Notes from Christmas Skype Video Call

Here a notes from our Christmas video call with Garrett. He asked us all what we got for Christmas. He asked if his bedroom is “still intact”. He said he liked the 12 days of Christmas gifts we gave him. He especially loved the little photo album I made him and the candy. He had Macy and Brittney stand together to see how Brittney has grown so tall. He said Britt should play basketball since she is so tall. He laughed and laughed when Cliff said he got a leather coat from Santa. He said “what are you going to do with that?” We described our Christmas Eve party. He asked about Court and asked how Jeff and Cambria are doing. He asked if Brad is “big” since the football schedule I sent him said Brad’s weight is 195. Britt showed him her cat, Harley. Macy described the home improvements she and Breck have made to their house. He asked about what our vehicles are. I described my new Kia. Macy and Breck and Dad all still drive the same vehicles. He said his roommate, Elder Scott, said “he’d hook us up” to go pheasant hunting in Nebraska. Elder Scott comes home in February, but will probably go to BYU. Garrett misses his companion, Elder Price, who is now in New Washington. Nearly everyone who is interested has already been baptized in New Washington. He said: A barangay is a small place like Diamond Valley, but part of a bigger city. Like Cox Landing is a barangay of St. George. I’m at an internet café. It is just a bunch of computers. “ It has aircon”. (air conditioning) That’s what it’s called here. In my first area I got a lot of letters, but now it’s you guys, Mandi Mathis, Mark Johnson and Kyle Sherwin and Aunt Lisa. I don’t really hear from any of my buddies who are on missions. We get our mail every Friday. Kyle Sherwin writes me an e-mail and then I write him a hand letter back. It usually takes about two weeks for him to get my letters. I love Kyle’s parents a lot. Kyle wants me to go to University of Utah with him when I get back. Macy, Breck and Britt showed him their braces. We showed him the journal we bought for a sister missionary at his request. More quotes: For Christmas Eve we taught a recent convert who is 74. The people give us a treat and glass of water or Sprite at our visits. We went over to the stake center, which is in the middle of the city and there are four wards in Roxas City. There is a man from England who married a Filipina. He has lots of money so he paid for hundreds of street kids to have lunch. On Christmas Eve, we were able to serve them food. It was really fun. I took pictures of the poor kids. The man also gives them gifts. Garrett showed us pictures of the kids. They had a baptism this week of a lady named Barbara. He loves the camera he took on his mission. It continues to work well. He found a paper at an investigator’s that said “I have a crush on Elder Christensen, because he is cute and I like him. “ We laughed! The Filipinos sit with their shoes and bum on the ground. They are comfortable with it. He showed us pictures of JoAnn Tan and her husband who feeds him every Sunday. She is my friend on FaceBook Garrett’s stomach “hasn’t been terrible. Whenever I eat it hurts. I went to a doctor about a week ago. She thinks it is from me taking Ibuprophen. If it’s not better in another week I’m supposed to go back. He asked if we have tried any Filipino food. He wants us to make chicken abode and try it. “It’s so good on rice.” He only remembers eating rice once a month when he was home. Now he eats it with his spoon in his right hand and his fork in his left hand. The fork puts rice into the spoon. The people make disgusting fruit salad with mayonaise. Since mayonaise is expensive they think the missionaries will like it. He says “sorry we’re full”. It is a Christmas tradition. Also, they’ll gut the fish and leave the scales and fry it. “I never, never eat that. I hate the fish. I tell people I have an allergy. Some of my companions like it.” “They eat chicken and pork, but never beef. Beef is too expensive. I’ve never eaten it at a member’s house. Everything has a sauce. They use meat as part of a rice topping with sauce. They also grind up fish for “fish sauce”. Balut is a delicacy here. They have pig brain and cow tongue. I’ve tried cow tongue and it wasn’t too bad. I think I’ve gained a little weight. At the doctors I was just 85 kilos (just under 200 pounds). That’s about what I was when I came out on my mission. I’ve lost muscle and gained some fat. We told him about our upcoming Brian Head trip for New Years. Britt showed him her new bedspread fabric. He asked about the bulletin board (shrine) where we put the world map and pictures from his mission. Breck showed him his new snow board. It says hello in different languages, but we couldn’t find “Kumusta”, hello in Tagalog. He got the run-down on what snowboard equipment everyone planned to use. He said “I would wear my football girdle when I went snowboarding so that whenever I hit a rail I would have a cushion for my tailbone.” “I’m way stoked that Brother Weaver is in the branch presidency now. He told me greeting for you. He is awesome. He said he would come to church with us in America when he visits America.” (Garrett baptized Brother Weaver in February 2010.) There are four sister missionaries in Roxas City. We get along well with the sister missionaries here. We are with them a lot. I like them. How many people went to church in our ward today? Not your family! We told him we didn’t go to church because Macy and Breck forgot their clothes and we were putting together Brittney’s new bedroom set. He said “that’s about as good as the excuses we get here. We have 318 members, but like 60 go to church. Yesterday we had 30 people. “ We had 3 dinner appointments on Christmas Eve at 5, 6 and 7. Christmas we ate at Joann Tan’s who is a member. She is on Facebook. We had a really relaxing day because nobody wanted us to come. We said hi to Elder Adams and an Elder from Hawaii who taught Garrett to play the Ukali. Garrett got a kick out of us trying to pronounce the places we’ve read about in his letters. He is currently speaking Illongo. In New Washington he spoke Tagolog and Aklan. He can’t speak Aklan very well, but he can understand it. You have to gurgel your throat and he can’t do it. He spoke Kinaraya in his first area, Sibalom. He said: “We were talking about how we communicate. We mix all the languages and English when we talk in our apartment. For example there is a word here that means “I didn’t say it”. We use it a lot. When I first got to the Philippines I hated it to be honest. My companion could barely even communicate with me. My investigators couldn’t understand. I enjoy it a lot now. It’s cool being able to talk with them. “ We updated him on Gramps. He asked if Gramps is going to church. We updated him on Papa Joe and Irene. We updated him on Grandma Sherry and Amanda. Joe Rebman, Amanda & Shay and Ben Rebman. He said he might want to be a foot doctor. He asked about “Court’s Emple” and condo in Brian Head. He said: “We actually talk about sports a lot here. We miss it because we can’t watch it, so we just talk about it.” Breck, Macy & Cliff confirmed several trades and updates on sports. He said basketball is the big sport there. “You can be walking down the street and you can see like four different basketball games going. It is all on dirt floors and they play in their flip flops. We play basketball every Monday. I still suck, but it’s fun. They also like boxing.” He asked about Brittney’s school classes. She said school is “boring”. He said “mingnow” is how they say boring. He got the run-down on Britt’s love life. She said “I have a crush.” He got a run-down on Breck’s motel and Breck and Macy’s upcoming trip to Thailand. It seems like he said “Ahhhh” a lot. (I’m not sure if this is a language thing or not.) He said: “The Philippines is kind of like the Mexico of America. Everybody wants to get out. Like they go “abroad”. They work in Hong Kong, Asia, China. They all want to work abroad because there is “bad work” here. He asked about the Bri Leavitt family and how Bri’s construction business is doing during the poor economy. He is shocked that Taylor Leavitt is already married and is glad Taylor and her husband have good jobs. He asked about Mikayla McDonald. We asked what he wants in his next box. He said all his clothes and things are fine. They buy rubber shoes there that last like two months and cost about $5. “I won’t need shoes. I really don’t need anything. It is nice to have like candy and stuff. Maybe like Jerky and some pickle sunflower seeds.” “I gave the consecrated oil to the ward and saved some for my next area. Transfers are January 13. In your mission you have like 18 or something and I only have like 7 left. I’ll probably only have like 2 more areas. Here it seems like a day is really long, but then I look at a calendar and say like whoa it’s December 23! I’ll be honest. I miss Elder Price a lot. Do you remember like Joe Rebman who had a companion he really liked and then got a transfer. That’s how it is.” I’ll probably get a new area on January 13. I haven’t heard much from people who were with me in the MTC. It’s crazy how far we are from each other.” “I like it when you send pictures from home.” Macy asked how he feels about coming home. He doesn’t think about it much. “ I can’t imagine driving a car. Here you either drive a Jeepney or a tricycle. You go out into the street and stick out your arm. You hop on and tell them where you are going and they drop you off. Being at home would be way weird.” He is excited to go to the lake when he gets home. We told him about the new businesses in St. George – Kneeders, Petco, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Paradise Grill, the Patio Grill, the new airport. Rebel Sports moved from the factory outlet mall to the same building as Hurst’s. He asked about Joe Rebman’s homecoming. He asked how Joe’s English was when he returned. He said, “My simple conversation is fine, but deeper words that I haven’t used aren’t at the top of my head. I’m nervous to go to college, because my English isn’t good. “ He asked about Macy’s EMT certification. She is just under a paramedic, but doesn’t want to go back to college to become a paramedic. It was fun and she is sad that she is done. He asked what Brittney used to say for swimming when she was little. She said “Whoosing”. He asked about the deer hunt. “I’m looking so forward to sleeping in my bed. The matresses are so thin here. My back hurts every morning, but by afternoon it’s fine. It a little twin and I’m not used to sleeping on that. I’ve had a queen my whole live. “ He yawned several times during our call, so we told him he needs a nap. He said, “that’s just how it is here. I yawn all the time. We don’t have any time. In the afternoon and night I feel fine. Everyday it’s 10:30 we go to sleep 6:30 we wake up. I’m always a little bit tired.” “The people on the street are usually nice. I never feel worried because I’m so much bigger than them. They always yell stuff at us. They work construction and in the evening they get drunk and brave and talk to us. They’ll tell us to take a shot with them. Some even buy us Sprite and give it to us. A lot of people are nice to us because we are American. They have seen American’s on t.v. The members are really nice. They are always surprised that we can speak the language. It will be weird to come home and not be stared at all the time. Like here everyone stares at us all the time. When we’re back we will just be regular dudes.” (Apparently since he does everything with his companion or roommates, he thinks as “we” instead of “I”.) I asked him to tell us the story about the little girl who was so shocked that he knew their language. It is my favorite story from his mission. He said the little girl just kept touching her mom’s shoulder and saying “he looks like an American, but no, he knows our language.” He said “She never did want to accept that I’m American.” He also told us the story of the little girl who said Joseph Smith “is super, super good looking” when Garrett showed her a picture. “The little girls are way, way sweet. The little boys are sweet too, but then they grow up.” It was hot. Garrett kept wiping his lip of sweat. I mentioned that he doesn’t describe things in his letters anymore. He said “When you’ve been here so long it just seems normal. It would be like you trying to describe hoping in a car.” His house is “not as bad as his first one, but not as nice as his second one.” They have a small confection oven – like 10 X 10 inches. They cook nearly everything on a gas burner. They use bucket showers. They don’t use toilet paper. It’s just normal. “When I first got here, I was like I’ll never do that. It’s so much easier. You just use water. In every bathroom there is a bucket full of water and like a scoop that you scoop water with. It’s hard to explain. You splash it off and then after you wash your hands you put alcohol on your hands which kills like 99.9% of the germs. I think it’s actually cleaner, but I don’t know. When I get back I’ll decide. “ The sister missionaries came into the internet café. Sister Simeito, Sister Patrico, they said “hi” to us. One is Filipina, but lives in Seattle Washington. The sisters looked at the screen and we could see them stand behind Garrett looking at us. They look darling. The sister thanked us for the journal. “When you come up to an old person you touch the top of their head with the top of your hand. It’s blessing them.” “The bottom third of the Philippines is native missionaries only. They won’t let Americans serve there.” The call continues…. I haven’t had time to transcribe it all yet.