Punted

November 4, 2013

Dear Everyone,

This week has been pretty strange. It was probably one of the worst weeks stats-wise I've ever had. We had a lot of lessons planned for the week but almost all of them "punted" us (said they were busy or something like that). It wasn't very fun. We walked around a lot this week, but I never got sad. I was annoyed sometimes and maybe a little bit discouraged, but I never got really sad. It's times like these that we just have to push on.

To be honest the main reason why we didn't teach was because they have this holiday here were they all go to cemetery and have a huge party all night long. It's a holiday to respect and remember theire dead. They don't celebrate Halloween here they do this instead, and it's on November 1st not October 31st. there are never trick-or-treaters, but they do their own thing for sure. Everyone went out of town. It was crazy. I didn't actually see any of it because we had to go home early for safety stuff. It sounded pretty cool though.

[Note from Michelle: The reason for the party on November 1 is "All Saint's Day" or “All Hallows’ Day.” It's interesting: the name Halloween is Hallow's Eve. All Saints’ Day is a big day to celebrate the dead and the Saints in the Catholic Church. The Filipinos Christian roots are mostly catholic. I remember one of my Filipino hosts telling me about the huge celebration on All Saints Day. She said that families would go to the cemetery and have huge picnics.]

Oh, on Wednesday we had exchanges with the zone leaders. I went to their zone with Elder Tanner. It was so much fun. Elder Tanner and I get along so well. We spent the whole time we didn't have to teach someone talking. We also had one of the less actives tell us this supper creepy story about this girl who killed herself in a wedding dress... It was kinda scary, and not going to lie, when we had to walk on the dark foggy road home, we were both a little scared... It was so funny though because I scared Elder Tanner on that road, and then we were ok. Haha

A couple of weeks ago it rained pretty hard and we got stuck inside this skate ring thingy when it flooded. That was crazy that's where we were with the picture of me in the little car thing, and when I'm standing in the water.

October 13, 2013; Brian in a Huge Rain Storm

It's me, Sister Paduga (I think that's spelled right) Elder Egar and Elder Hernandez on his back. :)

Elder Kemmy is my zone leader and that's the picture of just me and him. He has a blue shirt over his shoulder. He’s acutally in the States now. That picture was his last transfer.

October 21, 2013; Brian and Elder Kemmy

The snake almost KILLED ME. Ok maybe not killed me, but we were walking on the air strip and I almost stepped on him. In the Philippines that’s bad. The spiders are nothing to worry about because none of them are poisonous, but the snakes are.

October 24, 2013; Snake Brian almost Stepped On

Well that's all for this week. I love you all. Mahal Kita

Elder Christensen