first transfer!

today is my first transfer! im staying here in Toboso with my companion! im pretty grateful for this area its really awesome! 

     I have 3 stories this week. the nights are kind of hard sometimes because it gets dark at like 5 and most people are asleep by like 7 or 8. so the other night we were looking for people to talk to and we found a family out looking for there child, and we offered to help them. we said a prayer and then we were able to find this kid!! it was really crazy and reminded me of the story of the lost sheep. 

     the other day we were walking out to a more bukid wild part of our area and  i stepped in some mud and i ended up being covered in mud everywhere. so we walked to a well nearby and asked an old lady outside if we good barrow some water to wash off my arms and face and shirt and shoes. she was like oy very very dirty! and then she used the water in her bucket to wash my arms and feet. it was a really interesting experience. i dont love it when people touch me but it was still kind of cool. she is baptist and it reminded me of when the saviour washed his apostles feet. she didnt want to come to church, but she was doing a good job of following Jesus example.

     later that night it was pretty late and we were walking back and we passed by this passed out drunk guy. we helped him up and he was in really bad shape. his jaw kept making loud popping sounds. we had no idea what to do because his house was pretty far the other direction and we couldn't carry him. we started looking for people to help. and then a tricycle came! it was a miracle because they dont usually go out there. tricycles are like motorcycles with sidecars welded on. he helped us out and i had to hold the drunk guy up so he didnt fall out. and my companion had to push us up some hills because the road was so rough but we made it to his house and it was really cool. that reminded me of the good Samaritan. 

     It was really cool this week to look for similarities to jesus life in the bible. it is really helps you always remember him. so you should all look for those miracles in your lives! it is awesome! i know the church is true i love you all!

pictures

coconut helmet for earthquakes

 a super sketchy bridge 

some baby ducks we found

i heard it snowed in utah so we made it snow here too!

Kalag Kalag!!

this week was kalag kalag which means soul soul or all souls day. no one wanted to talk with us because they were busy spending time with dead relatives. Also a lot of people got really drunk. but it was still a good week. we had another baptism! we also went on exchanges. and that was pretty cool. I went to stop aguinaldo which is like my area ,toboso, but in the mountains instead of the beach. I couldn't understand the people there as well, that was pretty hard. the house in stop is also one of the worst in the mission (tin roof and no running water) which was a cool experience too. I know the church is true, and i know god helps his children. I love you all! have a good week!

pictures

a tree ate this sandal

some goats celebrating kalag kalag

some tang we made

I got robbed

this week I was walking and I found a rock that looked like a cinnamon roll so I put it outside my house as decoration and as I was closing the door this little kid came and stole it and ran down the street!

     I also made tortillas cause they don't have them here and I found a nice coconut and we used the shell to scrap the meat from the coconut and made coconut milk so we have had lots of coconut rice. It's really good. We ate 3 kilos of rice this week.

Saturday we had two more baptisms! I baptised Janah Mae. And it was really awesome to really know and love the people before you baptism them. Last time I didn't really get to know Jon Jon until after I baptized him.

     I gave a talk on Sunday! I don't really know how but I was able to speak for like 10 minutes and my kauban said it mostly made sense! We met a Muslim who used to be a member here and an ex convent nun! This week. I don't think the Muslim will like to hear us much more he has some hard feelings towards some leaders here. But it was Interesting to talk to him Muslims seem to believe a lot of similar things to us. The ex nun left the convent because she felt something was wrong there she seems really good. 

     It pours rain a lot nowadays its like walking in a river underneath a waterfall that is everywhere. And it makes the power go out. So we have power about half the time we are home. Which is bad cause it's so hot and our fans turn off. I love you all good bye!

Using a banana leaf as in umbrella. 

The nuns house. 

Cactus that I planted in the coconut shell. 

zone conference!!

     this week was alright!  we looked for shells last week and found lots of really cool shells. and I finished the book of mormon this morning!! it was awesome you should all read it cause it is awesome! we did a lot of waiting this week. we had to wait for a couple of hours to do our president interviews on friday then sunday we waited a couple more hours for president to interview some kids that are under the age of 11. but it was all good and now we will have two more baptisms this saturday! its crazy here we also find a lot of new people to teach and everyone is so friendly. we are usually really busy and barely have time to teach everyone who wants to meet with us.

     Zone conference was really fun i got to meet a lot of new missionaries and it is kind of like a day of rest for us. after zone conference we went to meet a referral and he seemed super ready for the gospel. we asked him if he had a job and he didn't have anything going on but was looking, then like five minutes later a man walked up to his house and offered him a job so that was pretty cool. it's a miracle!

     other than that we have just taught a lot of people everyone is really progressing and it is awesome! 

bye bye

pictures 

I learned why water buffalo are called water buffalo

my gate and house

the trail we live on

im so grateful for running water.

this week was pretty great we finally got to watch general conference!! it was really good! i havent ever enjoyed it so much. mostly we watch it in English on our phone we just missed the Sunday morning session so hopefully we can rewatch that sometime. i really liked the things about captain Moroni preparing for his specific enemy. we've used that to when teaching a lot of recent converts and less actives.

     we teach a lot of less actives and try to get them back to church. its hard for a lot of people because its so far. also all our interested people are teenagers so they have to be taught in the afternoons its hard cause we spend the whole morning just looking for new people and talking to less actives. then our afternoon is packed with lessons. but we found two families who arent all in highschool so we can teach them in the mornings!

     yesterday my companion prayed we would have the gift of tongues and then we walked out our door and i spoke to the goat that lives on our street!! we really bonded and it was fun. but then later i was able to teach like half a lesson so it really was awesome! 

    also last Thursday our well dried up so we had to use our water storage and the city gives us a little water everyday. but we didn't have anyway to pump it into the water tower so we had to pull it out with a bucket every morning. it wasn't the cleanest water so we filtered it through an old shirt and then boiled it so we didn't have to waste our drinking water with cooking. yesterday a repair man hooked up a pump to the storage so we have running water again!! but we still have to use it sparingly. ive limited myself to one bucket per shower.

     it is sort of like im camping here all the time. i always smell like a campfire cause everyone just cooks with campfires. it is really fun. 

     all of the people we are teaching are doing really well! one nice thing about teaching teenagers is they like to bring friends to lessons so we have new people to teach pretty often. it is good and everyone is progressing one girl was ready to be baptized but she didnt go to church so we have to wait. but the lords timing is right and everything will work out! i love and miss you all! 

pictures 

this weird white thing on the beach.

some of the shells ive found while walking to appointments

a huge frog we found one night while getting water to do dishes

Welcome to fabulous Toboso!!

Picture from John and Kyles baptism last week.

BIG spiders and zombie dogs

this was a good week we played basketball with the bishop, and on saturday i baptized a boy named jon jon and my kauban baptized kyle  we have lots of people close to baptism. it was awesome to baptize someone and now we are pretty good friends with his family and teaching his brother and sister. we also are teaching the torib family they are cool. two of them are keeping commitment and progressing but there are like 20 of them so its hard to talk with all of them. they are really funny. i am teaching little bits of the lessons so that is fun!  we taught family home evening sunday night to lots of people and that was awesome too. we bore testimony in sacrament in cebuano that was a cool thing for me and im getting more confortable talking to people. we helped a lady skin her kamote for dinner and a lot of people didnt want to talk to us.  but we got to teach lots and testify to lots of people on the streets. we also found someone who seemed like hes good and wants the gospel we gave him a basahon ni mormon. also the other night we were going by candle light. when we blew the candles out it was spooky and then we heard lots of spooky sounds but we made it through the night and wont be using those candles anymore. we also have lots of massive spider and cockroaches that come in the mornings the spiders decapitate the cockroaches. also a temple was announced her on negros like an hour from me but its in the other mission. at night tons of hermit crabs come out and we like to catch them. also last night we were walking home from a lesson in the dark through some rice and sugar cane fields and a million frogs came out and we worried that we would step on them then i found a coconut and ripped it open and found out the milk inside was rotten so i smelled like rotten coconut for the rest of the night. i love seeing all the animals here on the trails there are goats cows carabao dogs and roosters. there is a wild dog named tupac that lives outside our house that follows us out of the village thing every morning. we havent watched general conference yet but i cant wait hopefully i will understand some of it in cebuano. i love you all!! bye bye 

pictures!!

 The well in our backyard where we pump water for our bucket showers, my bathroom with my bucket shower

a nativity scene we found in a box covered in spiderwebs 

the biggest spider we've found in our house so far

We ran the port

this has been a crazy week! we ate lots of good mtc food and left for the field. On tuesday i ate 5 sili peppers and threw up after the 4th one because my body rejected the capsaicin. then later that night i ate 3 balut! balut is like a duck egg that is somewhat matured then boiled. they weren't too bad. we woke up at like 1 and flew to cebu then we stayed in a hotel and talked to our mission president and he was awesome we did a ton of orientations. and got tons of medicine and stuff. then we went to the cebu temple and it was super cool. after we met our trainers and did more orientations. my trainer is elder brisolara, he's american from Oklahoma he is awesome. we got 72 hour kits and finally left for our area at like 3. we rode this old bus without doors and wooden ouchie seats until like 6:30 and the last boat left the dock at 7. so we had to hurry to get the tickets and stuff then we made it but the sisters were gone so we ran to find them and got on the boat at like 6:58 but it all worked out. then a senior couple drove us to an old mission house that was empty where we stayed the night. then we traveled the rest of the way to our area this morning. we are in a super cute place with lots of bukid like mountains and farms. we also are like right on the beach almost. there are a ton of dogs and chickens and goats and water buffalo here. its awesome. the Lord knows us and where we should go. everything will work out if you put your trust in him. it has for me so far! also this morning i showered in a bucket so that was fun! and they don't have toilet paper here. any i know that Jesus knows all of us and will help us out. i love you all bye bye.

(Koby is serving in Toboso near Escalante on the island of Negros. It's more of a rural area, you take a rocky dirt road to get to his house, he said his house is nice and has actual beds in it.)