busy busy happy happy and still touching disease ridden animals

hi mama,

kumusta po nay, 

love that you love the lake and being there with dad. some say it’s a lot of work. i can’t agree. dads a boss. tell him to email me about the topper truck. i’m sure the young women in the stake are going to miss you. a lot of girls siad they want to marry me bc of you, so thanks for that!! change is good tho. impressive school work, all A’s, wow!! proud of u always there.

thanks so much for the packages and other things. i really really appreicate it and you. sorry for being a pest. i love ya

if you guys want something to do, you could email my comp at robert.briones@myldsmail.net, send him some canadian love!!!!! 

good week. one of the best ones yet. and what made it great wasnt anything too exciting i just started falling more deeply in love with the country, the work, and my comp. a whole lot of ups and a whole lot of work and results!!! figured out if you are truly busy, you don’t have time to be discouraged so thats the key. yeah, also the 1st world is suuupppeeerr lame and depressing. loving the 3rd world life style. super fun, happy and exciting. sanitation is nice but id rather be happy than clean. 

interesting baptism. Sister LJ and Brother JL. i’m super close with both of them and they are great people. so both live in del norte but attend del sur (my area) but were taught by the del norte elders. some of my best friends. LJ has been taking the discussions for 4 years but couldnt get baptized because she wasnt married to MP even though they have had a kid. over here it takes forever to get married and they needed to wait until they were married to get baptized. they were baptized the week before. marco polo is an RM and part of the G family. i attended a FHE at their home last monday and haven’t laughed that much in a long time. so much love and spirit in that packed tiny shack. the dad of MP is in our branch presidency and is a truly amazing man. lucky to have met him. hard to explain so i wont bother. JL is also dating a girl and we are starting to hear wedding bells! LJ bore her testimony and ultimately said "these past years have been incredibly hard for many reasons but now i have a beautiful little boy, an amazing husband and have joined the true church. ive noticed Gods hand in my life." i guess its true,  God works in mysterious ways.

the moms here are amazing. super capable and do so much for their families while always having a baby in one hand. huge respect for those woman. you wouldn’t believe the houses most live in as well....

another cool thing i’ll briefly mention is a crazy basketball tournament going on here. the Barangys (like town divisions) are competing and its very impresive. its like the equivalent of tuscany playing other communites like royal oak, etc. i’ve only walked past but there abure usually crowds of close to 1000 crowded around the outdoor copurt with so much masigla. the players (high school) are amazing too. they could easily compete with the high school players back home. its cool to bc they aren’t tall, just very quick with amazing shooting and ball handling. tim wardrops gonna love it here. crazy plays and crazy energy in this tiny corner of the world. 

things are going better then ever in this area. we’ve done some weeding of no longer progressing investigators and used that time to find new investigators. taught 10 lessons one day. busy busy. happy happy.

Elder Kearl.

 

two new scotty words....sall and splitsing

hi mama,

kamusta po nay,

your babys second typhoon!! but first super typhoon!! but before i get into that craziness i want to share an experience.

i went up to this really old lady just sitting on her porch and asked her how she is. she replied not good, i asked why and she simply said “because i’m blind" she now began to cry and began to explain to me about her kids being in prison and other hardships of the typical filipino life. with my limited tagalog i managed to say "its fine becasue your beautiful (super cheesy i know), i know that God knows you and loves you and through Christ all things will work out!" i began to cry with her and it was a powerful moment for me. 

yeah, crazy week as well. so after recovering from the first typhoon sunday we were then told another one was coming!! when i first learned about hurricanes i was told there were 4 categories to explain its strength. signal 1 which is nothing and signal 4 which is 200+ km/h winds. we were told that this hurricane would be a signal 5!! the filipinos didn’t even think that possible. its weird knowing a storm is coming and preparing and then being at home waiting for it to be over before it begins. i also remember saying to my comp "people are going to die" and some did die, but less than 10. nothing compared to hurricane yolanda back a few years ago which killed 2000ish. this hurricane only really hit the northern part of the mission. it was weaker than sundays so nbd. but people ended up staying in the chapel just in case and the missionaries assigned there were reloacted to hotels in other cities!! and now they will continue there relocating, but for the next 6 weeks!! super crazy. i guess Tugugeroa was absolutely destroyed. insane. i spent the lock down in Del Norte and spent most my time with the people in the chapel helping out how i could. sall good tho. we even got some relief packages of food from the goverment. very crazy week. didnt have electricty for almost 5 days in Del Sur. so i used this advantage to DEEEEEEEP clean the fridge. good times there. gotta love scrubbing.

last week i also had a crazy experience, i was splitsing in Bambang and walked through the campus of the university to quickly get to an appointment. turns out like all 2000 plus students were outside for a thing and literally everyone was looking at me and whispering and talking and also requesting photos with me!!! am i that handsome?? nah, its just my skin colour. it was seriously so strange and so uncomfortable. ive never felt so isolated. and out off the 2000ish people i was literally the only white person. crazy stuff. 

but more importantly, i have been having a lot of chances for self improvement. i realize i have A LOT to work on and thats been really hard and stressful for me but mostly humbling, so im grateful for that. also turns out i will be with the extremely patient and lovely elder briones for another transfer! 6 more weeks!! that will make 4.5 months. poor guy. its really hard training foreigners, especially while being in del sur. one of the hardest areas of the mish. he really wanted to transfer out :/ guess i have to step up my game. 

not much more to say. i hope people actually read this but i know i wouldn’t if i wasn’t the one writing. so no hard feelings.

much love 
elder kearl

YOUR BABY'S FIRST TYPHOON

 hi mama,

kumusta po nay,

YOUR BABYS FIRST TYPHOON!! good times here, crazy week, i hope i can cover it all. 

splits on splits on splits! had an amazing zone meeting plus the splits have called for some very serious and needed self improvement. hard but humbling. love spending time with so many amazing missionaries. my highlight was in Aritao. i taught a man named joseph who was born and raised in Illinois. complete perfect english like you and i and this experience kind of changed my mission for a number of reasons. it was fun to talk to him about the beauty and perks of this place and the benefits to live here. basically its so laid back and good living. hearing his experiences was cool. he lived beachside in a tent for about a month. but the lesson was so powerful. i was able to teach to my full language capacity. and the spirit was huge. explaining our purpose and relationship with heavenly father was powerful. he shared how he wants to change his life, prayed to know how, then received many answers. after bearing my earnest testimony of the power of the gospel, he simply agreed and said “yeah, i know this church is true as well.". he then offered a prayer that was so comforting. he asked heavenly father to watch over us carefully and to help us. he went on about us and eventually said "bless these young men and the work they do because they have no idea how much they truly help people". i teared up a bit. after talking about that experience later, i got chills repeatedly. 

then saturday, i was able to watch a baptism, then the baguio (hurricane) hit. we were told to go to the apartment before sundown, so we did. studied and stuff, then locked down the house. by the time we went to bed it was lightly raining. i woke at like 1:40 to close the windows and it was pretty wild outside but i went back to sleep fine. when i woke up, elder and i walked around to examine the damage. nothing too serious because the houses in our area are strong but it looked like that snow storm in september a couple years back. huge branches all over the place and the roads were covered with leaves. we went back home. personal studied. received confirmation of sacrament meeting then got on our bikes and told all our members that we were going to have church and to see how they were doing. nothin crazy there. our old shack church was missing some roof panels but no water got in. we stopped by to see an investigator and her house was pretty wreckt. she was missing half her house and the inside of her house was in pieces. super rough. helped our members clean up and then made it to church w/o electricity. spoke for my third time and then went home again.  then went to zone leader apartment because the next day we went to the "8th wonder of the world", Banaue Rice Terraces. when we got to the zone leaders apartment we got the inside scoop. like 200+ km/h winds. Aritao was hit bad. many people lost their homes and evacuated to the chapel for shelter. the damage i saw was pretty bad too and almost hard to believe. idk how i slept because everyone else couldnt because they said it was so loud. there is going to be a lot more service this week on top of the 4 hours we were able to squeeze in on sunday. pray for these people. no electricity for the next while.

Banaue was definately the coolest place ive ever been in my life. and i don’t say that lightly. we woke at 3 am. drove from bambang to solano. got Mcdonalds breakfast!!! first time in 4 months. equal hype. then drove to banaue for the next couple hours. the last  2 hours were literally uphill and the only straight part was crossing the bridge. insane views, wow. x10 of logans pass. made it to banaue an epic town on the side of the big mountains. then hiked down into the valley and back up. last half of the up was super muddy and sketchy rice terrace climbing. foot wide pathways and messy everything. insane fun and beauty. its crazy where people live. passed by and through many interesting shacks on the sides of these mountains and spent the whole day in astonishment. i cant even truly explain it so i wont bother. next level tho. super rain forest. drove back down. had pizza!!!!! then returned to bambang for a late and quick internet sesh. 

amazing week w some downs and lots opf ups. fun and powerful. really getting settled into these next 2 big years. cant wait. 

Elder Kearl

oh yeah another hurricanes coming!! shouldnt bother us down here. but the north end of the mission is really in trouble.

so i got sick

hi mama,

kumusta po nay,

so i got sick. but i’m not sick anymore so now its just a good story. not going to lie i was a little afraid. this was probably the most sick i have ever been in my life and it felt weird you weren’t in the same house as me mom and Sister Hiatt was 4+ hours away. not to mention the closest approved hospital is like an hour away. but time cures all things. so it started right after my baptism.  we were walking home after an appointment and my legs felt super weak. we got to the bahay and i just laid down and couldn’t do much. i couldn’t even write in my journal. i then mustered enough strength to shower which always helped back home but a big diffrence back home is the water is warm and there is an actual shower.  here, the already freezing cold water felt absolutely frigid. each bucket dump over my head had me shivering. after the shower i was still shivering so i put on my fleece pg pants, long sleeve t-shirt and the only sweater i brought. i laid down, put my sheet over me and was still freezing! super concerning. i slept a lil and then felt really hot. managed to take off my clothes and sleep a bit more. that night was filled w over 15 trips to the CR (comfort room = washroom) and litterly coming out of both ends simultaneously. good thing the floors already gross. took care of my mess slightly and threw up 2 other times. the next day i slept the whole morning w more painful trips to the CR and made 2 hours of church. came back home more CR trips more sleep. felt better for Pday so emailed and stuff then made an appointment but the next day i called sister hiatt. ended up resting that whole day again on tuesday,  with the help of an aritao elder so we could still get some work done. that night i went to sleep at 8:30 and have never slept so well in my life,  other than first night in manilla MTC. woke up feeling good and have managed to work since. my appetites been coming back and im pretty well back to normal. it was pretty scary as we were on the brink of no water but a prayer was answered. i was honestly pretty confident i could make it these 2 years without getting sick but turns out im not completly immortal. things are good tho!!! painful week but i’m over it now so like i said. just a good story!!!! 

ive also noticed something strange on my thigh. if my grade 10 sports med knowledge does me any good i think theres like 4 muscles in the thigh. yeah one muscle is like 5 times more devolped than the rest so its pretty funny. 

im now at a point where i can understand better than i can speak tagalog and im naturally speaking some tagalog over english!! good by my canadian identity. 

the dog who spends all day every day on our porch, brownie, got sick and has died :/ this is hard for the whole district as we all love him very much. life goes on tho. we heard the news from one of my best friends, dave who is 4 years old. he is a character and a half. at his young age he is "so fluent in speaking" as my comp says and often calls me "baklat" (gay) and "pangitt" (ugly) but dave means it w love. we always ask him his name and its cute when he just says "dave!" every morning when i’m lifiting some weights, getting huge, i ask him how he is. always "ok lang" (just ok). we often invite him to come work with us but he is usually too busy running around and messing with our shoes with the other kids. great crew we have here. 

i’ll finish by mentioning 2 very strange experiences this week. i was in aritao on splits and we went to teach a guy who actually was born and raised in Illinois! it was weird to go up to him and hear "hey bud!" and then proceed to missionary in all english! he has an interesting past w the church and there is great potential. he ended up giving us a ride in his pig tricy and conversing in all english was super strange. even seeing the american companion i was with speak in english to someone else was strange. just afterwards i felt so bizarre and as we went to our next appointment in tagalog i felt super super strange. 

the other situation is about that couple who moved from england.  so the husband who doesn’t like missionaries and is very distant from the church pulled over and offered us a ride to the lil barungay we were headed to. in a car even!! it was absolutely wild being in a car and whizzing past on the road and seeing the world move so quick. and i even wore a seatbelt! he has a deep english accent and is actually pretty friendly. he has an interesting story and its was very great to speak in english to people twice this week!! i cherish communication so much.

all that aside ive done some thinking and started wondering why i wanted to learn a language. but as i look at my progress and i can’t help but get hyped on the stuff i can actually say, i am pretty far. i am studying hard and loving this opportunity to learn. i realize how stupid english is. 

also conference was a amazing! some very powerful talks and many of my personal questions answered.  I  have received some much needed guidance. i cherish the talks and am excited to read them in next months liahona. i love conference.

long rambling email i hope you don’t mind. life is good. i am still cruising and enjoying this work and beautiful country and people

much love,

elder kearl

first baptism

 hi mama,

kumusta po nay,

this week i had one of the best experiences of my life and i’m excited to write solely about that.

on october 1st i had the opportunity to baptize my first person, our golden investigator, Ergy Salirungan (23y/o). i really appreciate this person.

she was first contacted on july 6 by my companion and his last companion. i first met her in my first couple days in the field. on my very first pday i had the opportunity to extend the baptismal invitation to her. she accepted. from that moment on she continued to impress me. we would find her not just reading the scriptres but studying them and taking notes. she was pleasant to teach and it was evident she was devoloping a very strong testimony from the get go. we continued to become closer even tho she is not a very open person. as most people down here, she has had a very complicated and difficult life and she was starting to feel direction through the gospel of Jesus Christ. she mentioned how she would like to serve a mission and also go to the temple!! 

it got confusing near the end of august as she shared she would be moving for work to Cavite, a far away city near manilla. i was heartbroken because i really enjoyed teaching her. but week by week her moving date got postponed than she came to understood treasuring first, the things of heaven. this was hard for her because it might mean shes loosing a good opportunity for a job. 

through this period we had a relationship similar to me and emily. she was truly a big sister to me. not afraid to correct my grammar or cultural mistakes at any time and any means neccesary. so appreciated. it got closer and closer to the date of baptism and there were complications with her interviews but things got figured out 2 days before the big day.

the day was great, everything was good to go and in order. we were sent to get changed into our baptimsmal clothes and when i first saw her in all her white clothing it was so grand! hard to explain really. we then procceded to take photos and collect memories of this great day. then we collected together to hear some talks. one went all over the place and another was perfect. 

then onto the ordinance. i steped into the water, invited her in, took a minute to properly get situated and then once ready i quietly explained the process and then proceeded to finish the baptism. joy soon overcame me and as i went to change back i looked in the mirror and offered a special prayer to Heavenly Father for blessing me with this experince and opportunity to be here amongst other things. some tears were shed and i can’t remember a time in my life being much happier than i was then. we then went back and heard her testimony. very nice. branch prez said some thing with tears in his eyes and we closed with a hymn and prayer. then a marienda (snack). then adios.

the next day she was confirmed and went up later that meeting to bear her testimony. i didnt understand what she said but i understood what was felt. her testimony is very strong and she said she is ready for whatever trials are put in her path and hoping to share this experince to others.

hard to truly explain this event and what it meant to me. and how lucky i was to baptize someone i have really grown close to. 

i love being a missionary.

Elder Kearl

fun pictures