Happy Easter everyone!

Easter was pretty crazy here. There are a lot of Catholics and they do some crazy stuff; big parades, reenactments, and church all week long. Some of it is kind of funny. They think that God dies on the day Christ was crucified, so they won't leave their homes in fear that if they get hurt there is no God that day to heal them. There is some stuff that is really bad too. They actually nail a guy to a cross while other guys beat themselves thinking that it will bring them a remission of their sins. It's like that all over the Philippines...pretty crazy huh?

It's been a really busy week and we haven't gotten to watch conference yet. For some reason we watch it a week late, but I'm really, really looking forward to it this Saturday. It's such a great opportunity to hear God's living prophet speak and His apostles.

We had a great baptism on Saturday for one of my favorite families. The dad still hasn't been baptized yet but wants to be; it's just a problem with work. After they were baptized, the mom was giving her testimony. It was really short but she said, "before my life was really bad, but now I have a new life." I love seeing people getting baptized and seeing the joy it brings them.

We were teaching a lesson this week when our investigator said to my companion "I want to ask questions to Elder Smith but I don't know if he will understand my Tagalog." I started thinking about how I really need to improve to help our investigators. I started pushing myself to only speak Tagalog to my companion. I had only been doing it for about an hour when we started to teach some new investigators. When I started teaching, I spoke clearer, faster, and more correct than I think I ever have. It was a really cool experience.

So, a funny story to end my letter. I went to get my hair cut and they do a really bad job cutting hair here. Back home we call it a "bowl cut." They leave it really long on top and cut it short on the sides. He did that and I told him to cut more because it was too long. He didn't even cut any off the top. I gave up after a while and went home to look at it... it was REALLY bad! My companion had been telling him it looked bad but the guy wouldn't listen. When one of the other elders, Elder Hart, saw it he said "I can fix it." I figured he couldn't do much worse so he grabbed some scissors (the type first graders use) and started cutting. It was his first time cutting hair but it turned out pretty good. I think that could be considered as having a lot of faith :)

I hope you all are having a good week; I love you and you are in my prayers.

Love, Elder Smith