MY LIFE HERE HAS PRETTY MUCH TURNED INTO A MOVIE SOUNDTRACK

Our weekly lunch at the Dejesus family, we had a Filipino style Thanksgiving!!!!!

So, apparently this week was Thanksgiving?  I couldn't remember if it was in December or November (that sounds so pathetic writing that right now) but getting all the pictures of amaaaazing American food and my cute little cousins and family made me realize... ya, it was probably this week... ha.  Funny what a mission does to you.  My Thanksgiving meal was probably rice (who are we kidding) and hotdogs:).  

And in other news, it still seems like June here.  December, whaaaat? And it feels like the sun just collapsed onto the Philippines!  We have officially made it into dry season (there is no cold and hot season, just rainy and

not rainy season) and gooooodness, you do not know hot until you live here.  I feel like I live in a fish bowl now, it's is always sooo hot and sooo humid, you just always feel wet.  Sometimes I feel like I should be swimming as I walk:).  Because of the sun, my hair has turned a light brown/red color (who knew my hair had red in it?) so that's pretty cool, and I HAVE GOTTEN THE BEST TAN LINE.  As in it's night and day, black and white, American and FIlipino.  

Exploring a new area (no houses.....) this is the area that will be split.
 I WANT TO BE TRANSFERRED HERE

I got to travel this week a little ways for exchanges, traveling is fun.  Call me a world class jeepney traveler.  I learned lots from the other areas, especially that I like where I'm at better:)  I love Pilar!  

And splitting Alauli is doing just great too.  I like to call this the baby of my mission, my main goal, my posterity after I leave (wait, am I still a new missionary?  Is it allowed to have a baby here?:) ha).  A little more explanation, Alauli is super out of the way, in the middle of nowhere, but the most beautiful place on the planet.  We are the first missionaries to venture out there (and I get the title of the first white person they've seen) and eeeeveryone loves to touch the American hehe.  We spend our days hiking around in the mountains, trucking through the rice fields, and tying our hardest to avoid stepping on the frogs (although sometimes it just happens).  We've been going up there for about a month now, our district president told us that we need 5 priesthood holders before it can become a branch.  Hopefully sooner than that though, we'll get some new missionaries to be assigned specifically up there (that's where I'm hoping to go this transfer...) because goodness that work is going faster than my two American feet can walk.  Even at a missionary pace (oh the pathetic missionary jokes).  We have already found a couple apartments for the missionaries and last month when the district president worked with us, we took a little time to look for land for a chapel (okay, so maybe we are all a little overeager, but just soo excited).  This work is just sooooo fast!

One of our Recent Converrts

As far as my personal movie soundtrack goes.  I have one now.  So I'm sure I've explained how much Filipinos loooooove their music.  And because their love of music, they play it Loud.  The whole city can hear when music is playing.  We usually walk past a couple boomboxes, speakers as tall as my companion, and the homemade sound systems all blasting the same thing.  And it's a great benefit for me.  I've stayed up to date on the best music, all the popular stuff (at least I think so) and what all the cool not-missionaries are listening to at home.  And I realized this week that probably in every hour, every day, in everything we do, we have music to follow us around.  Last Sunday we were starting our work, the sun turned on to full heat, walking down the more quiet, American looking street and they had the classic Beetles playing.  I miss my Beetles.  During our weekly planning, there was some hard core, soul searching Christina Aguliera, we got home later that night to "you had a bad dayyyyy" (coincidentally, not one of our favorite days), and sometimes during my language study in the morning I hear Korean rap that I don't understand as all the cool kids are walking to school with their cell phones playing.  My whole life I just wanted music playing to my mood like it is in all the cute Disney movies, it makes their life so much more intense, so much more relateable.  And I realized this week, that has so happened, thanks to the wonderful citizens of the Philippines.  

Funny story: A couple days ago, I bought something from a street tindahan (I don't know what that is in English) that I thought was a hamburger.  I was so. Excited.  A real hamburger in the Philippines.  I saw a nice brown bun, lettuce, and brown meat in the middle.  Ya, that was a joke.  I took a nice big bite and realized it was a cooked rice patty with palm tree leaves.  

Love You!  Keep it real!

SISTER TAYLOR