The Devil Monkey

May 20, 2014

So its been a bitter sweet and interesting week. I'll start out with the sweet! We had a baptism! It was sister Entienza. It was soo good. Her husband has a member but hasn't gone in 30 years and had been coming back for the last 6 weeks as we have been teaching. He stopped smoking and drinking coffee and prepared himself to be worthy to baptize his wife. It was truly an amazing experience. She was sooo good, truly elect! 

For the bitter... So my companion got emergency transferred to Escalante, one of the new areas in negreos occidental our mission recieved as its cebuano. I was getting a new companion. The day before he was going to come, there was some medical issues so he had to go to manilla and so i got a call that i was transferring since i didnt have a companion. I packed up that night and went to toledo zone the next day. It was pretty tough since we were teaching sis entienza's son and had many super good investigators and members. I'm in an area called balamban in the toledo zone. My area is pretty cool. Our apartment is maybe 50 yards from the ocean but theres some sewage water goes so its not a nice spot. But we get a nice breeze! And it smells good, like an ocean. Our area is pretty bukid. Very country like with big feilds and stuff. My new companion is an american which is different but he's cool! We have a big patio upstairs in our apartment. There are 4 elders there. We slept outside since its so much cooler and it started raining on us at 12:30 so we had to move inside. When i came to toledo zone i took a bus from pardo to toledo. i got out of the taxi and took my 2 bags out and went and set them down on the curb and i came back to get my scripture bag and the taxi was gone. It had my camera and all my photos. I was really upset. We have the taxi number so the ZLs are trying to find him. It was on the ground so Im pretty sure he didnt even realize it was there and just thought we were done. 

Now for the funny stories!!

So we were out visiting some members and it was getting late and was dark outside. We were walking on this feild were there were these animals called carabou. They are like cows. We are just walking across and i feel my foot just sink. It was just a big cow paddy! I just kept walking haha. 

We went to this memebers house yesterday. They have this small tree, no taller than 8 feet and had this small devil monkey in it! If we got close he would just start growling sneering his teeth and holding on the tree with one hand and swinging the other one to try to grab us or something. I took my sweat cloth and kind of waved it in front of him and he grabbed that thing sooo fast!!! The member started laughing and got it. He was super nice to her but not to us guys for some reason. My compaion gave the monkey some oreo like cookies. He grabbed it and ripped open the wrapper and started eating it. It was pretty funny! Hopfully i can get my camera back and take a video of it to send to annie!

 

 Everything is going good! Im really excited for my new area. Hope all is going well!

Elder Crandall

Simon Says ...

May 14, 2014; I hope mothers day was great for everyone!! This week had some funny events.  First, we were walking and some little kid ran up to me and ask if i was circumcised. I was super confused cause i didnt know the word for that, so later i asked my companion what he said and he told me. 2nd, we were walking down this alley along the water line were people's washing, shampoo and toothpaste water goes. There was a pipe out of the back of a home that would drop from the pipe 6 inches to the waterline underneath. It was water that had been used for washing so it was white from the soap. A little kid, maybe 1 years old was sitting on a little plastic tricycle leaning over to try to reach the water. There wasnt anyone around and so we asked what he was doing. He just said " gatas, gatas" or milk milk. We pulled him back and said no, thats dirty water. 3rd, we were in a lesson with one of our investigators. Elder fuentes was talking about the plan of salvation and was talking about our pre-mortal life. Sometimes we use english words for big terms just because the cebuano words are confusing to say. So he was meaning to talk about the pre-mortal life and ment to say during our pre-mortal life but said " So during our procreation" . I tried so hard to not laugh. We had recently taught about the law of chastity and he accidentally switched the 2 words. 

      Just some funnies! The highlight of the week was a service project the relief society did. They got lots of bread from a bread shop, juice, clothes and candy. They invited the missionaries to join, so we were able to go. They went to a little area and gave people food and drink and clothes. People loved it! It was so fun, we played games with all the kids and the adults would go through the clothe and pick the ones they wanted. It was such an awesome experience! We were able to talk to a lot of people about who we are and what we do. We were able to talk to some people that are really interested who we will return to! Service brings so much joy to our lives. Well thats all for this week. I hope all is going well! 

Elder Crandall

Elder Crandall playing Simon Says with the children

Every Missionary Has a Dog Story...

Its been a super good week! I was able to go on splits with my ZLs which was a good experience. I really learned a lot! The entienza family is still progressing and doing very well! Mario jr committed to be baptized this week and is very excited. The next sunday the whole family came to church! ( except one of the older brothers, 28). We had our zone activity last wednesday. We went to this beach area and had a pick-nic, played Frisbee, flew kites, and tried to play volleyball though our net was a rope tied from one tree to another. We had a traditional filipino meal called budle fight( pronounced boodle) where there is lots of rice, meat and fish on banana leaves ad everyone just uses their hands!

          I have had a request to hear some funny stories so here we go. The other day elder fuentes and i were walking in our area to an appointment. Every time we walk down this one path there is this dog ( we call him devil dog) cause he just starts barking and jumping all over in his cage that is about 15 ft from the path. The cage is probably about 6 ft by 6ft and 4 ft tall. On the top there is a tarp held down but some big pieces of wood spread out across the top to weigh the tarp down. Every time he sees us he starts jumping up and hitting the tarp. So one day we were walking by ( btw this dog is a pretty big dog) and he starts just barking, growling, and jumping all over in his cage. We see the wood start to move and we were thinking "all that wood is gonna come off". The dog kept jumping and hitting the top and to our worst fear all the wood fell off!! We see that and we both literally just book it, not even looking at each other first, out of there, not even looking back!!! We kept going and there was no dog chasing us. We went back and and peaked around the corner and realized that the tarp was tied down on the cage. All the filipino ladies who were outside talking and what not were now just dying with laughter. We felt pretty dumb, but it was funny.

                  The 2nd funny story was during our zone activity. There was this massive cow and i wanted to go get a picture with it. I was standing maybe 5 feet from in when elder fuentes ( taking the photo) was like its coming at you. I thought he was just messing with me and i was laughing but looked back anyway. As i look back i just see this cow coming at me so i just start running. The picture is mid action when i was in my picture pose, and laughing cause i thought elder fuentes joking and the cow coming at me. He was tied to the tree but had lots of slack. All the local people were watching and all started laughing when they saw me running. 

      Im loving the mission! Still working on the bisyian as it is coming slowly, but i know that pretty sure i will be good at it. Hope all is going well with everyone

Elder Crandall