Week 1 Philippines- August 1st, 2016

KUMUSTA FROM THE PHILIPPINES!!! Haha I was hoping one of you would be on so we could email back and forth but word on the street is that it's like 4 in the morning in America right now, so nevermind. Holy cow this has high key been the longest day of my life. Good news is that I got to see the sunrise in Hong Kong this morning, so I can go ahead and check that off the bucket list AND got to spend an entire 13 hours on a plane crossing the Pacific Ocean so that was pretty fun. BUT I'M HERE NOW. Haha there was a split second right before the plane landed in Manila from Hong Kong where I had a panic attack and was like "what the heck am I doing, where I am, I want to go back to VA right now please" but then as soon as we hit the ground I remembered how excited I am to be here and serving the people and I don't even care THAT THE HUMIDITY IS HORRIBLE- LITERALLY LIKE WALKING INTO A BRICK WALL GETTING OFF THE PLANE and everything kind of smells weird. I already love everyone that I have met so much and Manila is one of the coolest places that I have ever been. Literally NoVa has NOTHING on Manila traffic, at one point we were on a street with literally no lines on it and probably 7 lanes of traffic and then suddenly it turned to 3 and it's every man for themselves with lots of honking and swerving around, meanwhile there's like a million motorcycles weaving through everyone and people on the sides of the street selling stuff and it was insane but SO COOL.

Haha everyone says that when you go to your mission, the first thing that you say when you get off the plane is "this isn't what they taught me in the MTC" because the accents and speed are so much different. Except that's even more real for me because everyone here speaks Tagalog which is cool, except I can't understand them. It's like in Madagascar when the penguins are like, "Just smile and wave" -- I mostly just smile and nod a lot when I have no idea what people are saying. I don't know a whole lot of Ilonggo, but what I do know isn't going to be super helpful until next Wednesday, but that's okay. And tomorrow we get to go out for a couple of hours in Manila and proselyte which should be fun! I think/hope they'll pair the Ilonggo missionaries with Tagalog ones so it's less confusing, but apparently a lot of people in Manila also speak enough English that you can use Tag-longlish and they'll understand. I'll let y'all know how that goes next week.

But yeah, super excited to be here and having so much fun and even more excited to fly out to Bacolod on Wednesday! I won't have a p-day this week just with how everything works out, so I'll be off the grid for a little bit, but you'll probably hear from me next Monday-- maybe Wednesday or Thursday but I doubt it. Anyways, so much love to all of you, keep me updated with everything, I promise I'll respond it will just take a little bit of time haha. Hope everyone is having a fantastic week!

Love, 

Sister Rainey

sarah.rainey@myldsmail.net

(pasensiya no pics... camera is somehwere in my bags and I don't have time to find it. also jet lag is hard, my brain is so confused)