Dear friends and family,
This week has flown by. We're finally
getting to the point in the MTC where it's getting less tediously repetetive and
more intense and varied. I'll probably talk more about that later, but for now
I'm going to talk about this in the order approximately I wrote stuff down again
(so - it will once again make little connected sense.)
First off, people don't understand me
when I speak to them. You'd think I'm meaning when I speak Tagalog to people.
No, they understand that. When I speak English to various people, including my
companion from Utah, they don't understand what I'm saying soemtimes because I
"use words and say things in old fashioned/very different" ways. The other day
I said, "We'll want to take our lesson at a good clip" and my Utah companion
looked at me really weird and said, "Ano?" (what?) and I had to repeat it and
she laughed. They think I'm kind of weird here, but that's okay because I am
weird, haha. Thanks, English major Mom and Dad. Another fun fact is that
sarcasm doesn't exist here in the Philippines. So, I haven't had too much
trouble with that, but other people have, haha. Gotta be careful joking around
here, but sarcasm isn't very nice most of the time anyway so it's better to
avoid as a missionary generally, I think can safely be assumed.
Intense Asian bug bites require intense
Asian natural medicine. The nurse here used this stuff called "Tiger Balm" on
my bugbites before, so I bought some at the store and it's pretty much the most
amazing stuff ever. It says on the container it stops pain, itching, headaches,
flatulence, and more. Not making that up. But seriously - Mom, you react as
badly to mosquito bites as I do, so first check up and make sure that this
magical balm isn't actually gonna kill me and if not go get some yourself from
the Asian market. I have never had something work so well on bugbites/itching
in my life. It supposedly just has a bunch of mint oils and camphor oil or
something in it, but I call it my magical Asian medicine.
The saddest news of the week, quite
possibly - the cats here are EVIL. Or, at least, some are, and we're not
allowed to get near any of them. The ones I have seen look very diseased and
kind of like zombies, which is frightening. Then the MTC staff told us that one
of the teachers was walking out to her car and two cats ran out from under her
car and charged her and she got all scratched up and had to go to the hospital
and have a bunch of tests done. There's this thing called "feline fever" here
which is pretty bad so unfortunately, for the next year and a half I will be
avoiding all cats like the plague (because they are the plague here.) The self
restraint required for that is very, very large, but necessary. I told my
companions I wasn't too worried about it since I'm pretty sure I already have
feline fever, but they neither understand my deep love of mga pusa (cats.)
Some funny things that happned - we were
called down to have some of our district get immunizations and shots. Elder Zou
(from China) asked where we were going, and we said down to the infirmary so our
companion could get some immunizations. He looked at us and said, "So... we're
going to get shot?" Yep. Pretty funny. We're all way proud of him that he's
learning Tagalog from English when he doesn't speak English very well as it is,
but he has a great deal of faith and is very cheerful and able to look at his
challenges with a smile on his face. Good news - I've started speaking Tagalog
in my sleep. One night I woke up and I was saying "Paalam!" which is
"goodbye." That made me pretty happy if my brain is learning it and I don't
even have to put in the effort at night, haha.
Now for the big story - on Wednesday, we
left the MTC and went into the real world. We met up with missionaries who had
already been out in the field for a while, then each of us were assigned to be
temporary companions with one of them. My companion had only been out in the
field for 3 months, and was from Fiji. We also had one of the teachers assigned
to us (she's Filipino but served her mission in South Carolina - she's one of my
favorite teachers here so I was very happy about that.) So, we walked out into
the street after briefly planning for the investigator we would teach. As we
walked, the streets were progressively more and more crowded. I've never felt
quite that out of place in my life, I don't think. People were hollering things
everywhere at each other, at me, staring at me, and I also felt very extremely
tall along with very lost and overwhelmed. The first 10 minutes in the city as
we walked around trying to get on the right jeepney (large old army jeeps
converted into public transport) felt like there were 10 thousand people around
me and only 10 words said I actually knew (minus the people trying to speak
English to me.) I can't fully describe it, but it was super crazy feeling.
Once we got on a jeepney though, I was able to calm down and take some deep
breaths. Still got stared at on the jeepney. The teacher who was with us said,
"Get used to that, whiteness is considered very pretty here and there's not very
many foreigners in the city." I didn't see another palangi (white person) the
entire 5 hours we were out in the city, but I'm cool with that, it just feels
kind of weird to be so... watched. I supposed I've learned now that I do not
like being the center of attention, haha.
The cool part is that the Sister I was with is a missionary in the Manila
mission, and we were within Manila mission boundaries (although that might
change when they split the mission soon and take Cavite City away from us, but I
think we keep this area.) We ended up riding and catching 3 jeepneys for about
50 minutes to get over near the airport, then we walked maybe 15 minutes through
a muddy and rock filled area with a bajillion little tiny houses to get to the
investigator's house. It was VERY different from the U.S., and I will leave it
at that. I never felt unsafe, however.
When we got to the investigator's house,
she was just leaving for work, and scheduled another time to meet. When we
walked to where our back-up person to talk to was, the other Sister who was
companions with the missionary I was with was already there with her MTC
trainees. So, we walked to another house. There was an old man there who we
ended up teaching. The teacher and I had no idea what the missionaries had
taught him before or anything because the Sister we were with didn't tell us
before we went in, so that was a little confusing. I ended up saying the
opening prayer in Tagalog and asking him a few questions. He asked the teacher
how long I had been in the Philippines and when she answered "4 weeks" he was
very impressed and said, "Your Tagalog is very good" although he said it in
Tagalog. However, the longer the appointment went on, the more we realized he
was a very talkative man and that if we were going to get a word in edgewise it
would be difficult (we were on a time crunch to get back to the chapel with the
other missionaries too.) I bore my testimony a few times, and I felt kind of
upset that he cut me off a few times (I was speaking kind of slowly, but not
THAT slowly - I think though that older people can do pretty much whatever they
want here because there's so much respect for those who are aged, which is cool
in many ways) and then the Sister we were with started teaching. I understood
the gist of about 35% of what the investigator said, so I was happy about that.
It was difficult though because every 5 minutes or so a plane would fly DIRECTLY
above us (uncomfortably close) and we'd not be able to talk for about 10 seconds
or more because it was so loud. I was very glad the teacher was there with us
though, because she was able to try and direct the situation back to the lesson
we were trying to teach. The walk and ride back were enjoyable, but we were
quite late getting back.
We'll see what happens, but
apparently there are about 36 missionaries in Palawan out of the 120ish
missionaries in Manila. And they DO send Sisters there. Palawan, according to
most of the Filipinos, is the most beautiful place in the world.
Yep, that's what I've got to say right
now. I hope everyone's having a really good week! We're going out proselyting
again on Wednesday. I leave the MTC on July 3rd. Time flies, but it also drags
by too. I'm learning a lot, and my perceptions of a lot of things are changing
(about 99% of what I experienced in the city was totally different from anything
I'd ever encountered in the U.S.)
Mahal kita everyone (love you!),
Sister Larsen
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