This Weeks Travels .. and plenty of photos!

Week 29

15 June 2015

The week was a pretty good one I must say. Wednesday was the beginning of our travels, as we went to Pinamalayan so my companion could get a hair cut, before we headed out to Baco to stay with Elder Akroyd and Elder Hapi for the night, as we had our Zone training meeting on Thursday morning, and Baco is only 30 minutes away from Calapan compared to 2 hours from Pola.

Thursday morning, we had our Zone training meeting in Calapan. It was great, our Zone as a whole improved in our statistics, and hopefully this transfer we can continue to keep the rise in our statistics. Our numbers are not sky rocketing, but compared to where the zone was before the big upheaval, we're doing pretty well.

After the meeting, we had some time to grab some lunch before we caught the boat to Batangas for a special training meeting. We arrived into Batangas city port at 4.30PM, and everyone headed straight to the mall. I did some shopping, and of course all the poly elders headed straight for KFC, because there is no KFC on the island.

After the mall, we went to where we would be staying the night, which was Batangas 1. Elder Nikau gave me his clippers earlier Thursday to give to Elder Hapi, and Elder Hapi cut my hair that night at the apartment.

Friday was the day of our special meeting, and it went from 9AM until 4PM. It was great! I had a great time, and learned so much from the workshops given by President and Sister Mangum, as well as the Assistants. We talked about working with recent convert retention and less-active re-activation efforts, and how we should help them aim for the ultimate goal of being sealed in the temple, not just trying to get them to church.

Finding new investigators was another topic that was talked about, and we had an activity to do skits about a finding method that was given to different groups. There was some mean as acting, but the person who stole the show was Elder Hapi. He's about 6'2" or 6'3", and a big dude, around 130kgs. He pulled off the best gay return missionary act ever, he had the whole room laughing, even President was cracking himself up.

We finished up, then raced to the port to catch the next boat to Mindoro, but it wasn't until 8.30PM, so we headed off to the mall again to grab something to eat. KFC was the dinner again, and why wouldn't it be?

Some of us Elders were walking to catch a couple of tricycles to the port when Elder Nikau realised he had forgotten one of his bags at the KFC. SO, me and him raced back to grab his bag, then raced all the way back to the port.

Everyone was calling us, telling us that the port was about to close. As soon as we arrived we ran to the doors, and the guard was locking them just as we arrived. Talk about lucky! To end the night, we grabbed some dessert from McDonalds with the zone leaders and the Baco elders before heading to the zone leaders apartment for the night.

So the news is that my companion is transferred out to Lucena Zone. He leaves on Wednesday, and my new companion comes in on Thursday. His name is Elder King, and apparently he loves to play basketball, and is said to be pretty good, so keen for this companionship.

Yesterday we had a special area broadcast that replaced our Sacrament meetings. It was pretty good, and it gave all of us missionaries an opportunity to take photos and stuff with each other, because almost half of our Zone is being transferred. In fact, our Zone is going to be one companionship smaller, and the mission is only going to have 200 missionaries in the mission by the October transfer.

This week is all over the place, being transfer week. Because we're so far away, my companion leaves on Wednesday, leaving me companionless for a whole day. Thursday I head to the Calapan port to meet my new companion, and we will stay in Calapan on Thursday night, before heading back on Friday. I'll probably just take him to meet the Branch President on Friday evening, then maybe on Saturday we will be able do some missionary work.