February 2, 2014

Happy Birthday to Daddy and Ber-Ber! Yay, another year older. Hope you do something fun. I don't really know what else to say about that.
And yes we have had a lot of rain lately. The big downpour was at night, right after we got home. It was raining earlier, but hadn't down-poured yet. We passed by the Elders on the way home and they had forgotten their umbrella. Poor guys, soaking wet. haha. I was joking with them saying that they had to plan in their proselyting attire (because President said so) so they weren't allowed to change. We got a text that night saying that they did, they planned in their soaking wet clothes. haha. But anyway, the downpour. It was soooo loud. It's hard to hear each other because all you can hear is the pounding of the rain. It's like a shower is on outside. A really big shower. I'm so glad it wasn't while we were out though, we would have been soaked.
I think the rain affected our drains though, because our water smells like rotten eggs. It's so gross. I couldn't take a shower in it because it was too gross, but I still needed to wash my hair. So I just filled up a bucket from the sink and washed my hair outside. It reminds me of camping. It's so weird that that's my way of life now. 

So this week we met a kid that's 22 and is sooo nice. He was so receptive to our message and wanted to learn more. He's looking for the truth and is just perfectly golden. Yeah, until we talk with him again and he tells us all about his past. He was a part of a really bad gang here where he smoke, drank, did drugs, slept with girls, and killed someone. He KILLED SOMEONE! Great, so now I've met a murderer. And we found out that that whole group of guys that we teach here and there were all part of the same gang. But they are so nice and I can't imagine them doing anything like that. So we're going to talk to President to see what we should do. They're not a part of the gang anymore and seem to have changed. They want something good in their lives and say they feel a weight lifted when we talk to them. So maybe they'll be like Alma the Younger and his gang and turn into awesome missionaries. 

This week we went on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders (equivalent to Zone Leaders but for the Sisters). I got to go over to the other area and it was so cool. So my area is just houses, nothing cool. But they have fields and rivers and water buffalo and hills and bridges and rocks to jump across the river and yeah. It was so fun. I'll see if I can send a couple pictures. But that's the real Philippines! 

Hmm, what else? Did you know that we live off of around $40 each week? Crazy that we can live off of just that every week. So I found out the Filipinos missionaries pay around 1000 pesos each month for their missions (I think) So when I did the conversion of $400 x 44 = 17,600 pesos (because they wanted to know) It blew their mind that we were paying that much. It's just so crazy when you convert the money here. Anyway, that was random.

I really can't think of anything else that exciting. Um two birds flew into our apartment earlier today and freaked Sister Ludwig out. She hates everything that's living. And yeah, that's all. I'm going to send pictures now! Love you all so much!

-Sister Watkins