Monday, September 27, 2010

It's raining, It's pouring.

Minamahal ang pamilya ko,
Well, it is what it is - the Philippines.

This past week it rained, and it rained, and it rained. And want to know the best part? Our ceiling leaks. No, the best part is it gets cooler outside for a short period of time. :)

I've gotten pretty dang good at handwashing clothes although it is a lot more work than just loading them into the dryer, and I'm so thankful you raised me knowing how to take a "shower" with a bucket and pot-thing. It's definitely still a bit of a culture shock.

I'm trying my best to work hard still though. I've kept a foot at the MTC with my friends and memories so I'm trying my best to remember that my loyalty is here now. It's been rough leaving them, but I know they're all doing well and am excited for their future. I'm so thankful that I was able to stay the full two months and wasn't transferred early like they had initially said or else I wouldn't have been able to meet the people I met.

This week I've had to learn a lot on self motivation.

We were really busy this week.

Last Monday went by pretty quick. I got my first haircut here by a bakla (cross-dresser) because I guess they're the only people that cut hair here. He/she cut my whole head with just a pair of scissors - to my surprise it came out really well! Other than the fact that I was extremely uncomfortable the whole time.

Tuesday we had nine appointments.

Wednesday I was able to go on splits with the zone leaders because my trainer had some kind of new training for a new teaching thing. It was awesome - our zone leaders are amazing and I learned so much from them. They definitely were called as zone leaders for a reason. They taught me so much in the day that I spent with them and I'll continue to go on splits with them for the next three weeks.

Thursday we had seven appointments.

Friday we had eight appointments.

Saturday we had a "temple tour" which was amazing. The Manila temple is actually in our mission, so exclusive to our mission, we get to take the people we are teaching there and the sister missionaries teach them about the temple and the things that go on inside the temple. We started by singing a hymn called "Lord, I will Follow Thee" which was absolutely beautiful. We had just the right amount of sisters and elders and poly's to pull of an amazing sound. By the time we were done singing, there wasn't a person in the room who wasn't crying. We had four more appointments that day.

Sunday we had church for six hours, six appointments, and a dinner appointment.

And well, now we're here.

This past week I've had to teach myself a lot about self-motivation.

My trainer is an amazing person, but this week I realized how much my progress was lacking. We would go and teach lessons and I wouldn't say a word because he assumed I didn't want to say anything and didn't have anything to say. I started to get offended because he thought I couldn't do it. He wasn't pushing me and it wasn't helping. To top it off, he speaks absolutely zero Tagalog to me. There was one lesson where I got really, really angry because I had so much to say, but he had his back to me the whole time. I could feel the anger speed my breathing and tense my hands and I realized that this contention would affect our teaching. So I prayed, hard. And then like a smack in the face, my thoughts started to race. I had no right to be mad at my trainer. He was just doing what we had been doing. I had never talked before so why would I expect him to think otherwise now. He's here to train me and of course, push me, but just because I don't feel like he is pushing me doesn't mean I can't push myself. I realized that this was just another trial for me. He's not perfect and neither am I, but I shouldn't need him to push me. I should push myself to speak Tagalog when he speaks to me. I should push myself to open my mouth when he's teaching and put my two cents in. I should push myself to be a better missionary and person everyday. I realized that you can't depend on someone else to be there, babying you the whole way. If I'm going to need someone to push me everytime I want to progress for the rest of my life, I'm not going to get much of anywhere.

So for now, I'm doing my best to be my best. It's still hard and people still mock me but I just use that as motivation. No matter how much I'm made fun of, I'm proud that I have the opportunity to live where I live and was raised the way I was.

Next week, I'll make sure to save time to tell you about the people we're teaching since I didn't this week or last week. I hope all is well with everyone. Be safe and I love you lots!

Love,
Eric