Letter #34 (Mar 28th, 2012)

Hey all,
This week has been great! Things have been progressing well in the
area... we now have 4 investigators on top of all the less actives.
There are not as many members as there was in my last area, only
around 60 or 70 each week so I'm told. And they are very surprised that
I speak it so well especially for my 3rd area... and they think its
funny when I speak with my Bohol accent and change all the y's to
j's... jejeje.
Yes... 8 months just past Monday... it has gone fast and slow... but
it has all been amazing and I have never had such a great time in my
life with so many revelatory experiences about how to better myself as
an individual especially for my future family.
Oh, one family that is really kind in the ward and feeds us on
Saturdays is Tagalog gayud. So Im starting to learn tagalog... I have
done up a study journal of words with three columns, English, Visayan,
and Tagalog. So when I get home i should be fluent in three
languages... and if I end up remembering french then 4.
I finally have a laundromat in the area, so I only have to wash my
whites now, and don't have to worry about my baho (foul smelling)
socks... jejeje.
Oh, and another cool story... last night we were out at this one area
which is layo kaayo (very far) and we didnt make it back to the
highway till late... so we ended up missing the last bus... but we
didn't know that. So we are waiting on the side of the road and we see
a sugar cane truck approaching, one of those big ones that transports
the sugar cane from the harvest to the processing plant. My companion
jokingly says "I'll wave it down so we can sakay(ride) home..." and
then the sugar cane truck slows down and stops and the driving was so
kind and was like "get in, that's all cool, you missed the last bus."
Then we starting conversing with him and my companion had a great experience of being able to speak to him fluently... he said he had never been able to speak so fluent Visayan before as he did with this driver. We found out the trip he
does is about 4 hours, his truck weighs 12tons or so fully loaded, and
the truck only has 6 gears... then we left him a restoration pamphlet
before getting out at our house.
It was one of those moments you look back a say "The Lord prepared
that person to cross paths with us that night..." It felt like he was
so ready for the message of the gospel, so receptive and just a really
nice guy. I really hope he does end up searching out the missionaries
where he lives.
So that's for this week...
again I forgot my card reader so next week you'll have a bunch of cool
photos to put up on the blog for everyone to see...
miss you all
Love you,
Elder Taylor Addison Cox