First Week Fire Hydrant Learning

Howdy!

So much to report on this week, so little time!  First things first, I heard a better analogy to describe learning the language than my "sewage pump" scenario.  The way we are tauight is like trying to drink out of a fire hydrant:  We sip some, but most gets splashed in our faces!  I'm starting to grasp it though.  Our teacher said if we apply ourselves as best as we can there is no reason why we shouldn't be fluent, at least totally conversational, by the time we leave the MTC. 

I learned a bit about my mission last night!  Naga is pretty rural.  There are only two citys (120,000 and 30,000) and lots of farming land, little villages.  We have a volcano in our mission that is the most perfectly formed volcano in the world, also the most active in the Philippines.  Apparently it's not rare to see smoke coming out, even LAVA!!! Yikes.  A kid from the last group of missionaries that went there emailed or branch president saying he taught 17 lessons his first three days, then got robbed a few days later.  So awesome!  I sure can't wait to get out there.

A few updates on my technology experiences:  First of all, I'm finally getting over "phantom texts", though I still keep my camera in my right pocket to keep me from panicking over lack of iPhone.  No more fake text vibrates though!  Everyone in my district thinks that I'm some allstar computer hacker now.  Hah so funny, I love all these kids.  Also I would totally elborate on that story, but I sppent the first five minutes of my email time trying to "hack into the computer" to change the keyboard from German settings to English. 

After talking the other night, Elder Finley and I realized just how similar we are.  Apart from him being a master athelete/musician, we actually have a lot in common! ;)  Both of us love the same movies, to same dumb video games, the same random cartoons to get obsessed with, and we both love to play ping pong!  There's more than that, I'm just lazy.  Whoops.

Anyways the MTC is great!  Dont email though because last week I didnt have any time to even read what you said...  Dearelder me or write me though and I'll try to get back to you in email time or I'll just send you a real letter (:  Thanks for all of the support!

Love,

Elder Shane Scully Brown