Dang that’s so cool he's driving (Davis is driving/training for UPS). How about Torben? I don’t know if he would even see my email soon but I'll remind him to come over to the house if he has time. Yeah it'd probably be hard (getting another dog), I don’t even remember what dad's schedule was like when Rusty was a puppy, but someone was always there to hang out with him, usually you when we were at school and dad at work. Do you think you could look up my priesthood line of authority? I'm sure dad could help too. And what about the debit card? What did you think I should do for that? Also pictures ...? If you email them to me I can take them to a shop and get them printed for cheap. 

 

Okay, so we went on a super cool hike with our whole zone. It's pretty self explanatory in the pictures; just know that it was super fun.

About our typhoon two weeks ago, two days before it was supposed to hit it was upgraded to a super Typhoon, Level 5. They said it was bigger than Typhoon Yolanda in 2013, which killed over 2000 people. It was forecasted for a 3 in Agoo. The day before it hit we were all instructed to make sure we have supplies, food and water for 72 hour kits in case it was actually bad. Lots of families evacuated to the church building, probably 25 families, each one chose a classroom or a section of the gymnasium to call home for the night. It hit about 11 at night, so by the time we woke up it was over. In Agoo there wasn’t much damage, but I heard there was a couple of casualties. It’s really too bad. The people kept asking me about Oregon and how bad the typhoons are there. They have no idea how different other places are, just like Americans have no idea the culture here. 

Me and Elder Gamboa had our first big conflict. We met a family on their way to take their 5 year old to the hospital for a stomach problem. Elder Gamboa said we had to go with them, but I was hesitant, because we are not supposed to (do certain things as missionaries):  get involved in family issues besides offer service and priesthood blessings, pay for any families' food or bills no matter the circumstances, or travel outside of our assigned area without consent. We ended up going, and once they were safely there Elder Gamboa asked if I wanted to stay or go back to our area, although it was evident that he wanted to stay. I said if they are safe we should return. He said ok, but on our way out he accused me of not caring for the family; that "I just really care about the family, but if you want to work instead that’s fine". I stopped and made him discuss it, because that wasn’t fair at all. We tryked back to our area and once we were off the tyke he apologized and said when people are sick or need to go to the hospital he gets kinda panicky and has a short temper. It was all ok after that. Of course we want to help all of the people in our area but we have restrictions we are supposed to follow, and there is help from the branch president if the family would have asked them. (I was hesitant on including the story but for those of you who know Tiegue well, he's a mediator at heart and doesn't like to let disagreements go unresolved. Glad they could work things through!)

Other than that I had to veto a sleepover that was gonna happen at our apartment last night. Some of the missionaries here see it as a bad thing, snotty, or aspiring to follow the mission rules strictly. It’s almost as if they don’t understand the basic concept of missionary work. 

The keyboard I'm using has about half of the letters rubbed off from all of the past usage. 

 

This is our house. We sleep on the floor of the first floor because it is very hot upstairs and haunted. 

 

Our bathroom, with the recently cleaned toilet (it was all disgusting before, yellow and gross). The shower doesn't work, so the bucket and pail serve as our shower, and the little hole in the wall serves as our drain. The pail and bucket is also our toilet paper, it is true what they said about no toilet paper here. They have it but they only use it for runny noses and such, not for the CR (Comfort Room).

More pictures of our hike.

 

 

Elder Evans, one of our Zone leaders, on our zone hiking activity.