Week 21: Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

So now, after 21 weeks, Elder Menzie is a bona fide, real time, not being trained, missionary in the Cauayan Philippines Mission. What a time to be alive.

This Tuesday, we got the text that my trainer, Elder Leausa, was getting transferred to Santiago, which is one of the biggest cities in the mission, as a zone leader, because he's like the best or something. I also find out, however, that Elder Anderton, who trained my MTC companion, got transferred here to Aurora.

It was kind of sad going around to some of the families that we were close with and hearing Elder Leausa say goodbye, but I wasn't leaving, so in a more real way, it wasn't very sad at all.

Elder Anderton is great. He's 17 months into the mission now, and he's pretty much fluent in Tagalog, and he's pretty darn good at illicano, which is a dialect that they speak a lot here. I've already learned a lot from him. Especially about offering help to everyone we talk to, just to show that we're not just here to talk the talk about being representatives of Christ, we really try to walk the walk in everything we do.

Illicano One: A Dialect Story:
Besset Lang -- Just a little (usually in reference to how much illicano I know)

Where are my pictures?!
Next week, this netshop sucks.

Love,
Elder Menzie

PS. My Thanksgiving Dinner consisted of adobo chicken, sardines with egg and a Coke.

Pic from Brother Mora:

Elder Anderton, the Moras and Elder Menzie

Week 20: Zone Leader Splits and Elder Wakolo's Mission Tour

This week has been a pretty crazy fun week for the Elders in Aurora!

For starters, on Tuesday, we didn't have District Meeting because this week we had Zone Conference with Elder Wakolo, who is a member of the area presidency here in the 'pines.

So instead of going to district meeting on Tuesday, the Zone Leaders came to our area for splits, but the thing is, our Zone Leader is training Elder Finau, who came into the mission with me, so Elder Leausa and Elder Finau worked together, and I worked with Elder Perez, the Zone Leader.

I'm sure Elder Finau and Elder Leausa were the sight to behold when they were walking down the streets of Aurora, because they are the two biggest Elders in the mission, both with full ride scholarships to D1 schools for football. When people see them walk by, the say "Ang 'laki tao!" which roughly translated means "the big person!"

Working with Elder Perez was great though! he taught me about expounding on scriptures I use, and basically just showed me how it's done in the general sense. He's super funny too. He's a native Filipino, but he's super good at english, and he wowed me by being the first person I've met in the mission who's seen Sons of Provo, which, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure, is a really weird movie about a fake boy band from Utah, and all their songs are about the Gospel and weird things about "mormon" culture.

Splits were great, but it was super great on Thursday to make the trek to Illagan to Zone Conference to hear Elder and Sister Wakolo speak to us. They were great! Elder Wakolo is super knowledgeable in the scriptures, which kind of blew my socks off. He went through 24 sets of missionaries, and for 8 years he investigated the church, and now he's a general authority. He's great.

Also this less active guy that we're pretty good friends with named Louis is going on a trip back to his homeland! I'm sharing this because Louis reminds me of a Filipino version of Mr. Bean mixed with Mr. Magoo, with the mouth of a sailor. He's great. I hope he has a good trip.

Love,
Elder Menzie

The three of us from District 16d from the Provo MTC at the Illagan Zone Conference

The Boyz at Zone Con