22 August 2016

This was a thoroughly eventful week, with lots of fun stuff. It starts off right after district meeting on Tuesday. We visited a member to ask them to befriend one of our investigators, and their dog ate my shoes while we were in their. Not the whole shoes, just the top bit. Fortunately, I had my spare pair, the ones that I'd replaced less than a month ago. The shoes I am wearing have lasted 19 months with no major issues, just gradual decay. The shoes I got here lasted about 3.5 weeks. That story coincides with another that happened late Monday: my 2-month old umbrella died. I replaced it. The replacement lasted 6 days before breaking. I fixed it. So far, so good.

Wednesday was the very exciting day. We had my very first double exchange with the zone leaders. What is a double exchange? It's when you both go over to their area to split. I'm not sure why, but hey, we survived. Fun moments included walking on a railingless, falling-apart plywood ramp up over a construction site to visit some recent converts, and an FHE at night.

On Thursday, neither of us were feeling great, but we went out anyway. We had some fun lessons with a lot of less-actives, refound a new old investigator, and had another lesson with Roland, who is really getting interested in the gospel.

Friday was the day of miracles: we were healed! That came in handy for weekly planning. The biggest news of that day was with the Gutierrez's for their final baptism prep.

We spent all of Saturday running around inviting everyone to the baptism we were having! At 6, we started preparing. It was supposed to start at 7, but on Philippine standard time, that translated to 7:45. We baptized John Loyd and Anna, from the Gutierrez family. The only real hiccup was when John Loyd ran outside rather than bear his testimony in public (he's young.) Apart from that, and after we found him, things went smoothly. 

There was some exciting news on Sunday. We had ward conference, where a new bishopric was announced. Bishop Urbano was switched out with the new bishop, Bishop San Juan. After the conference, we had a very whelming day in Pagasa, one of our areas. Fortunately, we did manage to meet with some good people after.

We just got transfer calls this morning, which is always exciting. I am staying in the Tayuman area, but it's being split and Elder Eagar is moving out. This is the 3rd area I've split! It's always an adventure. My new companion will be Elder Talaboc, a Filipino. 

That's the news for the week. See Ya!