Birthdays and Marshmallows

Every week adds its own adventures. This week we learned how serious the cancer is of my companion Elder Donan and he has to get his thyroid removed. This whole next week he will be in the hospital, so please keep him in your prayers. President Hughes said that he did not want for us both to be in the hospital since we are the zone leaders so I will be going on a week long exchange with Elder Alcazar. I wanted to be there to support Elder Donan, but it will be better this way. It was also my birthday this week! We spent most of the day at the hospital but we also celebrated by eating delicious food and at the end of the day we roasted marshmallows on our balcony with my roommates. It was a great day! Then the next day it was Elder Deim's birthday, who is my roommate. We made him my specialty rice topping of Sweet and Spicy Chicken and we had a double birthday celebration. Most of the day was still spent outside teaching people about the Gospel. There is nothing better to do on a birthday. Crazy experience of the week: We went on exchanges in another area in Montalban. While we were there we witnessed a full out brawl! This was one of the first ones I have ever seen so close. I wanted to go stop the fight, but I don't think there would be much that I could do as a cripple... yeah I still have that fractured foot thing. I now know why Manny Pacquiao became such a good fighter. There was a point when they started picking up these huge rocks and started to smash each other... the images are still scarred in my mind. The moral of the lesson... don't ever mess with drunk guys in the Philippines. Things could get brutal. Missionary moment of the week: We have been working a lot with part member families. They have an instant support system and I would love to see the whole family be sealed for time and all eternity. There has been one family that we have been doing Family Home Evenings with. It has been a blast to see his slow progression as he gains more understanding of the importance of families in this church. I know this is the way to achieve happiness within the families. Funny moment: During a lesson, we had someone tell us that they were feeling like something was missing in their life and they wanted to know more about God. Then the member that came with us said that the thing missing in their life was probably money.... yeah that was hard to recover from!
Have a great week!


Pictures: We also tried eating chicken gizzards for the first time. Elder Kunkel did not enjoy it.