March 8

Dear home, 

My week went great. It is definitely a different transfer than my last. I think I told you about my house. It is pretty tiny. It has one big room, a little room with beds and our little bathroom. It is the nicest I think I have had so far, but also the tiniest. And to top it off, our house is across the street from the salt lake city of the catholic church. It’s this old giant church that looks like the church from hunch back of notre dame, its nuts, I wanna go sneak in and explore the top and stuff. Its sweet...except when the church plays this weird music at all hours of the night starting at like 3 in the morning, pastylan so annoying. 

So elder Gomolo is my new companion. We are actually "batch" which means we go home the same time. He is from the island just south of us called mindanou. That is an island I will never go too, only Philippines are sorta safe there. There are tons of Muslims and rebels there and when they see someone white or a foreigner, they will kidnap them, ransom them, and kill them if they get the money or not. And to top it off, in January (i found this out from my comp) 44 cops were killed in a fight with the rebels. The rebels are against the government because the government here is corrupt, I have even been warned of rebels here in bohol. But I am pretty sure we are safe, so no worries about that, the church is on top of things. But its a little crazy to say the least. 

So what else, the ward is great, the people are great, the area is super hard. It is a super catholic area and we don't get quite as many lessons as we would like too, its a little bit difficult. We try our best though, we have some great investigators though, and some good IBD's as well. There isn't much in this area though, the only thing that is sweet is the best place to get slacks and shirts and anything made in the entire mission is down the street. That's great, I got a couple slacks made up. I want to take advantage of it as well and maybe make some slacks for you guys to send home. White shirts, you name it. I have started working out again, man I am sick of this little tiny belly starting to form, it is almost gone though, and soon it will all be gone. I started eating a bit healthier too, I am trying to eat more like at home, I am seriously limiting my rice intake. Once a meal maybe a day, if I have to have rice that is. It is literally what the people survive off of, I love their food pyramid. It is like tons and tons of carbs, little everything else, hahah. 

I am continuing to be humbled. People here seriously have nothing, I really want to one day pay for some of my new friends here in the mission to come to Canada, and I will, after I become a doctor. I want them to see the world. They don't even know what hail is, never experienced snow, the movies, nice restaurants, and so much other stuff I cant even name, even the animals. Every time someone see that picture you sent of the chipmunk, they are like "what is that??" I say a type of squirrel that doesn't eat garbage and meat but nuts and seeds and lives in the trees, hahah. And the bears, its fun to tell them. 

Hahaha my nickname, at the MTC everyone called me Schnoorlax...or did sometimes when we were in our rooms since they were not really supposed too. It is a cool nickname, or nicknames since i have like 50. Those stories too, pastylan those are funny, gusto ko sa imo sa send more mga istoria gihapon kay funny kaayo sila!! lol, so I think I am finally vistok, or close to fluent, at the language when I teach people. I give the credit to the gift of tongues, cause my normal conversational still needs some work, (lessons = spirit) but I honestly don't feel that far in the language, but everyone is like, you are vistok or close and I look back at my first area and wow, I new like none, haha. Elder Gomolo is fluent in visayan daan, or he grew up with that as his language so i am learning lots from him. 

That is so true about trials, and literally everything in this life. We make whatever we want out of it. We can't always decide what choices or trials come our way or how others choices will affect us, but we decide how to respond and react. Its something I like to say I had figured out a long time ago, or some of it anyway, with regards to stress, school, ect. but by no means was I perfect. Its good to here though, I have taught a few people about agency and choices and the strength we get from the atonement. Two things, first, draw your attention to Nephi when he was tied up by his brothers(this is one of many examples in the scriptures that you can find later, (; ). So nephi understood the enabling power of the atonement, and some other stuff as well, but nephi, if you look, he prayed for the strength to overcome the bands which bound him. Or he prayed for the strength in the situation, not to change the situation. When we pray, a lot of times we pray for our circumstances to change, but lots of times or even most of the time we have those circumstances for a reason. Heavenly father is trying to teach us something, so instead of telling him you want it changed or for praying for it to be different, we can access the enabling power of the atonement and pray for the strength in the situation or to overcome it. I learned this from a talk, I think elder bednar's first talk at BYU to the students, cant remember, try looking it up. So good, but opens your eyes and is literally a slight adjustment. Also, Elder Holland uses this analogy. Imagine a rope going for ever to the left, suspended in air. That represents before our life. Now imagine it going forever to the right. That represents after our life on earth. Now take a tiny thread, rap it around in front of you on the rope, that is our life on earth. It is literally like an instant. 

Well I love you lots, take care everybody(mom, haha) 

Love, 

Elder Schnoor