Week 69 - 5/19/2014

Hello family! Not super eventful week, the CRAZY heat pretty much knocked me out for the week (as in a slept everyday) but no worries, it was still fun! And I'm always shocked at how much I learn and how much happens despite being sick. 

Highlights:

Gave a talk in sacrament meeting. Remember how my first area I gave like 500 talks? Turns out that isn't normal at all and I haven't given one in any of my other areas (except the typical "I'm new to your branch" testimony) So that was fun. Everyone was AMAZED at my waray-waray... which still confuses me cause I only have 2 months left! and I talk to them all the time... but then I realized the biggest thing they were amazed at was it was waray-waray and not Tagalog. Of course you think, duh! You have never spoken straight up Tagalog so it would never actually slip into your vocabulary. But then I remember how many Filipinos have served here and there are even a lot of Americans who were assigned in other Tagalog missions and came back speaking Tagalog. And sometimes they don't even do it on purpose because they don't quite realize it's not waray-waray because no one reacts because everyone can all understand Tagalog anyway. But for Cebuano, you say a word and you can tell by the look of your face they have no idea what you just said so you ask the waray word, and change because you need to. This just gave me a testimony of why they want us to really study each and every local dialect even though you could really teach the Philippines the gospel all in Tagalog (with VERY few exceptions) but it really reaches their hearts when you go out of your way to learn that dialect of that city even though it will be of no personal value to you ever again. They were seriously SO happy. 

Also, yesterday after church, we were waiting for the elders to come to start missionary coordination meeting and they were talking forever and there were a billion little kids running around in the chapel so we decided to play the piano to quiet them down and get them more reverent! It worked- the power or music and we ended up playing tons of hymns, me on the right hand, Sister Brown playing the left, me singing the soprano and her singing  the alto/tenor/bass (whichever one she felt in the mood for that verse) and it was so fun! It took some extreme companionship unity but the members heard us and were all gathered round loving it and were giving song requests. It was so great! I love being around people who love music and are WAY better at it than I am so we can have fun with it. I have been very blessed with that on my mission.

And that's about it... It's been so hot at night despite having 2 fans on us full blast, I woke up sweating the other day... disgusting. I've never been this hot my whole mission. But our room is like an oven so I'm looking forward to the end of summer (in a few weeks). If we didn't have fans, we would probably die. But that about covers it! I love you all! Thanks for your emails!

Love, 

Sister Pike

District Lunch - inside joke..

Sister Brown checking out the window every five seconds to see if Sister Aban has put out her delicious treats yet (what I talked about in skype - the fried bananas and ice candy, she just has a little store connected to her house. VERY common here.)  It was hilarious.

One of the days I was sick, we were in our p-day clothes all day then we had to put a skirt for planning so we just threw it on top of our p-day clothes ha!

I decided to exercise with Sister Brown one night, instead of in the morning - so great kay so nice and cool and rainy and we're on our roof and we were helping each other pinoy squat. They can sit like that all the time! It's so hard but they were raised doing it. It's been my mission goal.

Decorations for our barangy's (like subdivision) fiesta - flags and little bags of colored water - super creative!

An example of the dirtiest city in the mission with open gutters. There have been a few missionaries that accidentally stepped into one and it's not pretty...

Basically explains our week.. haha I'm knocked out and Sister Brown is doing her thing :)

Week 65 - 4/20/2014

So, I really just wanted to send you a bunch of fun pictures from this week cause they really are the best! but my computer doesn't like me today so... it's lame. I got some to work! Wow, never mind. This week... Tuesday was a really excellent day! Mission conference was postponed until next week so we went finding and I really have just learned to love it! Definitely have the funniest experiences. Then we planned on teaching a less active but she wasn't there so we decided to go an active member and follow up on a referral she gave us. Her referral was a teacher and they're still busy doing their after school reports (it's summer and school is out) BUT her granddaughters who were visiting from Catarman were there (18 and 20) so we got to teach them and it was a really awesome lesson! It was sooo weird to hear Catarman waray-waray but super cool. I'm getting to the point I just understand everything everyone says and the only way I can tell it's a different language is if my companion who hasn't served in those areas yet has a look of confusion on her face. It's not too horribly different, just random words. They are returning back home this week but it's our goal to get them in a great position to be handed off to the other missionaries in their area! They were so awesome though. Definitely not a coincidence that we happened to visit that active member completely unplanned. 

Did not feel like Easter AT all but all in all a great weekend. We had district conference so the other missionaries came and stayed with us and the area authority and 2nd counselor in the mission presidency with his wife spoke and they were all the funniest people ever! Seriously, never laughed so hard in a meeting. Also, fun fact, one session, one talk was waray, one Cebuano and one Tagalog mixed with English. I understood all but most don't know Cebuano or  very much English, it's really cool how much we all rely on the spirit so much to understand. This was a very typical meeting and it never ceases to amaze me! One night after planning was soo fun because Sister Vea lives in our house with us and she is from Tonga so she was teaching us Tongan hymns! So cool. So I will come home from my mission having studied 3 Filipino languages but singing Tongan songs. haha they are so legit though! I don't know if you knew this but we sing all of our songs in English. Never in any other language, it's so interesting! but it's so cute with their different pronunciations. I love getting to know so many cultures from all over the world! And we all are united in the gospel. So great. Who knew missionary work was so much fun? And of course, so incredibly rewarding. I love being missionary. Thank you for all your emails and support! 

love, Sister Pike

Week 62 - 3/31/2014

Big news!!  Transferred, my first comp and probably to my last area!  Catbalogan 2nd branch, on Samar just a few hours away from my first area in Catarman and I'm back to waray-waray but now to the H version of the dialect.  Basically, a dream come true!  I loved waray and from being in Cebuano for over 7 months I had forgot it and it made me really sad that I couldn't even speak it anymore and what do you know, the gift of tongues is so real that within about 2 days, I was able to switch over most of my talking to a language I spoke so long ago and even had to change it.  And the best part of about it is...Sister Brown is my companion!!!!!  We are only the best of friends, survived the typhoon together, were in the same zone in Cebu mission and now we're COMPANIONS.  We literally have spent more time together on our missions than apart!  Super fun.  At least 5 times every day we say, "Hey guess what?  WE'RE COMPANIONS!”  She is probably the happiest person in the world and so fun to be around.  She's from Idaho and is the greatest singer ever.  I love being with great singers because they make me sound so much better!  We sang a musical number in branch conference and then in the choir and President and Sister Andaya and their family so it was really fun to get to know them.  They have 4 kids- the oldest 19, and the youngest 10 and they are so fun to talk to!  And the branch is so great.  Actually reminds me a lot of my first area because it's waray, the city is pretty similar, actually bigger and it's summer and hot season!!  Our house is so hot, I slept without a sheet for the first time in forever.  This morning we went on a really cool hike to a place you can see the whole city and it's so beautiful here!  It's known as one of the dirtiest cities in the mission but I love it so much already.  I don't have much time, I'll try to update more next week.  It's interesting because this area was not touched at all by the typhoon so apparently they didn't experience the humbling that other parts did but I'm still so happy to be here.  I love this work!  And I love all of you!  Thank you so much for your support!

Love, Sister Pike

Week 61 - 3/24/2014

Maayong Hapon Pamilya! 

I'm in Naval! And I'm actually working here! And transfers are this Thursday and I have a feeling I might transfer because I have technically been assigned here for 3...but only have worked here for 1 month. How crazy is that?!? It's nut's. Transfers are pretty different here from Cebu and other missions because you literally don't know ANYTHING until you are on your way! Where you're going, who your companion is, what language you're speaking... Even your companion you left behind has no idea, kinda crazy, but makes life interesting! So we'll be awaiting that call. But I'm ALWAYS wrong when it comes to transfers so who knows what will happen! But this week was excellent because we got to teach some less actives and they all came to church!! Success! So even though we had no investigators at church, that totally made up for it. And cool story, we went to this new place that I've never been to before in search of some referrals. One thing I LOVE about the Philippines is they know all their neighbors and if you ask them if they know them or where they live, they will drop everything to help you! Even go with you sometimes. There is no way we would find ANYONE if we didn't have other's help. But the cool thing was on our search for the referral (Golin family) we were pointed to their house. So we talked to them and they were supposed "golden investigators" that were dropped for reasons that we have no idea but as we were talking, we learned they weren't the Golin's we thought BUT they had been taught by the missionaries before and really wanted us to come back. And then we found the real Golin family and it was like the saddest thing ever because a husband and wife were all ready to be baptized but the husband dropped out at the last second because his word of wisdom problem. He had stopped for a month but he thought it was pointless because he just couldn't avoid it and the worst part was, he had no desire to stop, "It just not my time yet to stop. Someday I'll return, I can't give it up yet." It broke my heart! Especially since his wife backed out too only because he did. And we can't visit his wife because she works at the market all day, every day- that's another hard thing here is there are literally people who would be so good but literally cannot be taught ever. No days off or anything. But she's having a baby next month so maybe we can come back then. And then we went and taught the fake Golin family and they were amazing! Even all their kids were all involved and we had a great lesson. We would have never found them if we hadn't been looking for the real Golin family! Even though they didn't work out, it is definitely no coincidence:) And on Sunday too we made a whole lesson plan, but we ended up staying late for a meeting at church and it was too late to go where we had been planning so we decided to go to a DIFFERENT Golin family that lived in a way different part that was a referral given even before the storm that we never got to go back to. I promise Golin isn't a common name, it's just an incredibly small world. We taught them and they had 2 visitors that were not from there and they ended up being way more interested in the original referral! And one man asked us when our church was, told us he would visit and wanted us to teach his family. What?! That never happens. And once again, we wouldn't have found THOSE people if we hadn't taught the original people we were looking for. And they just happened to be there the day we visited. No coincidence! It's so cool when you do something led by the spirit, but you don't even know until you look back! I love being a missionary! And we've been praying in Tagalog all week, still super slow- I feel like a new missionary again! but coming slowly but surely. Words are even starting to replace my Cebuano which is so bizarre and the weirdest thing is we read the Book of Mormon in Tagalog to learn then we compare it to the Cebuano so we can learn what the words actually mean and it's like a relief when we can read it in Cebuano and actually understand it all! so nindot. It's actually 100x easier to learn Tagalog from Cebuano/Waray then from English- pretty crazy how that works:) I hope you all have a great week!

Love, Sister Pike

Week 60 - 3/16/2014

Good news!!! I'm back in Naval!! Yay! It was sad to leave the other sisters that we've been living with because they are so wonderful but we'll still get to see them at zone activities which is so great. Saturday, the office elders picked us up in their van and drove us the hour to naval with all our stuff which was so nice because it would've been so hard on the bus! And we actually ended up moving back to the apartment where I lived with Sister Estes before! I don' t know if you remember me talking about it before but it was really small just for the two us so now with 4, it is really, really small. They redid some stuff so now it's cute and really bright and we have running water all day (before it would only turn on at 3pm till we went to bed so we needed to fill up a huge bucket to shower with) and flushing toilet and a shower but we all just fill up a bucket anyways, it really is the best way! The main problem is the room where we would put all of our clothes and luggage and stuff is where the other sisters sleep so we're living out of our suitcases which are in a little covered area outside that connects us to our CR (bathroom). I'll need to take some pictures, it's hard to describe. And I have a lot of pictures to send from last week but the internet is being soooo slow today! Usually it's not too bad but it literally took 30 minutes to load one email. Yesterday was our first day being in Naval (yay!) but 3 of us were sick so we just came home right after church and slept...the irony. But it was really great because we all did companion study together because Pres. Andaya wants us to send all the miracles we have seen after the typhoon- in our other missions and our return to Tacloban so we shared what we wanted to write. For most of us, we haven't experienced very much- just the jump in attendance but the biggest miracles were in ourselves, healing, getting over it, moving on, what we learned, etc. So it was SO cool to hear what Sister Henshaw and Lindsay shared because they were 2/10 sisters that were on the roof in Tacloban that almost died and they were SO traumatized. When I saw them in Manila, I thought no way they would keep going and be able to function in another mission but they did! And they are so amazing! and they shared their own personal healing and how they dealt with everything. I wish I had time to share everything that they did but alas, time is short. Long story short, the atonement is so real and ready to help anyone in whatever capacity. He is always there with open arms and we just need to turn to him. We knew we would go through everything in our lives and he prepared us with a way to face it all. There's nothing we can't handle.  I am super excited for this week to actually work in our true area! But cool thing- last week when we were still riding the bus a ton, Sister Adasme and I brought flashcards of 150 Tagalog verbs and we learned them all! We came up with the craziest ways to remember them and just laughed our heads of through it all. That's one of the things I like most about being with her is we're helping each other so much in the language and we just have so much fun doing it! And then, our new zone leader (American) spoke in sacrament meeting and he just came from Bacolod mission speaking Ilonggo and hasn't spoken bisaya in a year so he gave his whole talk in Tagalog and we understood almost every word. It was so fulfilling! I'm going to miss when I don't get to learn a new language every 6 months :) This is definitely the mission for me. Now with 4 Americans in the house and we're helping the other 2 with Cebuano it might put a damper on our Tagalog but we'll find a way. I love you all! Have a great week!

Love, Sister Pike

Week 55 - 2/11/2014

Greetings from....drumroll please... Naval, Biliran!!! That's right, I'm back in my 2nd area! Still Cebuano! I have no idea why, but I did not see that coming. Like at all. But this week was so good! The definition of bitter sweet but I feel so lucky that I had so much time to say goodbye to everyone and even had one last Sunday to take pictures and see everyone, that never happens! So I feel really blessed. 

Sunday at 3 I left by ocean jet to Cebu- usually we just take a bus and are on a boat for like 30 minutes and drive the rest but this way is by boat the whole entire way, 10x more expensive so I thought would be WAY faster, but isn't at all! So that was crazy. The next morning, we hung out in the office- Sister Anderson and I were the only ones going back but 3 others are done with their missions so we hung out until Pres. and Sister Schmutz came to talk to us. With the other two batches of people leaving, they knew exactly what area and who their companion was even in Cebu! but with us, there was just a list of 22 names so we were so curious! We had no idea. President thought they would tell us in Manila...nope! We left at 1 for the airport, waited for two hours till our flight left, even though it's a 1 hour flight, we didn't get to our hotel in Manila until 9pm. And then we had a reunion with all the other Tacloban missionaries from other missions heading back! Sister Kramer, Pettijohn, Adasme, Mier, Ralph, Henshaw, Baylon, and 2 more that I forgot. Elder Davies, Carlson, Ma'asi, Banawan, Parsons, and I forgot the others. I thought for sure we were going to Catarman kay it was untouched and hasn't been opened yet and there were 22 of us which is pretty big! Some people thought Biliran because 4 of us are from the original Biliran zone but our zone was only 16 so I thought we were too many so I thought, no way! We ate dinner and talked. It was SO cool to hear about how everyone loved their other missions so much and their mission presidents and it was so hard to leave. We all got so close to so many of the missionaries we served with and it was really cool to see that even though each mission is So different, rules, regulations, styles of mission presidents, etc., They're all good! And everyone loves it. We all stayed in a hotel in Manila and the next morning at 7, we flew into Tacloban! 

The airport was pretty ghetto to begin with but it still definitely had the effects of the typhoon. No walls, just a roof and they unloaded all the luggage by hand. All of us were SO excited to see Pres. And Sister Andaya, even thought we were so tired from traveling the day before, none of us could even sleep that night. When we saw them waiting outside the airport for us with the office elders, it felt like we were coming home! It was so amazing. We were all piled into the vans they rented with our luggage and we drove to Fatima Chapel, the chapel right next to the mission office and home. Tacloban was up and running, but there were so many tents set up among the rubble and life just seemed to move on! It never really felt real to me because I never saw it so it felt good to see it with my own eyes. We had an orientation type deal in the chapel, after they fed us, and as president was talking to us, it felt like we had never left! It felt so right like nothing had even happened. And I forgot how funny he is and how much I missed him! They announced our areas and companions- I'm with Sister Adasme in Naval and they opened another Sisters area with us- Sister Ralph and Henshaw! I thought it was amazing that they were opening areas, but because the attendance has just boomed! We talked to a member today who said our attendance was 200(before was 80-90) and in Biliran (over 500 before 150 and there are only 400 something members on the directory) WOW!!!! We have work to do and I am so excited! We are staying in a different area right now (balaquid) for the time being because they haven't finalized our apartment yet (we moved because they are stepping up the standard of all housing) so we'll be working in their area too. And it's so bukid (not the city at all and a beautiful view). And they loaded us up and took us to our apartments! When we were driving there, I forgot about the crazy windy van rides and the amazing views. My companion is so excited because she has always served in the city so she said, "I finally get to serve in the Philippines!" Like the other areas weren't.. haha Yep, this is definitely as Philippines as it gets and it's so good to be back :) 

We were all joking that they need to all reteach us how to be Tacloban missionaries because each mission has different rules and ways of doing stuff so we've all forgot! A lot can happen in 3 months! I'm sure we'll figure it out soon. OH and they said, the goal is to get every missionary back within 60 days and they're taking about 20 every week. I wish I had known that! And all they need to do is find apartments with power, water, cell service and access to food so our mission should be back and fully running in no time! When we met in Tacloban, the church was still pretty broken, lots of missing ceiling tiles and you could see into the rafters. I love you, excited to report how the work is next week! 

Love, Sister Pike