June 8th email

All right...thanks for editing my emails :) picky ako eh? Please tell grandma that I got her email and thank-you for sharing the experience. We played basketball with some of the sisters and Elders in our zone today...it was SOOOO HOT! haha...but really fun. We don't usually do activities all together because it takes away all our time for other things in the day like writing letters :( but Elder Figuracion and Sister Nielsen are both going home next transfer which is June 19ish I think? They are our zone leader and one of the sisters...I will miss them both. I'm sure I was supposed to meet them and wouldn't have if I had stayed to do EFY and see Andrea's wedding. Elder Figuracion has a great story about his father's re-conversion story while on his mission etc. that he shared with all of us at Zone Conference...he got everyone crying. It was a sad zone conference because our MissionPresident is going home July 1 and President Anderson will be here instead, changes changes. We won't know until next Monday if we are transferred and the package wasn't here yet but we have zone interviews on Thursday so if it comes before then I might get it then and then for transfer Sister Antonio could maybe pick it up for me if we aren't transferred and it's there then...I've heard some crazy stories about packages though, sometimes getting here months and months after they were sent and after going all the way around the world with lots of stamps on them first. Sister Ganir (one of the couple sisters) told me to ask if you sent it by boat or air...if it was sent boat it will take a long time to get here.

Anyway, we've been a little bit sick...my stomach and Sister Mabalot's throat...she has no voice haha...that makes teaching really exciting. We had two baptisms on Friday. Usually we do them Sunday but it was his birthday and the other one just followed suit so we didn't have to plan two. Leonard's family all came to church on Sunday! Hooray, we've really been praying and fasting for them to find a way to come even though everything is against them to do so. Thankfullythey live really close to the chapel so they can walk because they definitely don't have money for travel. As for Andrea's wedding, I have to force myself not to think about it. I kept wondering when she would go through the temple, she probably has by now etc. and it's really hard not to in some ways because I spent so many years helping her plan it that I can imagine it so well and in another sense I can't imagine it at all. She asked me to give her your address before I left so she could send you an invitation so I know she wanted to, but I can't remember if I actually gave it to her and she's likely been busy and occupied so if you still have not received one I need you to try to call her family or something because I really want you to go and say I love her for me etc. take a picture you know all of that. I want a first hand account if possible. I expect she will eventually get around to telling my herself which will be great so I guess if it really can't happen I will understand.

What else happened? Lots of travel because of zone conference...a lot of drunk men that wanted me to marry their sons. It was the week of meeting maraming Iglesiaand maraming lasing....lasing is drunk and iglesia means the members of the iglesia ni cristo Church who are either really mean to us, won't let us in or they try to convert us....I think everyone we talked to one day was iglesia. We talked to one little boy, asking him some questions so we could understand them a little better. If they are born into the church they don't have to be baptized...and if they marry someone outside their faith they are excommunicated! Interesting twist of doctrine that is, born into the covenant and marrying outside the covenant and somewhere along the line they lost the real purpose for baptism and for the covenant of marriage and sealing of families together. We also taught the plan of salvation to this older lady, she was smoking and used to be Catholic but now is an inactive member of the Iglesia Ni Cristo...her grandfathermaybe or great grandfather was LDS...lots of different faiths in her background. Well Sister Mabalot usually asks, after teaching the three kingdoms, where they would like to go and she said "Kahit Saan." "wherever" so she explained a little more thinking maybe her lack of caring meant she hadn't understood well enough but really she seemed to not care. Then comes the challenge of tryingto help people really understand what we can't comprehend, we have to believe that God is, that he was and that he is all powerful and his ways are not our ways and trust that following his plan is what will make us happiest. It is an interesting challenge to teach these concepts to all different people with different religious backgrounds, education levels, desires and family situations etc. I think I shall enjoy it far more once I understand what they are saying better so I can fit our lessons to their needs and really teach for understanding, language muna, languagelanguage :)

Okay... Well, I can't think of much today so I'll leave it at this I think. Olivia probably didn't get her birthday card yet so tell her happy birthday for me here and hopefully the card will come soon and Happy Father's day Sunday...thatone will for sure be late. I didn't get the package but I did get letters from mom and another from Grandpa Jim...mom and Grandpa are officially the best at writing to me, I'm not sure I would have guessed the second but he's really risen to the occasion :) Love, Britney