March 2nd, 2009

Hello again -- I am a bit shocked about the apartment thing! Eeeks...I can't believe it's already booked. I guess it is around March and April that they start re-doing apartments for the following year but I also can't believe that as of yesterday it is March. It snuck up on me and I haven't even sent Andrea's birthday card yet, and her birthday is tomorrow so it will be late like all my others have been.

At transfers I got some letters. Maddie mentioned that Savanna wrote me a letter in one of hers, in response to her birthday card, and yet I didn't get the letter from Savanna. Maybe she never sent it?

Okay, back to the house thing...it will be different to live in the house. I had friends and visit taught someone before that lived there and it's a nice enough place so I have no concerns, it will be interesting. As for Carin. I also received a letter from her but she still doesn't seem to have gotten my letter about apartments to help me, but that's okay because you took care of it now. I get the feeling that if they are all booked up she has already signed up for her own apartment and she has many other friends and roommates who she will be staying with. Its good enough to be in the same ward again -- if that's what she has decided to do and will be living there next year.

That's funny that he remembered me -- there were two different ones that worked in the office. The one also served his mission in the Philippines, the other one is family, I think, of the owners and is married now so he no longer actually lives in the apartments.

It definitely takes stress away, so thanks, but adds to it at the same time. Only in the moment. My heart jumped when I read it -- an apartment already there waiting for me and Savanna is going to live with me? My life will be so strange and different I don't know what to do with myself. Then there is a job to find and start and money to gather and school to get serious about, now that I'm kind of old I have a lot of decisions to make that are somewhat important. I feel less stress in other ways now that I have served a mission. I feel more directed and more patient with my life and at the same time more driven towards specific goals and flexible at the changes life brings daily.

It does seem very far away, except it's not. As for the close thing, this culture has definitely accustomed me to closeness. My companions from here mostly all like to hold onto your arm or hand and things like that etc. and when we travel anywhere there are five people sitting on you, basically, and someone tends to fall asleep on your shoulder that you've never met before.
As for my new companion -- she is coming from my last area, she's the one that replaced me when I left and Sister Victorino trained her so we had the same companion and lots of people that we both know because she was in that same ward. She is from another area in the Philippines, southern, where they speak a different language but they also learn English and Tagalog in school and she's very talkative, we've done a lot of talking and I'm sure that my Tagalog will improve while we are companions.

I enjoyed all the emails and find it very funny that both my parents are bloggers now. It was something I never did. I did the facebook thing, but even there I never posted blogs. The closest I got to blogs was the email I always sent to everyone. It is addictive, isn't it? I'm not sure how much I'll try to get into it when I get home because of that, there are too many other things I need to try to accomplish, haha! I hope you continue having a good time doing it. All right, so I'm sorry that I'm ending here but we are late to go somewhere and the place we are emailing cuts you off at time and it's flashing at me that my time is up. I hope that you have gotten a letter form me now and if now -- I think one is coming.

I'll write more about my week away from my area and with another companion that happened last week in a hand written letter. I enjoyed a good prearation day with all the youth from my first branch and spoke in tagalog with the president and Leaonard who still sounds like he's planning for his mission and his mother will be baptized soon! Okay bye it's going to cut off!