Vudol fight: when you get a banana leaf, cover it in rice and ulam and start eating like animals with your bare hands!

Hey everybody!

This week was super awesome. It would have been more awesome if a day and a half of it wasn't full of lagnat [fever], goose bumps, and vomiting in the Porteous' toilet, but it was pretty great anyways. 

Monday was super fun though up until the evening when the goose bumps mentioned above started kicking in. We went to the Crocodile farm here in Puerto and it was sweet! They don't actually grow crocodiles out of the ground like I was expecting. It's more like a reserve where they take them if they are found in areas where they could be a threat.

Mac-Mac

  They had this one crocodile and his name was Mac-Mac and he was over 18 feet long. That's longer than me! Also he was about 60 years old daw. Did you know that crocodiles can live to be 100 years old? I didn't until about a week ago. Cool stuff. They also had some other animals we could go and look at. 

I managed to get a selfie with the ferocious Elder Isla. There's also a huge 18 foot crocodile in the background named Mac-Mac. :)

They had some porcupines (they don't shoot their quills. I know that because the sign said so), some cool parrots that pooped a little on Elder Isla's head (Lucky!) and also a bear cat. That pretty much looks like a super duper fat fluffy raccoon. 

We fed him some corn nuts and now he is our friend. :) 

mangrove wood filled with tasty tamilok...yummy!

As we were leaving we saw a sign that said, "Tamilok!" For all you people that have no idea what that is, go watch the lion king at the part when Simba eats that huge gigantor worm thing. That's Tamilok [woodworm]. I know what you're thinking. "You didn't!" Well, I did. Mine wasn't quite as big as Simba's, but it was just as wormy and extremely chewy. More chewy than octopus. 

To eat these, you hold the worm by the head. Those hard things at the top are the worms teeth that it uses to eat the rotting wood. You put that end in your mouth last... These are more closely related to a sea mollusk than a worm apparently and they say they taste like oysters... unless they are not cleaned well and they still have rotton wood inside... hmmm, I wonder why Robert got sick that night? 

That's about all we did on Monday that was very exciting. Actually that's not true. We also ate at Mang Inasal. That's always exciting. :) Once we got home Monday evening I started to feel the lagnat [fever] coming on. The entire night was full of me rolled up into the tightest ball possible, probably similar to a rolly polly bug, shivering under my sheets not sleeping. It was pretty rough. 

Once Tuesday rolled around I was feeling a little better, so we went over to the Porteous' to do something important I don't remember what, then I ate some poached eggs and toast then the Porteous' left to pick up President Fermanis from the airport. Once they left my goosebumps came back and this time it came with some regurgitated egg. Lets just say the next hour and a half was spent knelt on the CR floor vomiting into the toilet. Once that was over we went to the church to help with interviews because President Fermanis wanted to interview the entire Palawan in one day. We were there to keep order, but I figured my companions had it covered so I just laid down on a bench and tried to not die. That's pretty much all I did for the rest of the day. 

Wednesday was our zone conference so that was fun and I was feeling loads better that day. Good thing too, 'cause I was conducting the meeting. :) At the end of the meeting I realized when President Fermanis asked me to bear my testimony that that was my very pinaka-last zone conference of my mission. That was weird. I talked about how the Book of Mormon is true and how God loves me because of toothpaste. It was really nice. :)

The only things worth mentioning on Thursday is that we did service at a recent converts house, and we had stake coordination that evening. The service was fun though. We did a bunch of pagdadamo (weed pulling) in her front yard and made it look all nice and beautiful, then Elder Ludlow and I built a super matibay [strong] bamboo fence. After all our kasipagan (hardworkingness) we went inside and had a vudol fight. That's when you get a banana leaf (the really gigantor ones) cover it in rice and ulam and other food, then everyone just turns into wild animals and starts eating everything with their bare hands. (Good thing it's not with their bear hands or things could get a little out of hand. hahaha) As we were leaving it started raining super crazy hard and the roads were all flooded and it was wild. It's always awkward when the roads all turn into rivers. 

Friday was crazy busy doing lots of stuff that's not very interesting to you and I don't want to take the time to write about. Don't be sad please. :)

Saturday was fun. We went to Roxas for another baptismal interview. It was with an investigator that I had been teaching for a long time when I was there. His name is Lester. I don't know if I ever told you his kwento [story], but to sum it up, he is 12 years old, has been coming to church consistently for the last 9 months and every week used to ask me, "Elder Fawson, kailan ang binyag ko? Gusto kong mabinyagan." [“Elder Fawson, when is my baptism, I want to be baptized.”] And I would always respond, "Pag hindi ka na nagkakape, pwede kang mabinyagan." [When you’re not drinking, you can be baptized.”] The only problem is that he didn't stop his pagkakape (drinking coffee). Now I got to interview him and he's going to be baptized this Saturday. I'm so happy for him. He is one of the coolest 12 year olds I know. When he prayed during the interview he basically bore testimony to Heavenly Father that he knows the church is true, Joseph Smith and Thomas S. Monson are true prophets, the Book of Mormon is true, and everything. It was so cool! I'm sad I won't be able to attend, but I'm just happy it's finally going to happen. 

Sunday was cool, because after church two of our investigators got interviewed too for baptism and they both passed. Remember Amalia and Kier, whose sister I taught in Aborlan? They're getting baptized also this Saturday at 2:00 pm at the Malvar chapel. You're invited if you want to come. :) I guess if you wanted you could just stay up ‘til midnight on Friday and then acknowledge that it is happening at that very second. That might be fun. :)You'll get some photos of it next week, so be excited for that. :)

That's my week. All is well over here. I'm over my sickness and back to my regular malusog [healthy] state. I hope you all are doing well, are happy, malusog, and have a sweet week this week. I hope it's even sweeter than lemon bars (I ate some of those too last week). Mahal ko kayo.

Elder Fawson

This is the super cute baby monkey that Robert got to pet, hold and feed a banana to. 

ahhhh!