Week 8 - First Area

First off I want to start this off by saying I am safe and excited to finally be here and I also wanna say that I had people tell me what the Philippines was going to be like for the past two months and no matter what they told me it would never prepare me enough to know exactly what it would be like. There is also just way too much to write about and my writing will never do it complete justice.

It's kind of crazy to finally be here walking through the city, riding in jeepney's, teaching lessons in a different language, but only understanding when they talk slow enough, lol. I really love the people here because they are all just so happy and everyone stares at me because I'm white and I'll hear a kid in the distance yell AMERICANO!! The people are also great because everyone wants to hear from the missionaries because we talk about Jesus and then we hit them with the doctrine of families being together forever and the great apostasy and how through Joseph Smith it returned. I've only taught in my actual area for two days and we extended like 7 baptism invitations and they all accepted. Also the kids here crack me up so much...they are just constantly outside running, playing, and laughing with the missionaries.

My companion is Elder Amone who is a huge Tongan professional rugby player from Australia. He is awesome and has helped me not die like 10 times already..joke (kind of). My mission President is a super short awesome Filipino. President and sister Deyro are so nice, but they're only here for a year so I'll appreciate them while I can. The food is either rice or way too sweet or will give you food poisoning so I just eat rice and too sweet spaghetti. But the fruit here is fantastic... a perfect amount of sweet, sour, and refreshing. The heat is way intense and I thought when the sun would go down it would cool down, but you end up just sweating more....I can literally feel the pores in my face slowly open up. when it rains here it comes down hard, but don't worry it's still super hot. There are animals literally everywhere you go. Cows and water buffalo on every field, cats and rats in every alley, dogs in every street, and chickens in every lawn. Every bug here is huge and twice as scary except the mosquito's so you never notice them till it's too late. P.S. we take bucket showers, there is no toilet paper, and I ate Balut.

You can ask anyone here if I like it here or not because every time i'm just walking through a giant rice field and looking around seeing a lighting storm in the distance I just yell I love the Philippines. Also I realized when I focus on the work of bringing others closer to Christ time just flies by and I love every minute of it. I'm so happy to be out on the field.

Some on the member kids

 At the Manila temple

On splits while teaching this awesome family

 Elder Amone and I in our apartment

 Jollibee is like the best place to eat here

I'm just buying everything here because everything is dirt cheap. This first week had been crazy overwhelming, but i'm good with just going with the flow. I need to take more pictures because there's literally so much going on I forget to take anything. Its hot. There's way more to talk about, but that's pretty much it for now because we have to pay for the computers mins.

Love,

Elder Terry

Week 7 - Assigned to Trainer

Dear Brother and Sister Terry,

We are delighted with the arrival of your missionary, Elder Terry, here in the Urdaneta Mission on 24 May 2017.  He is excited about his mission and enthusiastic about entering the Lord’s service in this area.  He has had an orientation session and is now serving in his first assignment with a trainer.

Your missionary is assigned in Mabini Area, Alaminos Zone, and his companion is Elder Amone.  The enclosed map will enable you to locate this area and follow each future transfer.  We have also enclosed a photo taken at the Mission Office.

Sincerely,
Ernesto A. Deyro Jr.
President, Philippines Urdaneta Mission

Week 7 - Email from Urdaneta Mission President

Dear Brother and Sister Terry

We are pleased to inform you that your son, Elder Terry, arrived safely in Urdaneta earlier today. They left Manila at approximately 7:30am on a Victory Liner Bus. The group arrived at approximately 11:00am and were picked up by my Elders at the pick-up point promptly and brought to the Mission Home. After lunch and a short interview with me, they were assigned companions and left to work in the areas surrounding Urdaneta. They will be working with their temporary companions for today until about 7:30pm. Then they will have a simple dinner at KFC before staying temporarily with the Elders here in Urdaneta for the night. Tomorrow morning, your son will be assigned a trainer in our orientation meeting.

Attached is a picture of your son with my wife and I at the Mission Office that was taken earlier today. Rest assured that your son is in good hands. I will email you again when he has been assigned an area and a trainer.

Sincerely,
Ernesto A. Deyro Jr.
President, Philippines Urdaneta Mission

Week 6 - Manila

So I thought the MTC experience was long and crazy, but this is a whole new everything and is quite the experience. First off I am here in the Manila MTC safe and sound, and the total plane ride lasted I think 35 hours with all the layovers from Salt Lake to LAX to Hong Kong and then to Manila, but I'm really not sure how long because I was basically delusional the whole time and still am.. We would literally talk to everyone in the airports and plane rides and try to share the gospel as much as possible, and then the ride from Hong Kong to Manila we even tried to teach some people in Tagalog. We walked outside of the airport and the heat hit us all like a truck, like I have heard about the heat, but it is indescribable if you have never felt it before so... I will just leave it at that and let you find out for yourself. Just the drive from the airport to the Manila MTC we saw some of the most poor areas(like concrete stacked on top of each other tiny cramped houses) and some of the most rich areas (gated off and way way nice mansions). It is like LA on the most crowded day, but dirtier and with worse drivers and is literally 4 times the size. I felt like I was in a movie. The MTC president greeted us and let us settle in and we are going to sleep at 7 P.M. which is technically us going to bed at 5 A.M. for what we are used to so. The food here is way way better and I ate a fish eye so that"s cool. We also tried talking to people today sa tagalog, but they laugh at us when we try to speak, even the members so that's fantastic. haha something to work on, and they also speak way way way way too fast. I think I just need to sleep because this all feels like a dream, but it's also one of the coolest things ever.

This is all just super crazy and surreal, but I know this church to be true so much I just push through every day and will keep doing so till the very end. The next time I will write will most likely be not this Monday, but the one after that when I am in Urdaneta because I only have a short time to write this and i'll be here at Manila till Wednesday. wish me luck and please pray for me...Imma need it.

Love,

Elder Terry

Week 5 - MTC

Kumusta, lahat tao

The very last week here at the MTC. Time just flies by here, and it's really great to be here, but I really cannot wait to get out there on the field and serve. I am also trying to appreciate and take in the nice cool weather while I still can.

This week we had a devotional by Elder Rasband of the twelve and he talked about listening to the promptings of the spirit and later the week while teaching TRC, which is a lesson in Tagalog to a member of the church, and we had an impression to teach about keeping the Sabbath day holy and the blessings that come with it. During the lesson the spirit was so strong and you could tell that she had been struggling with going to church because of being busy and tired from work and school, and we committed her to start going and if she does she will truly be happy and feel Gods love in her life and as we were telling her this she just started crying and knew she had to keep going and that she will be blessed if she does this.

Later in the week my companions and I were walking through the MTC and we walked by President Martino's, the president of the MTC, office and he invited us in and because he served in the Philippines he gave us advice and just told us cool stories about life and IDK It all happened so fast it was kind of crazy because he's a busy man and we were just chilling with him for a half an hour. We also found a mini fridge in the storage area and we "borrowed" it and put it in our room so now we have cold drinks whenever we want and this may not sound like a big deal, but in MTC life we are now kings.

That's just some of the cool things that happened this week, and here are some pics from this week.

Our zone with the choir director​

Our amazing district

​Elder Wilkes and I​

 Everyone going to the Philippines​

 Got a modeling job​

 We say Kumusta to filipinos here and they get so excited, they are a happy people​

That is all for this week, next email I send I'll be in the Philippines

Love, Elder Terry

Week 4 - MTC

Magandang araw na ito

I am officially 1 month done with my mission, so I'm basically already almost done with my mission, should be home soon.

I'm only at the MTC in Utah still so these will be short until I actually get on the field in 2 weeks, this week was long because we said goodbye to our older Elders and I became a zone leader in charge of 10 new Elders that came in. I don't know if I am just super lucky or everyone who goes to the Philippines is just super awesome, but every single one of them is so strong in the church and is chill. I am for sure blessed and I hope this will continue as I get through my mission...I'll take all the prayers I can get. I also sprained my thumb pretty bad playing volleyball, it grew like twice in size so that's terryific, but the field opened up today so we might get to leave the walls and get fresh air for gym time.

As always my testimony in the gospel is continuing to grow everyday and it's amazing learning new doctrine. Learning the language , I wish would go faster, but is still coming along. I say i'll be fluent by next week.

The crowds are starting to come in we're a little bigger than before​

love my awesome companions​

Elder Fonua in the middle is from Salt Lake is super funny, nice, and cool.
Elder Wynn on the right is from Northern California and is chill, smart, and also funny

Love the temple​

Our district and Sister Sao

walking to the temple

No complaints here at the MTC so that's all for this week.

Love, Elder Terry