Family and Friends,

Sorry but it's gonna be a short email this week. Things are going good. Time is just flying. I'm not kidding we're in a lesson and we tell our investigator that we'll come back next week and after I open my eyes after the closing prayer, it's already been next week. It's crazy. But is pushes me to work hard and not waste the Lord's time. 

Nothing really happened this week except I almost died of dehydration. In my apartment it's 3 Americans, including me, and Elder Y is the only Filipino. Elder J and Elder H are both from Idaho and are companions. It's fun to have Americans in the apartment who actually can communicate with me in English. Anyway, here in Baguio it's really hard to budget our money. Everything is really expensive and we pay a lot of money for transportation because our area is far away. Here in the Philippines we have to buy clean water. We have these big 5 gallon containers and we walk a mile to the water station and pay for clean water. So this is a weekly thing and we usually take turns on who has to buy the water. Well this last week was pretty rough when it comes to making smart financial decisions. Needless to say we all ran out of money, at least all the Americans did. So when we ran out of water we were all scared to ask Elder Y to go buy water because he warned us that if we didn't budget right we would run out of money and therefore water. I didn't think it was a big deal because I knew he was going to get thirsty eventually and have to go buy water anyway. So we decided to wait it out. 4 DAYS LATER STILL NO WATER. I swear my companion is like a camel or a robot. He just bought small bottles of water for himself. I seriously thought we were gonna die. I would boil some water and then put it in the freezer so it would be cold. Elder Jones finally lost is patience and just drank from the tap. When he started to poop blood, that's when Elder Y finally bought water. 

So moral of the story is to budget smart and to never drink water from the tap in the Philippines. 

I love ya'll and I know this church is true! I can't wait to call ya'll on Mother's Day! 

Your Valiant Missionary,

Elder Strader