Good Times

1. Ipis: story about my battle with a monster in my apartment

2. Tatay: Appreciate your dads

3. Pagkain 2.0: the food here isn't all bad

4. Ghosts: the title explains what this is about

Ipis

 

Ok so Ipis means cockroach in Tagalog and they are all over my apartment!

 

Anywhooo so I saw one on the floor for the first time and I'm like yeah. Bawal walang ipis sa bahay ko! ( Cockroaches are forbidden in my house.) So I punted that sucker.

 

Ok but before I go on the cockroaches here are enormous. Like this one was probably 3 inches long and like an inch across. Oh yeah and they fly and not only do they fly they also bite and not just like aww darn I got a cockroach bite. These bad boys will take a chunk outa ya and the bite can get infected because they are filthy

 

Anywhooo I forgot all that when I kicked this sucker.  He seemed pretty ok with the first kick he just scuttled around in the kitchen.  But I kicked him again, this time out the door and no joke mid air this sucker spreads his wings and suddenly I remembered the stories about these beasts and I'd love to tell you I calmly shut the door because I am a missionary but that would be lying.

 

What I actually did was I yelled "FFRREEAACCKKKKK" and I slammed the door so fast it produced three distinct bangs. First the sonic boom because I slammed it so hard it broke the sound barrier and so made a sonic boom. Second was it hitting the door frame and the third was the monster hitting the door.  Now as many of you know I can handle my bugs pretty well but when I see a freaking 20 lbs roach with the wingspan of a b29 bomber I'mma lose my cool a bit.

 

 

Tatay (Father)

 

Ok so most families here don't have priesthood holders in their homes. They always call the missionaries for blessings and holy cow I've never appreciated the fact that I always had a worthy priesthood holder as a father! It really is such a huge blessing. Everyone just thank your dads!! Dad's do so much even if they don't have the priesthood. They still do sooo much for you!

 

I'll tell yall a story to show what I mean. So I go to this house to teach this lesson and we go in and the dad is clearly drunk how do I know? Well he smells, he's acting like a bafoon, oh yeah and he told me atleast five times I'm sorry I'm drunk I'm a painter I need to drink. Ok bro??... anywho so his daughter is reallly sick and the mom asks us to give her a blessing. So I gave her a blessing which was awesome but I looked at the dad in a drunken heap on the only comfy chair in the room and I truly realized just how good my dad is!!!  Everyone especially those in my family thank your dads more! 

 

 

Pagkain 2.0 (Food)

 

Ok so actually a lot of the food here is freakin' masarap (delicious) but my comp doesn't like the good stuff! Like they have these bakeries here that are soooo good but my comp doesn't really like them so the first while I was too shy to ask and also when I did he usually wouldn't understand but I've gotten to the point where me and him can communicate pretty well. So now I go to where he likes and I get a small meal and then hit up the bakeries gettin all the delicious wheat based goodies which is even more awesome because the bakeries are super cheap so it saves me money too! 

 

 

Ghosts

 

Let's start this with saying some people here are superstitious.  Like they aren't just alittlestitious they are suuuperstitious. The first night I tried to turn off the light to go to sleep and my comp was like "Yoooo what are you doing leave that on!" 

 

I was like "Oh sorry are you still using it?"

hes like "Naw just leave it on."

 

So we slept with the light on that night and every night following and I was just like aight he knows better probably keeps the tigers out or something. I aint gonna question (I know there aren't tigers but I was scared of everything my first day).  

 

Anyways so about a week ago were talking to a few members of the ward and they ask about our ghost and I'm like "Ghost sa bahay mo?" (ghost in your house)  Ghost had better be a Tagalog word for like dresser or something because I heard that filipinos were superstitious and I didn't want to deal with that yet.  Anywho then they say "Puting babae" (white lady) and I'm like flip they are freaking roasting me! But then they kept talking and it suddenly it all came to together. Why we always had the light on, what they were talking about, why everyone kept asking me since I got here how my house was. It all suddenly made sense. But just to make sure I asked him one night "Why do we have to have the light on all night?"

He said "Because the ghost".

 

Nice! It wasn't a tiger that was costing me sleep it was a ghost. 

 

Anywho things are really picking up! love you!