glad I wasn't the one getting submerged in the kulay ihi water.

Hello world!

Micah and Marcus weren't the only one who gave talks in sacrament meeting yesterday. I did too. I've been losing my ability in dodging those kinds of bullets, but I did manage to get out of the way of this one so it wasn't a fatal blow. I had a marvelous talk prepared, naturally, but the missionary who spoke before me, Elder Allen, spoke for 16 minutes and we still had a high councilman to speak too at the end so the branch president told me to just take 3 minutes. haha Elder Allen felt bad for taking all my time, but I told him it was most generous of him to do that for me. :) I hope after my words of inspiration the branch will be more hyped up about giving us referrals. It was a good talk, however short it was. :)

The weather isn't warming up here at all, because it's already warm. :) I'm actually sort of weirded out. I've gone the last 7 months with a severely broken umbrella, to no umbrella at all and it was rare to have 3 days in a row without at least a little sprinkle, but last week I finally bought myself a new umbrella, and now it hasn't rained at all. What's up with that? It is a nice umbrella though. It's blue with green and white polka-dots. :)

I taught my first ever zone meeting last Tuesday and it went really well. I think it'll be easier next time because I'll have actually been there at MLC (where President Ostler teaches us everything we're supposed to teach) but I feel I did an alright job none-the-less. I really learned a lot about studying the brother of Jared and how he had to purify the rocks before bringing them to the Lord to make them glow. I think they were the first glow-in-the-dark invention ever. :) I compared it to how for the Lord to help us glow and become "a light unto the nations" we too must purify ourselves through being humble and continual repentance. I could feel the spirit really strong as I taught it. It was really cool! 

So I guess you heard that Elder Bednar is coming here to talk with the mission. All the missionaries on Palawan are flying to the main land and coming back on Monday. This Friday, we are going to sleep at Puerto, then Wake up early, Saturday morning to catch our 7:00 flight. It's gonna be a crazy week-end, then on Monday when we fly back, we will also have our zone conference that same day, so our P-day will be on Tuesday again next week. Then next week Thursday is MLC, so I'll be going back to the mainland for that. WOO WOO! Life as a zone leader is a lot busier than not. :)

Tell Lily happy birthday for me. Also I hope you gave my condolences to Mozart and I hope he can forgive me for missing his annual festival of music. I'll make it next year. Hopefully I can still remember how to play! haha

Maybe that jeep wouldn't be so bad. I've learned to deal with getting rained on pretty well, and I've hardly used AC for the past 16 months of my life. I didn't even use an electric fan last night when I went to sleep. :) I'll have a valid Filipino drivers license when I get home too. :) 

I'm glad you have a nice ham to pig out on tonight. Wanna know what I had for breakfast? Hot dogs and rice. How 'bout lunch? Hot dogs and rice. How 'bout dinner? Hot dogs and rice with some buko salad. :) I always did like hot dogs! We ran out of all our other food we bought last Monday. I think Elder Cortez is not so enthusiastic about it though. haha It's fine though. We had some sweet & sour sauce to go with it. The expiration date for it was last August, but I'm sure it's still fine. I don't think sweet & sour sauce ever goes bad. :)

 There was a Baptism on Saturday for the other Elders and a few ward baptisms too of some kids. When we were there one of the kids really wanted me to baptize her. I was surprised because I've only been here for like 2 weeks, but we miraculously found some baptismal clothes that fit me at the chapel. The first one we tried gave me a crazy wedgey, but we eventually found one, and I baptized her. It's a good thing I'm so tall, because I didn't have an extra pair of garments with me, but mine didn't even get wet, so that was nice, especially considering the color of the water. I'm just glad I wasn't the one getting submerged in the kulay ihi [urine colored] water. I suppose it's good that baptism is for spiritual cleanliness and not physical! I only got my legs wet and took a shower right when we got home. haha :) I did get some photos, but the computer I'm using is not wanting to connect to my camera, so next week na lang. Pasensya! [thanks. Sorry!

We have a family that is so awesome right now. We taught them about the Word of Wisdom a couple weeks ago and they went from drinking 2 cups of coffee every day to 0 cups the next day, and they haven't drunk any since. It was sort of weird, because she was drinking her coffee during the lesson, but they are so willing to change and stuff. Right now they are figuring out how they can get married and their baptism date is on March 25th. I'm super happy for them!

That about sums up all the excitement of my life. I'll have a lot to talk about next week after my Bednar experience, so stay tuned for that! :) Mahal ko kayo!!!

Elder Fawson

P.S. I wasn't joking last week about the cookie recipes. We have an oven, and we want to use it! :)