Week 43

sorry I'm really busy this week because it's transfer week, lots of lessons and stuff with members! I'm helping get the district set up. I cant really do much of a letter this week I'm sorry! I love the new changes of the missionary rules so much, it takes a lot of stress off on me as a missionary. The super bowl party looked fun! I loved the video, glad to see everyone!

Love you all
Elder Yarro 

week 42

Biggity birthday!

 Monday! We had another FHE in Balanacan and played uno and the last person to have cards got his face drawn on with lipstick....it was me....

Tuesday! we went to visit a member in the hospital and check on him, as we went through the hospital all these moms asked if we could give their newborn babies a name and a blessing. I told them it would be great but won't do anything unless they understand the gospel more and have faith, then got a lot more new people to teach!

Wednesday! For the district meeting we ate cake and ice cream!!!

 

It looks better than it tastes trust me on that. Desserts here are waaay less sweet. imagine bread with sugar.... looks cool, but didn't even finish it

 Thursday! my birthday I'm 20 years old.....I love manhood! I feel the exact same.....hahah not much else.

Friday! we had exchanges in Gasan. went and taught a lot of people! There are only like maybe 40 buildings on the whole island haha, most people here live in shacks, they are made out of some weird kind of wood, this stuff called yero. or sometimes cement. It's a nice build but not really stable. and most of the time the floors are dirt or they put some kind of thin plastic to look like floor.

Saturday! Was awesome! we had this hike to the Luzom Datum, or the heart of the Philippines, it is apparently the geographical center of the entire country....or maybe i dunno hahahah but it was super fun most of the branch came! Then they secretly brought a banner with my name on it and sang happy birthday! 

Sunday! we had church then taught English class.  one example, we asked this girl to use the different kinds of "have" she said "I have a happy family." then said "I have to make you suffer." and I DIED 

 LAUGHING!

Love you all
Elder Yarro

Week 41

Monday! had another FHE they are the best here and they bring in so many new investigators our goal is try to do one every P-Day.

Tuesday! We tried to follow the branch to find service but the branch leaves us out in the wind so there ended up being no service so we went back to teaching.

Wednesday! had another Dm and ate at panciton again. normal day none the less. started second exchanges.

Thursday! went to boac again and taught this less active had a really good lesson with her. shes super nice and went back to church from what I heard.

Friday! went and taught a bunch of lessons in Boac.

Saturday! returned and taught a bunch more lessons invited everyone to church

Sunday! had a lot of our investigators come to church. it was crazy. We gave the talks I talked about the book of mormon and talked about how important it is.

 It gets kind of real here sometimes. like the work alone is the only thing getting me through sometimes and even then its not enoug, Im Ok but it is a lot of stress.

I had a dream that got me down the other night. It was actually pretty funny, so I was borrowing granpa Y's truck and drove it to a play. Then when I got back the truck I ralized the truck got stolen, so I went with grandpa and grandma to find it. It turns out it was this GIANT driving mansion that takes cars and re-sells them illegally. So the three of us pretended to be party guests and snuck in, I pretended to be this snotty italian boy, and they pretended to be my parents. To sneak in the part with the truck I pretended to punch grandpa in the face and during the commotion grandmas was fake crying I snuck in and took the keys and we went off with the truck.hahaha

I just got me sad because my first thought when I woke up was...oh yea they're gone.

But I'm over it now. the work is going so well here its crazy.

Thats pretty murch all going on here.

Love you all
Elder Yarro

Week 40

Monday! so we had this huge family home evening of like 20 people and it was a huge success we met tons of new people and asked to teach their families. we played uno and had lots of fun!

 

Tuesday! We went and taught all the new people we met the night before and it was awesome!Then we hunted some buko! we took our machetes and cut them open and drank their inards (buko is coconut so no, I;m not a cannibalistic freak) 

 

Wednesday! We had district meeting and we ate at this place called panciton it was delicious. but kind of awkward because the waitress kept hitting on me, they like American boys here. I kept telling her about my "girlfriend" but she didn't care. but hey discounts!

Thursday! We had weekly planning. then we had exchanges and I went to Boac, We did service and I sliced my finger open!!! AWESOME!! then we went back and cooked mashed potatoes and gravy with chicken freak it was so good.

Friday! We tracted all day it was hard because their area is struggling. It's okay though they are great missionaries.

Saturday! We returned and taught and gave a book of mormon to this guy named Rally, he's really cool and just a nice funny guy. He is a catholic and used to teach gospel at the high school near his house but he feels like a lot of Catholics are hypocrites and the doctrine is weird.

Sunday. we ate dinner at a members house and then Rally called and told us that the BOM was the best thing hes ever read and wants to be baptized super bad.

Love you all
Elder Yarro

Week 39

Finally a skype!

Week 38

OH BOY GUYS YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE HOW CRAZY THIS WEEK HAS BEEN HOLY CRAP.

wish I got a tshirt for surviving a catagory 4 typhoon on an island in the Philippines!

okay here's some context. last Sunday around 3 am a big typhoon his (her name is Nina shes a jerk) she has 150 mph winds. From what I heard it was so bad the island was considered in a state of calamity. "Following the devastation wrought by Typhoon Nina, the Sangguniang Panlalawigan ng Marinduque has declared the entire island-province of Marinduque under a State of Calamity. Acting on the recommendation of the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (PDRRMC), the Sanggunian under..."

anyways it pretty much wrecked the entire island. We finally got power for a little while yesterday and water. So all week we literally have been building houses and being disgusting. We have been boiling water and sweating. It's probably the best part of my mission so far.

So Monday morning. (the night before I stocked up on food and put all my district under one house so we could all be safe) the 5 of us woke up at 3 am to the typhoon and it was crazy. We kept making jokes and videos all night hahahah. we only slept like 3 hours,  and during that time a giant tree fell onto our door so when we woke up we could not go outside. so we went to the kitchen and grabbed a bunch of kitchen knives and machetes and went to work on the tree,  it took us about 3 hours before we could get out. After that we spent all day checking the other apartments and building houses for people around. We tried to sleep in Boac again but no power made it hard cause it got hot as frick

A man we knew from the neighborhood was killed. 

Tuesday. about the same. We went and hauled water for one of our members to fill her bathroom and built more roofs. They fed us boku. and it was delicious. they finally fixed the main roads so we could go to different barangays and check on our other apartments and luckily no damage. It was fun and lucky the zone leader has a car which made everything so much easier,  also we went with the district leader to different areas to assess damage of members. saw some pretty devastating stuff.(no sleep so hot) 

Wednesday. hung out at the church with some of the members as we all used the gas generator to charge our phone and stuff. (I used a members laptop to email my family to tell them that I'm alive) then after I packed up and left for San Pablo because I got called to become a trainer. (luckily the ferry's were up and running) went and slept in San Pablo (no sleep also)

Thursday. I went and picked up my new trainee his name is elder Mismash and he is from Utah! we hung out in Lucena mall and I ate my first real meal of the week. Mcdonalds!!! (surviving off of ramen and water before that) then I taught him how to like.....go to the bathroom. aaahhh the reward of being a parent. slept in Lucena ( still no sleep cause not enough beds.)

Friday. We finally got back to the island but waited at the port for 2 hours. then we had a brutal 4 hour boat ride to the island. I finally I went back to Boac to pick up my laundry. then tried to skype my family because I heard that Boac was getting reports of power in the center of town. that was a failure it was shutting off like 5 times.

Saturday. Finally got to call instead of skype because there were no good cameras ahahaha then we got power in Mogpog.  I finally got to sleep the night before new years. I slept from 7pm to 6:45Am got a very fantastic 11 hours of sleep.

anyways this week has been absolutely crazy. I have seen some awful heart wrenching things some very bad things happen to good people and this beautiful island got hurt. But being a part of the thing to help make it better and help these people has been one of the best moments of my life. I love this church and these people.

Love you all
Elder Yarro

Week 37

Hey guys so im alive, so you guys would not believe how these last few days have been hahah but long story short we are looking at 2 months no electricity. im training so ill be in the mainland tonight around hopefully 9 ish (my time) to skype. so try to get on by then. love you all. keep it real. and dont eat grass.

Love you all
Elder Yarro