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| Saying Farewell to Elder Alpon and my Roxas Housemates |
So, The big news is I
was transferred this past Thursday to Tanglalan, Aklan. (It’s located on the
North-Central Coast of the Island). I figured I would be getting transferred,
so I wasn’t surprised when we got the transfer text Wednesday night and I was on it. I will
miss Panay for sure and all the members and people back in that area I’ll miss
a lot and Elder Alpon too, he was a nice companion. So I packed up all my stuff that night and the
next morning I got on an L3 van and headed up to Kalibo. Once I was there I
borrowed a guy’s phone to call the ZL’s and tell them to send someone to pick
me up at the bus station. My new companion is Elder Stevens from Hawaii, so I’m
with my second American companion now which is fun. The new area is really
nice, but my house is a bit of a downgrade from my apartment in Roxas, but that’s
ok. We were eating dinner at a member’s house my first night and I hear what I
thought was the wind going through the trees, but it ended up being the ocean!
We
were right on the beach and I didn’t even know it. Haha I love the ocean and
the beach. The area is really big, but guess what? The people here do not speak
Ilonggo. The language is Aklanon, but the majority of what I hear people
speaking is a Tagalog/Aklanon mix, which I can understand bits and pieces of.
Well, I did want to get better at speaking Tagalog, so here’s my opportunity!
Luckily, most people understand a little Ilonggo, but they don’t know how to
speak it, so, yah, that’s been kinda fun for me! Haha So once again the Lord
has pushed me outside my comfort zone. Every morning since I got here I’ve woke
up feeling homesick. It seems like every time I’m transferred that happens. It
takes awhile to get comfortable with the new routine, but I
definitely have been growing I feel like and I'm a 1000 times better than I was
when I was brand new. Thankfully we’ve had
some really good lessons the past few days and that has helped a lot. I have
fun teaching and if I’m feeling down, teaching a good lesson always makes me feel better. At
church yesterday, being the new Elder in town, I was asked to share my
testimony and a scripture, so I shared 3 Nephi 9:20, it’s one of my favorites: And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto
me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken
heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the
Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of
their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they
knew it not.
We
haven’t had any food at the house except bread, eggs, noodles and bananas, so
that’s what we’ve been surviving on the past few days, but thankfully we got fed
by members every night so that was SO NICE! We would have really been hungry if
that hadn’t have happened. We are in Kalibo right now because we came to play basketball
at the church this morning and this is where we will shop for food since there
isn’t a grocery store or anything in Tangalan. Elder Orr is with me again so
that’s always fun to be with another one of my batchmates! He’s always a good
one to be around if you want to have fun-haha.
Thanks
for doing that college stuff for me Mom. I hope you know how much I love and
appreciate you helping me with all that. I'm sorry a million times for the trouble! I'll get on my email today and
try and figure out my ACT stuff. Well, what the heck! My inbox email is telling
me my account has been deleted due to inactivity!! I have tried logging into my
ACT account and I can’t remember the password. I think you are going to have to
just call them. Sorry Mom!!
Thanks so much for
your emails. I’ll send some pictures today. I’ll get pics of my new house this
week and send them next week. Like I told Dad just enjoy the cold fresh air :) I
will never again complain about cold weather! The heat is ten times worse!
I Love and miss you!
Elder Rasmussen
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