It's been one year!

Week 52

23rd November 2015

Sorry, won't be able to chat for long today, because I'm off to San Pablo later today for a meeting, because I'm training next transfer. I get to train a brand new missionary next transfer but I won't know who it is til then. Transfers is next Thursday and I think I will be training here in Gumaca as my companion has been here for 6 months now.

Honestly, I am a bit hesitant to train, but if the Lord wants me to, I guess I up for it. I'm lucky in that my second dad, Elder Santos is going to be training with me, so I won't be so stressed. Not too excited to be training!

Today was a solid P-day though, we played some touch this morning, as we (Elder Faka'i, Elder Aisa, and I) taught all the other Elders the rules, and we had a good game. There was tonnes of hilarious moments, and much more fun.

The baptism on Saturday was great, and so were the exchanges on Friday with the Antimonan and Malinao elders. We had tri-some exchanges, and I was with Elder Dela Cruz and Elder Costales. We're all actually batch, so people would ask who came into the mission first, we couldn't answer because we're all batch. They stayed until Saturday morning, and we ended up using the cake mix that you sent - we put it in some little tins then slid it into what we use to toast bread - bought some ice cream and soft drinks, and had a little party for my 1 year mark. The baptism topped it off me, and made the whole day super cool.

We did have a rough Sunday though, it was the first time since I've been here in this area that we had ZERO investigators at church, I took that pretty roughly. SO, when I get back on Wednesday, me and my companion will be focusing on the importance of church attendance, and using that focus for everyone, because I don't like having to say that we had no investigators at church, even if we did have a baptism.

Other than that, everything is going good, I'm feeling good, and just ready to attack this next week.

Baptism

My one year celebrations!

The Work is Going Great!

Week 51

16th November 2015

The week was okay, I was sick for 3 days with a bad cold, so we didn't get much work done on those days (Tuesday - Thursday), but I tried my best to make up for it from Friday to Sunday and I think we had a fair amount of success.

We had Zone Training Meeting on Wednesday, and the Assistants were in attendance. It was a good meeting, and it basically about following-up commitments that we give investigators. We ate at this restaurant called Kapit Bahay (which in English means, Next-door neighbours), and man the food was mean! The whole zone was there, enjoying this yum as food, couldn't believe how good it was!

The baptism preparations are going great! We had the baptismal interview on Saturday for our investigator, and the baptism will be going ahead this Saturday at 4PM. There's not many better ways to celebrate my 1 year mark than by having a baptism, pretty dope to me. Our candidate is very excited, she can't wait to be baptised!

The work here is going great too! In other parts of our work, we believe we have found 4 or 5 more upcoming baptisms, and they could all be baptized before the new year. We have 3 children of a family that are unbaptized, and one of the recent converts here in Gumaca, his wife has been coming to church for a little while, and yesterday she said she was willing to take the lessons, so we taught her last night! 

The work is moving so well for us here, and I'm loving it. Every night I come home exhausted, and after doing the area book and daily planning, I fall on my bed and die, then realize I have to say prayers first haha, but sometimes I fall asleep on my knees during my prayers hahaha.

The work this week should be cool. We have exchanges with the Zone Leaders on Wednesday after District Meeting, and I'll be working with Elder Aisa. Then Thursday night until Saturday morning we are with the Antimonan Elders for exchanges with our District Leader. All of them want to work in Gumaca, so we will be hosting them in our apartment. Luckily we tidied up and re-arranged the apartment so there's more space!

We went to Church yesterday and were assigned to speak in Sacrament... had to pull it out of nowhere! 

 

This weeks news..

Week 50

9th November 2015

First concern of yours regarding the earthquakes -  no effect whatsoever on our area, just bipolar as weather. Sunny as heck for 5 minutes, then pouring with rain 5 minutes later!

Sounds like the Sydney break was cool, catching up with all the people you wanted to. That's cool about catching up with Elder Latu, time flies huh? His first area was our ward!

The past week was a fairly good one. We had a fair amount of success, and we  had 3 investigators at church, they're all our progressing ones, so I'm pretty happy. All week though, I was just plodding through, patiently waiting for our zone p-day, which we just finished before. 

Wednesday we had a good district meeting, and I really love my district right now, everyone is close. In fact, basically our whole zone is super close. 

On Friday, we found a less-active family that has a 9 year old and 10 year old that they want to get baptized. Of course, I told them first they need to come to church, we'll see how it all goes. They didn't make it to church yesterday though.

We have another baptism coming up on November 21 which we're preparing for right now, should be good. The baptismal interview is on Friday, and my companion will be baptizer again. I don't mind not being the baptizer, I just teach while my companion gets changed back into normal clothes. It's another little 9 year old girl thats getting baptized, and she is excited too.

The zone p-day was cool, we played a bunch of games as a zone, then had a feed, and ended the day relaxing. We're still in Lopez at the moment, and will be heading home to Gumaca later this afternoon to go teach our recent convert, as well as some investigators we have.

Coming week, got Zone Training Meeting in our chapel, thank goodness. The pamasahe will be super cheap. Straight after the meeting, we're supposed to be on exchanges with the Zone Leaders until Friday morning, but I'm not sure if it's confirmed.  

Baptism

Week 49

02nd November 2015

This week was a good one for sure. The baptism is definitely the highlight for the week, and I'm feeling pretty good about everything going on in this area. We have another baptism scheduled for November 21, and we're hoping to schedule another 2 on December 5 or 12, depending on the progress of each investigator.

We had 1 investigator come to church yesterday, in fact the attendance was just low full stop, but can't complain, we had a lot of less-actives come that I'd never seen before at church until yesterday, some of them I hadn't even met - we'll be doing the visits round there this week, we have a lot of people to visit actually, it's great! Busy as, heaps of fun with people, and I learn something new every day.

The baptism was cool, our new recent convert's name is Joshua, and he's only 16 years old. He's great, and he has a strong testimony of the gospel of the Jesus Christ, and is pretty keen to serve a mission. Hopefully he follows through with the talk though, but I have great faith that he will. He's adopted, and his family that he lives with now are all members except the father, maybe it's time to start talking to the father.  After the baptism we went back to the house to eat some dinner with them.  

Our next 3 investigators for baptism should be sweet to follow through. Our baptism on November 21 is a 9 year old girl name Keycee. Next one is the girlfriend of Bishop's RM son, and the last investigator is the wife of another recent convert who was baptized in April.

This coming week, we have got tonnes of work lined up. 

In regards to the packages, I haven't got anything yet, but they might come through this week when the Zone Leaders go to San Pablo for their MLC (Mission Leadership Council) or I might even get my District Leader to grab them, because they have a District Leader Meeting in San Pablo as well. 

Work and more work this week, so lots of interesting things happening. We are going to try and give out a few more Baptismal Goal Dates, but we won't set them in stone. Definitely got to keep finding new investigators, so our teaching pool keeps getting bigger. We're pushing through a lot of work here in our area, my companion and I  are taking it upon ourselves to visit as many less-active members as we can. We have a ward list, a Bishopric Action List, and a Prospective Elders list, and we are going out looking for all these people. All this was presented to us by the Assistant's in a workshop they gave last zone interviews with President Mangum. There are quite a few potential baptisms, so I'm looking forward to the work in the next transfer.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but the clippers work great! Way better than the clippers you can buy here in the markets, they're rubbish as haha. Elder Faka'i cut my hair when we were over there for Stake Conference, but I left them there, so I'll be grabbing those so I can cut my companion's hair. Last haircut I did was for Elder Nikau, and that worked out well, let's hope and pray my companion's haircut will work out the same, lol!

Don't play quite as much basketball ... sometimes while we're tracting in a certain area, we walk past a little court and the kids ask me to play with them. They love tossing me alley-oops, because here in the Philippines I'm sure that's a rare treat.

At the Antimonan bus terminal going home with the ZL's.

Just a random rock in the middle of the barangay.

Me in a tricycle carriage - Width is fine, but height is a different story.

Meet our new Recent Convert!