An excerpt from a January Email:

This past week we held interviews with President for half of the zones, here in Iloilo for Iloilo Zone, in Lapaz (just a 15 minute drive or so away) for Iloilo North Zone, and lastly in San Jose, Antique for the Antique Zone. Antique is about a 2 hour drive from Iloilo, and it is the most mountainous area of Panay Island, which meant a good hour of driving through windy canyon-like roads. But the scenery was terrific. As well as being in the mountains, it borders the West part of the Island, right up next to the ocean, which extends out to the horizon. So it was terrific seeing the foresty mountains on the one side, then open sea on the other. The District Center is the most city area, San Jose, where we held the interviews. I do not enjoy interviews in the fact that they are very long, and not extremely entertaining, but it was great to be able to see and talk with lots of the missionaries that I haven't seen in a long time, and to get to know those who I wasn't so familiar with. After the interviews we went on exchanges with the zone leaders in Hamtic, just a few minutes out of the city. The hardest thing about it was the language again. People in Antique speak Karay-a, which has some similarities to Ilongo and to Aklanon, but is a complete language of its own. One of the first ladies we visited asked me "buhay ka run ridia?" (sounds something like: boo-high ka roon rid-ja) and after a few moments of me just looking at her baffled asked Elder Arrieta "oh, he doesn't know how to speak karay-a?" "Just ilongo," Elder answered. I found out later that what she said is equivilent to "dugay ka na di?" (doo-guy ka na dee). So, I know that probably doesn't make much sense, but lets just say that it was a big difference! Luckily a lot of people from there come here to the city because it isn't too far away, so they understand a little bit and can speak a little bit of ilongo. I won't lie, it made me a little jealous that I haven't been assigned in any other areas besides ilongo speaking, because i think it would be a blast to be able to learn another dialect! Once the first one is learned, it is a lot easier to learn a new one, the biggest change is vocabulary, because I can know hear all of the words that people say, I just don't know the meaning of a lot of them. But anyways, I'll be happy with what I have been given!