I'm Home!

Just kidding! Still in the Philippines! But this day next year I will be home! Yup one year left... just let it sink in.

We had a good week and it went by pretty fast! Lots of good and lots of not so good.

We did exchanges on Tuesday so that our district leader could interview our candidates and so that I could interview theirs! I was with Elder Baldwin again and it was super weird to be together again haha but it was super fun! We all met up again after working at 7-11 for hotdogs and slurpees!

And we finally have water again! I only went about a week and a half without running water and it really helped me to realize how nice it is to have water! We came home one night and realized that our house was pretty dirty and our yard too! And there were a ton of kids playing in the street so we paid them in oreos to clean up our yard! haha and that's when we realized we had water again!

Our investigators are doing super good! We have one sister named Girly haha and every time we go to her house to teach her she always brings a neighbor of hers! So she is constantly giving us referrals! And she may not understand all the doctrine but she knows the church is true! One of the times we were teaching her a drunk guy came in and tried to argue with us but she shut him up and testified of false doctrine! But her heart is in the right place!

We had 2 baptisms this week! It was supposed to be 4 but we got thrown a curveball the last minute! Literally the last minute! We went to the church for the baptism of Nerissa and her three kids but Nerissa IS a member! Our bishop told us that she got baptized a long time ago but never confirmed so that's why we were going to baptize her again! But last minute they told us that it was just the spelling of her name that was wrong on the records. So her other child was a child of record! But the three kids still got baptized!

The week was pretty much just work work work I thought we had our Zone Conference this week but they scheduled it for the 7th of August we are in charge of catering and of course Training! Our topic is crazy too! "The house of Israel and the Oath and Covenant of the priesthood" Wish us luck!

Palangga ko kamo! Salamat gid!
-Elder Warnick

-The pictures are of me and E. Slater on the broken bridge we have to cross to get to our special sacrament.

Santol Fruit - It's the most unsatisfying fruit in the world! You break it open and put the little pieces in your mouth and suck on is but you never eat any of it! It's just like sucking on a fruit pit but it's like a sweet and sour fruit!

This kid is a stud. Both his feet are crippled but he wears these rain boots and just runs around like a normal kid (I guess no other shoes will work)

Riding in a Tricycle

Me and Elder Slater on the broken bridge we have to cross to get to our special sacrament.

Village by the Beach

The Ocean

Weekly Planning - The house was actually designed by missionaries! So it's just the perfect missionary house!

LIving with a Ginger

This week was good! The new area is super different! Nothing like I have ever had in my whole mission! So I found out that E. Slater has only been here for about 3 weeks so he is way new to the area too! So we are basically just figuring it out together! I realized I never said what my new area is it is called CADUHA-AN (ka-do-wha-an)

My comp is way cool though! Elder Slater he's from Ogden, Utah. We get a long great and our only problem is that sometimes we get carried away talking! haha But he tall and has flaming red hair the kids always freak out when they see him! haha

First things first we live in our area. Like INSIDE we are in the middle of sugarcane fields and we don't have water! haha so we have to pump water into buckets every morning! Freak it's tiring!

Also because we live in our area all the members are constantly telling us that we aren't allowed to be outside after 5:30! I guess some missionaries back in the day used to get held up here! haha Don't worry we are doing fine and nothing seems too sketchy just yet!

The ward is good and we have a special sacrament! We have so much of everything in our area. Beach, sugarcane, mountain, city it's pretty crazy! We even have this weird little village of tiny houses that the government built for typhoon victims!

I think the hardest thing is because we are two Americans when we try going somewhere the drivers always try to jack up the prices and argue with us but E. Slater loves arguing with them he was on a roll one day and somehow got 25% off at JollyBee and later that night argued his way into an investigators house! haha

So for some reason no one ever stops to pick us up so we usually end up waiting forever to get a ride but this morning some cops were driving past and they asked us if we wanted a ride so we took a ride in the cop car this morning on our way to Cadiz.

There is some miracles in our area though. It's really hard to lead our Zone becuase we are the leaders so we have to get tons of lessons and stuff but we also had one baptism set for this saturday and somehow it turned into 4 so now we have 4 this week! It is a long story but basically the family we were teaching thought they were members but they had never been confirmed! We thought they were just Less Active!

It's crazy and fun in our area and I am loving being zone leader! haha It's really not any different than other missionaries but we get to make calls and I am super excited to give some trainings! 

LOVE YOU ALL!
-Elder Warnick

The picture is just an inside look of what it is like to ride in a tricycle here, you even got papa jesus on the windshield! :)

CHICKEN FEET!

The Philippines is the weirdest place in the whole world and I love it! I am sitting in a hot sweaty computer shop right now and all I can hear is American pop music and gunshots from the gamers here haha So the mission doesn't slow down one bit! So much has happened since last week!

This week was interesting the area has been struggling so we decided to try and work in a new area. We had never been there before and I don't think any missionaries had been there! The place was called Luna and it was fun going there and talking to new people but no one was willing to listen to us.

We had Zone Training this week which was fun because Elder Paskett was my Zone Leader and we were in the same district in the MTC so it was cool to see him give training! They slept at our house that night too because transportation to their area only goes once a day!

Transfers were this week and it was all pretty anticipated! Sagay was my longest area so I was pretty sure that I was going to get transferred. AND I was right because now I am here in Cadiz the zone next to my last one and me and my companion are the Zone Leaders! Freak! I didn't see that coming! Usually missionaries become seniors, district leaders THEN Zone leaders but I guess I just skipped being a DL. My companion is Elder Slater my tallest companion! (I have been used to short flipinos) haha I think he is about 6' 3" so two Americans again!

I don't know if there is really anything else that happened this week! It was a slow week except for the transfer! But I am way excited for this new area! It's supposedly super big!

Last week was Balut and this week I had CHICKEN FEET! It was surprisingly good again! haha I don't know if I am just weird now or these flipino delicacies are actually good! Anyway it was pretty tasty!

My ukulele isn't done yet... I checked it out and it is more of a little guitar.. I don't know if the guy really knows what a ukulele is haha But I think it will still be sweet! A member said he would hunt me down and bring it to me because I transferred!

I love the mission. It has ups and downs but man I have never learned so much about so many different things!

Thank you so much for everything! I love you!

Eat some chicken feet this week!

-Elder Warnick

BALUT!

Well this week was good! It was filled with a lot of new stuff so I'll just get right to it!

Last week after we did all our P-day stuff someone told me that there was a member in the first ward that makes guitars. So I told them to take me to his house so I could ask him about Ukulele's. At first he said he wouldn't do it because nobody buys ukuleles here so it would be pretty inconvenient for him but I talked him into it and it's going to be super cheap too! Like $20! haha and it's handmade! WHOOO

The rain has not stopped or slowed down BUT it is amazing because it cools everything down and it's just so nice not to have to be out in the sun or humidity!

Crazy experience with our Pastor investigator this week. We were sharing with him about the Plan of Salvation and he always likes to dive into deep doctrine and usually he just talks about deep deep FALSE doctrine. But we are slowly getting there because after we were sharing he usually asks questions so I took my opportunity to ask questions too and I stumped him! All I asked him was where their priesthood came from. He gave us a huge story about how they received the holy ghost. I explained to them that they were different and then showed him my Priesthood line of Authority.. haha he didn't know what to say after that.

We got a NEW mission president this week so this is my 3rd! haha President Barredo, he is way awesome! I thought it would be hard to transition again to a new mission president but President and his wife have so much love for the missionaries here already! I think it's because they are from Bacolod! But when we met the new mission president we went to another zone and combined with them and my whole MTC district was there except for Elder McCracken, he's down south but it was fun to catch up with everyone! We had to get flu shots! I thought I was done with shots for two years! Also my last two companions are currently companions haha and my last area all the missionaries including me that were assigned to the Silay East ward were there so we took a picture I attached it.

I think this is the newest thing this week... I ate Balut! haha if you don't know what Balut is, you should look it up! haha and the sad thing is it wasn't gross to me! I think I would eat it again! haha but just another thing checked off my to do list while I am in the philippines!

The last thing that happened this week was we had a service project at a members house.. I am not sure exactly what the service project was supposed to be but we just started cleaning up there yard and stuff I think we were supposed to be fixing there roof but no members showed up so it was just us. Anyway we worked for about 20 minutes and it started pouring rain.. we ended up waiting inside their house because they won't go outside in the rain. We wanted to finish or go home but the member started cooking for us so we ended up waiting 5 HOURS! haha oh philippines...

Today is my 11th month on my mission! I am loving it though, it's flying by and I am just trying to make the best of every moment!

Palangga ko kamo!
-Elder Warnick

Floods, parades and santos!

Things are pretty awesome here in the Phillies! Hard and hot but still awesome!

We have always had problems with members working with us in this area even ward missionaries and leaders always say that they are busy!  But our ward mission leader worked with us everyday this week and it was super FUN! I had a lot of fun this week I kind of dug myself out of whatever rut I was in and we got a lot of work done!

We kept working in our crazy area where we had to cross the river and this week because it rained so much it was completely flooded! We couldn't even see the rocks needed to cross so long story short I ended up falling in! haha the water was way muddy but it still felt good to cool off!

It's still raining so crazy everyday just pouring and pouring but we still will be out in the middle of it! People give us the weirdest looks as they see us trudging through the puddles and downpours but a long time ago I realized that no matter what people are going to stare at me because I am tall, skinny and white! haha

The members (most of them) have been really awesome lately and I don't know if it is because I have been here a while or what but a lot of them have had us over for dinner and snacks and stuff while working!

I finally got to see Meet the Mormons! I know it has been out for a while but we never got to see it until Saturday night our ward was having an activity and we all went to the church and got to watch it! It was awesome! But I am sure you all know that!

I bought a airsoft gun this week! :) hahaha let's just say the neighborhood is a lot more quite lately because the dogs are definitely scared of me now! haha

So one last experience to show just how weird the philippines is and the catholic church here as well.. so we came back from working one day and we were with our WML Jankit and we were going to go to Angels (it's like a popular burger place here) anyway as we tried to cross the street we saw all these people holding torches and dancing and stuff I though they were like some mob but then I realized they were holding those weird catholic statues they are called santos here anyway they were all chanting and stuff and it was just one of the weirdest things I have experienced here.. Weird Catholic parades.

That was my week! Love you all!
-Elder Warnick

Crossing the River

Happy Father's Day!

Yay this week was fast! Which means I am back into a routine! It's always hard to readjust when you transfer or get a new companion or just have to deal with anything new!

It was a good week though! On Monday most of the Elders in my zone went to the beach in Old Sagay and we were going to take a boat out to an Island but none of us had money so we all kind of just walked around and took some pictures! Our mission is pretty strict if you don't already know, usually in other missions I think it's allowed to wear regular clothes on P-day when you are out doing stuff but here no matter what we still have to wear missionary attire.. haha oh well

So Fiestas ruin a missionary's work day.. And the Philippines love fiestas! If one town has a fiesta as soon as it is over the neighboring town will have one too. This week there was a huge Fiesta in one of our areas so nobody was home! It actually was so bad that we had 0 investigators at church this week! But it's okay the Pelarios parents got confirmed and Roldan (the dad) was wearing a nice new shirt and slacks! They were way excited and it just felt good to know that we had helped a family!

It's definitely rainy season again and I realized I didn't have an umbrella.. (I gave it away to a member a couple months ago) so we had to find umbrellas this week and it actually was really hard to find a decent umbrella in the middle of a country that is always raining!

Also speaking of the rain it made it super hard to walk this week! BECAUSE I realized that I had a hole at the bottom of my rubber shoes.. haha and of course everything was super muddy! We had some new investigators that live behind the Pelarios family but by behind I mean way far behind them across a river haha and the path down to the river is just steep enough and just muddy enough that we basically slipped down the whole way.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! I didn't think they celebrated it here but yesterday at church everyone kept telling me happy father's day. haha so I still don't think they get it! But just wanted to thank my father for everything he has done for me and my family! He was probably the first person who helped instil in me a desire to serve a mission and he's a great example of how a father should be! LOVE YOU DAD!

Palanga ko kamo!
-Elder Warnick

Beach

River we had to cross

Don't hate me cause this email so short..

This isn't going to be too long of an email because nothing really is too new!

The weather has been super hot and it rained a lot too! The whole deal resulting in a big fever.. for me.. yeah it was awesome! But it's all good I am over it now!

We had our baptism on Saturday for the Pelarios parents they were way excited and I got to baptize both of them so now their whole family are members! It was a pretty cool moment.

It poured this week so much rain. One night we got caught in the middle of it and got completely soaked! I think it was the most wet I have ever been!

We had a Zone Training and right now both my MTC companions are in my zone so we had kind of weird reunion and it's weird to see how people change!

But I am doing great and still learning a ton! Even though there are a lot of struggles with the new comp it's been helping me a ton with perfecting my language!

Thanks for everything!
-Elder Warnick