Week 28 - The kids, they love me!

Alcala

It only rained 1 day here last week. Thing are getting back to hot again. We also found out our area will be going from four missionaries to two missionaries so that's cool.  I really just want to keep my companion right now. Me and him get along together real well. In one of our areas there are a ton of little kids and of course they love me. They always follow us to all our lessons in that area. It's awesome because they aren't even members. There are also three little girls at church that whenever they see me they always run at me and tackle me. Seriously I think the little kids here are awesome. Way better than American kids. BTW Britts baby looks way ugly. It definitely takes after Brittney.

Anyways that's all. Love you all. 

Elder Tanner Swensen

 

 

Week 27 - Filipino Food

Alcala

That sounds fun. Trust me, even if you do cook Filipino food, it will taste nothing like the peoples food here. They cook it so much better. I say just wait until I come how and I'll show you what we eat. This week was pretty much just the same as any other. I figure that's how missionary work is. We had a baptism last week and then we have 4 more scheduled for the 21st of March. I'm so serious about you guys coming here. I even asked my Mission president what I need to do to get released here and stuff. He's down with the idea too. So yeah, It's furreal. Plan on it. We went to some caves earlier today. It was nothing too exciting, but it was something. Tug City is also a lot more confusing than Ilagan. It's got so many streets and no street signs. This week me and my comp are going to look for more LAs to teach so hopefully we can bring the ward back up to 150+. Last week we had 7 investigators, at church and 140 members total. So that's way good. Yeah that's about it. Maybe I'll send home some spices too so that you guys can cook real Filipino food. I highly doubt they have spices like the ones here. I don't know, I need to find a post office first, so however that goes. Anyways take care. I'll upload pictures later.

Love Elder Swensen

 

 

Week 26 - Obsessed with Balut

Alcala

Everything is good here. We basically have dinner appointments every night here which is a welcome change. I still miss my first area but I know I will come to love the people in this area too. My comp is obsessed with balut and he kind of got me eating it all the time too. It's seriously my favorite snack now. There is a little place that sells it by us too. So at least once a week we go and eat 2 or 3 eggs. Sometimes, more often too. We just started teaching a pastor from the Iglesia ni Cristo Church so we'll see how that goes. It should be pretty fun. Language is still going well. I'm getting better everyday. People here are Ilocano too so I get a chance to practice that as well. Other than that, not much has changed. They say that next cycle this area might go down to only 2 missionaries,  so we'll see how that goes.

 

Love, Elder Swensen

 

Balut - Fertilized Duck Egg

 

Week 25 - Transfered to the far North

Alcala

The new area is great. I'm in Alcala A. Which is in the Tug City North zone. This ward is actually a ward, so that's nice. Here we have a baptism set for the 14th and I believe two people will be baptized. My comp is Elder Pawin. He's freaking dope. He's from Davao city. Also in our house we have Elder Brandon from Utah and Elder Costales from somewhere close to Iloilo, because he is Ilongo. Our house is pretty nice here. It's ALOT bigger than the last house and the bathroom is 20x better. I heard the Pats won which is awesome. I didn't know if they could do it.

Apparently we are the most northern part of the mission. We all think that next cycle they are going to be closing the area. They are closing a ton of areas right now because all the missionaries from the big hype are going home. Last cycle we only had two Elders come in. I miss my other area, but I'm sure I'll get used to the area here. The Elder who was here before, Elder Lott was part of my batch.

I've been blowing peoples minds here. Everyone is like 'Oh how long have you been here?' and I'm like: '6 months I came in with Elder Lotts batch.' and then they just freak out saying how good I am at Tagalog. Another person from my batch is in my zone too, Elder Einfeldt. Me and him always get tons of compliments in district meeting saying how good we are at Tagalog. Our zone leader said he wasn't even this good at his 18 month mark.

So yeah that's it.

 

Love y'all,

Elder Swensen

Transferred to Alcala in Tuguegaro North Zone

Elder Swensen and new companion, Elder Pawin



Alcala is the farthest north area of the mission.

 

Saint Philomene Church in Alcala