Week 23: Christmastime is Here... Happiness and Cheer...

So, it's still Christmastime, which I'm sure all of you are well aware of at this point, but things are still ramping up here, and I'm kind of scared as to what it could possibly be leading to. I'm thinking a couple riots. It's all good though, I've heard Easter is even crazier, but I'll be the judge of that.

We had our branch Christmas party this week, which was tons of fun. Everyone brought ulam and we had a big ole potluck. There were games, candy was thrown, and the Filipino version of Karaoke. It's basically just karaoke but with a special machine that plays a filipino polka cover for the song. Yes, I listened to their version of "Africa" by Toto, and in case you were wondering yes, they did misspell "Olympus" as "A Limbless" in the lyrics. It was great. I love the Philippines.

I've been sick for what seems like forever, by the way. For pretty much the whole week, my head has been trying to tell me that it's got far too much mucus inside of it. It's a really humbling thing to try and speak a foreign language when you don't really have a voice, but somehow I've been plucking along. I'm plucky like that, or so I've heard.

Solo: A Tagalog Story:
Ulam -- the food that you put on top of your rice

Love,
Elder Menzie

The mouse that I couldn't let escape, and the broom I broke trying to kill it.

Me with Manuel D. and his nephew posing with me for a pic.

Bonus pic of Elder Menzie sent to his parents by the branch president

Week 22: It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

It's December! I bet everyone is starting to get in the Christmas Spirittm! Well you're late, because they've been in the Christmas Spirit here in the Philippines the entire time I've been here, and I got here in August! I kid you not, my first P-day here, I heard Christmas songs playing in the supermarket. These people really love baby Jesus.

But now that it's actually the Christmas season, things went from about a 6 or 7 on the Christmas Spirittm scale, right up to 11. On Saturday, Elder Anderton and I were answering some questions that one of our referrals had while we were walking to a December 1st celebration, where they lit up this big ole Christmas tree they've got set up right in front of the municipal building in Aurora. To put it simply, the size of this Christmas tree is very much disproportionate to the size of the tiny little town of Aurora.

The celebration was pretty crazy. there were fireworks, McDonalds, the works.

Also, on Sunday, we went out to this Barangay called San Rafael, which is further than I've ever gone in this area, which was super cool. Got some pretty awesome pictures from that.

Other than that though, it's been a pretty normal week. nothing too crazy, except the fact that I ate 10 cups of cooked rice at this place called Mang Inasal.

The Last Tagalog:
Barangay -- no direct translation, but pretty much just the big neighborhoods that municipalities are divided up into here in the 'pines

Love,
Elder Menzie

Me holding a large stick with a knife on top 

San Rafael

Last 2 pics: San Rafael with Elder Anderton