Record Numbers

Dear Mom,
This week has been hard, but also very rewarding. I've been sick pretty much the whole week, but we've still had some great experiences. It's really frustrating being sick on the mission though, you don't come out here to sit around a house all day and stare at your companion that's for sure.

Well, this past week, as the Caloocan Zone, we brought 36 people into the waters of baptism this past Saturday at our Stake Baptism. It was an amazing, amazing experiences. Three of those people were people we were teaching. One of them, Ritsel, is one of the ones I commented that has such strong faith and is living with only one eye. She was also married that morning, so it was a special day for her. When I saw her after and greeted her with congratulations, she just looked at me teary eyed and said, "I did it."

I also had a really great experience that reminded me of you mom. One of the kids who got baptized in our ward was baptized by his older brother. When it was his time to be baptized, his mom came and was trying to get in front saying, "Let me through that's my son!" When I saw her, I pulled her to the front so she could see. When he came up out of the water, she just put both of her hands over her heart and just described how proud she was as tears went down her face. Only a mom can love a child like that, I'm thankful to have a mother who loves me that much too.

It was truly a special day, and a record for the mission. I'll never forget it. Our zone has been breaking records left and right, the amount of people we're helping is in numbers the mission has never seen.

Yesterday I had a funny experience too. It was "Fiesta" day in Dagat-Dagatan and well, fiesta means everyone is drunk by 10:00am and outside smoking, gambling, and singing videoke. Needless to say it was pretty dangerous. While we were walking through, a drunk guy grabbed my companion and started dancing with him, so I helped him off of my companion and as we were walking away, he decided he wanted to "dance" with me instead. So he grabbed me, by my thumb, index, and middle finger, and twirked my arm in a somewhat painful way. When my companion saw, he came running back and got him off me. And then he grabbed me other arm and motioned that he was going to hit me, so all his buddies stepped in and helped us away from him. Crazy right? I guess that's what alcohol does to people. It changes them in scary ways. We just walked away laughing and made it back to the apartment to not encounter any more drunk guys wanting to dance.

Anyway, we're at the last week of our transfer, can you believe it? Hopefully we'll continue to see more miracles here. I hope you are all well, don't get sick like me! Love you and miss you tons!

Love,
Elder Corpuz