Happy New Year!

Okay looks like this is going to be a short one! But Merry Chirstmas and Happy New year everyone! It was a really great week this last week... and why was it a really great week you might ask?!?! Well because I got to Skype with my family of course!!!! It was just grand. At first they hadn't added my on skype, but luckily, my grandpa did and he was online! So I skyped with him for a little second(cried like a baby) and then he called my family and told them what was up! In no time at all I was skyping with them! Yaya for technology!
I had my first exchange this last week with Siste Quiles, it was really fun I really enjopyed it. When I got back to Siniat also everyone was soo happy to see me! They all thougt that I had left for good! But no... I'm still here for another three months:) They can't get rid of me that easy.
Thats right, I'm here for another three months:) I'm training for the next two transfers:) so we will so how that goes! Im really excited about it and nervous at the same time!!!
For new years tonight my companion and I will probably watch the restoration or the District training videos or something... I know.... don't be too jealous now! But Christmas was super great! We got to spend it in Viganm with the Sisters there and we got to go to the zoo! Yaya!
We had one baptism this week, Roann:) He was a golden investigator:) It was so great, her brother Delmar was able to baptize her, he was the first baptism that I had here.

Merry Christmas

Christmas conference was awesome! We got there (Laoag) around 2:30 when we would be starting and I was already feeling a little emotional and stuff, so we are waiting inside the church and in walks Elder Ewell (from my MTC batch) I almost started to cry. But I composed myself and went up to talk to him. As I started talking to him I was barely keeping it under control when out from behind him pops Elder Reber.... I wasn't prepared haha I just started crying and awkwardly left. Went to the bathroom and composed myself and came back out and started talking to them. As I was saying "just wait till Sister Woahn gets here, I'l be a wreck!" IN walks Sister Woahn.... yup... I cried like a baby. We caught up and I was able to talk with her a lot. :) Later we had a service project at the hospital and a really nice dinner at the mission home:) The best part of the night though was getting the packages from my mom. :) She's the greatest! And yes... Again I cried.

During one of our appointments this week the members gave us a watermelon! Of course it was one of our first appointment of the day and I had to carry it around in my purse for the rest of the day! We laughed about that for a while.

My word of the week is: makapananahanan

This week has been interesting.... not much work because on saturday my companion was sick all day. I cleaned the whole apartment and wrote ALOT of letters. These are the people who can expect a letter from me:
Grandpa and Grandma Schultz
Sister Heidi Woahn
Nicole Waxman
The 8 children from the elementary school who wrote me:)
Mom
Cathy
Dad
Cache
Mercedes
Mrs. Yates
Sister Davidson
Jamee
Dustyn
Rick
Marc
Sierra
THe Jeppesons
David
Kevin
Aunt Tammy and Uncle Benny
Uncle Bryan and Aunt Fauniel
Leticia Harris

... it was a productive day for me:) Which is good because yesterday it was my turn to be sick. I stayed in bed all day and slept... at night... I slept too. and that was all:)

This is a picture a member drew for Christmas.

This is a picture a member drew for Christmas.

First Official Baptisms

This week we had 2 baptisms! Yaya my first two official baptisms! I was there from start to finish! Their names are Joy and Kyla and they are so great! They were baptized by their uncle, a less- active that we have been teaching and he just received the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood. We met them whole we were teaching him one day and the Demars invited them to a youth camp, it pretty much was a wild fire from then on and now, one month later they are baptized:)
While working in one of the barangay's yesterday, we went to teach an old lady but first we went to a members house to teach and they have a two year old names Hannah:) So is so cute and she will always ask for a sticker and give us treats. yesterday she told her mom that she wanted to be a missionary with us as we were leaving and her mom said alright fine go, she she came with us to our teaching appointment (just down the road) she was soo cute! she played the whole time that we taught haha and then we walked her back home:)
I finally got some letters and packages this week! Yay! Some packages from Cache and a lot of letters! Don't worry I will write you all back:)
I just realized that when i was in junior high and high school i would always get forwards that said, "if you don't forward this you will die in 3 years..." I never forwarded them.... and I'm still alive....:)

Golden members and new baptisms

Blogging is getting harder and harder cause i cant remember what was on the last ones and what I have already written about. This coming week though will be Joy and Kyla's baptism!!! They are around 13 and the will be my first official baptisms meaning i have taught them since the beginning! I'm pretty excited! they are so great!
One of our recent converts, Brother Delmar, (my first unofficial baptism) has pretty much become a golden member of the ward. He now has a calling, is preparing for a mission, and the other night prepared a family home evening for pretty much all of sallacapo.... which was like 30 people! It was really great! His family is not yet members, but they all came to it too and they loved it! We've been teaching his little sister and she is going to be baptized on the 29th:) my 3rd official baptism:)
Yesterday we had a typhoon here.... it wasn't that bad though, it just rained a lot and was really windy. By the time that we went out and worked it was pretty much over. Kind of exciting though:)
Yesterday four members of the ward worked with us as we taught the less actives, Brother Delmar was one of them, He likes to work with us because he really wants to serve in the states and he needs to improve his English... since i speak English.... it makes sense.
That's pretty much all I have for this week... oh I found the love of my life here:)... hazelnut chocolate spread from Belgium.... I KNOW that they must have this in heaven... it's the best thing I've ever tasted... ever.
(I think she missed the existence of the Nutella here in the United States)

Angry dogs and answered prayers

I have very little motivation today to write a blog . . . mostly because nothing too exciting happened this last week . . . but I will see what I can do. I finally got a bunch of letters in the mail!!! Yaya! But they decided it was a good idea to hold all of our packages until Christmas Conference so that it will be more merry for us. While that might be true. . . I'm still a little more than bitter about it because I know that my mom sent me advent stuff and now I don't even get to do it! I'm upset.

 For the great story in how the Lord is watching over us. My kasama and I were walking back to our apartment from a teaching appointment, minding our own business, when two huge dogs ran at us barking and growling! NO joke I've never said a prayer so fast in my entire life! Please don't eat us! Oh my goodness.... our hearts just stop! But they literally stopped like a foot away from us like they were on a chain or something.... but they weren't! It was crazy! then they just circled us and kept barking and growling when the owner finally came and got them..... crazy! We definitely said a prayer of thanks after that.

That's all... sorry I'm lame

Thanksgiving and Tricycles

I had to give a talk in church yesterday.... in all Tagalog. I wrote it all out in English and the \n my companion translated it into Tagalog for me.... there was this one word... larawan,,,, I just couldn't get it! I messed it up every time and everyone just laughed at me. I felt so frustrated! Afterwards everyone in the ward came up and told me how to say it, and then they congratulated sister Francia on writing such a wonderful talk for me. What the heck!2 I wrote that talk! haha She told everyone that though, so it was good:)
Thanksgiving was really good:) we had cooked ham, mashed potatoes, corn peas and ice cream! Oh man... I'm such a great cook haha.

I am obsessed with sticky rice! It is soooo goood! Apparently it takes a lot of work and it pretty much takes all day to cook, but I don't even care! I'm gonna learn how to make it and make it every Christmas when I get home! I love it so much! There is a family here that makes it everyday and then sells it.... we teach them.... and every time we go over there they give us a huge plateful of it.... oh man oh man do I love teaching them!
My word for this week is kasingningning which means as bright as. its difficult to say. :(
Lastly, we teach a couple of people in a barangay called sallacapo, and to get to on of the houses, we have to walk across a super sketch bridge. its pretty much 4 pieces of bamboo that go across the water.... we usually just walk the mile around to get to their house. I will try to get a picture though.

Questions this week

Have you met many people not from the the Philippines? In Spain I met people from EVERYWHERE. Apparently Spain is a hoppin' spot. 

I haven't really met anyone from anywhere else..... sorry, that's lame.

What's a common thing people know about the United States? example: People always asked if I lived close to New York City. They always knew big cities like NYC, L.A. and Miami. 

California! Everyone here knows California ... in their opinion, that is really the only thing that exists in the United States.

What food do you miss the most? I just miss knowing what I am eating.... most of the time I'm eating things that I have never even heard of before. The veggies here are delicious though... so I won't complain too much about those.

How hot is it really and how do you deal with that? It's usually around 97 degrees. I wouldn't say that I really deal with it. My hair is always up. I always put sunscreen on my face, I sweat from every pore and I'm always sticky. We shower twice a day and they are always cold showers, which I don't mind, because it is basically the only part of the day that you are even close to feeling cool.

How do they celebrate Christmas there? Are the stores decked out? Christmas music? Not too much Christmas music, but there are a lot of decorations.

Do you do much public transportation? If so what is it? 
 For transportation, we mostly go around on tricycles. Which is a dirt bike with a driver and then a little, I don't know how to explain it, like a bucket seat.... only more legit. Best as I can describe it, I would say that its like those cages that they have at lagoon that you sit in, they are pink and purple, and you can spin in them.... it's like a Ferris wheel, but you spin your cage and you can lock it upside down and stuff... you know what I am talking about?

Golden Investigators and nasty flies

This week:
We had a zone activity, we went to a really lame museum and then went and played volleyball at the church.
 
The young women here love me... and I love them! They are so great! They came out and worked with us yesterday, and two of them aren't even members yet! They are our golden investigators.

I have a really bad rash on my arms still and now on my stomach... it's getting bigger... I'll probably die....
 
The word for this week was makakababa.... which means degrading, I just like the word. It is a lot more fun than the week before's word, which was nagngangalang...... which means named. That's like really hard for Americans to say.... but I'm pretty much a pro now.
 
The investigator that made me cry last week decided to be my friend this week.... maybe she felt bad haha.

There is a family that we are teaching to read right now for our community service! They are the nicest family ever! I love them! They are just so great!

And I (Cathy) asked her some questions to answer so here are those, if you have any you'd like her to answer on the blog, just message me on facebook or comment on her blog. :)
 
What's the weirdest/grossest thing you've had to eat?
The meat here is pretty much straight up fat.... its not my favorite.... and its all straight off of the bone. I pretty much only eat canned items now.

What's your favorite thing to eat? 
They have really good recipes and ideas for spaghetti sauce here. mixing it with cheese or milk and putting in hot dogs. The hot dogs here are actually really good. Not like the ones at home hahha.

Any creepy crawlies you've had to deal with?
I always have flies all over my ankles... I HATE IT!!! It drives my crazy! The people here, it doesn't even phase them, but I can't stand it!

Have you had anyone propose to you yet? (I feel like every sister missionary has at least one of those) 
No one has proposed to me yet, but people tell me they love me all the time. And everywhere I go, you can always here "americana, americana, americana"... over and over and over....

What missionary in your District or Zone do you admire the most?  Why? 
 Actually i barely know any of them. Ive only interacted with them three times.... so that means that Sister Francia takes the winning prize:) Because she works really hard and is always looking for ways to improve.

Mashed potatoes and pancakes

well..... this is taking forever to upload so we will just type this blog of mine. Not much new to report this week, we have been working really hard and it is really hot. I did get to make mashed potatoes though! The food of my people! they were delicious!
Sunday at church one of our recent converts, LJ, gave me a friendship bracelet. With me being all emotional now and stuff I almost cried.... no joke. Moments like that are what help to make it worth while to be gone from everyone that you know for just this short time. 
I found "my investigator" though this week.... well she's not really an investigator, she is a less active, but for some reason, I'm like obsessed with teaching her, even though she made me cry the first time that we taught her cause she was so mean. We went back and I was surprisingly really happy to see her and felt very comforted just being around her. We are basically best friends now. I think she is 64.... I cant really remember.
I'm getting better at cooking pancakes in an actual pan now, I just had to modify the recipe a bit so that they would turn out better.
Great news! We found a post office somewhat close to our apartment today so I was FINALLY able to send some letters home. Still haven't gotten any yet, but that's okay I will just keep pretending that I have some to make myself feel better lol.
One of the less actives that we have been teaching, his name is Reginald, and he was able to bless the sacrament for the first time on Sunday! He was soo happy he had the smile of a four year old on Christmas the whole time! It was awesome. I think he is like 30.
We taught one lady that used to be my favorite, but she told us that she would prefer it if I didn't talk during the lessons anymore.... so now she is not my favorite. Yup... I cried pretty hard after that one. 
I think that that is pretty much it. I really want to hear from you all at home! So don't forget to write!

Rough times

Okay... so Another short one probably.... but there was a lot of stuff that was going on this week...... but we will see what we have as far as a blog goes.... This week we went and visited an investigator that hasn't been baptized yet, but he is so great! When we got there though, they were just about to eat, so we sat down to eat with them and they were eating crabs... little tiny baby crabs. That was an adventure for me because I had no idea how to eat them, it took me like 20 minutes just to get it open and then there was only like one nubble of edible stuff... not worth the time....

And here is where I (Cathy) have to cut in. This is what I had on my email at 11:08 p.m. last night. It had only been in my inbox 21 minutes and it said to be continued at the end. I of course knew from that, that she must still be online, so being the responsible sister that I am, I emailed her real quick to see if she was still on. I remember on my mission that sometimes my dad would be at his computer while I was doing email time and we could email back and forth for a bit, kind of like instant messenger, but not quite so instant. Anyway, she never got around to finishing her email because we were emailing back and forth, so that first little paragraph is all you get this week, but I'll share a few things I got from her and some things my mom told me this morning as well.

She's been sick and she's feeling homesick. She's frustrated with the language and stressing because she'll be training in January. The ward she is in is really struggling because of the missionaries who were there before them who were not very good and actually got sent home early. 

Normal mission struggles, but struggles none the less. I'm sure she could use all the prayers she can get and letters would be a great boost. Mailing info is in the sidebar.  She's one tough cookie and I know she'll make it through. I'm doing that "Be thankful for something everyday in November" thing and this was what I chose for yesterday. 

November 4

I was struggling to think of something to be grateful for today. Not that I don't have things, but I didn't have anything that really stuck out that I was particularly grateful for, until I just checked my email, because you know it's Monday in the Philippines and that means it's p-day for my sister. To my great surprise and delight there was an email, but it was short and said to be continued at the bottom so I looked at when it was sent and it was only 21 minutes ago! Do you know what that means!? That means she's on right now so I can email her and it's like instant messenger, only not so instant, but we can have a sort of normal conversation through sending emails back and forth. I did that with my dad on my mission. BUT back to my grateful thing for the day. I'm grateful for my SISTER!!! I just love her. She can always make me laugh and make a sour situation great. She is strong and determined and full of life and love and energy. I love the inside jokes we have and how when we both get laughing it can go on and on and we're both crying and can hardly breathe. THAT is a good time. Who knew that my mom was right, when I was 15 and my sister was 9 and I didn't want her to tag along with me and my friends and I just didn't really want a sister, and my mom said, someday you'll change your mind and she'll be one of your best friends. True statement. Mom is smart. I miss her like crazy with her being on the mission and sometimes I go to text her to ask her something or tell her something funny only to remember she's in a different country and won't be able to respond, but I'm so proud of her for going on a mission and being an example to my family. She's a gem and I'm glad if I only have one sister that she's it.

What a blessing to our family to have a missionary out right now. We sure love her and are proud of her for her service to the Lord and the people of the Philippines. 

She sent this picture, I don't actually know what it is besides what looks like food and a cake . . .

The woman I will NEVER forget

okay this weeks blog.... it's not going to be super long because I'm sort of feeling like I don't want to type or something hahaha but! This week has gone really great! We had two more baptisms, LJ and Magie and that was really great! We did have one really interesting experience with one lady that we were teaching.... I will write you what I wrote in my journal that day:)

October 23rd

... don't worry though, that's not the strangest thing that happened to me today. For our last appointment we went to teach a sister that lives just down the road from us, (we decided that she's not really interested, she just wants someone to talk to in English) and her friend came in the gate, I was thinking, "oh perfect! she looks very interested!" she was interested all right! but not in the gospel, in me! She came right up to me and said (in English) 'I'm sorry, but when I saw you, I felt something, and I feel I need to talk to you." 

I'm still thinking, "Oh this is Perfect! She's going to be the perfect investigator!" Wrong! She then says, "What's your name? I need to know." At this point she is sitting RIGHT next to me with her hand on my knee, which I thought that that was a little weird, but I'm still going with that golden investigator thing.... still wrong. I tell her, "My name is Sister Schultz." She rubs my knee (which i thought might have just been an old lady thing) and says, "will you write it down for me please?" Perfect! Pass-Along card! She asks me to write where I live too, that's when I thought to myself, "wait what? What is this?" So I just write, "taga America" she was like "no! no! Which house where are you live now?" I didn't tell her, then she says, "you're so beautiful, I love you, I just am wanting to give to you a hug! Please Don't forget me! Oh I love you! You are so beautiful" What the?!?! Oh wait.... still gets weirder....

She gets up and awkwardly shuffles behind me and puts her hands on my shoulders like she was going to give my a shoulder rub... but no. She just stood there for like 2 minutes.... and there's me.... just awkward, chillin' with her hands on my shoulders. Finally my kasama says "okay, that's enough." Cause they were all talking with the other lady this whole time) and the crazy lady (still standing behind me) reaches around and hug/holds my head and starts crying into my neck (me, still awkwardly just sitting there... i pat her arm) she just keeps sobbing, "please! Please! Don't forget me" After that she ran out, OVERTAKEN with sobs and emotion... oh man....

Since then she has chased us down the street a couple of times and we see her almost everyday. I don't think that she needs to worry.... I will NEVER forget her:)