Just another day in paradise

So this week was really good but not so good at the same time.... when we were actually working it was really good..... it just seems like we spend sooooo much time in the apartment in this area. it's a little frustrating! It's a really beautiful area, but at the same time it is sooo soo hot! The other day we walked to our appointments... I've never sweated so much in my whole entire life! But it was good!

About walking though.... we walk a lot here! I love it! The other day we walked around 8 miles! It was a great day for appointments and exercise ! Unfortunately whenever we have one really solid day of proselyting, it seems like we really have a hard time being motivated and productive throughout the rest of the week.

This week was Sister Eslava's birthday, so she took us all the juvals, a really nice restaurant here, and we had dinner, it was really fun!

The highlight of my week though was on Saturday we had a service activity with the ward/branch where we went to the barangays and taught the people about 72-hour kits and the importance of preparing for tragedies if they happen. It was really fun and we had a lot of support from the ward!

Speaking if the help from the ward, we had a fellow shipper with us this week that was soooo excited to share the gospel.... it was.... good? Let's just say that I didn't get to do a lot of talking in that lesson.... and neither did Sister Rosario.

There have been some sweet lightning storms here the past couple of nights!!! It's awesome to be able to experience all new things in my new area. We are still working hard, so no worries there! Now we just need to contribute to some baptisms and things will be awesome!!!

I cant remember what else I sent, but I love you all!!!

Pictures.... obviously the ones with the yellow helping hands vest were from the service vest, my family will appreciate the fact that all day long I kept saying, "What do you mean help? We are helping! We're helping hands!" :)

That weird tractor thing that I am sitting on is called a kaliglig.... I don't exactly know what it does, but someone gave us a ride home on one the other night.... it was nice of them.

THAT SPIDER!!!! They are getting bigger!!!! Are you kidding me!?!?!? I thought that I was going to die!!! Elder Thurston was in our apartment before and he said that we get them all the time in this apartment.... oh gosh.... I'm a dead girl!!!!

I talked again in church this Sunday... yes.... that is two in a row.

Cockroaches and spiders. Blek.

So this weeks blog! First thing is first! We went to a wedding this week! Yaya!!! One of the investigators of the other sisters was getting married! So we got to go with them! It was way awesome a lot of people came for it and they had a lot of support!
At the beginning of the week I wrote in my planner to write about the cockroach..... but now here it is a week later and we have had so many battles with cockroaches this last week that I can't even remember what the cockroach story was that I was going to tell you! This beauty of a spider though!! Holy Cow! If I hadn't have been going to the bathroom already when I saw this giant I probably would have peed my pants! So you know how late at night when you have to go to the bathroom it's like the whole world hates you and your life couldn't get any worse? Slowly and grudgingly you roll yourself out of bed and shuffle your way to the door all the time tripping over things as you go. In the dark you feel your way down the stairs and go into the bathroom, you turn on the light and quickly shut your eyes as much as possible so that the light doesn't wake you up? Well no imagine that you are in a tiny little bathroom and with your eyes mostly shut you see something large and brown a foot in front of you on the door. You open your eyes and what do you see!?!?!? Practically a tarantula!

I thought for sure that I was a goner!! Yup.... no longer half asleep! I got out of there as quick as possible! Yes! I lived to tell the tale! It took me a good hour to fall back asleep after that! I thought that I was gonna get eaten at any second!

This week we went on my first splits! Where we work with members of the ward and not with our companion. It was kind of hard because I don't really know the area yet or any of the investigators, but it was still really good, I worked with Sister Everly:) She was a really great teacher too so it wasn't even awkward when she would teach stuff:)

The picture of me where my arm is super white is us in a tricycle this morning, there was 8 of us crammed inside of it!!!! I was just kid of plopped in at the end and my legs were hanging out of the back:) It was fun!

My sister Send me mac and cheese in the package that I just got from her.... its pretty much like gold to me, so when I put it into the fridge, I attached this warning:)

I also got a package from my mom this week that had my new journal in it! It's a good thing too because I had just run out of space in my other one!!!! yes.... the old journal once looked like this new one:) What can I say? Things get fat when they come to the Philippines.... I am partially proof of that:)

This is rice drying.... they just put it wherever they want.... on the road.... the driveway... just wherever, we are always driving over it

And last week when I sent my letters they ran out of big amount stamps.... so we plastered it with little amount stamps.... hopefully it makes it there.....

 

Love you all !!!! I'm Awesome write me a letter!

-Sister Julia Schultz

Nothing says Mission like icy water and EFY Zumba

So I finally took my first bucket shower in the Philippines! It's actually not as awful as I thought that it would be. Sure the first ice cold bucket of water it a little much to handle, but other than that it isn't so bad... I actually quite enjoy it! The area here is a lot different from my other area, its still farm lands, but its sooo pretty here! A lot more palm trees and a lot less dirt, the tricycles here are pretty funny looking, they kind of look like little bullet trains haha, you probably only know what that is if you area  Schultz or a Walker:) But they are a lot more comfortable to ride in when you are wearing a skirt:)

Redemption finally has come for my poor starving soul!!! My kabahays (the sisters who share my house) like to go running in the morning! Thank you for all of your prayers in my behalf!!! haha I'M SOOO HAPPYYYYY!!!! This is good, because all of them really are great at cooking and we eat.... all the time!!!! In the mornings though when it is raining, we just do some Zumba! It's a little boring doing Zumba to EFY music, but it's still fun and we laugh a lot when we do it:)

The other day we had a district meeting and then afterwards we went to lunch with the elders, it blows my mind that I am in the Philippines, a kabillion miles away from my house and I am eating lunch with Ryan Thurston! That's just so crazy!!! But awesome at the same time!

He comes home in May so he said that he would bring a memory card:) Also like I said Elder Ewell is my DL, he gave great training using matchbox cars the other day:)

We found this treasure of a fatty snail on our faucet this morning when we went to do our laundry.

This spider has been creepin around my desk for awhile.... so I broke the 6th commandment and killed it!!!!... I will repent.

Love you all!

A day late, but not a transfer short

Okay there is so much that happened this week you are just going to have to try and read this because there is not a chance that I am even going to try and fix any of my mistakes (but don't worry, I Cathy, will do my best). So last week I went on exchanges with Sister Deyro, they were so great! We were able to teach a lot and I got a little taste of what it would be like to actually have ward branch support in your area. T
he next day it was back to my area and while we were doing our studies, what do we feel....? An earthquake! That was awesome! It wasn't very strong, but I definitely felt it! This week was a little on the difficult side because we had transfers and I was finally leaving my first area. I did alright until I told the Relief Society President at church that I would be leaving in the morning and she started to cry. Then all through Sacrament Meeting every memebr that was there(which wasn't very many because there was a huge rainstorm) was crying their eyes out. It was sad. Afterwards we had lunch at our apartment with the Demars and Elder Demars gave me a blessing for my new area!

OH WAIT! I forgot something!! One time when I was teaching a lesson this last week a giant cockroach flew in to the room and straight into my face!!! What the heck! Did I jump up and scream.... why yes... yes I did. Then after the lesson it was still in the room flying around and it was time to pray.... I was still scared so I put the peice of paper on my face.... so what happens...?!?!! it lands on my arm, I move the paper, and it flies into my face again!!!! What is it with this place!!! Speaking of this place... I haven't gotten over the bathrooms yet hahah they are all gross. Every time that I have to go to the bathroom here I always think of that line from the Goonies when Chunk says, "Mikey Mikey this ain't the kind of place that you want to go to the bathroom in." yupp..... I know how you feel Chunk

So transfers.... I was transferred to Camalaniugan..... it was a 7 hour bus ride from Laoag.... thus the reason that I didn't email you yesterday:) The bus ride was really great though.... I'm not saying it is good to listen to music and stuff.... but they were listening to ABBA.... I will just leave it at that.......

The road was super crazy, basically just a zigzag the whole time.... making it nice and difficult to sleep. But it was still so great. I was with a sister who had just finished a short term mission, she was very nice:) I will attach a pic.

My area is pretty much the furthest from the mission home that you can get.... so much for mail and packages..... but the good news.... RYAN THURSTON IS MY ZONE LEADER!!! Isn't that crazy?!!! (fyi for those who don't know, Ryan Thurston went to the same High School as Julie) And Elder Ewell from the MTC is my District Leader I think! That's so great.... its like wherever I go I have some family. My new apartment is really nice. I'm in a house with 2 other sisters anad they are all so funny! At first I was a little nervous about being in a house with all Filipinos but in the 1 day that I have been there hasn't been so bad.

Last night we had dinner and I didn't know anything about the appointment before I got there. When I walk in the father of the home just says to me.... my family is members but I'm not. If you can prove to me that the BOM is true then I will get baptized.

He drilled my pretty hard core, I was like is this a joke? Something is fishy!!!! So I start looking.... CTR... garments.... yup I totally caught him!!! I just said Tatay! I know you know the Book of Mormon is true because otherwise you wouldn't have been able to get married in the temple!:) DEAD SILENT....."who said that?" he says, "just you" I say as I point to his garments that had crept out of his shirt:) Yes Success!!! He is the councilor to my mission president! Good thing that I answered the questions well!

And my new companion is.... Sister Rosario! This is her last cycle before she goes home and she is just so cute! I'm really excited to be working with her! I hope that everyone is having a great life in America and I guess everywhere too hah. I miss you Sister Woahn!!!!

Ingat Kayo!

Back to normal

Well I am happy to report that my hair is now a beautiful dark brown color:) I am free of the orange. After we emailed on Monday last week I called Sister Barrientos and told her what happened and she said that I could come to Laoag the next day and get it fixed, so we went to the Robinsons there.... I was in HEAVEN!!! for sure a taste of the Celestial kingdom right there! The mall was just exactly like a mall in America:) I was so happy!!! Also when they colored my hair, they gave me a back massage.... okay.... yup celestial kingdom (yes this is false doctrine)

We have an eternal investigator right now that is waiting for news that he can be baptized.... it's a work in progress and there are a lot of complications.... he will always say that he is a die hard mormon haha but there are a few things that I think that he is not quite clear on yet..... anyways we just found out last week that they never sent in his application to be baptized even though they told us in November that they had!!! What the?!?!? I was ticked! So then I had to call people and tell them what was up! I sound confident, but really I was almost crying cause I was so scared lol.
Tomorrow and Thursday is Sister Woahn and Sister Pamittan's birthday's, and today was withdraw, so I convinced President Barrientos to let us sleepover with the Sister's in Vigan and celebrate their birthdays today (not that it took much convincing, all that I did was ask)! And it was so fun!!! we all had lunch this afternoon at the Demars couple's apartment and also brownies and ice cream! It was so much fun!!! I love those Sister's so much!!! I cry every time after we leave their apartment....  of course Sister Woahn is there so it makes it that much harder for me, but really they are all so great!!!
Speaking of the Demars couple, I am not sure if I have told you all about them, So I will do so now, They are a senior couple that is assigned in the Vigan area and they will spend their whole mission there. They work with us every Tuesday and I just love them!! They are always taking care of us and helping with all of the really hard questions! When I get transferred, I'm for sure going to miss them!! They are basically my mission parents.
Because this blog is especially long, and I have no time to email today, everyone's personal emails are going to be quite short.... sorry) but just know that I love you!!!
Oh yeah! Because my hair is still in the rebonding process or whatever.... I'm not supposed to shampoo it for 10 days!!! its disgusting!!!! I am now on day 7.... endure for the sake of beauty's name.
Thank you to all who participated in the surprise for Sister Woahn!!! She loved it! Honestly I think it probably made me more happy than it made her, but that just means that it is like a double whammy!!!!
Sometimes here I see people do or say things, and I just think.... "what were you thinking when you just said/did that? that was a dumb idea. Like when we were walking on the street the other day and someone walked up to me and said, "you're fat" and then they walked away....... why would you do that? Surprisingly that happens all the time to all of the Americans here, girls at least, so there's just one example for you of the culture here.
We have transfers this next week.... I can feel it coming! It's going to be so hard, but I checked the turkey timer and I'm pretty much done in this area, it needs someone new:( Maybe I will get transferred to Vigan!!! Love you alll!!! Write me!!!

Here's a fun added bonus. I (Cathy) went to a play in Salt Lake this past week and I told Julie I was going and she told me that her favorite Sister Woahn's sister was in the play so being the creeper I am I tracked her down afterward and we got a picture together.