This Strange Country

1/3/11
So, just like every week in this strange country, it has been an interesting week. To start things off we had exchanges on Tuesday. Elder Scott came to Elder Clark and I went back to San Enrique with Elder Whitman. It was nice to be back with him. Busted out all of our inside jokes again. Our schedule in SE was going to take us to Helbert's house, they are teaching his g-ma, but no one was home, so I didn't get to see him. He would have been really happy to see me.

So, Wednesday I returned to La Carlota to find out that Elder Gruninger was being emergency transfered on Thursday due to girl problems. One of their investigators got this crazy crush on him and was texting them two weeks ago, the office told him to be bold in telling her that that kind of stuff can't happen, and she stopped for a week. So Wednesday about 1:30 she and a friend show up at the house and demand to see E. Gruninger. Elder Clark and I had to deal with them while Grunny hid in our room listening to the conversation. We pulled E. Daniels in to help us too. They were there for an hour before we could even close the door. Then they just sat outside and shouted at the house. They left after about 20 minutes of that. We figured that they would be waiting at the terminal to get to the area, so they couldn't leave. 15 minutes later they came back and just start knocking on the door and shouting.

We spent 15-20 minutes coming up with a plan of escape. Luckily our house has a back door too, and they weren't watching it anymore. So the zone leaders snuck out while we kept an eye on the girls. Then we snuck out too and headed to the sisters apartment. We were doing a last dinner there for E. Gruninger, the Bicol Express we had been planning. Everything went well after that. It was sad to see Elder Gruninger leave on Thursday morning. He's really cool. Glad I had the chance to live in the same house as him and have him as a zone leader. So they took him to the office and will be AP next transfer because the two current APs go home at the end of the transfer.


Thursday Elder Clark was having stomach problems, so we were not able to go out. Elder Clark was in and out of the bathroom. 'Gaboraguet sia! Friday was fun though. Not much work got done. New Years Eve and all. People were all preparing for later that night and we had to be in early. President Tobias was really nice to us and allowed us to watch Disney cartoons and stay up as late as we wanted. So we watched Toy Story 3, Bolt (Elder Clark hadn't seen it), The Incredibles, and Tangled! Tangled was really good! Audio was bad quality so sometimes we had a hard time understanding what as being said, but we loved it! Yay for pirated DVDs!!!!

Answers to mom's questions: As far as church starting late, it always starts late, usually at 9:30 though. But since they still want to get out at the same time we shorten, sometimes just skip, priesthood class. Yeah, it is interesting...

O, typical New Years celebrations here in the Philippines just involve tons of loud ground fireworks (firecrackers) and everyone getting drunker earlier. That's how most people are at least.

Man I miss snow... But I'll get it next year. My happy, and trunky, thought for New Years was that next New Years I'll be home.

Love you all!!!

Elder Jordan Phelps