Getting transferred!

Week 41

7th September 2015

I'm being transferred to Gumaca, Lopez Zone! I will be following up a missionary fresh out of training and I may have to teach Tagalog...keen to get to the new area.. 

Apparently my area has like a Macdonalds, so I'm excited to be somewhere with fast food, even though they call the Lopez Zone "Outer Darkness", it's like on the other side of the mission!

I know I'm e-mailing pretty late, we just got back from Victoria, from our Zone P-day. Nearly half of the zone is transferred, but 3 missionaries that have been here for 6 months are still here for another cycle! All of us that came in with them were laying into them about having 5 cycles in Mindoro. 

We just played a couple of games as a zone, and they were crack up! We played this game where we had to walk through a tunnel, with the other missionaries holding the rope in the way, and we couldn't touch the rope, while blindfolded. I was one of the 4 who had to be blindfolded, but I knew the game (the ropes conveniently move when you get close so you don't touch them). Elder Nikau was the last one, and we spun him around, and put him well away from the path. He started to army crawl, and went head first into the wall! Me and Elder Fa'asavalu put him there, and the whole zone was laughing our heads off at him. Poor guy, NOT! Waaaay too funny. It was a good zone p-day, too funny.

This last week was just me kind of waiting to get transferred. Only a few visits to members, and a couple to some investigators. 

This next week, should be interesting. Visiting members and saying goodbye, and then heading off to Batangas on Wednesday night, to head out to Gumaca on Thursday. 

I have probably the longest trip in the mission, and I'm travelling most of it by myself! Not excited, and people will try rip me off but I'm a good bargainer.  I have to travel by boat to Batangas, bus to Santo Tomas, bus to San Pablo, bus to Lucena, and then bus to Lopez.

In fact, in my new zone is my second trainer Elder Santos, my MTC companion Elder Faka'i, and Elder Aisa from Cairns. Elder Aisa is my new zone leader, and his companion is one of my old zone leaders, Elder De Sosa. Looking forward to the new zone, and the new challenge.

Honestly, I'm really going to miss Pola. I loved the members here heaps, and they re-payed me with love back. Branch President wanted me to stay 7 months, but I'll go where the Lord wants me to go.

Yeah, it's weird that I'm going to be 19 in 3 weeks. It's funny too, because most that I hang out with are around 20-23, except Elder Hapi, who's 19 as well.

Zone conference is on the 17th of September! I think so anyway, 17th, 18th, or 19th, one of those days. Lopez, Lucena, and Marinduque are all combined which means I'll get to catch up with Elder Finau and Sister Purcell in my batch, Elder Akroyd, and a tonne of my old zone mates in Mindoro, especially my old companion Elder Erickson! I'm really excited for that, and it should be a cool zone conference too.

You would not guess what I have had to eat all the time here...... hint: it stinks... Yep... Durian! It's a delicacy over here..... I've eaten it once every week for the last transfer..... not that I like it very much... I won't be eating it in my next area, not with a maccas in my area. I miss eating balut though, it's been a whole 6 weeks since I've had it!

Mixed Week

Week 40

31 August 2015

This past week was a little better week than the last. We actually
didn't work as much, because asthma combined with a cold/ flu attacked
me for the week, so I was carrying my asthma pump around everywhere I
went. We stayed home for a couple of days, and mostly I slept
because of the bad nose and cough. It's gone now though, slept it all
off, and now I feel great.

I had exchanges on Friday with my District Leader, Elder Calianga. It
was good, and I learned so much from him, especially because he goes
home in 2 more cycles. He always rubs it into me too, that he's going
home in 3 months, he actually sometimes gives me how many days he has
left, haha. I learned a lot about teaching, and engaging the
investigator or family into the lesson.

We attended a baptismal service in Pinamalayan on Saturday, and it was
great! Five children were baptised, and the family is a returning
member family, so I was happy to be there and witness the baptism. It
was also the father's first time baptising, and I could tell the
nervousness he had, because I only baptised for the first time a month
ago.

This coming week, might be my last full week in Mindoro Zone. In the
next couple of days, we find out who will be training, and honestly, I
am hoping I don't train. I don't feel ready to train. Saturday and
Sunday will be the transfer calls, and that will be my week, along
with missionary work every day.

All the food you sent is good... most of it is finished , but I haven't even cracked open the weet-bix and milo because of the lack of milk. I'll just wait until my next area.  The shop is far.... too lazy. Next area na lang.

Uneventful Week.

Week 39

24th August 2015

The week was kind of hard, tonnes of people punted us, and we are getting punted more and more each week. Nothing too much going on, just slowly building towards transfer day, when hopefully I get transferred. Not counting on it though. 

The rain was crazy! Four straight days of crazy intense rain, I hated working in it, would always rock up anywhere soaking wet.

We did have 3 investigators at church on Sunday though, 3 primary aged children, who are children of less-active members, walked to church from their house up the road a bit, and participated. I was so happy, I'm hoping that the parents follow the example, but it might take more than one visit from the children by themselves. 

This week should be a hopefully good one....hopefully. We have appointments, and people to visit, but we do need more investigators to teach. 

Maybe, and hopefully, it doesn't rain so much this week. Not excited to work in the rain like that again!

Sorry this e-mail is so short, the week was just really uneventful.

This weeks news...

Week 38

17th August 2015

These week was kind of an off week, well not really, because we had okay numbers, but we could have had more success if we weren't punted so many times - which resulted in us being two short of our goal of 20 lessons. A big drop from last week, where we taught 26, but I guess that's the mission life. This week I want to get above 30 lessons for the first time in my mission.

Oh well, that's the go of the life of a missionary I guess. We hopefully have another baptism coming up on September 12, but there's a lot hinging on whether that goes through. We committed that certain investigator on Wednesday, but she is yet to attend church, so this is where it becomes difficult.

Not too much this week, we are going to start teaching 3 or 4 new families, and we get to teach them through the fathers, which is the best because usually fathers are the hardest to get a hold of.... but this time they have invited us to share our message.  Hopefully, these families will be excited about the gospel as much as we are excited to share it to them. A couple of these families have tricycles too, so it's a bit easier for them to come to church.

So, our mission is half-way through an experiment on OYM's, and the experiment is to get 10 OYM's per companionship, per day. Well, last Monday and Tuesday we didn't do it, and last night I felt so bad for it, that I repented, and started today off well. By 8AM I had talked to 3 people already about the gospel, which is a great start to the week for me. 

Tonight, we are going to a couple of members homes to ask them to be present in our lessons to some of our new investigators, and teach them about what we will be sharing. I have matched a lot of investigators with appropriate member fellowshippers who live close by, except for one investigator. He is YM age, and we have no active YM in our branch. So, if he gets baptised, I know he will be the best fellowshipper for future YM investigators.

Hopefully, our companionship can achieve our goals we set for ourselves this week, and hopefully our investigators will come to church. It's been two weeks of since we've had any attend, so I'm about to go on a Sabbath Day teaching spree this week haha.

1 of the 3 great-nephews I have. Elder Nielsen's grandchildren.

Baptism in the Ocean!

Week 37

10th August 2015

This week was an even more successful week than last week, a good way to start off the transfer. Even better was that we were able to start the transfer off with a baptism! I was the one who ended up being privileged to baptise Sister Santoyo, and it was a great experience. I was so nervous, because of course I have never baptised anyone in my life, but I managed through it without stuffing up, and being in the ocean I could bring her out a bit deeper to make going under the water easier. It was definitely an experience I will never forget, felt so blessed to be a part of another family's progress in the gospel.

We have two more families we want to start teaching this week - we have taught both of the fathers once, but we want to have the whole family in on the gospel, so we will be teaching the whole family.

The other days were pretty okay, just worked and worked until the day ended, talking to people, teaching people. Nothing ever stops in the work, and the days go by really fast! I feel like I entered the mission field last week, and I'm close to 9 months now.

Our district here is pretty cool, we have 6 missionaries not including the Zone Leaders in our district, and 4 of us are in the same batch! Me, Elder Mamuad, Elder Nikau, and Elder Pineda are all in the same batch, and all we talk about is the MTC. They remember what us foreigners did on Christmas day, and they remember us being really loud and singing non-stop. We talk about our trainers, our previous areas, and stuff like that. I can say it's really cool being a missionary, especially when it comes to reminiscing about that sort of stuff.

This week is another week of work, need to find a couple more investigators, invite some to church, set some baptismal goal dates, encourage some to read the Book of Mormon, and continue moving the work forward. We had nearly 50 people at church yesterday, which was a highest I've seen for a long time. There were quite a few less-active sisters that came back to church yesterday, from the work of the Relief Society. They had an activity yesterday and I can tell it really helped. Busy as. Gonna be heaps smashed over the next few weeks.

I finally was able to get a branch list of all the members in our area. There is around 210 members in our branch, and we only have 40 come to church. 

These next few weeks we will probably go out looking for these less-actives, and talk to them. I want to focus particularly on the priesthood, because it is so little here. We have ZERO young men at church every week, and I didn't even know we had any until I got the list. About to try a massive re-activation project with just us two. If we can pull it off, I will be very satisfied with the work I did in Pola.

So Nah, I won't be cooking - my companion took culinary apparently, so I'll let him cook for me. Told him  he can cook for us both with my stuff haha.

Hid the pineapple lumps, one pack of rashuns, and one pack of pods from the boys. Holding out by myself!!

Banana trees, banana trees everywhere!

Beach in our area, big rain coming.

A path we walk to get to a part-member family home.

What's Yasmin doing here? :D

Baptism! Before we hit the water.

Baptism by immersion in process.

Had to clap a little.

Dinner last night with the boys.