11/16/14

This week was pretty fast. It rained every day this week. Felt like it was never going to end. When it rains here it pours. I came back to the apartment every day soaking wet. Made me really appreciate cars and transportation that doesn't get you soaked. This week we made a goal to find new investigators and so we did. We now have 15 new investigators and are working with them to be able to teach them the gospel! It’s really neat! Most of them are part of a family but 2 of them are individuals and they are amazing. One of the girls is studying to become a teacher so she speaks a little English. She is so anxious to learn and doing really well at understanding. We are working at setting up a time with one of the other investigators. We didn’t have time this week to do any laundry so we took it to the laundry place and had them do it. hahaha. Funniest thing ever, but I had clean clothes.

So I have made it a goal of mine to become a consecrated missionary so I’m doing my best to become that. It’s been hard this week to work and focus because of stupid side things that happen but I can feel the difference when I put all my energy into making people come unto Christ. I gave my 4th talk since I’ve been here. Crazy! I don’t think anybody understands but it’s great. We only had 48 in sacrament meeting, sad day. My companion got a little frustrated about it so we tried to talk about it a little. It was just a rough day. Appointments didn’t work out and we had to walk for ever. Got my first blisters but they aren’t even bad.

I am loving cooking. My companion says I’m the best ever. haha yeah right. We met an Australian, soo good to speak English to him. and best of all I decided to start a workout plan. My abs are hurting so bad. hopefully I will lose some weight while I’m here. 

I know this is short only had a little time, but these were the highlights of the week. Hope all is well for all of you. Love you all.

Love, 

Elder Carlton

Homesick :(

So this week has been pretty great. We got to teach lessons. I am doing slightly better at the language but I’m still lost with everything everyone says. It’s really bad. So this week we had the AP's stop by our apartment. It was really neat. One of the elders I look up to was an AP so my goal is to be better than him. I don’t know how it’s going to work though. It’s hard work here. So as most of you know, I have to do all my wash by hand. So mom teaching me how to use the washer and dryer was kind of time wasted for now anyways. I was glad I knew how to use it in the mtc though.

This week I got really homesick. I really wanted to go home but as I read the scriptures and did my best to be the best I could be I was strengthened and comforted by the Lord. It’s amazing what the scriptures can do. I was really happy to experience that. I have a special gift. I am able to talk to anybody and they seem to listen or it feels like it anyways or it’s because I’m white. It’s fun. I’m getting stuff made here so when I come back in a little more than 650 days I’ll be able to show everyone. It’s a long time away. It’s going to be forever. Well I have 2 weeks down now, only 10 more to go till I’m done with training. I’ll be spending Christmas and New Years here. yay me. Seems like it’s such a long time away. 

So this week was pretty special, all our plans fell through on Saturday so we didn’t know what to do so we said a prayer and it’s amazing how the Lord works. We both felt the same impression to go a certain way and sure enough we found someone to teach. 

I’m struggling with the language like no other. I cried myself to sleep because it’s so hard to learn. 

I really love the people here. They are so loving and invite you in every time you come. 

I’ve dropped 2 belt loop sizes since I’ve been here, so my nickname of chubby is starting to fade. It’s a struggle because my companion is really skinny so I look like I’m 3 times his size. 

My feet have never hurt so bad in my life from walking. My shoes I’ve had for a year now are starting to wear down so hopefully I’ll be able to make them last a while longer. 

I really miss American food, rice gets old after the first few days. lol.

The city here shuts down when it gets dark and most people are in bed by 8 or 9 so we have a hard time teaching at that time of night.

Well I know this is the Lord’s work and that he is watching over us and wants us to be the best we can, all we have to do is trust in the Lord. 

love you all

Elder Carlton

Spider in the shower

Dry clothes - took four days to dry

We Had a Baptism

Sorry this is late and it’s going to be shorter than normal.  The internet is really slow and I don’t have a lot of time or money so I will have to make due. 

Life has gotten better as the week went on. We didn’t have any water for 3 days. Showering after 3 days feels so good, even if it is with a bucket. We are in the process of trying to recover the area from a tragic drop in numbers. It went from 87 to 50 so we are working with a lot of less actives. I’m starting to get the language. Joke, not really. I can pick up on words and use my super brain to figure out what is going on. It’s hard. I come home every night and I am dead because it’s hard work. I’m going to have such a nice tan when I get back. It is so sunny here. The houses on the water are super cheap compared to the inland houses. Totally opposite of America. There are not many beaches here. We got to go to one yesterday and it was so pretty.

 So I got to perform my first baptism. His name was Rodel. My companion didn’t want to take his stuff so I did it. It was so cool. Nobody really understood me and the water was ice cold, but you could totally feel the spirit. Amazing. So he was part of some mob that killed people so yeah...... but he has changed. He has a glow in his eyes. It’s so cool! 

So Friday was Halloween. When people party here, they party. Our apartment was right next to it so we didn’t sleep much. It started at like 5 and went till 3 in the morning. THEY HAD LIKE 50 SPEAKERS. It was so loud, but I didn’t have any desire to go to it at all. My companion on the other hand was longing for the moment I would say we could go, but it didn’t happen. I didn’t get home sick at all this week. There’s no time for it really. I think I’ve seen a Filipino version of every person I know back home. It’s so creepy sometimes, but at those times I think of all the support they give me to do better. So story time. Do you know the big oil tankers? Well we got to ride on the back of one. It was pouring rain so I got drenched but none of my stuff did. Love my bag. Then my companion decided to jump off and go on another truck, well I didn’t know what was going on and by the time someone explained it to me it was too late. So we were separated for like 15 min. Coolest experience, but I broke a big rule. It stinks because I didn’t know what was going on. It’s difficult to understand when you don’t know the language. Well that’s all I really have. Pictures hopefully will follow. I’m doing great right now and am excited for the new week. Love you all. Jordan

I drew a box around the area where I think Jordan is serving.

Looks like one of the tikis Jordan talks about.

10/27/14

So let me start by saying that missionary life is hard and it stinks. I love serving the people but it’s hard being away from everything. I am in the city of San Isidro. It’s in northern Samar and 7 hours away from the mission home. I don’t understand a single thing that anybody says. I’m really trying though. My companion is Elder Neilson. He is from Utah. He has been out for a little over a year. He’s great. He is very supportive of me. So this area I am in was white washed, meaning that both elders were taken out of the area, so both of us are new to the area. The previous elders didn’t do much. They were lazy and didn’t follow the rules much. The branch I am in is very excited to have new elders that are ready to work and share the gospel. My first night in the area I had squid and rice. It was so good. That was the only thing I ate that whole day. It was so good. The members here are really sweet and invite you in all the time. 

So a lot of people were wondering about Tacloban. It is pretty much fixed up and ready to go, except the airport. It is still under construction. The mission home is so pretty and stands out. Everything here is very poor but the people love to please you. The sick apartment is pretty small and when transfer day came around there were 20 something elders in the house. It was pretty tight. After getting my new companion we went to lunch and had smoothies. I had mango. It was so good. Perfect because it is so hot here. We loaded the cars and left for our area. I was really sad. I felt safe there and what everyone had said the area I was going to didn’t have much. They were right. There were a few shops but that was about it. Our apartment is really big for the area we are in. It’s so not home though. The bedroom is in front and then our changing room then the bathroom and shower room and kitchen are in the back of the house. The sink is outside. The bed feels like it is going to fall apart every night. We have three fans for the house, 2 in the bedroom and one for the rest. Every night you go to bed drenched in sweat even if you shower and then wake up freezing cold because of the fan. We were fortunate enough to not have any sort of remains left over from the previous elders. They were really not helpful to progressing the work but it’s ok. We are going to rock the next 12 weeks at least. The best part was there were 2 bills that didn’t get paid so we don’t have water as of right now. Not good for the weather we have. lol 

So every morning I try to shower. We have a shower head but the pressure isn’t very strong so I get to have a bucket shower every morning. You fill the bucket up and use the cup to wash the soap off. It’s really fun, takes forever. The best part, it’s freezing cold. Our apartment is right off the ocean so we can see it as we leave every morning. It’s pretty cool. Some of the other elders,  a little farther north are right on the ocean. Lucky them.

 I mentioned it was hot here. It’s pretty hot but it’s more humid more than anything. I don’t have any dry paper. All of my notebooks are soft. Didn’t think I would ever take that for granted until now. Makes its hard to write things. I also learned I sweat a lot. My shirts are so soaked by the end of the day that they prob weigh a pound each. Because they are so wet they rub on my neck and my neck is raw as can be. It’s lovely. My shirts kill to wear.

I have been having a really hard time here being away from everyone. I don’t adjust to change very well. It is hard for me so it’s been a struggle the past few days. But I have a goal to get over it in the next 12 weeks so hopefully I can achieve that.

1 peso =0.02

5=0.10

10=0.20

20=0.41

50=1.02

100=2.05

500=10.27

1000=20.55

I get 8000 pesos a month

Needless to say everything is pretty inexpensive. But we only have so much each month and we have to pay bills and traveling. I finally am putting the skills I was taught into place. I have a stash of emergency money. My companion is pretty much paying for everything even when I try to help he pays anyways. So I got pretty lucky. 

When we got to the area we didn’t know anything so we looked on the phone (everyone here has phones. The indestructible Nokia) and we called the ward misson leader. He is 18 and has been the biggest help to all of us here. It is so nice to have him. He doesn’t understand English so I am trying hard to communicate with him. 

My companion loves him to death. I guess he is a lot like him so it’s neat to have him. My companion talks to him all the time so I feel left out all the time. He told me yesterday that my companion loves that I smile and nod even though I have no idea what’s going on. 

There are tikis everywhere they crawl on the walls so let’s say I go to sleep in fear that one is going to be on me in the morning. It’s great. There is a party every night outside our house so I have a hard time going to sleep. 

 Now for the spiritual side of things. I have been really blessed to have the Lord bless me in my life. He is watching out for me even though I feel like I am alone a lot. The members here are very loving and they have the spirit with them. They try their best to do what they can to build up the kingdom. We had 45 people at sacrament meeting Sunday. And I had to give a talk.  Great day for me. Everyone laughed at me. I still don’t know why.  I guess I have an American accent or something. 

Well I love all of you guys and want you to know that  I know God lives and he answers prayers and that if we really ask him he will answer us. I know that I am doing the Lord’s work and that he is really watching out for me. 

 LOVE,

Jordan

10/20/14

So long story short. I am here in the peans. Manila is so pretty. There are lots of palm trees and crazy drivers. I thought I was going to die the first time I drove in a car. It was scary. Anyways, the MTC here in Manila is super small. All the church complexes are right next to each other. The MTC and general authority building are on one side of the street and the temple is on the other. I get to go there today. We were really lucky that we got to go.

It is so humid here. UGH, jk. It’s not as bad as you think. It feels like a humid day after a rainstorm, everyday, but it’s not that humid. It isn’t as bad as you would think. It’s not unbearable.

So the plane ride was really long. I slept a total of like 4 hours the whole time. One of the kids was only awake for four hours. So we got to the airport in Japan and we looked around at some of the shops and admired the bathrooms. They were pretty cool. Didn’t know they were exactly like the ones that were in the movie "Cars." I laughed for awhile at them. So we rode on an airbus plane. Those things are huge. Do you know how hard it is to be on a long plane ride and only be able to watch the plane moving on the screen? It’s horrible. Well we got in to Manila at like 12:43 and we didn’t get through customs until like 1. We then had to exchange money and wait for everyone. It took a while and then it was an hour ride to the MTC so we didn’t get there until like 2. We had a brief meeting about a quick overview of everything, so we didn’t get to bed until like 3 and we had to be up by 7 the next morning. It was crazy. Well it was really cool. We got to go on splits with elders from around the area. It was so neat to talk to people and  listen to how fast they talk. We got to teach someone and ride in a trike. It was a tight fit. We came back that night and ate dinner. They eat rice with every meal. Even breakfast. Good thing I like rice. It just has no flavor sometimes. So the food is really good. It is always rice and some sort of meat, and water. We then went to bed at 8, much needed. I adjusted to the time zone pretty quickly so I didn’t have too hard of a time sleeping.

Sunday was really neat. There are only 200 missionaries here so we had sacrament meeting with all of them. Felt like I was at home. We then got to take pictures and then we studied and took a quick nap. I was really happy for that. Monday my companion wanted to wake up early to go to gym, so 5 am he was up ready to go. Crazy polys. So we had gym for 2 hours instead of the normal 1 hour.  We went to get our visa's extended and while we were there we met this lady, her name was Precious. As we were talking  to another man we noticed that she was kind of trying to listen to us but without making it obvious. I noticed it and we went and talked to her. She was really interested in the gospel or at least she seemed like she did. We talked to her about the gospel and she said she wanted to know more so we got her information and the missionaries in this area will be contacting her soon. It was a really neat experience for us to be able to teach her. It reminded me of the movie the best two years where Elder Calhoon was like I talked to him. While he was in the store sharing about the Book of Mormon taking out Kyle’s wine he was buying. That scene. So that leads to today where we went to the temple. It was so cool. I want to do that again.

So I’ll tell you guys a little about here. It’s very humid. It’s beautiful. It is so loving. Everything is super cheap. I have grown to love the people here. They are always laughing even though they don’t have much at all. They love to hear me speak English. Everyone is really sweet. There are lots of byotes here. byotes=gay. So they have parades and play all sorts of games and it’s weird. So anyway, they think that when they are gay that they should be the opposite sex so they dress up and act like gay people. It’s really weird.

I’ll send some pictures, hope you enjoy them.