Change is the Only Constant.

Maligayang Thanksgiving pamilya!
Well this email will probably be short, so my apologies in advance - tell you why in a second.

A second - so I'm experiencing my first "emergency transfer" today. Elder Jennings is out since he needed to have surgery and I'll be getting my new companion within the next hour. Everyday a surprise here in the mission.

Tomorrow we begin our "Mission Tour" with Elder Teh. Not really sure what it is or what it's about, so I'll tell you about that next week. All I know is that he's doing a surprise check up on apartments and I woke up early this morning to begin cleaning the house at 5:00am and we didn't finish until 10:00am. We literally scrubbed and more importantly bleached every part of the house today so it was quite the job and really tiring. It was definitely worth it though.

It's kind of weird having it be Thanksgiving week here. No one knows what Thanksgiving is and a lot of people ask me what's so special about it. I just tell them, you stay home and have a good dinner with your family... is there anything more special than that?

A couple funny stories also. First have I talked about umbrellas here? People are affectionately attached to their umbrellas because you have it open over your head rain or sun. You should see how they fold them too. It usually takes a person about 10 minutes to fold it (no exaggerating). Down to the crease.

Also, the other day we were tracting and stopped at a house and had a lesson with this woman. We asked for her last name and she replied "panty" so I replied that my name was "Elder Breifs"... she didn't get the joke though. Brother Doria gave me the idea from an experience he shared with us.

Anyway, this week has been short and not really eventful. I did have a pretty cool experience though.

Last Friday we were riding down the street on the jeepney and a man riding a bike got hit by a car. Everyone screamed so it was hard not to notice. What was even harder not to notice was the fact that no one was rushing to help him. I hesitated for a second, assuming someone would stop the jeep and go out and help or that at least the driver would go out and help but no one did so my lifeguard instincts kicked in. I yelled for the jeep to stop and not even thinking about my companion, ran out of the jeep and helped the man up with the driver still in the car. At that point, I was pretty much fuming. People may not be so nice in America but if someone gets hurt, everyone stops to help. Luckily he was okay; the driver still didn't leave his car. If I wasn't a missionary I would've given him a piece of my mind.

Well, I'll have to save some more stories for next week. We gotta rush back home to meet our new companions so I gotta run. Have a great Thanksgiving. Love you and miss you all.

Love,
Elder Corpuz