Happy Holy Week!

What a day. What a week. But let's start off with today.

1. I GOT YOUR PACKAGES!! A quick 2 months after they were sent, I finally got 2 from Gong Gong and one from my loving mother. Thank you thank you thank you! Which means that I now have Capt'n Crunch, candy, and we know the address works!(slowly..)

2. We went to Infanta again. But this time it was sunny and the AP's came with so we didn't have to pay for a Jeep. I worked on my farmer's tan for a bit, got the underside of my foot arches burnt by hot (dark) sand, and my nose is red. I love the beach. I missed it so.. and one day I'll be assigned on one of our islands. It's ok to be a litte jealous.

3. Holy Week. Oh man... if you thought Catholics were nuts before.. Filipinos take it to a whole new level. Here's how I'm going to sum it up: There are 2 holidays here... 1 is Christmas and the other is Holy Week. Holy Week... well actually just look it up on google. It involves "penetensia" (spelling and that's what they call it in tagalog). Crazy stuff.. but of course an incredible opportunity to teach about Christ and His Atonement.

4. My favorite family right now.. the Relliosa's (spelling again). Dad and his 4 kids, mom is somewhere... else. But the important is that dad is supporting his kids, extremely quick with picking up Gospel principles, and an awesome pillar.. foundation for his family. I'm noticing that Tagalog is starting to mess up my English ha. Pillar works better there. He's a good pillar for his family. His kids have been coming to church but right now is the harvest for his rice field so he can't make it yet. But he wants to, and we're planning on extending a baptismal goal date this week. Super stoked for them.

5. Transfers are next week.. my tatay (dad/trainer), Elder Harris, is leaving me! But Tagalog should go through the roof when I get a Pinoy and it'll be fun to have a change. But dang it's been a fast 12 weeks. I try to slow it down by counting the days and sometimes people judge me for counting.. but I can tell you from experience that it doesn't slow down anything. Count all you want, we live life one day at a time and that day is all you've got--make it the best you can.

Love from the field,

Elder Brown