in America?  Well now I love all of them, as I ate about 4 different ones that night.  Its amazing how unpicky I am now that I have been here for over a year.  

I love it here in the Philippines honestly.  Despite having little food, walking for days, and dealing with interesting landlords, I could never have chosen a better place to be.  The people are so happy and humble, they do make the best out of every situation.  Every time Elder Estuaria and I run into a troubling situation that has no possible way of coming out well, we just laugh.  We have found a way to not get too stressed out about anything because there are times where you just can't do anything about it.  It is the way it is.  As long as we give our best, there really is nothing else we can do.  

Here are some fun facts about my companion.  One he is addicted to the little hoop I have.  I can't tell you how many times before we go to bed or right when we wake up he is jamming on that thing.  Most of the time he will sit on the couch and shoot all the way across the room.  He is a food lover like me, but he has a little obsession with rice restaurants.  We like to joke with each other about this one restaurant called Chicken Deli.  Its a restaurant where you can get like a chicken wing or breast and then unlimited rice.  Now I was in love with that place with him too, until they messed up one of my orders and i had a similar experience like Jacob had with Taco Bell and the beefy 5.  It made me gag from the mistake, basically they didn't cook the food enough.  And because of that I can not eat their anymore honestly.  Just the smell of being in there makes me gag.  

My companion is super grateful for the gifts that he has received but hasn't opened yet.  When I went upstairs to go do some things, he single handedly set up all of the Christmas tree and hung all the ornaments on the tree so he could take a picture next to it!  

So right now, I am working with a couple of ladys in our branch.  They seem to be pretty progressing investigators and both of them have good friends in the church, which is awesome for us Elders.  Brother Jack has expressed his desire to be baptized and married to the Sister he is living with right now which is super great!  Right now we are in the process of trying to help him with getting married so he can be baptized.  

Being in the office I get to be with the APs and I have to say that Elder Saez is a great guy to be with.  He is super funny and we love to mess with each other occasionally.  He always tries to give me fuel receipts and ask for reimbursements and I like to give him a hard time about it.  He still loves me though :)  Elder Pulley is the other AP and he is relatively new to his position.  He is a very kind and caring Elder.  He truly does love all of the missionaries here. Elder Storrer and Elder Branzuela are our kabahays or they stay in the same apartment with us.  

Elder Storrers parents are the King and Queen of insta meals.  I swear, I didn't even know half of those things were possible to be ready like that.  We enjoy swapping snacks with each other.  Elder Branzuela is hilarious.  He just turned 23 and on his birthday we had 2 dinner appointments together.  We all kind of were stuffed after the first meal and seeing every bodies faces at the next appointment was hilarious... Including mine :/  Me and my companion were probably the most full.  After about 2 bowls of soup into my second meal, I knew things weren't going to go over well. Needless to say, I have never seen 8 Elders and Sisters been able to hide that much food from a family in my life. 

PS dont try that at home.  But before you worry, most of the food we just packed in our bags and ended up eating the next day!  

Well over all it has been a good and crazy week.  Being with all of these crazy and fun missionaries makes the work even easier and funner!  

I love you all and until next week this has been yours truly,


Elder Warren

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