Week 34 - March 28, 2016

From: Jordan Mark Merrill [mailto:merrill.j@myldsmail.net]
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2016 1:22 AM
To: Lauri Merrill <lauri.merrill@usu.edu>
Subject:

Hello mom :) Sorry my email last week was weak. But this week will be better. So yesterday being Easter Sunday was no different for me ha-ha. There are no traditions here like we have at home. The tradition here is they celebrate Christ’s Crucifixion, Death, and Resurrection all in three separate days. The people here whip themselves then after they nail themselves to a cross. They don’t die of course but they do it for a long time then they un-nail themselves and come off. It’s quiet the site actually and it makes me cringe when they are pounding the nails. So I boiled three eggs and colored them :) I made the traditional "eyes" and put them on our stairs. I’ll send a picture later.  So that’s it for my Easter :) Earlier today we were invited to go harvest corn. So we hiked for about 1 hour 30 minutes to the middle of nowhere to a corn field that was on the side of mountain. We harvested the corn in the rain for about 3 hours. By the way, I learned a much better way to shuck corn. I’ll teach you later ;) so despite the cloudy, rainy day, I got burned again. This time not as bad, my nose and shoulders again. But it’s all good :) then we took some corn and barbequed it and as we hiked back down we ate it and had a good time :) So now more focusing on the missionary part of my time. Actually there isn’t much to say. We’re continuing to teach every day and not seeing much success in our work. We have a few investigators that are doing well but the rest aren’t interested. This week Elder Carnanzo and I are going to try to focus on family history so maybe that will help our work. I’m still doing well as the district leader and I’ve made some good friends in my district :) I gave my first baptismal interview this past Saturday and it was fun :) I asked if he would like it in English or Tagalog and he said English ha-ha yay :) Oh and also me, my comp, Sister Shie, and Sister Cenia (2 sisters in our area) made a group or squad if you want to call it. I wanted to call us the Quad Squad but it was changed to Bot Bot Squad. Which translates to "Liar Squad" in Visaya. The 2 sisters don’t know what it means yet ;( their dying to find out. So were going to make a shirt hopefully and it’s pretty fun with them :) I’m almost 8 months here and like you said only 494 days left! So that’s all folks :) love ya tons!!!!

**Elder Merrill**

Note from mom:  There are many videos online, here is one that is a little more tolerable than others, but viewer discretion is still advised.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmNs2lZyCu8