16th August 2010

Kumusta!
Things are going great here! I only have 1 week left from today! It's so crazy. Here I'll share my flight plans with you real quick. I still don't know what my address will be when I get to the Philippines but I think they are going to let me email you as soon as I get there. It takes like three weeks for letters to get from the Philippines to home is what I have heard. Here's the information I have.

I report to the travel office next Monday at 6:30pm. My flight leaves Salt Lake at 9:40pm and we arrive in San Francisco at 10:52pm. Then we have a layover until 1:20pm where I'll board a flight on EVA Airways to get to Taipe, Taiwan. This is the time I will probably get to call you. Sorry it's so late at night. I also might be able to call you before our first flight in Salt Lake, but I'm not sure. I already bought a calling card that has like 3 hours on it. So don't worry about sending one. Anyways, what's funny is 7 of the people in our district aren't going to San Francisco for their first layover but they'll meet up with us in Taiwan for our last flight to Manila. Then everyone splits up again. I think some people have like a 9 hour bus ride to their missions but I think we just get an hour flight to ours. But we arrive in Taiwan on Aug 25 at 5:00 AM. Then I guess it's like a 2 hour flight from there to the Philippines. So we don't even really get to see the 24th of Aug. And we arrive in Manila at 11:40 AM on the 25th. I'm so excited, but it's going to be a long flight. :D The only information I have about our mission home/office is it's number, which is 63-33-501-5249. And our mission President is Ryan V. Pagaduan, which I think you already know.

So we only have about one week left here. Yesturday at church we heard a talk about these missionaries back in the day who went to Denmark on their missions. They had to take a 9 week boat ride to get there. That is really crazy to me. That is how long I've been in the MTC!! So they pretty much had 9 weeks to prepare to teach and whatnot just like we did.

We got to teach the second lesson for the first time last Thursday. Something we have really been focusing on these past couple of days in class is really relying on the spirit in our teaching. Because that really is the most important thing. Something I've noticed lately is that I haven't been sounding that excited as I teach, which is something Sis. Fotu said she liked about me when we first got here, how excited I was. I realized this was because I was trying to make sure all my Tagalog was perfect with grammer and pronounciation and whatnot and when I do this I get nervous and I'm not as confident in myself. But I was reminded while reading Ch4 of PMG (Recognizing the Spirit) of a lesson I learned like the second week I was here. I don't have it on me, but I read in there it said something like, "Remember that your confidence should be in the Lord, not yourself." Even though I should be constantly studying and trying to become better I need to remember that the Lord is there with me, ready to help me through everything.

Brother Day finished teaching us last Saturday, and he is moving to a differen't district. I really liked him. He was a good teacher. He knew how to have a fun time on his mission while still being obedient and working as hard as he could. He was a great example and taught me some good lessons. So we get a new teacher for 6 days and then we are done. It's going by so fast. Tagalog is really coming along. I'm glad I still tried learning Tagalog even though I was told I wouldn't even be speaking it. A new missionary in the other Tagalog branch told me he met someone who went to Bacolod (what Iloilo split off of), which speaks the same language. He said because he already knew Tagalog it was so easy for him to learn Ilongoh. I'm so excited, I think it will be awesome.

I love you and I pray for you,
-Elder Burton

P.S. Thanks so much for the book. I loved it. It made me laugh. Real quick though, you might want to tell Riley that I probably won't bring her home a Philippino girl, it's against the missionary handbook. :D Thanks to Aunt Tascha and fam for the package I got. The food was delicious, but I have to eat a lot before I leave. I love you!