KUMUSTA!

Well. I have arrived safely in the Philippines! I am in the city of Tarlac and I have been assigned to a ward! So crazy! They have so many members here its awesome! Well my journey was an awesome experience. So. We flew through Bangkok and I was able to get some Thai currency. Pretty awesome. Then We arrived in Manila which is a huge city. They let us stay in a way nice hotel for the night. It was so nice. I was in a room with a native missionary who had just come back to his mission. I guess he broke his leg or something before and now he is better. Way cool guy. Then we woke up at around 3 am the next day and they took us to the MTC here! It was soo weird! Lots of memories came back to my mind! The Temple was right across the street so we took some solid pictures and finally a cab came to take us to Tarlac City where the mission office is at around 8. So then for the third time we went through orientation for new missionaries and it was swell. It was fun with all the new missionaries coming in. They are all awesome. Then we got our companions! My new comp is Elder Olohan! Way cool guy. He is actually the same batch as me so he left last February as well. We get along great and we are enjoying nicely together! He is from the Philippines! From an area called Davao or something like that. We are opening an area together so we are basically starting from nothing. We won't even have a phone for 2 more weeks so its awesome. Church was fun! The people here actually speak a decent amount of English so I could understand maybe like 10% of what was happening!

Well we are serving in a Ward! Man it is so nice! The bishop supports us and so do the members! They have all been taking us out and showing us members homes! So I am supposed to be learning Tagalog. It is way hard. I still know basically nothing and Just like in Rajahmundry I don't understand anything! Except now its my fault for not understanding.So I really need to work hard to learn the language. Tagalog is like a mix of Spanish french and Chinese. Its crazy. But I am just happy I can read the letters now instead of all Telagu! I am learning slowly but surely! Its hard but I am excited. Well the food here is way good! Still lots of rice! And Tons of pork! They eat that with  every meal! My first day I had something called sisig. I guess its just like fried pig face, and pig ear. It was actually really good! The food here has zero spice so I will have to go find some chili powder and make some curry! We will see though. I have never done it by myself! Well we are in an internet cafe so I can't able to send pictures right now but I will try this next week. I didn't even take that many pictures so next week will be better. We are living in a small house with the Zone leaders here. They are awesome and are helping me a lot! Man people here are so rich. The houses are huge! All of them have like 3 to 5 rooms in them! Its so nice here! Crazy! Well I don't have much time left! I am safe though! No worries! Keep me updated on everything going on! Love ya!

Elder Checketts