My first couple of weeks here in the Philippines has been great!! We were assigned to reopen area of Dasma Bagom Biyen 2nd ward. we are out in the province and so we arent in Manila. We had Two Baptisms two days ago, two younger sisters about 20 years old, Dai Dai and Jobilin, They are great!! We don't really have any progressing investigators yet because we reopened the area, its been closed for quite a while. but this last week we OYM'd over 200 people and we got about 70 return appointments/new investigators.. My companion is Elder Ward he is from Boise Idaho. he has only been here in the Philippines for 7 months now. He's great and we get along really well! And he is way good with the language! The language is still way hard for me but elder Ward has really been helping me so I've been learning a lot faster than I was in the MTC. Do you know how hard his is to explain... You honestly have no idea how much stuff has happened in the last week and a half....... there are 4 elders in my apartment. our showers are buckets and there's no toilet paper. we also have to wash all of our cloths by hand. Seeing the living conditions here for the people of the Philippines is very humbling, Americans honestly live like kings compared to a lot of people here, but its way cool because they are happy!! I can't tell you how many times I've heard Hoy JOE or Hoy Americano by little kids in the last week....

The Philippines!!

Alright well I got to the Philippines safely! It's been a pretty crazy first week!!! My mission President Howard is a great guy and his wife too. Our first night they sent my group out into Manila to do some finding, the elder I went with found 3 new investigators. The Manila mission has 190 total missionaries right now, and averages more baptisms than any other mission in the Philippines. I got my new companion, His Name is Elder Ward and he is from Boise Idaho. He has been in the Philippines for 7 months now and is way good with the language! My area is Dasmarinas Bagong Bayan 2nd I'm out in the province, and not in the city. I have a bunch of really cool elder's and sisters in my zone. Elder ward and I are assigned to an area that has been closed for some time now so we are shotgunning the area, so neither of us know where we are going but the ward mission leader works with the missionaries everyday so he takes us around. Its been really hard for me to communicate with people, but we do have two baptisms coming up on Saturday. The living conditions of the people are very humbling!! Our apartment is one of the nicer ones, but nothing like in America and there are two other elders in our apartment, one of them trained elder ward.
Anyway, Im out of time. Until next week!
Elder Palmer