Hey - I'm here at an internet cafe in our area again - we have no money ... ahaha.

They messed up ... hold on , two people just emailed.

So yeah , they messed up on our support money this week , so we won't actually get it until next monday. And we also had to pay our electricity bill this week ... and I had to get my shoes resoled two weeks ago... which means I'm broke na broke. Ha. I would withdraw from personal money , and I probably will have to tomorrow after district meeting in order to buy groceries. But there's no ATM in our area , so we have to go to Tayug [ Tie - Yog ] to withdraw tomorrow. We just got done with a 4 hour service project here in the area ON PDAY so we've got many a blessings coming... hopefully , ha.

Let me start off really by saying I might be transferred or emergency transferred [ means transferred before the transfer is over ] because of a girl in the branch here. HA! I know what you're thinking ... and no ... it's because she mayyyy have developed a crush on me (mostly because no one here has eyes other than black) and now she's told everyone in the branch whose told everyone else and I've had about 6 people in the past couple days come up to me and tell me she's in love with me... which is horrible. So I'm gonna email my president right now and ask him what I should do. If I should try and deal with it here , or if he's gonna scoop me outta here. I also was thinking about it the past few days , and I kind of want to work in the office because they get a car , and so I realized it'll be some american elder in my batch who gets transferred into the office. But in order to do so I can't get transferred this transfer and so I'm hoping the president will say that I can stay. We'll see what happens. Though a big part of me doesn't want to work in the office because their proselyting time is like cut more than in half. So yeah , that's the biggest thing I'm dealing with right now. It's incredibly incredibly awkward for me and causing a lot of trouble.

But we have cell phones! We got them this past week. Our number is 09399370157 - but I'll probably call you first. I'm not sure when the call will be , but go ahead and add a plan if you want. I think President said we can call anytime in May , so it'll probably either be next monday , the following monday , or the 8th... and it'll probably be at a time good for you guys. I'm sure we'll find out the guidelines for length and stuff tomorrow during district meeting. So , I'll email you at least one more time before I ET Phone Home.

So my week. It's been good. Getting more comfortable with the language helps everything because then I can be more assertive in the work and then I've got no one to blame but myself whenever I feel that we're slack a lackin on some parts of the week. We got about 26 lessons this week which was the best we've done here so far in San Quintin , but no one came to church .... it's really hard just having a meeting house. It's like we have no validity with this people unless we've got a huge building. Thanks to the Iglesia's for that.... Their churches literally are duplicates of temples. I hear the one in Manila is a spot on copy of the Salt Lake Temple. Last monday we met a Jehovah's Witness when contacting a referral , and maaan ... they are impossible to teach. I think they're different in the states , but it seems their entire religion is based on their own interpretation of the bible. I've asked a couple members how their missionaries are because their missionary work is members that go out every day and proselyte too. And they were like they just dive right now , there's not even any get to know you , ahah. And it was the same thing with this guy , he was just quoting bible scriptures he had memorized that proved us wrong and him right , and it's like yeah... thank you for your own knowledge , but they have no spirituality to themselves .... why have a religion? It just confuses me. I was thinking about Enoch the other day and maaan that must've been so easy for him without any other religions. I could have San Quintin translated if I could teach in English and there weren't any other churches here , ha. joke lang.

Tuesday ... district meeting , then regular work. There weren't too many outstanding points to this week other than giving an IBD to a woman who was stoookkkeeddd. ha. During the lesson I felt like extending it to her , but didn't for some reason , then as we were closing she was like Elders... I have a question. How long do I have to study before I'm allowed to be baptized. Daaaannngggg , should not have ignored that prompting. But we smiled and were like oh man we're so sorry and extended kaagad. I'm gonna be throwing random tagalog words in here , probably just to show off , but at the same time to make you look them up , ha. But yeah , none of our IBD's or anyone came to church because it was 'Holy Week' here ... which is a bit ... different. For one they don't shower on Good Friday. But that's coolio , they've got their own thing. But most everyone had family over , so no one was gonna come to church this week. Next saturday and sunday there's a couple broadcasts from manila and salt lake for some Jubilee or something .. that'll be fun to watch.

Um ... what else. That's really about it. This week wasn't the best , we've been trying to find new investigators and it's way way hard. People here give us one lesson and then hide everytime we come back. In one house I've literally heard their silverware drop twice and we called 'Tao po!' to them .. basically the equivalent here of knocking. So... yeah. It's hard. But spirits are high , and we're gonna see what happens.

The companion is good , really no problems at all. He just hit his one year mark , so he's going through a small trunky phase , but it doesn't really affect the work. The area is way cool , 'hey joe' 'hey man' 'whats your name man' 'where you from man' 'where go you man' got really old a long time ago , but the people here are mostly nice. There's a fiesta here coming in a few weeks so there's tents everywhere selling stuff in the market here. The market or palengke is basically picture the wilton center , but a lot smaller. So there's tents and stands everywhere selling random cheap things. I found a soccer ball there! Haggled it down to 170 pesos. But these people are like gypsies , ahaha. It's awesome. The philippines is sweet. If you don't take it too seriously it's a way awesome place. Didn't go anywhere for easter , btw , ha sorry. I'm not sure people know what that is here. Holy Week is their version and that's just catholic chaos here really.

Okay , that's really all I got. I'm gonna email my president real quick so email me fast if you've got some questions.

Love you all , have fun ... I'm jealous but at the same time not at all .. ha. Philippines is way better.