9 December 1999

Well, here I am.  Guiuan, Eastern Samar.  We went to the office first thing this morning, hooked up with our new companions, and now I'm free!  Free of Elder Millington!  Elder Wetenkamp seems really cool.  And he knows the language!  I don't have to do everything!  I don't have to teach him anything!  Oh, it is such a glorious relief.  Elder Millington is absolutely clueless when it comes to learning languages.  When I was two months in the field, I had the language skills to teach on my own (including find-out, listening, and testifying), and I knew how to have conversations with people.  Oh well, people learn at different paces.

So anyway, after Elder Wetenkamp and I grabbed a quick bite to eat, we loaded all of my stuff onto a jeepney and went to the terminal.  There, we transferred everything onto a bus to Borongan.  We left Tacloban at 12:00.  We got to Borongan at 5:00.  It was a very long ride, but the scenery was beautiful.  We went through a big rain forest.  I love Samar.  In Borongan, we caught a jeepney to Guiuan.  It took three more hours.  It took us a total of eight hours to get here.  I'm very tired now.  I don't know what the town looks like, because it was dark when I got here.  I do know this, however: those other guys weren't kidding about this house.  It sucks!  It's too short, it's ugly, it stinks, and the roof is nipa (woven palm fronds)!  That's okay, though, because we're moving at the end of the month.

Elder MacKenzie and Elder Wetenkamp