ShaneBrownsMission

Team,

To describe this week in one word... BIYAHE! (travel). Biyahe, biyahe, biyahe. Literally every day but Sunday, we traveled. Only two of those days were planned. We went to Masbate (island in our mission) twice. We traveled from north of the mission, to the south, to the north, to the south and to the north. We took people to the hospital in the middle of the night. We woke up early, went to bed late, didn't bother sleeping to get on a 2am boat ride (twice). Etc, etc, etc. It was pretty fun. It was an honest prayer to be able to stay awake the whole week, and at last, we made it!

We went to Masbate twice. Once with President on Tuesday to Wednesday, another just us. This is a four hour ride on a roro (like a big ferry) with no air con or anything (but it was fine because it was actually quite cold this week with the fierce winds which was worse on the ocean). It was raining hard too the whole week. Anyways, since this leaves at 2am, it was quite the adventure. The first time, we pulled the van onto the ferry and didn't even get out of the van, just fell asleep. The raging waves of the ocean made you feel like you were in a hammock so that was nice. Probably the worst experience of our travels was the second time we were going to Masbate - we just had to accompany someone there. We showed up at the pier an hour early, but I guess this wasn't early enough. There were no seats! We always sit in the outside hallway where there are benches that look over the ocean, and even there outside, there were literally no empty seats! So we stood up for an hour just waiting for the boat to leave and once it did, we just sat down on the dirty, horribly uncomfortable staircase and actually got to sleep there! Wasn't the most ideal, but it worked. Then we got to Masbate at 7am, ate breakfast, shopped around for an hour, then we were back on the boat to go back which didn't leave until noon. Basically, on this day, we were on the boat for 12 hours because of all the waiting we had to do for it to leave then the long trip to/from the mainland. Considering the roughness of the waves, we did pretty well.

Well... lots happened this week, but it was all on the road, or the sea. I was going to elaborately explain the whole week, but just trust that it was fun, long days getting to pretty much tour the whole mission, we are happy, and we're always ready for more. I'll make sure to send plenty of pictures!

Love , Elder Shane Brown

Titanic Take Two -