Bawal Ingles.

Hey family!
Talagang jealous ako na pumunta kayo sa Six Flags. We never did that while I was there in band! Pero okay lang, napakaligaya akong nakapunta kayo.

Sa noong linggo, talagang mahirap kami dito sa MTC dahil hindi puwede kaming mag-ingles ngayon! Bago sa "linggo na bawal ingles" talagang "talkative" sa district ko pero kung hindi puwede silang mag-ingles, pinaka-silent sila. Nag-tatry ako pero mas mahirap naman kasi walang taong gusto nilang magsalita sa Tagalog.

Alright, that was bad and my head hurts now so I'm going to finish in English haha. Well I'm glad you all had fun there! That's so awesome that you were able to go and thank you for taking them. I'm sure they really appreciated and I'm proud to have such willing parents. I know you probably had a lot to do and it definitely meant a lot to Cara to have the help. Thank you for supporting them.

I'm so glad that you saw Matt last week! Thanks for telling me about that, I really miss that kid. I came in with Ryan on the same day here and I see him a lot. I'm glad that he saved you guys some money because I know I haven't been really helping. There's a lot of Tagalog things I've been needing here so I apologize for that. Also, food supply is a bit low and they only give us six dollars a week for the vending machines, and as you all know: I love to eat.

Well, I was released as district leader yesterday of district 3C. I was kind of sad but I know its what the Lord wants. They switch at the halfway point here at the MTC to give someone else a turn. Its kind of funny because they called Elder Kinikini who is a huge Tongan that plays football for the Univerisity of Hawaii; so they went from calling the smallest kid to the biggest in the district - and of course, we're the only two who aren't white with brown hair. I'm excited for Elder Kilikkilik though, he's really nice with a big heart. I'll send you a picture of us together that we took yesterday; you'll laugh really hard. I was also released as senior companion too so I'm just a regular missionary now with now other responsibilities other than myself for now. It's weird, but I'm adjusting well.

This past week was really tough because our class went to zero English. Our teacher marks on the board every time we talk in English as the number of "kasalanans" of our class and if we get over three we don't have story-time in English about the Philippines at the end of class. I've been doing really well but everyone else is dying. Wednesday we decided as a district that we weren't going to speak English at all, even outside of class so that was crazy. It really helped us a lot though and forced us to learn. This week we decided not to speak English at breakfast and lunch because our language evaluation scenario on Thursday is a meal setting. We're also starting to learn how to teach the first lesson in Tagalog too. We'll also be evaluated on that on Thursday as well. It's funny because now speaking English has become a treat to us and as we all discussed, whenever we speak English now, we feel like we're doing something we shouldn't be doing. It's actually becoming hard to speak in just English believe it or not. It's really hard for any of us to go a sentence or two without speaking Tagalog. The Lord is truly blessing us with learning the language at the MTC.

Well we have about four weeks from tomorrow until we leave until the Philippines and I'm getting really excited. I'm getting kind of tired of this place and anxious to go but I know it will come soon enough. Hope all is well for you all this week and I look forward to hearing from you soon! Mahal ko kayo!

Love,
Eric