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| Elder Dougal and Elder Mikesell in new area! |
I am doing smashing! I was transferred! I have left the province of Ilocos Sur and am now in the extreme southern tip of the La Union province, brushing right up to the Pangasinan province and the very border of the Baguio mission. While I was in the Ilocos region up north, I was working hard on learning Ilokano, the regional dialect there which they speak better than Tagalog. Here, I've tried to use it, but with mixed success, due to me being this close to the region where the native dialect shifts to Pangasinanse, so cheers to learning the basics of a three languages but being actually good a none, haha. My companion is Elder Dougal, he was one of my district mates from the MTC. He is freakishly weird in all the right ways. He and I will have a wonderful companionship. He is from Washington State, and we will be having a "suicide pact" as missionaries call it when two missionaries are going home at the same time and are also companions.
Geographically, the area I'm in, called Damortis, looks pretty much identical to Santiago where I'm coming from. The vast majority of the Baguio Mission, except Baguio City itself, which is on the top of a big mountain, is all along a very long highway that goes up the coast. From west to east, my whole mission has looked like this: some mountains, then a lot of rice fields, some homes and businesses, a highway, the rest homes and businesses, more rice fields, the beach and then the ocean :P
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| I love the Wakas family! |
I already found "my family" or the one family that I get really attached to in a given area, the Wakas family! Sister Wakas was baptized when she was about fourteen but married a wonderful nonmember, Brother Wakas. he's taken the missionary lessons off and on since about 2011, but he goes back and forth between here and Baguio City for his work as a painter, and many of the previous companionships weren't able to get him baptized because of it. They have two kids, age 7 and 11. Sister and the two kids are at church every week. Please pray for them!
I'm using denial as a coping mechanism and prefer not to think about the fact that I will be flying back home to America in two months! Every week is like whattt the heckkkk, how is this possibleeeee? It's moving very fast. Like light speed. I'm going to miss virtually everything about the Philippines but the heat, being looked at like a zoo animal everywhere I go and everyone telling me how America has no problems and that I'm filthy rich :P I was recently asked if I dream in Tagalog... I have been told by four of my companions that I speak/yell in Tagalog while I sleep.
I love you all terribly. I'm off to save souls! :D
Elder Mikesell III
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