(just a little info - Zac gets 1 hour on the computer on his p - day. He is not a great typist, so I would imagine just this letter takes awhile! And he has to email his mission president and report. And maybe he has time to email other folks, I don't know. So we forgive the no punctuation and randomness of the letter!)
ok so this week a lot happened! not to many lessons or anything, just met a lot of potential investigators because we had one of our investigators disappear. we went to her house and everything was gone and her neighbors told us she moved.
so everyone here seems impressed that i know whats going on while they are talking and that i am able to communicate back sometimes after only being here for a little more than a week. its really cool! we talk to the kids all the time and most people here speak enough english that they can help me out. i found out out this week that they graduate high school here at 16 and then usually finish college by 20-21 years old. its crazy! so most people are pretty smart its just hard for them to get jobs.
so monday we went to a resort in mayorga with some other missionaries it was really cool. we got rotisserie chicken or lechon manok and had rice of course, but it was delicious. i got to play basketball with some phillipinos while we were there as well, its pretty fun on a 9 foot goal. i got a couple dunks in! and then we headed back to dulag for an fhe. (fhe=family home evening, learn more here!) it was really cool to try and participate and the family we had it with are really nice and are extremely dedicated to church.
so tuesday we had district meeting in the morning and went out to meet with some inactives. (this refers to members that do not attend church meetings regularly) that seems to be a lot of what we are doing here and if they weren't home we went finding and talking to lots of people. like we were walking and i kinda had the urge to turn around and so did elder andrus, he has been here for almost a year now and is very good at the language, but anyway. we saw a family riding up on there motorcycle, well they are more like scooters here, but what ever. we went to talk and we were talking to the owner of the house and he didn't really seem to care. but my companion asked him his age, he does that a lot and if they say they are like 50 he just says no your still like 25 or something like that, and he laughed and asked us to come sit down out of the rain and brought out his daughter. we were both kinda like great he wants us to take her back to America, and he did. but she found out why we were in the philippines and was like cool I'm katolico, and said she didn't like here church because they don't follow what they teach and she is worried about where she will go after this life. and we were both like really? it was awesome but she is worried about what her friends will think about her if she is talking to us, so we will have to meet only when she isn't working because she works for the catholic church here in dulag. But thats ok, we will get her.
so then wednesday we had a pretty full day and met with a lot of inactive members again. then we went to an investigators house who invited us to drop in for his birthday. they had saved us some food, they are great people. so they gave us the pasta and then brought out the sura or the thing you eat with your rice or pasta. and we asked what it was and, sorry kamrie but its too late, i already ate dog. (while I was typing my email to him, I asked the kids if they wanted to include anything, Kamrie had me tell him not to eat any dog!) its actually pretty good, just chewy. not sure i will eat it again, but it was a once in a life time chance for an American so i ate some. then went to see another invetigator who just opened a new bbq stand for the festival and its pretty good. we get 3 skewers of pork for less than a dollar, its like 30 pesos and its delicious. we have eaten there a few times now and will probably eat there again for dinner.
so i have some pictures i want to send home but was told to do it on support monday because here there could be viruses that could wipe my card, so no thank you. but ill send them next monday from the mall in tacloban.
ok so thursday was chads birthday and no i didn't forget im actually getting something made for him later. they are pretty sweet and only 50 cents so 20 pesos so ill try and send that home. (he mentions that he didn't forget, because I reminded him in my letter!)
ok so thursday elder andrus had training in tacloban so we went to tacloban and i went on splits with an elder i knew in the mtc named elder wilks. it was cool to be in the city, the only difference is there are bigger buildings but still cool. we gave a baby a blessing, then went back to the downtown apartment for lunch, then went to the mission office i got my package thank you' i will use this bbq sauce as little as possible to savor it. oh and i have to pay 40 pesos to pick up packages so its not bad just a dollar for the shipping fee here. so then we went back and met with an investigator for a little bit shared and went back to the appartment for hotdogs and rice with corkys bbq, yum!
so then friday was a long day of finding because no one we planned to see would let us in. but it was good. we are cleaning a guys dypni or jeepny on wednesday at 5 am and hopefully he will listen to the discussions after. his whole family are members except him but they live in another city. so whatever.
saturday was kinda the same thing except we got a member to go with us and we had one family let us in so we shared and invited them to church but they are "busy" but oh well. so we saw a few inactives with him, then bought our food for sunday and went back for planning.
so sunday we only had 26 people because one of the branch presidency's families had a kid in the hospital so that put us back about 6 people. so maybe next week will be better. but then we went out with a member and met with a few members and a referral she had for us who was busy because a family member had died. so we talked for a little bit and will go back another time. but then we went and saw a member who left after sacrament. and then returned home and now its monday and last night i dint get much sleep because it was extra hot. it was still 89 degrees inside the apartment when we were going to sleep and its pretty hot today as well, but oh well. its my companions b day so we are gunna party it up! well i miss you all and wish you all the best
love elder coontz
salamat (thank you)
Last week when I was reading Zac's letter, and read that he was in Dulag, Tyler immediatlely started singing this song. And then wrote Zac about it! So it's been sung all week around this house and I thought I needed to include it!
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