I hope everyone is having a good week, I know I am and last week was great too! Not much happened this week so no crazy stories or experiences.. Which just means that next weeks will be even more exciting right? haha As you all probably know, the NBA finals were this week, and if you didn't know, Every. Single. Person. In. The. Philippines. Loves. Basketball. It is exactly my cup of tea (besides the part where we dont watch the games!) But every where we went, people were talking about the games and the drama and what team they were rooting for! I kid you not, families become torn apart during the Finals haha if you are a child rooting for the Cavs, and both your parents like Steph Curry, you might want to find a friends house to stay over for dinner so that you'll get a meal! Haha just kidding.. maybe.. but as I was saying, everyone loves basketball! And a lot of our lessons and examples have used basketball which again is straight up my alley! Whether its about "staying in bounds" with following the commandments or "needing to have a lot of practices before the big game" connecting going to church weekly before baptism, it connects the people! (and I get to talk about basketball!) One pretty cool thing that happened was that I was asked to teach the members of our Branch a Temple Preparation Class to help them prepare for the temple! I was really worried at first, because being a new missionary I dont really know Tagalog as much as I would like to, but it went really good! Church is so good on Sundays, and we have been having a lot of people coming to church!
Like I said not much has happened, but having time every morning to study has been a huge blessing for me. I was never a big reader nor was it ever my choice to sit down and read a book, but since my mission, I have read I think 5 books through! That might be more books than I read in all of high school! haha (sorry teachers)
The last book I read is called "Unstuck" by Robert Reynolds, who is the brother of the lead singer for Imagine Dragons! The book is all about "How the Savior frees us from our favorite sins." And how we can change our hearts and our minds to focus on loving others and doing as though Christ would do, instead of focusing on becoming upset with ourselves when we sin.. Because every one sins! In the words of Hannah Montana Nobody is perfect!!
Back to the book, I finished it in 5 days, it is a super easy read, and SO powerful as well!  He talks about having a hard heart and how that halts us from changing. One sentence he writes is "Like any item with a warranty from its manufacturer, hard hearts must break before they can be replaced." I just think it is really cool how straight forward that sentence is, if we want to change something in our lives, the change starts in our hearts, and our surroundings will follow. Im sorry I didnt have any more to talk about! But I hope everyone is doing good! Here is a picture from this morning: We have to take a trike from Luna to Baloan, where there we take a bus to San Fernando to get groceries and email on P day because Luna is too small for us to get anything.. The trike drivers refused to take anyone because they were watching the game hahaha. We had to wait till the end of the first quarter to take a trike, and I kid you not I think we broke to sound barrier flying down to Baloan so that the driver wouldnt miss anything haha. Have a great week everyone! Love you all!
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Elder Pitt