Green Mangos are Good!

Howdy!

I heard Shane and Clutch had quite the cowboy adventure. So, Howdy. I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures this week, but please enjoy one of my old Tatay and myself with some kids that we taught! They are grandchildren and children of members who live too far away to walk, so it is always very difficult for them to get to church. When they do, they are awesome primary members and Ace (the dude in pink shorts) is looking forward to serving a mission. And they love to grab us mangos out of the trees.

Speaking of mangos, they are so good!! There are two types here.. the yellow kind that you might have seen at home, and a green kind that never gets yellow on the outside. When the green one isn't ripe yet it is bitter but still distinctly mango, and loved by the locals. I wasn't a huge fan of the first one I tried and decided they weren't for me. But when they are ripe, they are more sweet and crunchy and delicious than the yellow mangos we can get at home! There's a catch: you simply can not tell when the green mango is ripe, for all it gets is green when ripe. So Saturday we were doing service in Santa Maria (the Sister's branch, we made some steps in a dirt hill so the rain wouldn't make it dangerous to leave home), and the members gave us a giant sack of green mangos as a thank you. So we took them home and I stared at this giant sack, wondering what to do. What I learned: The bitter not-quite-ripe mango is still amazing, and when you peel back the skin and find that it is ripe it's like opening a perfect Christmas present. I ate a lot of mangos this week.

So that was fun. Work this week was.. very hot. Very good, but so hot!! I've been working on focusing on what matters most, and was pointed to President Uchtdorf's talk from last October conference. It's awesome. So is my new companion, Elder Dioso. He's Filipino, likes american food, and teaches like a champ. What more can I say? We're doing well here in Siniloan, just looking for new investigators and trying to help our current ones come to church.

Love,

Elder Brown