28 January 1999

I'm enjoying having the new elders here.  Last Friday and Saturday, we went on splits.  Elder Roberts showed Elder Kenny around their half of the area, while Elder Pfister and I did some work in my half of the area.  Elder Pfister is pretty cool.  I like his sense of humour.  He's from Salt Lake City.  Elder Kenney is from Anaheim, but his grandmother is from Raymond.  Pretty cool, eh?  (I went to high school in Raymond.)

I haven't been to a doctor yet about my toenail.  It's getting pretty bad.  I'm out of painkillers, too.  I'll go on Monday after the Super Bowl (7:00 am).  I don't want to watch it, but my companion really does, so I'm going anyway.

1 February 1999

Elder Roberts and I called Sister Dimaya on Saturday morning about my toe.  She told us to go to a doctor, and if he wanted to remove the entire nail, we should say no and go to Tacloban and let her do it.  The doctor said the whole nail should come off, so we went to Tacloban.  Sister Dimaya took a look at it and said, "It's bad, but the whole thing doesn't need to be removed."  She had me soak it for a minute or two in salt water.  While I was doing that, she left the room.  She returned shortly with a meat cleaver in her hand and said, "Okay, are you ready?"  She's so cool.  After putting the meat cleaver away, she took my foot out of the water and put some ointment on my toe to numb it.  I couldn't bring myself to watch what she did next, but I know what happened.  She cut the nail on the worst side.  It didn't feel good (kind of like scratching a chalk board), but it wasn't that bad.  Then she started to pull it out.  I gasped and my whole body tensed.  "Just think about Joseph Smith's experience," President Dimaya said as he and Elder Roberts watched.  He was referring to the time Joseph Smith had an operation on his leg as a child with no drugs.  Sister Dimaya pulled the rest of the section of the nail out.  "Ow, crap!" I said, tensing even more, and then I laughed.  I don't know why.  I was sweating more than I ever have in my life.  The reason it hurt was because there was a sharp point on it, which was also the reason that my toe had been hurting so much and got infected.  After checking to make sure that side was okay, she cut the other side of the nail.  I felt her pull it out, and when she did, Elder Roberts and President both winced and said, "Oooo!"  "Did that hurt?" Elder Roberts asked.  "I felt something, but it didn't hurt," I said.  The piece she had removed was really deep, but it wasn't jagged, so it didn't hurt.  Sister Dimaya bandaged my toe, gave me some amoxicillan, fed us, and sent us on our way.  I have to wear sandals when I go proselyting for the next two weeks.

4 February 1999

Yesterday was a day that I won't soon forget.  We went on splits again, but this time I was with Elder Kenney. The morning was fine.  We did some less active work and some contacting, and then we came in for lunch.  Our second appointment after lunch was with the Orina family, who are less active.  Brother Orina has a Word of Wisdom problem.  (The Word of Wisdom is what prohibits Mormons from smoking and drinking alcohol, coffee, and tea.)  He was drunk when we arrived and feeling sick, but his wife told us to come in anyway.  The first wrong thing that we noticed was a poster of a practically nude woman on the wall.  We tried our best to ignore it and talked to Brother Orina and his wife.  Everything was going fine at first.  Then, when Sister was saying something to us, Brother came over, got on his hands and knees, and bowed his head between Elder Kenney and I.  It almost looked like he was worshipping us.  Elder Kenney didn't notice, because he was looking the other way at Sister, and I had no clue what he was doing, so I just sat there.  Brother finally sat up and looked at me.  He mumbled something that I couldn't hear (he usually speaks English), so I leaned in a little and said, "Pardon me?"  He gave me the ugliest look of contempt I've ever seen and started yelling at us: "I'm the head of the house, not her!  I want you to leave!  I bow down and ask for a blessing, and you listen to her!  You should leave, and I don't care for you to return!  Do I make myself clear?"

Elder Kenney calmly and seriously explained to Brother that we couldn't give him a blessing because he was drunk.  This calmed him down, and he started talking about his Word of Wisdom problems.  About 15 minutes later, when Elder Kenney and Sister were talking, Brother turned to me and asked if I was a local missionary.  I told him no.  Elder Kenney was listening now.  Brother continued: "So far, in your experience in the Philippines, have you, in a group or with an individual, attempted any sexual activities?"  I was so shocked by the question that I just sat there staring.  Brother turned to Elder Kenney and said, "That's a good question, no?  And he doesn't answer."  Elder Kenney and Brother said some things in Cebuano that I didn't understand.  Then Brother switched back to English.  He offered us to go into his room and have "sexual experiences" with his wife "free of charge."  Elder Kenney kept saying "Ayaw," which means "don't," but Brother wouldn't stop talking like that.  So we got up and started leaving.  On our way to the door, Brother came up to us and said, as he whipped out his penis, "Here in the Philippines, we have certain manipulations..."  We didn't hear the rest of the sentence, because that was when we said good-bye and left.

And after that, I fell in a rice paddy.

19 February 1999

I got two letters yesterday, one from Mum and Dad, and one from Jenny.  Uncle Bert died on the first of February.  Kidney failure.  The letters provided a lot of details about his death and funeral, so I'll just insert them in here instead of writing it all over again (the letters are taped in my journal.  I'm not going to transcribe them here).  This entry will just be my thoughts and feelings.  I read Jenny's letter first.  It hit me pretty hard when I read the first two lines, even though I already suspected he had passed away.  I guess I was still clinging to some hope.  I'm worried about Aunt Cath, but she's a strong woman; she'll be okay in time.  I'm more worried about Grandma.  It is a terrible thing to outlive your child, no matter how old the child may be.  I hope this doesn't affect her health.  I want to see her again in this life.  I'm worried about Jake, too.  This is the second loved-one who has died while he has been on his mission.  (The first was our friend, Cam Calder, who died in a motorcycle accident two months before I started my mission.)

23 February 1999

Yesterday was a very good day for me.  We had a zone activity at Lake Danao, up in the mountains.  The whole zone piled into and onto a jeepney for the ride up.  I cubited (rode on the rack on the back) and talked with Elder Reynolds (just recently transferred into the zone) on the way.  We had a pretty good talk.  He's a cool guy.  I found out that Griff (Price.  A friend from when I lived in Prince George who served in PTM before I did) was his trainer.  Lake Danao was beautiful.  We took a lot of pictures.  Since we couldn't swim, we played chess and yahtzee for an hour and a half.  Then we went back to Ormoc.  I top-loaded (rode on the roof rack) this time, and had a good talk with Elder Crabtree, one of the zone leaders.  He's a Filipino, but he's very tall.  He's cool, too.  A certain section of the road was pretty rough, and Elder Nanol was shaken off of the back and landed in a big puddle.  We were going slow, so he wasn't hurt.  We all had a good laugh at that.  It was a great P-Day.  I feel closer to the other missionaries in the zone, and I've developed a love for this country.

Elder MacKenzie and Elder Roberts at Lake Danao

26 February 1999

Today was a pretty good day.  It was zone conference for four zones, including Ormoc.  Much to my surprise, Elder Kopp was there.  He was recently transferred from his Waray-Waray speaking area to the Cebuano-speaking San Isidro area, which was Elder Pfister's last area.  It was great seeing him again.  I talked with him quite a bit.

Sister Dimaya brings a scale to each zone conference.  I've lost ten pounds since I've been here!  Elder Roberts gained ten pounds since last zone conference.

2 March 1999

I just killed a rat.  Big sucker, too.  It was a companionship effort, but I got the death blow with my rubber boot while Elder Roberts kept its tail caught in Elder Kenney's luggage.  Then we took it outside, poured alcohol on it, and lit it on fire.  The carcass is gone now.  I figure our landlady's dog took it.  That kind of sucks, because I wanted to show it to Elder Kenney and Elder Pfister.  At least I got some pictures of it.

The chase is on

Burning the evidence