Elder Luke Roberts

Elder Luke  Roberts

Friday, July 3, 2015

Week 2 Flew by

Week 2 went by much faster and was much better haha. The language is getting harder as we get deeper into it. Yet I'm able to relax a lot more and just do my best. It just sounds really funky, because there are a lot of repeating syllables and if you repeat a sound it can change the meaning or the tense. Confusing and weird but I'm getting a lot better! 
For an activity we got to walk to the temple and talk to the people on the grounds. We went to practice teaching a simple lesson. I got talking to some kids and they said they had driven 8 hours to be at the temple. Everybody there had sacrificed so much to be there! It was really inspiring and it meant so much to them. Our teacher told us that we really helped strengthen their faith and they really look up to the missionaries. But I'm the one who felt strengthened! Such a cool experience. 
All the girls from Fiji really get a kick out of my blue eyes. They call my name so I will look and then they giggle. They think it's so funny to do that! I'm pretty sure the Tower of Babel was in the Philippines haha, there are over 170 different languages, and they aren't even that similar haha.
When you take pics with Filippinos, they all want to join in
All the teachers here are native and that really helps because they only speak Tagalog during class and they really get the culture. Oh, and with the language, you have to make sure to use the word Po a lot, it's respect to usually older people. But if you forget people get offended haha. The Filippinos are so nice! I guess on the mission if we are companions with a native we are really encouraged to practice English with them because if they speak English they can get a job with 4X the pay than if they don't! 
So the heat here is so weird... In Hawaii it feels like a tropical heat and has a vacation feel to the weather, but here you just feel like you're cooking. One night our air conditioning wasn't working and I couldn't sleep at all!! It felt like somebody was giving me a really hot sponge bath and you couldn't escape it! We all know that feeling. 
Sooo haha, Elder Roberts and I found a huge Cockroach in my bed last night before I hopped in bed. I don't know what I did to the cockroach to make it think we were that close but I took care of it. The bugs here are huge!! There are lots of cats walking around here... They look skinny and lots of them are white, they just roam  around and I guess that's normal haha. When it rains... it pours... and then it stops, and its so hot the puddles dry up within several hours and you could never have guessed it has even rained!! We got to go to the temple today! It's so beautiful and really small. The natives think it's cool I'm from Salt Lake and they are all great members! I'm glad I played Frogger as a child. Because otherwise I would die. Here, cars have right away. The roads are absolutely nuts!! People just honk and merge. No lanes, no nothing. just traffic and bikes weaving in and out and people tapping windows trying to sell you stuff or people will carry their babies and ask people for money, in the middle of the highway!! The smell is different than I expected. You can't describe it, so you will see when you visit. By the way I still dance all the time and I'm leaving a legacy at this MTC... There are only about 90 people here in the MTC  right now and I have made so many friends! I wish I had brought a ton of ties because the Fillipino elders sometimes just have 1 tie they wear and they come up to me and say, "How can I remember you?" (Because they love us) and I would love to just give them a tie or something.  How are all Leisl's dates?  You've all prepared me well and I love you all so much!
Love, Elder Roberts
I guess my hair wasn't short enough.  Boiler room.  Literally.  They use huge scissors.

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