Getting transferred!

Week 41

7th September 2015

I'm being transferred to Gumaca, Lopez Zone! I will be following up a missionary fresh out of training and I may have to teach Tagalog...keen to get to the new area.. 

Apparently my area has like a Macdonalds, so I'm excited to be somewhere with fast food, even though they call the Lopez Zone "Outer Darkness", it's like on the other side of the mission!

I know I'm e-mailing pretty late, we just got back from Victoria, from our Zone P-day. Nearly half of the zone is transferred, but 3 missionaries that have been here for 6 months are still here for another cycle! All of us that came in with them were laying into them about having 5 cycles in Mindoro. 

We just played a couple of games as a zone, and they were crack up! We played this game where we had to walk through a tunnel, with the other missionaries holding the rope in the way, and we couldn't touch the rope, while blindfolded. I was one of the 4 who had to be blindfolded, but I knew the game (the ropes conveniently move when you get close so you don't touch them). Elder Nikau was the last one, and we spun him around, and put him well away from the path. He started to army crawl, and went head first into the wall! Me and Elder Fa'asavalu put him there, and the whole zone was laughing our heads off at him. Poor guy, NOT! Waaaay too funny. It was a good zone p-day, too funny.

This last week was just me kind of waiting to get transferred. Only a few visits to members, and a couple to some investigators. 

This next week, should be interesting. Visiting members and saying goodbye, and then heading off to Batangas on Wednesday night, to head out to Gumaca on Thursday. 

I have probably the longest trip in the mission, and I'm travelling most of it by myself! Not excited, and people will try rip me off but I'm a good bargainer.  I have to travel by boat to Batangas, bus to Santo Tomas, bus to San Pablo, bus to Lucena, and then bus to Lopez.

In fact, in my new zone is my second trainer Elder Santos, my MTC companion Elder Faka'i, and Elder Aisa from Cairns. Elder Aisa is my new zone leader, and his companion is one of my old zone leaders, Elder De Sosa. Looking forward to the new zone, and the new challenge.

Honestly, I'm really going to miss Pola. I loved the members here heaps, and they re-payed me with love back. Branch President wanted me to stay 7 months, but I'll go where the Lord wants me to go.

Yeah, it's weird that I'm going to be 19 in 3 weeks. It's funny too, because most that I hang out with are around 20-23, except Elder Hapi, who's 19 as well.

Zone conference is on the 17th of September! I think so anyway, 17th, 18th, or 19th, one of those days. Lopez, Lucena, and Marinduque are all combined which means I'll get to catch up with Elder Finau and Sister Purcell in my batch, Elder Akroyd, and a tonne of my old zone mates in Mindoro, especially my old companion Elder Erickson! I'm really excited for that, and it should be a cool zone conference too.

You would not guess what I have had to eat all the time here...... hint: it stinks... Yep... Durian! It's a delicacy over here..... I've eaten it once every week for the last transfer..... not that I like it very much... I won't be eating it in my next area, not with a maccas in my area. I miss eating balut though, it's been a whole 6 weeks since I've had it!