Eating Filipino

Dear Hermana and Elder,

Filipino food is delicious, but often unhealthy.  For example, they don't eat any raw vegetables, but lots of rice with ulam (topping for the rice, usually meat and cooked vegetables) and they have wonderful desserts.  Too many wonderful desserts--Dad is good at not eating them, but my skirts are getting tight!  My favorite food here is fresh mango--it is delicious, and it's not even mango season yet.  And in a mango float (whipping cream, etc) it's even better.

There are a couple of elders who everyone wants as a companion because they are such good cooks.  Every month we invite missionaries who live close-by to come to the mission home for dinner, and one of the great cooks, Elder Ronda, came and taught me how to make chicken adobo.  He was super nervous to cook at the mission home, but eventually he got comfortable, and in the end he asked what he would have to do to be hired as our cook!  Five of the missionaries who came came from Leyte, in the area of the devastating typhoon, Yolanda, and told of loosing their homes, and being without food for two weeks.  All of them survived on coconuts and eating ferns.  They told of the church delivering canned goods and how grateful their families were to have food again.  And they all loved the rice, chicken adobo, and Aunt Mila's brownie recipe, which we enjoyed for dessert.

This week Dad interviewed missionaries and I checked their area books and planners.  I learned a lot about effective planning (blank planners=ineffective missionaries), that each teaching record represents a soul, and that the missionaries who update their books regularly really care about this work.  One very sad companionship accidentally left their area book on the bus (a lot of lost souls!) but are praying for a miracle recovery. 

Every day seems to go by in a whirl and I can hardly remember what happened.  And on the other hand, it's like "Groundhog Day" because in some ways it's all the same.  In another way, it's like (as Chris described) "Whack a Mole" because you just think everything is going well and something else pops up.  Some of the problems are stranger than fiction and I can't even write about them because they're too weird. I understand better now why obedience is the first law of heaven--my mom used to say, "An obedient child is a happy child, " which was super annoying.  Now I'm annoying the missionaries by saying, "An obedient missionary is a happy missionary!"

I would write more but I am too tired and am going to Manila early in the morning to get my Filipino Drivers' License, which I'm not sure I want.  I drove myself to the mall Saturday morning to go grocery shopping, which is a big accomplishment. There are no rules, and it's amazing there aren't more accidents.  Well, one of our senior couples did get in an accident today and spent the afternoon in the police station.  Dad drove to two baptisms yesterday and didn't want me to go because one of the places is super dangerous--bad traffic and high crime.  The baptism this morning (photo below) is a sweet family referred by a member in Valenzuela.  At the MP Seminar, Sister Bowen told us she read that it's one of the safest cities in world.  We choked when she said that -- I think that must be Valenzuela, Louisiana.  As Dad told a culture-shocked new missionary from Leavenworth, Kansas, "This isn't Kansas, Dorothy!"

Seeing these investigators enter the waters of baptism -- even though the water is green -- makes it all worth it.  They bore testimonies after their baptism, and while I couldn't understand their Tagalog, I understood the Spirit and the light in their countenances. 

Love,

Mom

The Cook, Elder Ronda

Dinner guests

Sunday morning baptism

These two elders are companions and both boxers--sweet and gentle.  I just like to take photos so I never forget their faces.  Every missionary has a story, often sad. (On the left, only member of church among 16 siblings, home destroyed in typhoon.  On the right, story too sad to write.)