Howdy!
It's Spetember! I didn't realize that was possible. I can't believe
how fast time is going.
We had one of our best weeks since I last wrote! So much fun, so much
learning, so much love. The biggest developement of the week (not really)
was me buying a $13 pen - definitely worth it. My Parker Jotter is
lightweight, smooth, sharp, stainless steel, super classy, and French. I
mean, how could I not?
After devotional on Sunday they gave us ten minutes to stretch before they
started the movie. I looked at my companion and in the most stressed
voice said "I need some cookies." Well we just about sprinted
(in our suits) to get back to the room for these cookies. That was maybe
not so worth it when we came back sweating in our nice clothes...
After the older kids left last Tuesday, things were finally quiet until we
doubled in size with 36 new kids on Wednesday. We were super motivated to
be good examples for the, so we made a goal to speak first in Tagalog to them,
then follow-up in English. It was so cute seeing how flustered they
were. It's amazing how far we've come in our 7 weeks here. We leave
in two weeks though! We get to be host missionaries tomorrow and flight
plans come on Thursday, we're all unbelievably excited. As our confidence
with the language goes up though, our departure date gets closer so it's going
to be hard to continue to build our confidence. We've gotten to this
point by working as hard as we can, always trusting in the promises of the Gift
of Tongues. The most difficult thing we have left at the MTC is going to
be keeping our study habits as we get closer to leaving.
My companion and I have been doing something different during our hour of gym
time each day: first of all, volleyball isn't really fun any more without
the older kids so I started to play a little bit of 4-square. It started
off as a joke but I'm actually pretty good (in comparison with the kids in the
MTC that actually play) and it's decently fun. Anyways, E. Finley and I
have been spending 20 minutes or so each day running and telling each other
stories in Tagalog as we do. Saturday I told him about driving the
Valdeez (1980 Mercedes) up Saddleback Mountain. Super fun. When we
have afternoon gym, we play really fun 2 on 2 volleyball outside in the
sand. Also something of note with our story telling: I've found
that when I tell a funny story, it's never funny because it's in slow-ish
Tagalog, but when I tell a boring story (like this one) it's quite humorous
because of my broken speech. Di ba?
Well it's still weird to me that if I wasn't here I'd be at BYU right
now. We had our first real storm last week and it totally reminded me of
going to school here. The rain smells so good, I'm excited to get to the
Philippines and get that everyday. Though it'll probably be slightly
different. I'm not exactly sure how ready I'll feel when I leave, but
I've done me best, there's nothing more that I can do, so I'll leave confident
- steady and sure.
Thanks for all your support. Christ lives! Out loving Father in
Heaven blesses us more that we can imagine, and like the recently acquired
stain on my tie (sorry mom), I didn't notice until I started looking, searching
for it. The Church is true, I love you all!
Elder Shane Scully Brown
Also I heard that there have been some earthquakes in the Philippines?
