Pamilya,
Well
first off I just have to tell you how happy I am I got to talk to you!! I
felt so at peace getting on the plane to Tokyo. It was so good. That
was probably the longest thing of my life, but I was able to sit by
Sister Wilkes and Sister Smart, so that was good. I slept a lot and got
totally caught up in my journal.
It was a weird flight because it was
light the whole way over. Tokyo was strange. The air port was way
smaller and way less busy than I expected. The plane to Manila was HUGE!!! There were tons
of people on it, and we met up with the other district so that was fun
to see them again.
After we got to Manila we walked outside, and I felt
like I had melted. It was HOT!!!!!!!!! And it was 10 p.m.
There were people everywhere and crazy drivers. There was a guy there
that took us to our hotel. But when we pulled into the parking lot it
was SUPER sketchy. I was so nervous because where we checked in was
super scary, but they took us over to a gated area that had the cutest
little villa things. We slept till 3:30 am
and then got up and showered in a freezing shower and drove to a place
to wait for a bus.
The drive over was a huge culture shock. The streets
were super busy and it was only 5 a.m. We had to wait for about an hour for a bus to take us to the Mission home and we had to wait for the Manila MTC missionaries.
The bus had air con (conditioning), so I was freezing the whole time and
starving, but I luckily had a granola bar, Swedish fish, and gold fish
left over from the flight, so I had that for breakfast. I was
looking out the window the whole time and I realized very quickly I was
NOT in America anymore. Picture Las Vegas and then times it by 200. It
is unbelievable! I never thought there would be a day when I thought Las
Vegas was a clean , but I totally do now!
The rest of Tuesday was
driving to the mission home. I LOVE Pres. Peterson and Sister Peterson.
They are the greatest! And the office couple, Elder and Sister Hansen
are way cute. We ate a good breakfast with them and had the most
delicious mango's. We had orientation the rest of the day and we were
able to go get our support from the SM and change our money to pesos.
The SM was super nice! After dinner that night, we took our first
jeepney to a hotel. There are 28 missionaries in our "batch" so there
wasn't room for us at the mission home. The hotel was really cool and
totally reminded me of Tarzan. The shower was cold again, but it wasn't a
pail and bucket, so I was thankful for that.
We then got a ride from one of the senior
couples, Elder and Sister Gines, to our area. It is the Candeleria 1A
area. It just got split, so we are opening it up. We live with 2 other
sisters who are in the other Candeleria area. Their names are Sister
Maka, and Sister Mckinny. I LOVE them so much!!!! I can't even tell you
how happy I was to see Sister Mckinny walk out to meet us. She is from
Oregon and has been here about 2 months. I have been able to talk to her
a lot and she has really helped me.
I am experiencing major culture shock in the morning. I
have a lot of time to study, but my thoughts always wander to the scary
things I could experience in the day and I get major anxiety. I pretty
much bawl in the shower every morning and plead with Heavenly Father to
help me and protect me. This is the hardest thing I have ever done! Everyday I think about how great it would be if I was in the Boise,
Idaho mission speaking English. I miss America so much! The people here
live completely different than people in America. While we are walking
around, we pass houses that I think no one would live in because it is
super run down, but then someone will walk out. It blows my mind every
time. At first I thought our house where we are living was awful, but now I
realize it really is SO nice! We have a huge gate around it with barb
wire, so I feel very safe here. We are really lucky because we also have
a yard, and no one here has yards, so we are SO lucky.
I still can't believe I am here as a missionary. I am so glad I
have the name of Jesus Christ with me every day because I know it gives
me protection. I plead with heavenly father every day that I will be
safe, and I can feel that power when we are walking around. It is so
comforting!!
Church yesterday was beautiful and made me really start to love
the people here. The Church building was really nice and it was just
such a strong testimony building experience to see that it ran exactly
the same as church at home, minus the fact I couldn't understand
anything they were saying. I loved it!
The people here are so kind and so loving.
I have 21 bug bites on
my legs (I really regret sending my bug spray home)! The Relief society first counselor was super concerned about them. She is very
kind. But yeah, the bugs love me! I am pretty sure 2 of the bites are
spider bites though because one is on top of my foot, and my foot is
super swollen. It is nasty! And the other one is on my ankle and it is
blistering. It is just fantastic! I have been putting my creams on it so
I hope they go away soon. Sister Mckinny has let me use her bug spray
till we go buy some today.
I am sure there is more I could say to you but I can't
remember. I am so blessed to be in this area! The streets are big, and
our house is very nice. I have the greatest companion and just as
amazing housemates. I am learning to rely on the Lord. Everyday is hard,
but once we get out and talk to the people and teach them, I feel so
much better.
It is SO funny to see people's reactions
when I talk to them in Tagalog!! They literally stop and are totally
silent. It is really good motivation to become more fluent because the
people get so excited that I know Tagalog! The people are also obsessed
with my eyes. They think they are so pretty and always ask me if I am
wearing contacts to make them colored. It is very funny.
Anyway...I
love you all so much and I miss you and I miss being in America, but
Heavenly Father obviously has a lot he wants to teach me here. I already
feel so much closer to him from being here. I feel weird asking for
this because I'm sure you already do this, but please, please, please
pray for me. This is so hard and I need all the help I can get! Thank
you for all you do!
Pouch mail is supposed to work very well as well as
priority mail (NOT DHL or Fedex. )
I will write you again next week!
Love,
Sister Mecham | ||
| President George E. Peterson and Sister Kathryn Peterson with Sister Brittany Mecham |
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