Family, good morning!
What a week! …wow! We survived. It
reminds me of when Elder Madsen and I finished our first training
together and we threw our hands in the air and ecstatically yelled, “We did
it!” After which, President leaned over and mentioned, “Said Dora.”
Remember when Dora the Explora reaches the big blue mountain or wherever she’s
trying to get to and says, “We did it!”? Last week we had conferences
from Tuesday-Friday and we had to get into the office super early on
Saturday. So much random stuff came up. I’ll have lots of stories
for you to tell one day. It was the busiest, most trying week I’ve had on
my mission. And at the end, we were left saying… We did it!
Do you remember my third companion, Elder Simmons? He
was my companion just before I got transferred to the Legazpi Mission
boundaries. Meaning, he got left in the Naga mission when our mission
split last July and I haven’t seen him since then. He became an office
elder (finance, same thing Trevor did) though, so I get to talk to him on the
phone sometimes which is always super fun. Anyways, on Thursday, a group
of Naga missionaries had to come down to the regional department of foreign
affairs in Legazpi. Guess who was driving them… Elder Simmons! I
was so excited to see him. Only problem was… We were doing one of those
conferences in a different city so I didn’t get to see him! ;( That would have
been a great reunitement. Ever since Elder Madsen and I have been
companions (almost 6 months now!) we’ve been trying to find an excuse to drive
to Naga so we could stop by our old areas along the way (the areas in Naga
Mission that we can’t go back to). The other night, we were with a group
of missionaries and only a few of us were assigned in Naga Mission, we started
PROUDLY singing the Naga Mission Theme song. Loved that. It’s crazy
how much progress there has been. It’s a great feeling to find success in
your previous efforts. Baao, the group I was assigned in at the beginning
of last year, went from averaging 20-30 people at church to now being its own
branch with 100 people attending! Comun, the group that was my last area,
has grown so much as well and is getting a meeting house built for them.
And I’ve been told so many times that people I used to teach, or even just
tracted are getting baptized. What a good feeling! It’s something
that you don’t expect, because when you leave you didn’t know what would
happen, but in the end, your effort really wasn’t wasted (even if it takes a
year to happen – which it has so many times). How great.
In other news, there was a brown out every day this week in
Daraga (where we live, in Legazpi they were supposed to not have power for two
weeks in certain parts because something broke and it had to come from
Japan). Luckily they were shorter ones. We made a “fan train” in
our apartment to get better ventilation in the “kiln” (our room) from the other
elders’ room with a door and window to let the breeze come in that side of the
house. We just set up four fans in a line to push the air through.
See pictures.
I sure love you! It’s been a great week.
Love, Elder Shane Brown
Pictures -
1. Elders locked the key in the car... Had to
call some random tatay to rescue them.
5-9. "Give us ventilation"
10. The waterfall is much prettier in the daytime...
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