First Letter from the Philippines!

Hi Family!!!!!!!!!! How are you all doing?? Man it is good to write you! I missed it last week! I wrote you a long letter about our travels and everything so I won't talk too much about that. All you really need to know is that is took about 38 hours to get to the mission home. We were so exhausted!!!!!! On Friday I got my companion, her name is Sister Sandoy, and she is so great. She is from Southern Philippines, somewhere that I can't pernounce/remember. But she has been so helpful with everything. If she didn't know a little bit of english, I probably would be crying myself to sleep every night. But she is so awesome! I am really blessed to have her as my first companion. Our area is called Carmen and it is in the Rosales zone. Maybe you can google maps it and see where I am, because I have no idea!! We are opening an area so right now we are just trying to find people to teach. We have one investigator, maybe two. I don't understand a lot that goes on, so I think we have two. There are two sisters in our apartment and they are great. One is foreign (from the Utah) and the other one is native. She doesn't speak a lot of english, so I try my broken Tagalog on her and her companion translates for me haha. Heavenly Father is really so aware of us. I have felt that so much in my first area. I have the perfect trainer for me and I also have been blessed to be with those other two sisters. It has really given me hope seeing sister Allen (foreign) being able to communicate so well in this language. I know that there is hope for me!! :)
So we got here on Friday night and went to a family home evening. It was pretty fun. I didn't understand like anything, but the members are soooo nice and tried their hardest to communicate with me. The kids here are so cute! They love the foriegners, that's what I've been told at least. And I have been able to tell. They will touch my hair and poke my nose (because it sticks out). It is pretty cool. They fed us at FHE too. The food was really yummy! People here eat rice at every meal. And I don't mind it. It is really yummy! The weirdest thing I have eaten so far is this green jello stuff. It is really hard to explain, but it is like strips of gelatin that that is kind of slimy and stuff in like green coconut milk... Ok I'm not describing that well, but I have no idea how to describe it. It tasted pretty good, you just had to get past the look of it.

On Saturday we went to a baptism for an investigator for Sister Allen and Sister Parina. It was supposed to start at 2 but it didn't start until around 2:45... Funny. But I thought it was really great. Then he bore his testimony and even though I didn't know what he was saying, I could feel the spirit. But guess what?? He didn't show up to his confirmation. And they met with him last night and he said he didn't want to come to church any more. I don't know what happened between his baptism and church, but satan was working on him. So the other sister have half of the ward and we have the other half. So we are in the same ward, just different parts. Saturday two sisters in our ward walked around with us for a couple of hours to meet people that are in the ward. It was really nice of them to help us like that. Saturday night we had an appointment with a boy named Brother Jersey, he said that he could only meet after seven because he had something really important before. We went to the church for something that was told to me but I didn't understand and there was a fireside, and Brother Jersey was there. He hasn't taken the lessons yet, but I feel like he is ready to be baptized. If his something important is a fireside then that is really awesome. How many 18 boys would say that? We are teaching him tonight, so hopefully it goes well.

So yesterday was our first sunday, so of course we spoke and introduced ourselves to everybody. I tried my hardest to do it all in Tagalog. I hope they understood what I was trying to say. After the bishop asked if this was my second area because I knew Tagalog. So I guess that's a good thing. But when it comes to the understanding, that is a lot harder. In church I can get by because most of the vocab I know is church related. So that's good. They always call on my to pray or do a spiritual thought. Maybe because they want to give me practice or something. But it is pretty funny. After church we went to MCM (missionary something meeting) and PEC. It was about 3.5 hours of Tagalog. I think I understood about 1% of it. Every once in a while they would say my name and I would smile. Then they would say they should speak in english so I could understand, then somebody would say no we need to speak in Tagalog so she will learn, so they would continue. It is pretty funny.

So basically I am having a great experience. I can't wait until I get to the point where I understand what is being said. I feel like I am not helping a ton in my companionship, but I am trying. I really do love it here, despite the hotness and the water.... But that's ok. This is the Lords work. I am so honored and humbled to be able to be His servant here in the Philippines. It really is so humbling. The people here are so amazing!! Ang Simbahan ay totoo. Mahal ko ito. I love you family so much! Thank you for everything you do for me! Remember the Lord in all things. I always say to myself D&C 6:36-37. I love that scripture. Thank you and love you!!!!

Love Sister Palmer