April 8, 2012 - Holy Week email

Dear Mom, Dad, and Ryan, and whoever else may be reading,

First off, I want to say thank you all so much for your love and support and emails to me, even if they are just short, they bring me lots of happiness being out here in the PHI and I do appreciate it!

Me and other missionaries in our area.  That's our chapel.

Happy Easter!!!  I hope you are all enjoying the Day of our Lord today and remembering his sacrifice.  Of course, we do that every Sunday so it's not a big difference, diba?  (right?)  Haha!  A lot of people ask what we (Mormons)do on Holy Week and I say, well... we go to church, take the sacrament, rest from our labors on Sunday, remember his sacrifice...like we do every week :P  LOL! 

So, these are my observations from Holy Week in the PHI.

1. All of the stores are closed during Holy week (well, most of them) which means my laundry was stuck in the laundry place till Sunday evening  >.<   I had to re-wash my clothes almost every night till then.

2. The people in Pasig walk to Antipolo mountains and back for repentance....thousands and thousands of people were walking Thursday and Friday. O.o

3. They make giant floats of saints and of Jesus to walk with, sometimes with music, food, and matching t-shirts.

4. The Catholics had a tv broadcast called, The Last 7 Words, which refers to the last 7 words that Jesus spoke before he died on the cross.  And so, I looked it up in the King James Version of the Bible and it's actually 8 words… "Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit."  So then we were talking and we thought, Oh!  They must have left out the word “Father” because they believe that He and the Father are one!  It finally made sense to us then.  Then we were able to talk about the Catholic’s different beliefs in comparison to ours, because the Arduos and my companion were former Catholics.

5. It was very interesting, too, how when it rained during that week, the people would bring out bottles to catch the water because it's holy or something like that.

6. Holy week is a giant party for the whole country!  Haha! If you weren't walking to Antipolo, you were on the streets partying, or karaokeing, or singing poems to Mother Mary or something.  Interesting…

Because of Holy week, a lot of people were on vacation so we didn't get to teach as much this week.  But then again, those that were here, we finally got to see the husbands that work till late nights and don't have days off.  So that was interesting. It was really good too, cause we were able to get 4 less-actives to come to General Conference which was a miracle for me!  Haha.  Although, I was kind of surprised cause at the Priesthood session, there were only 35 men there. Then at the other Saturday session, there were only a few people.  But, Sunday was full all the way to the back of the Chapel!!!  Ahhh!!!  haha.!

Oh, so I need to go now and bring an investigator to go and be interviewed for baptism. :)  I'll finish my email later, hopefully, but for now I have to go. Things have been pretty stressful for me this week so I'm going to try and find an outlet that is okay.  I'll see what I can do :)  Just know that I'm doing my best, and I love you all.  Thank you all so much for your support!!!

They drink sodas in plastic baggies here.

-Doing you Proud,

Elder Froude ^_^

To be Continued...