Second Email from Hope

Here is E-mail #2 Dearest Mom! So I am here in my mission now, I seriously hope someone told you that I arrived safely! So after I got off the phone with you in Seattle aka Grey's Anatomy land :) I had a 10 hour flight to Tokyo.. the flight was good but we arrived to Tokyo later than expected. Our Manila flight was supposed to be boarding 20 minutes before we landed in Tokyo so as you can imagine there were like 25 missionaries running to our gate, but when we got there the flight was delayed for a few hours so most all the 'sisters including myself went to find a bathroom in the Tokyo airport and guess what! I totally used a bidet.. (i think that;s how it's spelled) the toilets that spray your butt haha yea i used one and it was soooo HOT! but it was so great! So when we finally boarded the plane me and Sister R. sat next to each other again :) yay! So we landed in Manila and it was SOOOO hot! and it was like 11pm anywho... we all waited to go through customs for like 3 hours and then when we finally got through customs it was almost 2am so we all get our luggage and found one of the drivers so we all followed him and he said Ok San Pablo missionaries take your bags to that car over there so they all did and then as they were putting all the luggage in that car another driver came and got the 8 Laoagies and said ok this way... so we followed him and guess what! We didn't get to say goodbye to the other missionaries  from our district and yes i am still depressed about it.... anywho so our driver drove us to this super fancy hotel in Manila, and so now it was just the 7 sister and the 1 elder, so the guy that was giving room assignments put me and sister w. in a room together but sister r was clear on the other side of the hotel in her own room which is totally against the rules so we went and rescued one very frightened Sister R. and took her to our room but since there were only 2 beds and we can't sleep together, sister walker ended up sleeping on the counter thing in front of the window...ha it was great and the hotel room was nice and cold :) by the time we showered it was almost 4am so we tempted to sleep for the next 2 and a half hours but it was an epic fail. Jet lag is a BUTT! so in the morning we all got ready and ate this sweet and sourish chicken for breakfast weird right? but we got taken to the airport and flew to Laoag around 1pm where the President met us and put us in a Jeepney and we went to the mission home where we had a long orientation then they served us Filipino spaghetti then an hour later they served us pizza then about 20 mins later we got an envelope that said who our new companions were and what area we would be in.. My companion is Sister P., she is older than me, she is very nice! so after we all met our new companions they took us all to get more food, and by this point i was exhausted and fuller than a pig! but i shoved as much of it down as i could, then when we were heading back to the mission home The President had all the foreigners ride in a tricycle aka tricey ha look up the pictures of them you will laugh. and i ride in them all the time, sometimes on the back of the motorcyle with both legs on one side.... anyways after we got back to the mission home the new missionaries got to stay the night as for all our new companions i have no idea where they stayed. oh so my area is a hot area, it is a lovely place, but it is sooo hot all the time and our house is not air conditioned i have to rely on a fan....oh and guess what Sister C. is my room mate. God has a sense of humor that is for sure! but its not as awful because I don't have to be with her all the time anymore! her companion is so nice we get along great her name is Sister C. or something like that. anywho so the day after we stayed in the mission home we luckily got driven to our apt. and it is so cute but it is hot!!! people here literally carry sweat rags with them but luckily in my apt. we have indoor plumbing but the toilet is broken so we have a bucket of water thing to manually fill the toilet up so it flushes on its own. also the shower is broken so we have to take bucket baths... and the water is one temp. luckily its cold or i would kill myself and the cold feels so good! we also have a fridge and freezer but its shorter than american onces cause the people are sooo short and small. we do laundry by hand and it is funny, but i'm getting used to it. but something nice for you to send me would be white shirts and those V-neck ones from Walmart that come in like packs of 3 cause it is so hot here i always wear a white shirt.... the bugs love white people i have gotten about 35 bites but they are all healed now cause i put so much bug repellent on... the elder couple elder and another sister took me to get this lotion thing to put on bites and it works wonders, they are so nice they are from Washington state or Idaho i'm not sure. so everyone here stares at me and points and say ohh WHITE or AMERICANA haha i just smile and wave and say hello po :) it is quite funny. but the people here are so nice.:( sad i know! but so far i have had 2 baptisms the first one was a boy and the one on Saturday was a girl. (yes Cierra and faith she is related to Damon and Stefan) haha but she is so nice and her daughter is getting baptized on the 22nd along with 5 others! oh we are so awesome! so the other day we were going to teach someone, but she wasn't home so as we were walking back there were these people on the side of the road that started talking to us and said they wanted to listen to what we had to say but they were leaving and that we should come back and teach them another day but they said you can teach our neighbors so they took us to their neighbors house and we sat in this cool hut thing that you see in movies and we talked to this woman.who is so nice and after 10 long years she finally had a baby anyways so we talked to her and she was so interested and wanted us to come back so we came back about 3 days later on Friday and we were working with the elder couple, and when we got there so many people wanted to listen to us so we all smashed in that hut thing. and preached and someones father in law was so interested and had so many questions and elder couple husband did so good, it was the best lesson i have ever been apart of. so all the people that were there want to continue being taught so we have appts. with them on Tuesday :) hopefully good things will come out of this. They are an awesome family. as for me, i am not as miserable as i was last week because of the heat, we had a rain storm on Tuesday and it was awesome, there was so much rain and it made this place cool! it was wonderful, and one of the people we teach lent me a huge rain coat it was awesome more people stared at me haha. but i am good i am slowly starting to like this place more and more, it would be better if i could just cool off but its always sooo hot there is no cooling off. but i'm doing the lords work so its important so look for the good! ok so if you want to send me stuff please send me a magic eraser, i need Crocs size 9, candy i am seriously gonna die without sugar. airheads or frooties! can you email me Rodrigo's email? ok let me know if u got 3 packages from me and keep Cierra far away from them. can you send me some recipes too, cookies, rice bowls etc... the other day it was my day to cook and so i made french toast for lunch and eggs and toast for dinner but when i was making the french toast the oil jumped and burnt my poor companions arm you should see it it is not pretty but she still loves me :) oh last night i was killing mosquito's with one of those tennis racket looking things that zap the crap out of bugs haha it was wonderful. i have pics of it and of my house but i'll have to send them next week cause i'm almost out of time..... oh another thing I would like is zip lock bags to put sandwiches in cause apparently they don't have them here. but don't send anything yet. i have to talk to the president and see how to get stuff sent here safely cause if i get crocs i don't want them getting stolen. ok for the V-necks from walmart size M please. you would be so proud of me if you saw me hand washing clothes haha and yes they have tide here but i didn't buy any yet my companion bought me some other kind and i don't wanna offend her so i'll just use it and then switch to tide :) I had ice cream here the other day and it was actually good, even tho i'm not so sure what kind of milk it was made of if it was even milk. ha i'm sorry that i can't send you letters :( it makes me sooo sad cause i have so much stuff i want to send to you like the programs from the baptisms and just stuff like that haha. so right now were are in this little computer shop thing and it is air conditioned and i don't want to leave but we gotta go grocery shopping :) ok so here so many people have lice you see people on the sides of the street just picking it out of each others hair so lice shampoo would be good cause i do NOT want to get it! and the triceys are sooo short that i have to crouch in them and i'm too afraid to touch my head on the ceiling.  but it is pretty nice here i do like it and the people are amazing i'll send some pics next time hopefully :) Well this is super long and sorry about all the spelling errors its weird to type and i am trying to type as fast as i can... as for my Tagalog it is coming slowly still, luckily everyone i live with speaks English but i try to speak Tagalog! Love you Love You Love you! tell kim i got her letter but i can't reply to it so have her email me or something ... Love you mom! and dad and faith and Cierra and Scott and Jenny and Maverik and Madrid and Florence! love you love you! See you soon!!!  Love you all! Here are two pictures that were sent from her companion: