Meetings and Catch Ups

Week 11

9th February 2015

This week was a good week too!

The service project went well ...we did heaps of work but it looked like we had done barely anything by the end of the day! Got crazy muddy and during break time/lunch we ended up just playing in it! We found heaps of fish in the mud too. We were at that place all day.

On Wednesday, we had a District Meeting. I'll be honest and say that I hadn't shaved for 2 and a 1/2 weeks up to that point. We rocked up to the chapel, as the Zone Leaders were waiting for us. We got there, and I see President and his wife waiting with the Zone Leaders!!! I look at the Zone Leaders, turn back and look at my companion and cover my face and start laughing my head off. We did have a good meeting though, and I didn't get into any trouble. President just laughed it off with me, and told me to shave for Thursday's meeting in San Pablo.

Thursday was fun... it was training check-up for us trainees, to see how we're going. I got to catch up with all my batch. Elder Faka'i, Elder Finau, Elder Nikau, Sister Kivalu, Sister Koi, Sister Purcell and Sister Leung-Wai were all there. We all just had a big laugh with each other, talking about how useless our Tagalog is, amongst other things. We went to the SM afterwards (which is just the mall), and some of us that were eating had a competition to see who could eat the most rice. We paid for unlimited rice, and it's safe to say that all of us ate past the price of our food! My companion and I also bought matching ties at the mall.

On Saturday we returned again to San Pablo to have our special meeting. Almost all of our mission was there, except the island zones (Mindoro and Marinduque) and Lopez zone. They are all over 5 hours travel time to San Pablo, so they were all told to just stay in their area. I met so many missionaries, and it was great! The meeting was good too, we had Elder Ardern who is the Area President of the Philippines, as well as Elder Beck, the General Young Mens President visit with us. I'll get the photos to you next week as I asked one of the other Elders in San Pablo Zone to e-mail them to me.

President called us on Saturday night, and spoke to Elder Richards. He is getting stepped up to be a Zone Leader in Batangas Zone this next transfer, so he will not be my companion as of Thursday 8AM. It has been a great transfer for us, but when the Lord calls, you need to stand up and accept. My new companion's name is Elder Santos, and he's a Philippino. I will meet him on Thursday, whenever he gets to our meeting place, and he will finish off my training. More news about our zone.. two areas have been closed down.

Our investigators are doing well, we had two come to church yesterday. I will keep working with all of our investigators too and invite them to come to church.

For fast food we only have Jollibee in our zone... It's a chicken place a bit like KFC but not as good in my opinion.

Today aside from usual stuff on PDay we were out at Siniloan playing basketball then chilling with the 6 Siniloan missionaries.

Elder Richards and Elder Crichton with their 16 inch hot dogs!

This is the pond we were clearing and how we looked when we started...

This was us by the end of the day!

Elder Crichton, Elder Fa'asavalu and Elder Caballa ... completely worn out
and asleep in the Jeep on Saturday night on the way home

Siniloan Zone private jeep!

The Paete Elders ( Elder Raymundo and Elder Fa'asavalu) had matching ties,
Elder Richards and I had matching ties and pants,
and our Branch Mission Leader and Elders Quorum President had matching bald heads!!