Sister Brown in the Philippines: This week was just kakaiba‏

Sana mabuhay pa kayo after eating your weight in turkey and shopping til ya dropped. Speaking of Thanksgiving, I was reading in the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 13, and it's totally about the pilgrims coming to America! The church is true!

It's only been 5 days since my last email, but it's been the strangest 5 days of my mission. Starting with Thanksgiving. Our exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders got cancelled unexpectedly so we decided to have Thanksgiving dinner in the 'Bang! The problem was it was after curfew. And we needed a rotiserie chicken. So what did we do? We hired our neighbors to go buy one for us and we proceeded to have a Thanksgiving dinner of chicken, pineapple, mac n' cheese, cheesy potatoes, corn, and chocolate chip cookies at 10pm. Yep it was all the same color. And it was delicious. The next day we had a lesson with Noli. When we got there, his dad and his friends were drinking. That's pretty normal. But after passing out on the couch/floor, halfway through the lesson Brother Aparri comes into the room in nothing but his tighty whiteys! Sister Meti just about died! Haha Then as the week went on, we did a lot of tracting. And I met a man named Pepsi. And a woman named Cookie. And we met Lena. She came up to us that as she was napping with her Bible, God told her to take something to a friend and to go down a certain street because he had a surprise for her. And it was us! And she continued to tell us all about how religion doesn't matter and she was so happy to meet us and how she'd seen Satan and a whole lot of other things that I just can't properly convey through email. And then as she left, she leaned for a hug and she rubbed her nose all over my chest and took a great big whiff of Sister Brown (who probably smelled absolutely wonderful at this point in the day). I think it's safe to say I felt completely violated. But to add to it, an 85 year old woman yelled out "Sexy ka!" as I walked past. Then on Sunday who showed up at church? None other than Lena. Who didn't hesitate to stand in Relief Society and very loudly share her knowledge with the ward. And to top it all off, on the way home last night I saw a lone pig riding in a tricycle. Welcome to the Philippines everyone.

On a more spiritual note, Joel, Ariane, and Noli are getting baptized this week!!! I am so, so excited for them! I can't believe the difference I can see in them. They really are noticeably happier and their faith has really grown. My favorite part though is their prayers. That's my favorite part of teaching anyone really. To watch them awkwardly stumble through their first prayer and then watch as each prayer gets better and better, to see how they come to know that they really are talking to someone and that someone really cares about them. I love it. I love being a missionary!

Well have a fabulous week and invite some missionaries to your house for dinner! Mahal kita!

XOXO, Sister Brown