So I'm here at the SM again (again , not sister missionary andrea ... super mall) though it's not very super. But it is the most american-like thing in the phillies and very clean. Also does have a decent amount of foreigners here. By decent I mean 6. But it's got pizza hut ... so... yeah after emailing. And the market here has one small aisle of all American food... it's awesome. I'll be looking for goldfish today. Mom do not send another package for a while , it's expensive and I've got what I need for now - thank you though!

So how's everyone? How's the house coming? There's got to be some technique these novice brokers haven't tried. I'm about to start listing the house here. Speaking of which , a mansion here costs about 20 thousand dollars. Just something to consider ... and they are quite nice. How's Japan doing and Australia and all that jazz ... God's starting to turn up the noise so to speak , eh. Speaking of which .. conference. Awesome. But I'll get to that later.

Let's talk about my week.

Monday ... P-day ... boring
Tuesday ... district meeting ... boring
Wednesday ... ZONE INTERVIEWS. It was kind of fun. Basically the APs , President Jensen , and Sister Jensen come to each zone once every two transfers and conduct interviews with all the missionaries. Or President Jensen does , I mean. So while he's interviewing everyone the Zone Leaders and APs give workshops and Sister Jensen and then President Jensen give brief messages. It's just always way fun to be with the zone and then talking to President Jensen is a lot of fun. He's way funny. So that was wednesday. It's in Rosales , so it takes an hour to get there and an hour to get back. After which we got back and then worked.

Oh , food. We get fed by members about 3 - 5 times a week. It's way nice of them and keeps the pesos in the pocket. Actually this area is crazy cheap. I can get by with very little money because of no pamasahe. Which means basically money for transportation. We walk everywhere so I'm getting a little exercise and saving money. Um , usually for breakfast every morning I eat Energen (which is like an instant breakfast thing you add to hot water) and wheat bread and a mango. Or oatmeal. Lunch we sometimes get fed or just cook rice with some random ulam. Dinner is sometimes noodles or just bread. But every time we get fed it's , obviously , always rice with some random ulam. Again ulam is just anything on top of rice , and sometimes it's a vegetable ulam , mostly has chicken , so sometimes adobo chicken or lechon manok (roasted chicken) , yeah. It's all pretty good , and it doesn't weird me out anymore. My consumption of soda needs to decrease , but I hate carrying a water bottle around and no tindahan (err little shops on the side of the roads) carry filtered water.... so I have to drink like 3 or 4 liters of water before we leave the apartment to minimize the dehydration and head aches.

Thursday ... went on exchanges to Tayug , and it was fun. Worked with a filipino in my batch so we're both pretty green , so that was a pretty cool experience.
Friday ... Nothing much , pretty average
Saturday ... CONFERENCE AND PRIESTHOOD SESSION. I've pretty much been looking forward to this point since I stepped into the MTC and learned how awesome listening to speakers are. Priesthood session was way way good and so was conference on Saturday. So many good talks , but my favorites were on Sunday. After the afternoon session we got back to the area around 4 and worked the rest of the day. Oh and we had to wake up at 5am to get to rosales on time , by the way. Sunday woke up at 6 and got there around 830 , morning session started at 9. Morning session ws really good , but the afternoon was so so so good. Elder Scott's and Elder Holland's talks blew me away. So so good. Haha oh man , just listening to Elder Scott was so much fun , talking about his wife and stuff and just all these little memories from the past. And the unwavering confidence he has in the covenants is so awesome. I mean there were pretty much two themes for the whole conference ... get married and do service. And like every speaker who spoke about marriage just said why we need to , but Elder Scott just sold it. Just sharing memories of his marriage and kids and stuff , it was my favorite talk. Then of course there was Elder Holland's closing address that was as powerful as ever. It's so crazy how unique each apostle is and how different their personalities area , and Elder Holland is so clearly just the most bold and most spiritual (in my opinion). But him speaking about President Monson being only 36!!!! when called into the apostleship and everything else. He's just such an amazing speaker and I want that power in my teachings , ha. It's so hard to carry enthusiasm like that when you have to translate everything you want to say. I keep thinking that if I could just teach in english for one day I'd have this area translated faster than Enoch , but that could just be my perfect pride. No but seriously , his talk really was so good.

General Conference has easily been the highlight of this transfer. So so so many notes , aha , and my head was killing from writing in pitch black. But some how they're legible and don't go over the lines toooo much. It's funny how much better everything is on a mission. Reading the scriptures is better , listening to conference is better , praying is better ... haha. It's like we have two years of straightened priorities that we really want to continue in our lives back home , but we live in too imperfect of a place to keep that same state of mind. We'll see in 19 months , eh. Weeeiirrrddd it's almost been 6 months. That phone call home comes pretty soon. Mom - I really wouldn't worry about adding that plan - but if you want to , go for it. We'll be getting cell phones this next week , I think , so that's where the call will come from. How in the world is this call already here ... I feel like I literally just spoke to you at the airport. I mean it was only like 3 - 4 months ago , so really quick. Crazy.

Things are going well in the area , it's really hard and we only got like 20 lessons this week , but that's alright. Tagalog is escalating always , which is always a motivating factor. the Lord is definitely merciful to me , ha , because I know I am nootttt good at languages. 5 years straight of spanish got me no where. Then again I was lazy too.

By the way mom and pop ... have you read about the dead sea scrolls yet? Doubt you have. Do it.... now. ALSO! I have a request. Please email me a good picture of the old USA Soccer Jerseys for the 2006 world cup. The white ones with thin red lines. There's jersey makers here and I'm about to start making some - so please please please send that next week through email.

Love you all and I think that's all for this week!