Well so i made it to the Philippines everyone! and i couldn't be more excited to finally be in my Mission!!!!! It is freaking hotter than hot here and the humidity just makes everything worse! haha everyday when i go outside it doesn't take more than like 15 minutes to start sweating.... pero! I love it here and it has been so amazing to be here! There is a 14 hour time difference between here and Utah so right now it's the 29th and is 6:20 pm and i get to leave at 4:15 on the 30th to my actual mission area! so for all of you that will be the 29th back in Utah pero(but) I can not wait to go out and to get to know more about the people here and the culture! When we got off the plane it was a huge culture shock driving back to the MTC here and honestly my heart broke because of how bad it is here.... :) don't worry i'll send pictures when i get the chance this week cause my camera is charging currently at the moment for tomorrow and because it was almost dead... but the food here is super super good! yes there are still some things that i will not eat quite yet mainly the fish that they served here at dinner our first night we got here at the MTC pero(but) i have tried some other things here that you'd look at and just think nope not for me! like there was this stuff called bilobilo that i tried and it was good but super weird... It had like jack fruit in it and banana and sweet potato and pearls ( boba beads) and some coconut milk yes it sounds good and it kind of was but it looked super weird but we just said what the heck and went for it! Also there was some other things that i tried that i didn't bother asking what it was because i didn't want to know what i was eating haha all i knew was that i was hungry and it looked good and it was until i got some bone. which is a very common thing here out in the Philippines! :)  So i had the most amazing time and experience the other day.... I got to go out and tract and teach a lesson for the first time out in the actual field of Manila with the tagalog speakers in the area! i had such an amazing time :) it was the best feeling i've ever had! so first we went and planned what we were going to teach and we had 3 people that we were going to teach and after that we headed out but we only got to teach one person because we ran out of time till we had to go back but just being able to teach that one person was the best feeling in the world even though i couldn't say much cause it was in tagalog but so we took these things called jeepneys don't worry you''ll all get pictures of what these are and some may already know ;) pero(but) so we took that and then walked for about 20 minutes in what seemed like the middle of nowhere and just down a bunch of alley ways and we finally got to this little shack that sold like snacks and what not but i thought my companion for the day was just wanting to get something from there until we sat down and he started to talking to the person inside the shack and that's when i realized oh this is the investigator we are teaching today! So we started talking for a bit and the kid was really sweet and funny and his Nanay(mom) was the sweetest thing ever! she was talking to my companion for the day and told him "Oh i wanna see the white american!" so she comes over to the window thing and takes one look at me and just says "Oy very very guapo!" which means handsome and all i could really do was just kind of laugh and try not to blush super bad haha but she asked me if i spoke any tagalog and i said indipo (nice way of saying no) so i told her in Ilonggo that i speak english and Ilonggo and so she said oh i see well Mahal Kita( i love you) like you are my son and you better Mahal Kita me like i'm your mom! and she said it again because i didn't know what to say but the second time i told her that i will be able to do that :) but she was the sweetest thing ever! I love the people here so much! but carrying on haha so we started to teach this kid named Jarenz about the Restoration more like reviewing it but we finally got to the Book of Mormon and started to teach about that and again i wasn't able to say much because of the fact i don't speak the National language here but i guess the Jarenz was asking my companion which is native by the way if Joseph Smith was a treasure hunter since he went to go find the Golden Plates and i just laughed a little bit about that i mean my companion didn't tell me that until after the appointment but so after we had taught about the Book of Mormon my companion looked at me to bear my testimony in English since the Jarenz spoke it and so i did and before that he did ask about my arm since it is Bawal( forbidden, not allowed) pero i was bearing my testimony about the Book of Mormon and how much it had helped me in my life and has helped me to get here where i am now and so forth he looked at me and pointed and said " that, that's exactly what i want i want to be able to have a testimony as strong as that and to be able to have that in my life and to be able to show people how important it is" and he was telling my companion things like he is trying really hard not to cry right now and i was able to understand the gist of that and the rest of the lesson but he had started to tell my companion all these things that were wrong in his life and that he wanted to be able to have the Gospel and to be able to start over new and Jarenz was so grateful when my companion gave him a Book of Mormon to read! he was just so overwhelmed with joy! But it was seriously just one of the best experiences of my life and i will always remember and cherish that moment my first time going out and teaching because even though i wasn't able to say much to Jarenz i was able to say what needed to be said and to let him know that our Heavenly Father loves him and even though i had just met him that i love him too and it was just so amazing to see how powerful and how meaningful it was for him to hear those words and to just hear my testimony. I'm not gonna lie when we went there it didn't seem real to me up until that point where i had to talk because i was just thinking oh this is like teaching my teacher back in the Provo MTC and then it would hit me that no this is real life and this is a legit investigator and I'm just so grateful for that moment to be able to go and share a message with someone who doesn't know about the Gospel because i have been so anxious to do it for the past 7 weeks now! but i can not wait to start going out and doing that in my own mission area tomorrow! woooohoooo!!!!!! Wish me luck guys! Pray for me :) also i got my first referral the other day in TRC we were teaching a Filipina that is from my mission and told me that she wants me to go and if i am in the area to go and teach her Nanay(mom) :) and i was more than happy to go do it because after hearing her story about how she came into the church and all that i felt the need to ask if there was anything i could do to help her and she said yes once you get to Iloilo if you are in the area go and visit my mom and teach her about the Gospel and i could tell it was important to her so i told her i would and got her mom's address :) also she's gonna give her mom a heads up about us coming! :) alright mas parte sa Philippines! ( more about the) So i love it here so much more than the Provo MTC even with how hot it us, tungod(because) you get to do so much more and experience real life things like for our practice teaching things we just get to go the Manila Temple since it's right across the street which by the way is super super beautiful! I'll send photos of it as well and a video with it :) but we get to go there and just walk around the temple and try to find people that speak Ilonggo to teach them and to just get to know them better and share a short little message with them and even though a lot of the time they only speak English and tagalog we still do the same and just talk to them about there families and things like that but it is such an amazing experience to go out and to just share a simple message with people :) all the Filipino's here look at me and just say Guapo 24/7 it's funny cause we do it back with them and they just get shy kind of and say it back and walk off quickly but they are all just super friendly and loving! So as we were going to immigration earlier today we almost got in about 4 or 5 car recks because of how bad traffic is here and cause there are like literally no traffic laws here.... so lets hope i don't get injured by a car out here! but as we were driving it's just so sad to see how many people live out on the streets and have absolutely nothing.... there was this adorable little boy sitting on the curb just in some shorts just sitting there all dirty and even though he had nothing he sat and waved to the cars as they passed by with a big smile on his face and we kept driving and just saw so many people that were on the street and had nothing and it was so sad because this one mom was washing her baby with what looked like the last of her water that she had for the day to clean her baby and it was just so heart breaking to see..... but also another cool thing we saw that i really wish i got a picture of were these kids sitting on the side of the street with this really old dirty mattress was they were using it as a tramp and were just having the time of their life and it was so freaking cute to see and to watch them while we sat in traffic! :) well that all that i can think off right now at the moment :) i am still trying to get used to the time switch here! and i feel like i'm about to pass out! pero kon ako(but if i) did forget something i will make sure that i say it when i can email again :) which i don't know when that will be but it may be shortly... depend's with my mission president :) but Palangga Ko Kamo (i love you all!!!!!!!!) All the way from across the world!

Palangga,

Elder Merrill :)