Easter Sunday

Holy Week is right up there with Christmas as THE holiday time here in the Philippines. Hotel and resort prices all shoot up for the week and Filipino's tend to come home for the holiday. Easter is a big deal here with the parade floats carrying Jesus and all the different Catholic Saints and huge Mary's. People will walk amongst the floats carrying candles and looking a little zombie like following the mobs to the big old Catholic church in the middle of town. There outside the church people are selling candles, leaves, flowers, snacks and balloons (?) to all the bystanders.
The Sunday before Easter (Palm Sunday) people are lined outside the old Catholic church selling palm leaves in remembrance of when "Jesus walked from Bethany to Jerusalem. He rode into the city on a donkey, as a verse in the Old Testament said He would. People recognized Him as their King, shouting, "Hosanna," and laying down palm leaves in front of the donkey to keep dust from getting on the Savior. Jesus visited the temple and then returned to Bethany. See Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11."*

Then starting Thursday everything is shut down for Holy Thursday, Black Friday and Easter Sunday (or as Elder Holland refers to it in An Apostle's Easter Thoughts on Christ: Passover Thursday, Atoning Friday and Resurrection Sunday). By shut down I mean nothing is open but the hotel restaurants and a few side stores independently owned. The roads are dead and people use the weekend to go to midnight mass, go to the beach or pool and spend time with their families.
We spent Sunday together as our little family unit. We went to church and spent those three hours with our ward family before coming home and reading about the week leading up to Jesus Christ's resurrection and sharing President Monson's testimony of the Savior. We read a couple of articles for kids about what that means for us and why it's so important and then we sat down and watched the movie 'Rio.'
After Ryan had to run out quickly for a meeting and the kids went and played outside in the rain while I got dinner ready. They ran splashing in all the puddles getting soaked and laughing like crazy.

It was such a nice Easter to spend together as a family and the kids got the message that Easter Sunday was important because Jesus lives. Actually they got really animated and excited because He lives, "see it's ok mom."
I know this is a little late but I hope you can enjoy this Easter message from our church:

*The Friend (Volume 41 Number 4 April 2011). Easter Week. The Friend: A Children's Magazine Published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, pg. 24-25.