11-9-11

Hey Family!

It's good to hear you are all getting into things in NJ!  Rachel and Sydney thank you for the emails!  I love getting emails from you guys!

So news from Pilar!  First, I'm still here.  There are no such things as addresses where I am, but I can be a tiny bit more specific than before.  I am in Kasabas, Pilar.  My house is right next to the LDS church, which is across the street from Bagumbayan Elementary School.  Maybe you can find it now on Google Earth.  The city we travel to in order to buy groceries and email is called Tagbilaran City.  It's in South Bohol.  This week is transfer week and I'm almost into my third transfer!  I'm losing my trainer (Elder Santia) and being follow-up trained for 1 more transfer period before I'll be getting transferred to my second area (most likely).  It is exciting to see change happening in the mission, but sad to see so many friends leaving as well.

I am excited to be getting a new companion though, because it will allow us to break from our routine and hopefully discover some new investigators.  We have been traveling a lot to Sierra Bullones to work, which is a 20 min bus ride away, and therefore, many people have a hard time committing to come to church because they don't have enough money for the bus fare.  We have 2 really good investigators there so we will keep visiting them, but hopefully now we can start proselyting a little closer to the church.  Sister Florez still is planning on marriage and baptism, so we are still working towards that goal.  There is a lot of paper work to be done, and we are doing it all for her because she isn't very well educated.  Hopefully we will see success there soon.

Sydney, yes I still eat pretty much only rice.  My diet is rice and a can of pork and beans in the morning, rice and hotdogs for lunch, and sometimes spaghetti, sometimes rice and more beans or hotdogs for dinner.  Occasionally I make pancakes, but they are kinda expensive so that is a treat.  I hear that the food is a lot better everywhere else, so hopefully after I transfer I'll be able to gain some weight again.  Amazingly enough though, I'm still alive here in Pilar.  I still think it's a miracle.  Thank goodness for vitamin supplements, and thank goodness for the many blessings of the Lord.

I love you all!  Good luck with the House this week!
Love,
Elder Garver