It's a Mud Mud Mud MUD World

(The Super Missionaries--Elder Peralta and Elder Butler! ~K)

(His face is just glowing with joy! Makes me so happy! ~K)

The oncoming rain.

On the path to get to Alimatok. This is what a lot of what I walk up, over, down, and through looks like.

Same path. This my friends is Colonia Divina.

Hello Family!

First off, I'd like to wish Grandpa Butler a happy birthday! I hope it was wonderful and I send my love. You always make me smile whenever I see or think about you, keep being wonderful!

This week, as the title suggests, was a very rainy and muddy week, making our daily ventures on the mountains paths very slippery and adventurous. I've given up on taking an umbrella now since every part of me gets soaked whether I use it or not, but at least I get a shower every now and then as opposed to only the bucket showers. :) I figure that this is probably the only time that I am going to have in my life to work the way I am working in the kind of place that I am working in so I'm trying to look at the brighter side of things and be more consciously grateful for everything I get.

Another plus is that all of this mountain work is finally getting me into the physical condition that I've always wanted but was never able to push myself hard enough to get before in my mission, so another blessing from the Lord.

In other news, because of all of the rain and such it has put some restraints on our work in more than a few ways, on top of having school start up again here for all of the youth and college students this week, which after having a week like last week made this week feel all that more "less successful", but I know that success is measured in a lot of ways, and we definitely did a lot of learning a growing this week so I would consider that a success.

Another note that I think I should make about this area that I eluded to in the email before last is why this place is called Colonia Divina (or Divine Colony in English).

In the proper that we live in (kind of like a town except smaller) there are literally only two churches. Our church and the church of Alaph. This whole community exist actually because sometime back in the 1950s their founder gathered a lot of people from all over the Philippines and took them up here in the mountains to this place where he believed (or prophesied, since the people here consider him to be a kind of a prophet/some even think he might be Jesus Christ) that the second coming would take place. Also the name of the church, Alaph, is suppose to be the new name of Jesus (they reference the part in revelation about the name written on the white stone and that the name is actually Alaph).

To make things more brief, basically everyone in this town is only one of three religions, Alaph, LDS, or Baptist (they preach up here too but there church is far away in Sagay). And the hard core Alaph people can be pretty interesting when it comes to the things they spread around about us (there was a pretty big rumor going around that the missionaries were treasure hunters but that has been mostly dissipated since Elder Peralta has been here), but considering we've taught what feels like half of the people in the town, the general opinion of the people has shifted much more in our favor.

Anyways, there is a lot more to the situation, but it makes the work interesting and it makes this one of the most unique areas I've worked in. So I love it.

That's all for now! There are a lot of pictures that I want to send so there might be a few emails with pictures after this one.

I love you all!

~Elder Butler