Diffun!

Kamusta y'all!
  I've made it! After several (long/short) months I am currently in the Philippines Cauayan mission. I am serving in the Diffun area with Sister Tampus. (I don't currently have any pictures of her yet, I'll work on it) She is wonderful, and we've both been on our missions about the same amount of time, meaning we'll be leaving together which is crazy. She's from Cagayan de Oro. She speaks English pretty well, but sometimes we have to look up a word in the dictionary in order to communicate. It's been fun to trade words and learn together.

   This area is so beautiful! It's kinda(really) hot here, but not as bad as I feared. Also, the humidity isn't really bothering me, I guess I'm already pretty used to it. We left the MTC at 3 in the morning and had a bit of a wait for our flight. There were 28 of us going to the Cauayan mission. Our training at the mission home took a really long time because they'd never had so many new missionaries before. It was pretty late when we were finished and were assigned our companions. Because it was so late, most of us didn't have time to make it to our areas that night. So we had a sleepover with some sisters who lived closer to the mission home. I was pretty exhausted and overwhelmed at that point, so I was shocked and excited to see Sister Ward from my Provo MTC district! It was so good to see a familiar face that first night.

    We're always really busy here and there's so much to do. It's true that people pretty much always try to give us food, and people are just so kind. We can pretty much walk up to anyone's home and they'll be willing to listen to us for a few minutes. The members are so kind, and everyone is so supportive of my feeble efforts to speak Tagalog. On Saturday night we had dinner with our stake president, and they had a piano! I was so shocked when I heard someone playing a piano as we were walking over, and they asked me to play a little bit. :) 

   On Sunday church was kinda crazy. Apparently here when there are new missionaries in the ward on fast Sunday, they have them bear their testimonies first... so that was an adventure. Then I was asked to teach the gospel principles lesson because the teacher wasn't there... so that was another adventure. I got to teach in Taglish (Tagalog/English) so it wasn't too bad. I'm working on trying to understand people, and I think I might be improving a little bit, but I've got a long way to go. I've had the opportunity to try a lot of new foods, like dragon fruit, chicken intestine, and balut! (The bird in my balut wasn't very developed so it was pretty much just egg- it tasted good :))

   I learn so many things every day.  It's a struggle, but I really enjoy being here. I'm ready to get (somewhat) settled in a routine and location. I'm so excited to continue learning, growing, and serving!

     Ingat po!

        Sister Harrison