A talk with Der.

I took some notes from our conversation with Der Lowry on Christmas morning and thought I'd share them here!

• We spent a lot of time talking about the language-- which makes sense because he spends a LOT of his time and energy and focus just trying to figure out the language. He said he learned Tagalog (He pronounced it ti-ga-LOWg) in the MTC but where he is, the dialect is SO DIFFERENT from Tagalog that it's like starting all over again. He's figured out though that the 3 most important words in the language are I think Ang (implying the next word is the focus) Ng ("nung"-non focus) Sa (the next word implies location) and they are placed before every noun (which makes for a lot more words-- for example, the Book of Mormon there is over 700 pages, and here it's only 531). If you can figure out how to use those 3 words, the rest makes a lot more sense, but until you do you're lost and probably talk a lot of nonsense.

• He said he heard that a lot of missionaries that serve in his area usually stay there for 6-8 months before getting transferred somewhere else, so he expects to be there a while still. Which is good because the Aklanon dialect is SUPER tricky!
• They call him el-DER LO-ry and that people always say, "Like LOry LOry Allelujah!" Haha, that was awesome. I told him he just needed to teach them "LOry LOry to Ole Georgia! And to HECK WITH GEORGIA TECH!"
• He said the kids there love to play a flip flop (“tsinellas”-- pronounced ‘chinillas’) game- lean flip flops on each other, 2 teams, another flip flop is used to throw at the 2 flip flops and try to knock them down. Once knocked down, someone grabs one and takes off running while the others chase them and the goal is to get back and stand them up again to win.
• Canadians = "Cana-jens"- all the Filipinos are related to someone in or have themselves lived in Toronto, Ontario, Canada! Must be a huge Filipino population there!
• Basketball is the sport they love to play, but they play a much different style of basketball-- waiting and waiting until they have the most clean, perfect, open shot before shooting (takes a long time to get a shot up). And he said he was the biggest guy on the court every single time!
• He talked about the most interesting food experience he had had up to date was duck embryo, "Balut". Apparently it's a delicacy. It is a duck egg that the put in the incubator like they wanted to hatch it and then take it out just a couple days before it would've hatched. Then they hard boil it. So it sort of resembles hard boiled eggs. "Overdone" is when you get a beak or feathers or something like that... YUMMAY!!
• He suggested that simple medicine would be a very much appreciated gift to the Filipino people in his area-- they don't have easy access to things like Tylenol or Hydrocortisone and it's much needed.
• We talked about the Jeepneys and he said the saying there is, "how many people can you fit on a Jeepney? One more!"
• I asked him if he got around mostly on Jeepneys and he said no, that they saw more "tricycles"-- with a seat in front that fit 3 Filipinos up front, the driver, and then 4-5 on the back.
• He said when you go to someone's house there, there's no knocking, you just announce that you're there "there's people here!" He said that people always have time or will happily allow you to sit and talk to them as long as you like. So they teach like 9 discussions a day! But the challenge there is not finding people to listen, it's finding people who will actually commit enough to KEEP commitments.
• He said they're mostly Catholics there, non practicing because they work all day, every day and then when they get home from a 10 hour work day they stay up all night weaving coconut hair making things out of it.
• Like Dexter- his most awesome investigator so far- Dexter works construction 7 days a week, 10 hours a day and gets paid the equivalent of $5 American/day. Even there, that's not much. So he gets home and weaves coconut hair and makes things to sell. But Dexter's story is pretty awesome, and has been a huge inspiration to Scott and "El-DER or-den-i-ZA" because the day they found them they woke up after crazy torrential typhoon rains, everything was flooded up to at least their shins, and they had an appointment with some potential investigators in a town pretty far away. They knew they'd have to walk/wade the whole way because transportation wouldn't work that day so they were SO close to just calling it off and staying in I guess, but something one of Scott's MTC teachers told him came to mind, pretty much 'You gotta do what you gotta do/There's things to do and you have to do it" so they decided they would just go and do the work they're there to do. Well they got there, drenched and tired, and their appointment fell through. No one wanted to talk, so they were a bit frustrated but they figured they were already out and so they might as well find someone to talk to. So they trekked through this SUPER thick Jungle area and came to a creek that was flooded up to his chest or up to a Filipino's neck and this lady (Dexter's wife) saw him from the other side. She kind of wondered what these 2 guys in white shirts were doing out and got Dexter's brother to help them find a better way to get across. Here Scott said, "you see they are TOO nice here!" Because Dexter's brother happily waded through the neck-high water to come show them a better way to cross the flooded creek. They got across and talked to Dexter and his wife and their weeks old baby girl and they just lit up. Said it was true, they felt it, and since then they've read all their reading assignments over and over before their next appointment, they are solid and are the nicest, most wonderful investigators ever. He said when Dexter heard about the Plan of Salvation he looked at his brand new baby girl and just beamed with joy that they were a family before they came here and could be a family for all eternity. He is very proud of his baby girl! Dexter is a young (25ish) husband and father. So anyways. That's the story of Dexter. He says whenever he visits Dexter he'll ask, "How are you?" And Dexter will answer, "I'm good now that you're here!" I love him already :)
• Dexter's story brings me to something else I thought was funny-- he said the Filipinos love to name their girls names like "Princess"-something or "Lady"- something. Or sometimes just Lady or just Princess. Dexter's daughter is Princess Linsy. Another one is "Lady Christine."
• He talked about his ward's Christmas party that made his Christmas for him. He said Christmas Eve was really hard for him, but the Christmas party was just the best. He said that it turned into a ward talent show and the Primary all got up and performed (like, it was rehearsed) the dance for Shakira's "waka waka"! I can just see all the little Filipino kiddos shaking their hips and dancing like crazy-- he siad they love love love to dance! He also said they sang Justin Bieber songs and I thought that was too funny.
• Oh yah and he said their ward clerk, a guy he's always just kind of thought was strange, played a dancing game like Musical Chairs except for the guys stand in a circle with their hand on their hip and the girls have to link arms with them when the music stops or something. So anyways, he was the last guy left in the middle and busted out a "raise the roof" which also happens to be my Dad's signature dance move and it's ridiculous, but it reminded Scott SO MUCH of Dad that he fell to the floor dying laughing! I loved hearing that story. My dad is a special guy ;) Haha, I can just see that TOTALLY making Scott's day!!
• He said that for the ward party they had a bunch of games where only couples could participate. And so they thought it would be funny to consider the missionaries a couple. So we played the newly wed game and they forced us to enter the dance competition.
  
• He also said that they have NO concept of personal space and that it was VERY common to hold hands or hips or waists with the person you're talking to and it makes him super uncomfortable still! I'm sure he'll get used to it but it was funny hearing about it. He said a drunk guy heard him outside talking to us and came up and wanted to hold his hand and talk. Definitely a different culture there!
• He said that there's no shame in asking someone you see walking on the street, "Hey, where are you going/coming from?" He said that it just blows his mind because in America people would think that is so weird and rude and too personal, but it's like second nature there, nothing odd at all. Or asking someone how old they are, or how much money they make-- none of that is too personal or strange, it's very open and common there. Funny, huh?
• "Kaya ko" = I can do it! (He talked about Divine, his 2 year old Filipino girlfriend, taking his watch off at the ward party and she kept saying "Kaya ko"-- that SHE could put it on him). "Kaya mo" = You can do it!

So good to hear his voice!!