Hey mga tao doon,

I had a really fun week. It was transfer day this week but Elder Taylor and I will stay together another week :) We have some really good plans to help our zone get stronger and get the work moving even better. We have some great missionaries so I'm really excited to work with them this transfer. Because it was transfer day yesterday, this means that the new missionaries from Utah came. One awesome benefit of being in the city is that you get the opportunity to take the new missionaries out to work their first day in the Philippines.

I worked with Elder Spencer and it was a lot of fun seeing how shocked he was. I was a little surprised when I realized that that was me eighteen months ago. I can’t believe how much has changed since that was me. The new missionaries were so excited to get out to work. Even with their broken Tagalog, they gave their very best effort and just wanted to help the people they had never even met.

After working, we took them out for a Halo-Halo, which is a tradition we have here in our mission. For those of you that don’t know, a Halo-Halo is a dessert made of ice, condensed milk, ice cream, jello like cubes, and a few other random things; it’s pretty good. By the end of the night, the elders were half asleep as we took the jeepney ride home. When we got them home, one of the elders fell asleep in his clothes haha.

This week was also the Jubilee celebration. The church has now been in the Philippines for 50 years! To celebrate, thousands of youth made costumes and spent months preparing dances to show the culture. On Sunday, there was a devotional with talks by Elder Teh and some quorum of the twelve. It’s awesome to see that the church has grow so much here.

Thank you for all your prayers and letters. I love you all.

Love, Elder Smith