26 June 2016

Between Thursday last week and Monday today, not too much happened. We had some thrilling weekly planning on Friday, though. On Sunday, one of the less-actives that we've been working with forever finally came to church! His wife comes to church every week, but he didn't...until now. That was more or less the exciting news of the week, so I'll send a bunch of pictures instead.

These are the mice we caught in the flypaper.

Elder Dadis

22 June 2016

A LOT happened this week. I had my 17 month mark, we had a temple trip, and even more baptisms. That's exciting. Here's how it broke down:

Tuesday last week, we had a huge zone conference. It was President Revillio's last one. so he made it big. We had a free lunch, fun and games, study, and even t-shirts. That was actually a lot of fun, but it took all day long. 

Wednesday, we tried to visit a bunch of referrals, but it didn't really work. We found all of their houses, but none of them were home. We'll be continuing to try them. 

Thursday, we paid the water bill. Thrilling, right? We tried to contact yet more referrals..with roughly the same results as the day before. We did get one more return appointment, though. Finally, we visited a couple of investigators. One of them, however, had disappeared for a couple of weeks, and we found them again!

Friday, we had a shockingly exciting weekly planning. That was the best part of the day. We waited for over an hour for a jeepney to Philcoa, before just walking. That also took over an hour, with a few interesting breaks. We met a very interesting person. He was wearing a "No meat Fridays" t-shirt, and was carrying a huge poster labeled "Genealogical tables of dogs." He lectured us for about ten minutes about everything from Adam and Eve, to Abraham, to everything else. My favorite part? "God called Abraham his best friend? Dogs are men's best friends. God is dog spelled backwards."  When we finally arrived at Bro. Ray's house, a drunk old guy walked in, and started trying to talk to me in Tagalog. A lot. For over half an hour. He also started grabbing my hands, rubbing my head, everything. It was creepy, and pretty hard to understand. Eventually, we managed to get him to go away, by promising to visit him later. 

Saturday, we started working on a better area map. That took forever, because google maps is easily the worst way to build a detailed map of a large area. Unfortunately, it's also the only way, so we went with it. Then, we tried to fill the baptismal font for the baptism we had that night. That too had issues. The church's font has a very interesting setup, with the valves kept outside. We had to keep running back and forth to see what was going on between the two places. After half an hour, we realized that the drain was still open, and the water pressure was going down. We closed the drain, but it was too late- the water pressure kept dropping. By the time the font was half full, the pressure was just about gone. We left the other set of elders to watch the font, and went out visiting. By the time we came back that night, the pressure was back, thank goodness. Then, we had the baptism, which went super well. We baptized Rhea and Lory Batislaon, which just about completed their family. We just have to baptize their dad...

Sunday we had a bunch of plans fall through. All morning, we went out visiting, but found one new investigator. At church, Rhea and Lory got confirmed, too. After church, we had correlation meeting, then went out again...only to have all of our plans bunk again. We did manage to meet with a less active member again, though. 

Monday was not P-day. because of the temple trip today. Instead, I had an exchange with our district leader, Elder Acosta. That morning, he had a meeting with the zone leaders, so I went out with yet another set of elders into another area. There, I met a certain family, whose father works in the temple. After the meeting, we went out to our area again. That didn't work very well. No one was home. We did end up teaching 2 lessons, though.

Tuesday, we had district meeting, then tried to contact a referral. That almost worked- we found the guy's brother. We visited Bro. Ray again, then finished up the map...which took a long while. Oh, and the night before, I forgot to mention something about that. I woke up in the middle of the night repeatedly because I heard a bunch of squeaking. I figured the mice were staging a raid, but I was wrong. Instead, in the morning, I learned that Elder Acosta had set traps for the mice. Not your normal traps, but flypaper. And yes, those worked really well. He caught 5 of them with just 2 pieces of flypaper. Then, he threw them in the garbage...still squeaking and struggling. 

And yes, we went to the temple this morning. The last time I went was April last year!

Well, that's the news for the week. See Ya!

13 June 2016

So, first some questions about your email:

Why do you need foot surgery?

And why on earth did Sam drive next door to go through the drive through when it would literally have been easier and quicker to walk? 

Well, this week was long. We did a lot of finding, and, unsurprisingly, found a lot of investigators, including a family of five! We even found a bunch of less-active families. The biggest problem we've faced is remembering where they live! We've done a whole lot of walking and running around trying to find new people, which did work. There's a lot of new people to work with, which is completely different from India. There, we had a million less-actives, but not many investigators. Here, it's flipped. 

Anyway, our Saturday night and Sunday were extra weird. Our bishop texted us late Saturday night, around 8, asking us to speak at sacrament meeting. All 3 speakers. Yep. As he put it, "In the last 2 weeks, there have been 2 deaths in the family, and my mind has been occupied with other things. Can you give all the talks in sacrament meeting tomorrow?" That was...interesting. Four missionaries: 3 talks: one hour. I spoke on the Restoration. The real exciting part was when one of our less actives appeared at church for the first time in forever! 

Not too much else happened during the week, unfortunately. We have been figuring out the area, and I have been learning Tagalog. That's still going slowly, but I'm learning. Mostly, I'm memorizing phrases from the lessons. 

That's about the news of the week. See ya!

5 June 2016

Well, this week was pretty slow, actually. Elder Dadis and I are trying to locate a lot of houses. Elder Nawaia had been in the area for 6 months; he knew where everything was. But, we've been working a lot with the members and our on-date investigators. 

Saturday, we had the baptismal interview for our 2 on-date investigators, but they ended up failing, due to Word of Wisdom issues. Their date has been pushed back 2 weeks. Pray for them!

We spent a lot of time this week with our not-as-progressing investigators, too. One of them, Venerando, is stuck in a rut with his former beliefs, and really doesn't want to move past them, for example. 

The work in this area is going well, but we're having little trouble finding new investigators, for once. When we show up to member's homes, often there'll be people there who we can teach, and who invite us back. That's a relief!

My Tagalog is really starting to progress. I still can't speak it...almost at all...but I can start to understand, and I know a couple of phrases. The biggest improvement was in my grammar.

That's more or less the news for the week. See Ya!