My beloved family and friends!
It's been another busy busy week. I will explain the pictures first...
1. The
balcony. We sleep in the room right next to it and sometimes outside if it's
too hot in the house. I like to sit there (facing the other way) and watch the
ripples roll in.
2. What
happened here is everyone was getting in the car to go off to pday activities,
and I realized I didn't have a picture of how close we are to the water! So I
ran outside and invited Elder Smith (zonemate) to work the camera.
So.. there. We live on the beach.
3. Front
of the house.. Truck (yes it needs a bath.. but it rains like every other day
anyways).. And the random guy had just given us the electricity bill.
4. Best
part of pday! We took a tiny little boat (called a bangka) out to a tiny little
island off the coast. There a super awesome member (Noel.. guy) cooked us fried
chicken and we hung out on the sandy shores of a little hidden cove. On the way
back to our bigger island where we live I asked the dude driving the boat if I
could try. He said, "yeah that's cool man". Well not really.. but it
translates to something like that. Anyways I ended up standing on the back of
the little boat holding the steering stick (left hand). I felt a lot like
Captain Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates movie as he sailed his sinking ship
in glorious humor. Pretty much the only thing I had on Captain Jack Sparrow in
this case is my ship wasn't sinking. It also felt a little tiny bit like
surfing because I stuck behind the boat ahead of us and rode its wake. I figure
that's as close as I'll get in the next year.
5. This
picture is awesome. It's the second boat we took out.. I'm not on it but I feel
that was unavoidable seeing as I took the picture. I want y'alls to see the
bangka. The colors aren't real; I magicked them in with my camera skills (is
'magicked' a real word? It's not showing as a typo on my spell check). It was
still a very beautiful day.
So.. yeah! Go missionary work! Ha. I had to brag just a tiny
bit about my new zone and pday activities. There is definitely still work to be
done in Gasan (the area). And we're getting to that. The area is ready to
harvest. We are reopening because both of the elders there before went home at
the same time. So.. I will have much more about our investigators next week.
This week we went back to the mainland for Zone Leaders Council. That was
unreal. 19 of the finest missionaries I've seen met up in the mission home and
I had the opportunity to be there as well (so there's 20 of us there). We
discussed the strengths and weaknesses of each zone, sought and gave council,
and were taught by President Peterson. He is amazing. The mission is about to
change.. the focus for every mission in the Philippines for that matter. One of
the greatest problems in this country is inactivity. For every 6 people
baptized in the last 50 years, only 1 is active. There are currently half a
million children of God baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ not receiving
the full blessings of membership in His Church. That is devastating. So for
2012, the focus in no longer find, find, find. It is find, reclaim, and
reactivate. I'm excited about this change. I felt the truth of the revelation
as President Peterson explained our new focus. Just that Spirit made ZLC the
best days of this week. We also had time to get to know President better, hang
out with the other ZLs, and shoot some basketball in the rain. I still can't
shoot. I've accepted that (:
This week I should be getting my pinoy (filipino) license,
we have Zone Conference on the mainland, and we will finally get to reopening
Gasan! OH! Mother I got your package!! I love the presents all wrapped up
inside. I plugged in the Christmas lights and they were wonderful as we ate
dinner Saturday night, but then they died because the power here is double the
volts compared to home and I didn't think to use a converter.. ha.. but I still
have them hung up and I love you so much!! and I forgot to mention this a few
weeks ago but Katie I got your package too (: thank you thank you thank you! I
realized I never send you a letter back after that.. sorry I'm going to do that
this week! Thank you!
Welp, I love you lots. Lots and lots. Excited to see your
faces on Christmas (yes, we can Skype still!) even if it's just for a few
minutes (Pres wants us to stick under an hour). And I will definitely be giving
you a call Gong Gong (:
Your missionary,
Elder Trevor Todd Brown
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