Well this is kinda weird emailing home. I haven't done it for a few weeks with traveling and and all except for what I wrote in the mission home. Everything is good. Just trying to get into everything. Its been a little hard.. not going to lie. Just from the language, to the people, to the area, to my comp. It’s all good though.. I’ll explain later but first I just want to let you guys all know how good it was to call home at the airport and now be able to hear from you all! I appreciate the MTC cause I got letters that day so its a little different here! But yeah, so my plane trips went good all the way to Manilla. We stayed in a little hotelier place in Manila. It reminded me of the hotel in the Movie, Cars. Like Cozy Cone or something like that. The rooms were little houses and there were like 5 of us in there. There was one bed and three mattresses on the ground. I took the bed with Elder Pulsipher! Benefits of getting to the room early! But yeah so we slept there..then the next morning we left to the airport and they didnt have any of us on a flight or anything. I guess they only have like 2 flights that go out of Manila to Bacolod each day and they switched the times at New Years so all of our flight schedules didn’t exist. Our travel leader in the group tried his best to figure everything out but it wasnt until me and Elder Pulshipher got on the phones and started doing work! We called President Lopez and he then called the travel ofice in SLC and they figured everything out! Long story, short, we had to switch terminals and airlines and get on another flight. luckily there were seats! But that flight ended up being delayed an hour so we didn’t get into Bacolod till like 6ish I think! But it was good Prez Lopez and Sis Lopez and a senior couple were there to pick us up and we loaded our stuff and went to dinner at some chicken resturaunt. It was good food! We were all starved from not eating cause of the plane situations and what not! But it ended up good. Prez Lopez was way quiet that night and didn't say much but the next day he was in his office all morning doing interviews with the new missionaries! But finally we all got our trainers, had a little orientation meeting thing and were off. So my Companion is Elder Leng. He’s from Portland Oregon area He’s only been out three months in the field and just finished his training. Prez Lopez likes to have trainies become trainers right away which I think is good but it’s just difficult as a trainiee. I’m trying to take all of his advice.. All of the people we teach are recent converts or less active. Which means we are a Rescue mission. That’s fine but we still need to be looking for investigators within part member families or somewhere. .

but I’m trying. So my area. I’m in Minapasok. And just my luck its half Cebuano. Even the members that speak a little English tell me this is a hard area cause its not true Illongo. Luckily Elder Leng understands most of it. It’s hard. The mission is hard but I still love it. This area is out in the jungle so it’s fun to walk around all day and be able to see the terrain. and everything. I’m really relying on the Lord this first week and trying to get over my personal hardships. But I like it alot. Just today has been helpful to write home and hear from all of you! The weather is way nice. A little hot cause of the humidity but usually there is a cloud cover and it’s a little breezy so it’s nice!!

So just a couple more things. I don’t know about the music thing. Elder Leng plays some on a DVD Player we have for watching certain training videos and he says he didn’t think it’s a speaker so he listens to it. I don’t think I want my stuff though cause I heard stuff just gets stolen in the mail cause they have these papers on the outside that say what’s in the box and the mail people steal it! So don’t risk it! I can make copies of these emails for like 5 pesos so like 10 cents about. But I dont know if I need to do it for every week. We use alot of money on transportation each day cause we have to take a bus in and out of areas to get around cause in the jungle, houses are just far away from each other. But luckily our house is pretty nice. It was really messy when I first got here so I told Elder Leng we are going to clean it and he agrees so that was good. We are doing that today. There were just cob webs bad ants and dirty dishes so we are going to do that today. With just other chores.

I’m excited though for this week. Hopefully it goes good. It is going to be hard for the fist 90 days with the language and stuff. I can honestly say I have not improved at all or picked up on one thing just cause I can’t understand ANYTHING, literally. Like less then 1% if that. It’s hard. But I’ll get it!... Hopefully!!

Well mom I didn’t answer all of your questions for time reasons. So yes, your emails are too long. I like them but it just eats up time reading them with reading emails from the others in the family and emailing Prez Lopez. Just shorten them barely and I think they will be good! I loved all the stories though.

Well family I’m out of here! I love you and miss you. So much to write about in such a short time. I would tell you about the people we teach but I really have no idea who any of them are yet. Hopefully I get a better grip of things this week!!

I love you all and I love this gospel. I may not be bringing anyone into the gospel at this time but I can already see a difference in me and what type of missionary I want to be and how I can become that throughout my mission! I hope you all had a good new years.!!

Love you alll,

Robbie!

P.S. - I'll be home next year technically!!