October! October! October!

At Saud beach again at sunset Don't know why this is here twice... Sabbath Lunch!
A sweet ship wreck!
Little Brittany leading me on the beach

Tomorrow is October first, which means I will be here for 7 more months! We fly back May first. It's hard to believe I have been here for almost a month. The first week went by very slow, but now the weeks are starting to go by a little faster. It is almost constantly warm and sunny. Yesterday it actually rained (amazing, considering it's the rainy season!) and we all put on jackets. It felt delicious.

Last Sabbath we went to a new church, out in a little coastal town called Pancuin or something like that. It was about 40 km away, and after one breakdown on our tricycle and a beautiful drive, we got there. Church was held in a karaoke bar. We did church for the kids, and a little girl named Brittany and I got to be friends. She was probably 3, totally adorable, and was fascinated with my camera case. After lunch (beans and rice...a far cry from Sabbaths at home!) we went down to the beach to bless a fishing net. The beach was SO pretty--the sky was this deep blue color, which matched the fishing boats and turned the water a pretty turquoise. Combined with the burgundy color of the fishing nets, it looked beautiful. On the way back to Pagudpud, we stopped to see a wrecked ship that a typhoon had blown in. It was pretty cool.

We are still waiting for this elusive doctor to show up. We tried to find other things to do this week--Pastor Mark spends nearly the whole day with us, which is fine because he is good company and can take us visiting. Yesterday I gave him a brief outline of the US, after he asked if New Jersey was close to Washington state. :) This week we visited the local clinic and an elementary school, and arranged to volunteer at both places next week. Hopefully this will keep us a little busier!

Today we went to a Bible study at Odette's house (a local church lady) She and her sister served us chips, coffee and tea, and Ferrer Rocher chocolates! Never were there happier student missionaries. Her sister is from Singapore, and suggested we should try and visit. We'd already been looking up flights to Hong Kong and other nearby places, and when we found out flights to Singapore were only $130 and the universal studios there was only $13 to get in....well, we've already started planning a February trip :)

This afternoon us three girls went to the beach for a few minutes. The boys were in charge of dinner, so they went back to try and figure out how to cook beans while we watched the sun set. It was so incredibly pretty. There were these clouds that the sun lit up in such a way that they looked like a painting from the Sistine Chapel...I swear I could almost see the faces of angels or something in them...so pretty. Sometimes I will just get these random "oh my goodness! I'm in the Philippines!" moments.

Some of the differences between us SMs have started to flare up. Mostly over food budget issues, yesterday specifically over egg salad, of all things. Apparently mayonnaise is expensive. We're trying to get along...and most of the time we do, but it's like any other "family"...we get on each other's nerves. We are going to know each other really well when it's all said and done over here.

I guess that's about it. We did laundry today; Heather and I like to do it at Noemi and Rizal's house because they have this cool little well that we get water out of to fill the rinsing buckets with and they also have a little open washing machine that does the actual scrubbing for us. When we went back to pick up our clothes later, Noemi had already folded it all. She folds neater than even Zach, which is really saying something! My underwear are folded into these perfect little origami squares.

Tomorrow is Friday. We will clean and cook and sweat and visit again, a typical day for us. Maybe we'll go to the market; we'll go to vespers and I will probably play the piano. We will get ready for Sabbath (our least favorite day here, unfortunately) It will be October, we will get our stipend, and our second month will begin.