filipino birthdays :)

hello everyone! 


well it has been another long, awesome, fantastic week here. 
this blog post will be a bit shorter than my last couple; if this is devastating to you, my apologies. if this is good news to you, i'm happy to make  you happy! ;)


WELL this past week we have been doing a lot of things! we went to another prayer fellowship, to ambiong youth twice, balacbac (turns out i was spelling it wrong before, sorry!) youth, and have had tagalog lessons!
we also were able to build stairs down from the road to one of the balacbac church women's houses. it was SCORCHING hot outside and the work was difficult, but it was neat to be able to bless her in this way. her father lives with her family and he is definitely not getting any younger, so it is concerning to think about him climbing down, essentially, a cliff to get to his house. we were all relieved when we finished those stairs, knowing that it would make the family safer when they climb down to their house. 

the stairs we built with old tires. hopefully they last!

i also celebrated my birthday here this past week! it was a fantastic day :) i was able to skype my family in the morning, which was a huge blessing! it feels like an eternity since i saw them last, and so skype is a great invention :) ate evelyn made us chocolate pancakes for breakfast right after that - YUMM :) that was also the day we built stairs, so that was cool to do that on my birthday! my team also went on an adventure to the corner store and bought some new, filipino snacks - so that was fun! i officially love the purple coconut cakes they have here. delicious!
my team threw me a very cute, very awesome birthday party in the evening! it was fun to be able to celebrate with them, and to know that in them i have found another family. they bought me two novels for my birthday - they know me well! 

the cake the arcanos bought for me! caramel cake - delish!

this past week we also went to the baguio botanical garden! it was so beautiful! they had flowers there, and more flowers, and more flowers! so fantastic! we also explored some tunnels made by the japanese when they were here. they were very cool! brady took a video while we walked through the loop being very overdramatic and ashley nearly had a panic attack. this is a normal day in our team. 

the official sign at the botanical garden. clearly, i am aware of this photo being taken ;) 

well that's all for now!
love, 
tejal :)