Vanilla in Manila - 25 Sept 2025
Welp, we made it, sorry I'm sending this email at such a weird time and date. Everything is kinda shifting around because of the travel days and prep days. Break break though, I am one of very few white people (I've decided we will be called vanillas, hence the name) at the Manila MTC which is high-key wild and just ate this fish thing for dinner that probably would have made my sister Elena lose her appetite for approximately 5 days and 11 hours, so that was a blast.
The travel was just spectacular, coming in with a total of 17 hours of fly time and a 7 hour layover. It helped me to realize that its hard to be happy without the sun. Both physically and spiritually, kinda a fun, idk what to call it, maybe a tangent, who knows. Basically though, we left San Fran airport approximately two hours after it got dark and then we were chasing the sun the sun the whole time. Unfortunately, airplanes are not fast enough to catch up to cosmic fire balls. Therefore, I went about 17 hours without seeing the sun and it was high-key trippy.
Manila is crazy beautiful and the traffic is crazy deadly but at the same time I feel oddly safe. Although traffic laws are taken as mild suggestions here and there are more mopeds than there are places to store them, which is wild, but no one is looking at their phones. I think I could walk across the street blindfolded here and have a better chance of surviving than if I were to do that in America.
The People are so awesome, I sat next to a Filipino on the flight over and finally got the courage to talk to him a little bit just so that he could reply to me in english, so that's how it went. I would ask him questions and stuff in Tagalog and he would answer me in english. It was mutually beneficial I think because he didn't seem super fluent so it was good practice for the both of us.
So that was everything Manila, but before that, here's what happened in the last week at Provo MTC.
Brudda Stucki gave me a sick tie.
Someone Learning english asked me to read a scripture out loud so he could hear how its said which was cool.
And I packed and got ready to go.
Aside from that, overall an uneventful week at Provo.
I love you all. Remember who you are and what you stand for. Also remember that it can be hard to feel joy when you don't have enough of "The Son" in your life. That's why personal study is hammered as so important to missionaries.
Love you all, Peace out,
Elder Snill
(That's how Br Stucki said they would say my name in the Philippines, like Shneel, kind funny.)
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