Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Getting Christmas letters and teaching primary


Thanks for your email, I really like the rock climbing story (the two guys in Yosemite free climbing Dawn Wall), its cool to read the story and think "yeah, I guess that's cool" then put the scale on there.. the thoughts change to "what on earth!!" I would be happy just completing a 5.12 by the end of my life after trying over and over again, the fact that they climbed sections of that, on the first time every time, it blows my mind. and as for the 5.14d... that's like climbing a brick wall, its so crazy hard. That is super cool for me, thanks.

Oh, guess what yesterday I got a ton of Christmas Letters from the primary. It was fun to read all the notes from the primary and they were useful to test the English of some of the people here. Also I got a Christmas postcard of Paul, Aubrey, Ava, Mabel, and Max. Its so much fun to get Christmas mail at the end of January.

I thought I would send you a picture of some of the things I did last week, because my comp was super sick... again, but he did get better enough towards the end for us to do some work.

1) Solved a 5x5 rubix cube, and then again, and again, until I could solve it with any pattern, spiral, and ctr

2) Built a nindot card tower

3) dominos with cards

4) teach a super smart 9 year old (photo above)

We have 4 Elders in Panglao, our areas are pretty big, but we focus close to the church because we only have a group right now of 20 people and an amazing group leader. The other Elders are kabalay with us (living in the same house) and my language is improving very fast with the house of me and 3 other Filipino.

At church this Sunday I had a fun time teaching the primary 10ish year olds. We acted out the story of Nephi, from the 1st chapter until Nephi gets the plates of brass. We had a lot of fun moments, like when I, lehi, picked up my family, and brought them to the wilderness, because the word for carry, and to bring, is the same word in Visayan. We had a lot of fun, and all the primary went to there parents and excitedly told them about Nephi and Lehi, and the plates of brass. It was super Fun.

Monday, January 19, 2015

New area and sick this week



My new area is very different, it is not the hilly jungle but a flat area with lots of houses.  The area is new with only a group, we do have 4 Investigators with a Baptismal date, that are kids/teenagers. I had a lot of fun in Jagna, and I am sad to leave it behind, but also I want to make this area the best it can be.  We are in Panglao by the way, with my companion Elder De guzman,



We had fun on Wednesday going to people having parties because me and one of the sisters were leaving, we also went to the highest point in Jagna, it was super fun, 

I am pretty tired, haven't been sleeping well with the cold I got, I have been pretty sick for the last few days with a fever, but we are getting back to work today, Hopefully we will be able to bring a lot of people to Christ.

Elder Remer

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Transfer to small island of Panglao

Today is transfer day and I am transferring to Panglao, a small island off the coast of Bohol, Its both exciting and sad, but I hope I can learn to love the people there as much as I love the people here.   Unfortunately this week Brother R... is out of town, which is sad because today is my last day here, Today I don't have a lot of time to email because I need to pack to leave at 5 and we have a visit with someone at noon, so today will be a pretty wild and fast day, Thanks so much for helping me go on a mission.
I have included some pictures, one of me and Elder Lewis, taught him how to solve a rubix cube, a picture of a new shortcut/path we found, and me and the youth, I taught them because their teacher didn't come to church.





Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Happy New Year

The New Years here was amazing. Our plan for new years eve was to go to the city and watch a movie, and spend the night at the zone leaders house. But the mission president sent out a message that he wants no sleepovers at the zone leaders houses, so for us on Bohol, it was a huge change, because going to the city would make it so we had no work on New Years Eve, we would need to leave early in the morning in order to get to the city, and get a bus back, so instead the plan was that the missionaries would just watch a movie with their house mates- for me and Elder Aquino that would be just us, I was a little disappointed about it, because I wanted to hang out with the American Missionaries and have a break from Visayan.

Well, me and Elder Lewis wanted the same thing, so we got our distract leader to go on splits with Elder Aqunio, so that I could sleep at the American Missionaries house nearby, and spend the night with them, it was super fun, we watched KungFu Panda 2 and bought fireworks for the members to shoot off, it was super sweet.

This week we got 27 lessons! a new record for us in Jagna, We don't have any baptisms coming up unfortunately, but we are teaching a lot of great people, that maybe in the next transfer or two might get baptized, its hard to get them to come to church, and now we also need to get them to join a community service project that the members are part of as well, we received a list of the new baptismal requirements unique to our area, because they want new members that are willing to sacrifice there time to go to church, instead of people just baptizing someone to have them become less active the next transfer.

Today me and Elder Aquino are going to Tagbilaran, the city, for fun because I will most likely be transferring the 15th of January, because Elders normally stay in an area for 2 to 3 transfers. Is that Normal? I'm not sure. I thought I would list a few of the 50 words that I learned this week.
ugay-ugay is a backrub
torutot - is the annoying horns during new years
pabuto -is to play with fireworks
sigot- is a hic-up

Oh and I wanted to explain the languages here

Visayan is the Bible language here - old but understandable by all the people
Cebuano is the English word for Visayan

Sugboanon is the dialect of Cebu
Porohanon is the dialect of Camotes 
and Boholanon is the dialect of Bohol

Filipino is the language of a bit of all the dialects in the Philippines
and Taglog is the language of the Business People

Phew, That's all of them
I currently speak Boholanon and Visayan(Can be spelled Bisayan as well)

Until next week,
Elder Remer