(This is Frasier's email from 10/22/17. I'll post his one from yesterday tomorrow or Wednesday.)
The explanation to that email title is this:
We were talking about food at the apartment one night. Elder Temple and I were talking about how we are always hungry. No matter what we buy at the store we are always still hungry, and by the time we get home, we don't want to eat anything we have or put forth the effort to make anything that we have. I resorted to buying myself brownie mix last week. When I made the brownies I had the intention of sharing, but I ended up eating them all in less than a day. Other than that I feel like I have been doing a pretty good job at eating and diet. I went through and inventoried my food yesterday and this is what I had: 1 egg, 1 leftover pancake, half a block of cheese, some leftover bread, a ramen packet, and some syrup. I was super hungry so I ended up toasting some bread and putting syrup on it for dessert. Sunday nights are rough as far as food goes.
The other half of the email title is this: All Filipinos eat is rice. My companion will have a huge plate of rice, a little bit of meat, and that's it. Basically, "you could eat a bean and you'd be fine".
Speaking of food. I have already found a few things that I really like that I will bring home and make you all try. One of my favorites is called "Tocino". I don't know how to describe it other than it is like a pork with a caramely sauce on the outside. Also, mogu mogu is awesome. It is this drink that they only have here in the Philippines. It is lychee flavored coconut water with coconut chunks in it. It is pretty much second in line to be the official drink sponsor of heaven. (Right behind Mountain Dew). The only problem is everything is served on rice, so you will have to find a substitute if you don't like rice. (Sorry Dad).
This week was pretty awesome! Although all weeks in a mission are awesome. First off, I've got to the point where "I'm having fun". It's still not easy, but I have reached the point where I am excited to go out and teach. It's more just because I have gotten to know the people, I think. I just do a lot of listening and almost no talking. Some of these people are just awesome. There's no other way to describe it. You can feel their desire to have something more. It's just the trick of getting them to come to church now.
We went on splits twice this past week. One of the times (the other companionship) both of them came and stayed at our apartment because we had mission tour the next day. Even though I'm still the newbie, I was in charge of planning and getting us around places because it is my area. That's where it all goes wrong. I have no idea what we are doing. At one point we ended up on the other side of Cauayan from where we were supposed to be. (Don't make two neighborhoods with the same name in the same city). We talked to and met some people though, so it wasn't all too bad. We then went to an area and got done about 45 minutes early before we had to go back to the apartment. I was trying to think of things to do to fill the time. We walked out of the neighborhood and then I remembered an older lady who is a member who asked us like 2 weeks ago to give her husband a blessing, but he was asleep when we got there so we didn't give it to him then.
Anyway, I remembered that, so we walked all the way through the neighborhood to the other side, asked the lady if he still could use a blessing, and we gave him one. I don't know what was wrong with this guy, but he was in bad shape. He couldn't even move and had sores all over. He couldn't really talk either. We walked in and out of nowhere he sits up, shakes our hand, and asks us why we didn't come yesterday. We just kind of laughed it off and said that we decided to come today. (Keep in mind he is still out of it.) I gave him a blessing, and then we left. Nothing much to it. I didn't really even feel anything that special about it. We then keep on walking around to try and fill the time.
The next day is the mission tour. (I'll talk about that in a sec. One of the main points is being a good missionary though.) After the mission tour we go out to teach for the rest of the day. We walk past a member's house, so we go and say hi. As we are leaving, one of the members said: "Did you hear that Tatay Fugaban passed away this morning?" Then it hit me that was the man I gave a blessing to last night. First of all, I'm glad I was able to give him a blessing...for him and his family. Second, I hope I didn't kill him.
Then I started to think about it more. I would have been so guilty if I had just been like, "Oh we can go home a little bit early." I glad I listened to the spirit even though I had no idea it was the spirit at the time. Also, he said, "Why didn't you come yesterday?" That could have just been coincidence, but to me with everything else working out how it did with that situation, I think he was just waiting for us to come and then he was ready to move on. I don't know if it is appropriate to say that experience was "crazy", but the more I think about it, the more it is!
The mission tour was great! Elder Bowen of the Seventy basically just spoke to us for 5 hours, but it was the best 5 hours ever. He talked about how he thinks our mission is a good mission, but we could still be a great one. Basically, he wants us to be exactly obedient in everything that we can be obedient in, and work our butt's off...even harder than we are right now. The second half he talked about the Abrahamic Covenant, the House of Israel, and the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood. I don't know how one person could have so much knowledge about such a mind blowing subject, but he does. I would recommend everyone studies the Abrahamic Covenant. It's pretty special what we are all able to receive through that covenant. Just follow the oath and covenant and we'll be good!
That extremely oversimplified for how amazing that meeting was. It made me immodestly want to be a better missionary. One other curious thing that was he told the sister not to marry a guy if they don't know where to find the oath and covenant, and what it means. He also then told us that we should be looking to revive the fullness of blessings as soon as we can (get married as soon as we can is what he implied). That goes against what most people say which is to wait a little bit of time after your mission before you "get hitched".
(Added by Alayna. That probably goes against his mother's advice too!!!)
One elder told me while we were having lunch, "There are still things for you to be doing right now. If God wanted you to be able to speak to the people, you would most definitely be able to speak, but he needs you to do something else right now." That really struck a chord with me.
I had a one-on-one time with one of the assistants. His name is Elder Uy. He is a really funny guy, but absolutely knows his stuff when it comes down to it. He told me that he obviously doesn't know because he is native and speaks Tagalog, but with all the other aspects of a mission that he had to gain, it all comes line upon line, precept upon precept. I keep on telling them how good of a missionary I want to be and how good of a teacher and how good of a person and this and that. He basically said with patience, it'll all come in time. He also told me about how his personality is that he likes to listen to people and just take it all in and understand. He said that he doesn't think there is anything better for me to be doing than trying to understand. He was very praise of me when I told him that I just try to understand. We basically came to the conclusion that even if I don't end up speaking Tagalog for the rest of my mission, I will be really good at listening to people, and that is obviously what God wants me to do is to listen. I love the assistants and am so blessed to be with them.
Other things that have happened:
I'm pretty sure I already broke my umbrella. I'll try and fix it though.
I'm running out of Hi-Chews.
I taught one lesson where at one point I counted and there were 13 people listening.
My companion has a hard time dealing with all of his new responsibilities. He a District Leader, and trainer, it is probably his first time being a senior companion, and his first time being with someone that doesn't speak Tagalog. He and I also have different work ethics. I want to keep on talking to people and doing work, but he wants to sit and rest. That is where it came up that I have no respect. Long story short, I apologized for whatever it was that I did. I'm just going to work my hardest and be the bigger man, do what's right, and the leave the rest up to him. He didn't talk to me for about a day after this happened. We ended up having a meeting with President Hiatt about our relationship. He told me that I haven't done anything wrong and that I should just keep doing what I'm doing. Then he talked to Elder Idorot. All he said was, "President chastised me". It was good though because we have been all good since then. He even made me some really good dinner that night.
I miss you all more than you know. Love you!
Spiritual thought of the day: Jesus didn't speak English.
By the way, I don't know when you sent it, but my Christmas package already got here. I'm saving it for Christmas though, don't worry.
(Added by Alayna: This is part of the cute letter that Sloane sent to Frasier!)
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Forever and a day, Love Elder Williamson!
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