Another Day in Paradise

Hello everyone. I will start off by saying congratulations to Ben for getting his call. Chile will be awesome and I bet he is stoked to get out to the field. I'm sure Joe has been telling him stories and helping him prepare. This week went really well. It seemed to fly by to me. My new comp is elder Williamson from Vidor, Texas and he is way rad, I like him a lot and we get along well. I have learned a lot from him. My new area is called New Washington and is right on the beach so it is cool. The only thing is that the people here are a lot more wealthy than the people in Sibalom so they are way more prideful and it is hard to get people to listen to us. We have been tracting a lot and I have one funny story. We tracted into a rich house and we said "tagbalay" which is what you say since they have no doorbell. At that point we heard a guy say "ahhh, it’s the Mormons" then he began talking to someone and it was quiet so we couldn't hear what he was saying, then a little boy walked out the door and stared at us as he slowly took the rock out from under the open screen door, he then closed the screen door and then the main door haha. It was funny. We do have a really good ward here and a few good investigators. Calling for Mother’s Day was way awesome. It was way good to hear all the things you have accomplished in my time away from home. I am so proud of Britt in track and the science fair! Keep working hard in sports and school Barb! Also Mace and Breck seem to be doing so well. I am very glad. Mom and Dad are still way awesome of course haha. I have some cool pictures that I will send from the beach and also this week we had a stake jubilee celebration which is the celebration of the missionaries in the Philippines for 50 years now. They did dances and talks about the church on a more local level here in Aklan (which is like saying Washington County.) The language here is called Aklanon and they also speak lots of Tagalog so I am actually using lots of things I learned from the MTC. The Aklanon is way hard though. Most of the words I can’t even say because they do a weird thing with their throat when the word has a letter E in it. Anyway, things are going well. Love you all! Hey Barbar! Things here are going really well. I love you so, so much too! I miss you lots but I am glad the time is going fast for you. Time is going fast for me too. I have already been gone almost seven months! crazy huh! It rains lots here. You would love playing in the mud here and the ocean haha. Love you barbs! Hey Dad! Things went really well this week. Just another week in "paradise" haha. I am glad to hear about the boat. What happened at Havasu? I wonder why it would not run, that is weird. Sorry to hear that the weather is getting hotter. I have definitely gained a better respect for you now that I have to walk all day in this weather. I just sweat a ton and there is no air conditioning, so the only way to cool off is with a fan and not everyone owns one, so standing in shade is the best we have haha. It has officially began rainy season here. It rains every day for at least a while. The other night was the hardest I have ever seen it rain ...ever! It was so, so hard while we were doing studies. Things are well here. Love your son, Gare bear. Love you Pops!