Day 267 I'm speaking. . . Allenese???

After two hours of sleep and another airplane ride, I'm safely back the Philippines Tacloban Mission!!! I've been reassigned to Allen (Catarman zone) in Samar (the other large island). Allen is about 6 hours north of Tacloban by van. I'm in one of the very farthest areas from the mission home. (The mission home has returned to Tacloban and is no longer in Maasin.) My new comp is Sister Sprouse from Vernal, Utah. She's also 20 years old and she's my junior batch. Fortunately, this was her area before the typhoon so we're not opening the area completely from scratch. Funny thing was, when we arrived in Tacloban, we were asked to do a musical number on the spot for our meeting before we traveled. Right after we sang a duet together, President Andaya announced we would be companions!

Elder Ben Banks, an Emeritus General Authority is working with President Andaya here to help things get going and stay organized. He checked all the apartments in the entire mission for approval and decided that we all need flushing toilets and showers (instead of just a bucket and a ladle). He says if the Philippines is ever going to rise out of poverty, they need to start somewhere and it will start with the missionaries. All of our apartments have been cleaned up and renovated in preparation for our arrival. :) We also met some of the first missionaries ever in the Philippines! They had come to volunteer to help. There're a lot of RMs from the Philippines here helping. :) (Speaking of which, I saw dad's co-worker!)

As we landed in Tacloban and drove to the mission home, we went through my old area: San Jose. I was a little nervous to see it, but things are looking much better than I expected. Things are actually green now and homes have been remade out tarps and the army is stationed there still. There are even some jeepneys up and running! It was also good to visit with my old ward there. The bishop is still living at the church, but plans on returning to his home hopefully this week. The members cannot wait for missionaries to return to their ward, but it may be a year at least until missionaries return to Tacloban. . . we'll see how things go.

My mailing address is the same as before the typhoon. I don't have it written down anywhere. . . Can you send it to me? haha. . . It's the Fatima, Leyte one.

My new area reminds me of my first area: Carigara. It's an absolutely adorable little pier town right on the ocean. It wasn't affected at all by the storm so everything is still beautiful here. :) The weird part is the language. I have no idea what to call it! It's a combination of Tagalog, Bicol, Waray-S, and Cebuano. I only know Waray-H and Cebuano. I think I'll just try and learn Tagalog now. . . haha. Good thing my comp knows what she's doing! We joke that we speak Allenese. It's so different from everywhere else.

We spent our P-day today trying to find an internet cafe. . . we couldn't find one in Allen so we jeepneyed to the next town over: Catarman (about 1 hour away). After trying a couple places, we finally found a place that has internet access. Hopefully this doesn't become routine. . .

It feels good to be back, although I miss Cebu terribly. I know that is a great work for me to do here and this is where the Lord called me to serve. There is a great purpose for me to accomplish here in helping move forward the work of God. I'm excited to finally settle into an area after so much moving around. I feel like Tacloban mission's culture is going to improve with missionaries from so many different mission presidents. It'll be interesting to see how things change, especially when we get a new president in July!

My P-days are now on Mondays again (I'm only emailing today cuz that's when we arrived).

I hope you are all learning so much from the things happening and I know they are opportunities to draw closer to our Father in Heaven.

LOOOOOOOOVE YOU ALLLL!!!

Look at who I saw at the Fatima Chapel in Tacloban! - dad's co-worker, Nicole