First Letter from the Philippines

Missionaries at Festival

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Members at Festival

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Festival

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"Love You" shirt

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Noble Loves His Family

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R.M. (Returned Missionary) BAKERY???

Wow alot has happened in the little time between when we last emailed and now. You have all written alot and have probably done even more! Your lives are exciting and fun and full of things to do. Between Shay running for class president, Devree getting into NHS and Dane playing baseball and piano. You all are busy. Mom had that tough night to deal with and Dads probably working his tail off for everyone. You all have a pretty exciting life right now, but I've got you beat!
Here's whats going on in the Philippines
Me and my companion wake up at 6:30 and get ready for the day. Somedays we have to do our laundry by hand before we take a shower with the bucket which is not that bad. Then we head out to work in the sun. It's hot but every now and then there's a cool breeze that helps out with the gallons of sweat. We went to teach one lady who just started breast feeding half way through the lesson! She just whips her stuff out and starts feeding and I am shocked but Elder Bates is used to it by now. Then it starts to rain. The rain here is not like pitifull Nevada rain this is manly rain! It pours down on you so hard it's hard to hold your umbrella some times! We go out and find people and teach in it. Some times the wife is home but the husband is a trike driver so he gets home late. We had to teach a family in a grass hut by candle light one time and it was hard to read the notes I took to teach them. Some days are Pakiau Sundays and Pakiau is a boxer. He is like a Philippino hero and he usually fights on Sundays so when we are trying to find people to share our message with they are inside watching him fight so its hard those days. You know how we didn't drink Pepsi well now I do because some of these people are saving up to buy me this Pepsi and I can't turn it down because I don't want to offend them. They have this thing called Spanish Bread here that is delicious. I miss bread with meals. They eat it here for snacks. I want a PB and J sooooo bad!
Also I love slaying cockaroaches. They are fun to kill with a flip flop or a binder. Usually we have them under control but sometimes there are alot of them hiding somewhere. We use the permetheran spray for them in the hive. The geckos are everywhere also but we like them because they eat our bugs for us. They will chase the bugs around and catch them every now and then. They usually chill on the wall and look cool. The dogs here are annoying and they sometimes have fleas. They bark at us and we usually hit them with rocks or sometimes even umbrellas.
For one of the District meetings they had an object lesson and I was the volunteer. They had a bucket of water and it was filled with dirt and rocks and leaves and other things and my goal was to find the treasure inside the bucket. I searched and searched and eventually found a 5 peso coin in the muck. My hand was really dirty. Elder Miller our Zone Leader likend this to how our investigators are trying to find the treasures in life but they sin along the way and can get really dirty. Then he pulled out a bar of soap with repentance written on the side. I went and washed up and he said that was the gift we must give them, the gift of repentance, to clean up their lives and bring them more treasures.
My companion also sharred some good wisdom with me from a talk. It said the 3 secrets to having a successful life are 1st God 2nd Hard work and 3rd Education because without those three things it is hard to be successful.
I tried Halo Halo the other day and it was pretty tasty! It is shaved ice in a cup with other various fruits and sugar, Halo means to mix up so Halo Halo is really Mixed up!
They are crazy about Avirl Lavigne and the Backstreet boys and the Beatles here. Sometimes you can hear it comming from houses and things.
When I was hanging up my clothes to dry the clothes line broke and they got all dirty again.
I accidentally crushed a cat because my back pack was hanging on the back of my chair and when I stood up the chair fell back and the cat was smushed. I said sorry and I think they forgave me! They love texting here it is the # 1 country for texting The jubilee was amazing and I loved every second of it! They did alot of cultural dances and some good hymns and it was overall pretty darn cool. My ride back was nice hanging on to the back of a Jeepney and going through some tight corners. Kinda scary but the wind was in my hair and I was enjoying myself!
When we went to church President Carlos asked me if I had any talents and so I told him I play the trombone and a little piano and he told me that I was going to play piano from now on during sacrament meeting! Shows me to open my big mouth!
Anyways I love you all and I look at the blog every p-day to stay up to date on what's going on in your lives and I love you and Stay in school. JK
Love,
Elder Hamblin
P.S. Heres some more pictures love ya!