Mga kaibigan ko at pamilya ko,
Things continue to be blessed here in the Philippines. Many people receive us willingly, no matter what religion they are nor how badly I butcher Tagalog. The children are so cute, and so many of them repeatedly ask us for high-fives and handshakes.
We teach so many people, so I will just describe in short a couple of the families we visit.
The first is a family where the dad is a member, but his wife and his kids are not. It’s cool to be able to meet with him and hear his testimony, and he’s been bringing his kids to church ever since we started visiting him.
The second is another part member family. Essentially three families live together in the same house, the three adult daughters of an older fellow and their kids and husbands. Two of the adult daughters were baptized, but don’t go to church, and the rest of the family are non members. It’s been fun visiting them because whenever we visit they offer us food, but it’s not because of the food that I love them. They’ve really started to open up to us, and Elder Maroket and I are optimistic about their future.
The other thing we did this week is visit all the far barangays (neighboorhoods) that had less active members. Although it cost us an arm and a leg in tricycle fares, it was totally worth it to be able to meet people who may have not been to church in more than 10 years.
Tagalog is still hard, but at least I can sometimes say what I want to say. Sobrang mahirap ang pagtuto ng Tagalog. Nakakapagsalita nang napakabilis ang mga Pilipino, upang hindi ko maintindihan. (Learning Tagalog is very hard. Filipinos can speak really fast, so that I can’t understand.) (That’s probably right. Maybe.)
I hope everything is well with all of you, no matter where you may be or what you may be doing.
Mahal na mahal ko po kayo,
Elder Tripp
Two (of three) giant fish one of the less active members we visited caught just after we visited.
Mom asked about the typhoon that hit the Philippines when he was in Manila: The typhoon caused our mission to run transfers a day late, so transfers were Wed-Thu, instead of Tue-Wed. We took the bus because Nov 1 and 2 are holidays in the Philippines that are really popular in Ilocos, so the planes were all packed. Our bus was also delayed 3 hours. We were going to leave at 10pm, but ended up leaving at 1am instead.
Tagalog
barangay - neighborhood
Mga kaibigan ko at pamilya ko - My friends and my family
Mahal na mahal ko po kayo - I love you very much