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| I Am Here: Elder Remer points to Cebu on a map of the Philippines |
Hey Everyone,
It is crazy here in the Philippines, I really want to adjust to there culture, it is so cool. A few examples that I find pretty cool, both simple and crazy things.
Simple Things: Rising your eyebrows twice means yes, nodding is saying that you don't know, shaking your head is the same as a no, you making a kissing face at something to point at it, and you always eat your meat with rice, by putting both on a spoon, if you don't people think you are really strange.
Crazy/Funny: The traffic is insane here, there is rarely a crash here but everyone is an aggressive driver, its like everyone has the same crazy mind and somehow it works, they also use there horns a lot better, to signal passing someone, or that they are about to come through. They also will not travel if it is raining, because it is bad luck. They believe some strange ghost stories, like a wak-wak - or witches/ghosts that walk on ceilings.
There are also a few things that are hard about teaching, that are good and bad. They are super open to talk about religion, and feel the spirit during our teaching, but rarely change churches. An example was that we taught someone, they prayed, felt the Book of Mormon was true, but gave the reason that they were Catholic to not join the Mormon Faith. It's a little weird. Because of the Rain belief, church attendance can be almost no one if it rains. And last, there is no divorce in the Philippines, so a lot of people don't get divorced and live with each other, and we need to ask them to get married, a HUGE commitment. Or worse they were married before and just left their spouse, and found someone else that they had a family with, in which case they can't go to the temple to be married because technically they are married to someone else
I love it here so much, despite the differences
It is so beautiful, I am teaching in the Bukid, aka Jungle/wilderness/mountain, where I almost can't believe how little some people can live off of. I can't believe how lucky we are. This area is said to be a hard area, and I think some missionaries think it is weird that I am so happy despite the lack of progress, I simply tell them that I do not know any different, it is my first area. But, I think its more than that, I feel that I am happy because the Lord is happy with the effort I am making to try and teach the gospel.
Here are some pictures of the area and temple, that are just amazing, along with my area, home, me and my companion and such. I wish best of luck to all of you
Elder Remer
