Friday, August 6, 2004

Well today has been really long. We had to leave really early, 7:00, for our service project with the zone. We’ve left early every day this week and I haven’t gotten any studying in at all. I’ve done Book of Mormon every day but not anything else. It’s really frustrating because I’m trying to work on my certification but I never have time to work on it.

For our service this morning we helped an elementary school. Elder Matthews and I, well mostly him, tried to teach a bit of English but it didn’t go very well. We also did some exercise with the kids and played tag sort of with them. They call it here touch and go but it’s exactly the same thing. After the work with the children, we went behind the school and picked up 45 bags of trash out of a really small area. There was trash everywhere and it was kadiri talaga[1]. We then just talked with the kids. They were all fascinated by my blue eyes because they never wee anything like that. I’m getting able more and more to understand what the kids are saying so I actually enjoyed being thronged by little kids who tried to talk to me.

Playing with the kids at school in Manila.

After our service, I went with Elders Sunnex and Catubag and Matthews to Elder Sunnex’s apartment. We ate a really good lunch before going in. I had rice, egg, chicken, and a mango shake. It was good. We took a rest at the apartment but Elder Matthews and I went to get him a haircut.

We went to MIR at 3:00 to meet elder Sangco again. We waited and waited and waited some more and they didn’t show until 6:00, three hours later. So basically we just sat and wasted three hours. I wasn’t in a very good mood. I read The Book of Mormon for a really long time today and my head hurts.

We didn’t accomplish anything today and it’s really depressing. The only thing we actually did is to go the Stake President’s house for a birthday party. Anyway, I’m really tired so I’m just going to stop.

[1] Kadiri talaga: really gross