Monday -
So basically, last Monday just included all the caving activities I emailed about last week, and then our normal weekly preparation and washing clothes and things.
Tuesday -
So we started with district council meeting on Tuesday morning. Once we got to the church, we had to walk back to the apartment because Elder Viador forgot a marker... which they also don't have any of at the church. Once we got back to the church we sat down for the lesson and Elder Magadia who was assigned to teach forgot to prepare one so he just winged it. It still ended up being a pretty good discussion about the purpose of using the spirit in missionary work. After the council, we all ate some food and then checked up with the t-shirt shop that is making t-shirts for our whole zone. We then went back to the apartment and did all our studying for the day.
Once we finished all the things we needed to do, we then headed out to do our work for the day. Having district council in the morning really bumped back our schedule and we only got a few lessons in. First of all, we went to try and teach one of our investigators, Ate (Tagalog for older sister - what she wanted us to call her) Susan. She was there, but seemed really busy so we waited for a little bit and then told her we'd be back some other day. Since our first person wasn't there, we switched to our backup plan which also didn't work out.
Eventually, we just went to the next lesson we planned which was just with a recent convert. We just gave a lesson about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon every day and stuff. After that we walked a little ways to give our other investigators, the Pascual family, a lesson but no one was there either.. and that was basically the day.
Wednesday -
On Wednesday I had exchanges for the first time in Allacapan with one of the Zone Leaders Elder Willoughby. He's from Canada and is heading home on October 28, so he's really close to being done. It was a pretty good experience and it was nice to have somebody explain things about the Tagalog language to me in fluent English so that I could actually understand why certain things are said. A lot of people said Elder Willoughby was really fluent in both Tagalog and the Illicano language... which from what I could tell seemed to be true. We had a good and very long day. It was weird because he told me that I'm "very good" at Tagalog for only being here around a month. This statement surprised me because I feel like I haven't learned so much, but it's good if that's true I guess. Anyways, we taught a ton of lessons and talked to a lot of people.. and it was good.
Thursday -
We left Allacapan in the morning and headed back to Ballesteros. We ended up getting back home at about 10:00 and the other Zone Leader Elder Durbin came and did exchanges with Elder Butler. Once we got back all three of the other elders took a nap until like 12:00 and I just did a lot of personal/language study.
Eventually, after eating lunch, we started our work. We started by heading over to the less active Repaje family, but they ended up being asleep or something so we went elsewhere. After that, went all the way to Palloc which is pretty far away. We took a 15 minute tricey drive or so to give a lesson to a newer investigator named Flordalita. She ended up not even being at her house so we just walked back down into the more central part of Ballesteros talking to people and other members on the way back. We ended up teaching a lesson to two less active girls and some recent converts and that was our day.
Friday -
Friday is our day for weekly planning which everyone claims is supposed to be a 3 hour session... it usually ends up taking 45 minutes or so and then I just study the scriptures and things for the rest of the time which is what happened on Friday.
Basically, by the time it got over, along with our other regular study sessions, it was 4:00. We ended up teaching a lesson to the less active Repaje family. After that, we headed over to the church to try and fill up the baptismal font. It turns out that there was no water in the church, so we actually have to do another baptism in the ocean. While at the church we talked to a lot of members because it was there mutual as well. We also ended up giving the first lesson to our new 13 year old investigator named Alfredo or "Al" as he likes to be called. After that we basically ate and then headed home for the night.
Saturday -
This is the day of my first baptism! Before we get to that though, I'll just describe the day. We woke up, ate and got ready for the day. We didn't do our studies in the morning either. At about 9:00 we headed over to the home of our 19 year old investigator named Joylene Cabanglan in order to give her the final lesson before the baptism. We also helped kind of prepare her for the baptismal interview questions that would be asked to her by one of the zone leaders. After that we headed over to the church with her at 10:30 so she could be interviewed. The interview went successful. After that, we hurried and gave 2 lessons before the baptism and 3:00 and invited a couple people.
At 3:00 we had the baptism. I actually was the one to preform it too. We headed out into the ocean that seemed moderately dangerous with a few rip currents, and did the baptism. We had to time the baptism with the waves and it ended up taking 2 tries which apparently is better than some people. So it was really cool to help bring Joylene into baptism. She's been an investigator since the first week I got here and I actually was there to teach her all of the lessons and everything. She's a little shy but seemed to be receptive to our message and it's awesome that she's decided to become baptized and kind of interesting that she chose me to be the one to preform the baptism considering I only speak the little Tagalog I can during the lessons. In the end though, the spirit is the ultimate teacher though.
After the baptism we went and taught the Word of Wisdom lesson to our 14 year old investigator Angelica Pascual, and that was our day. It was mostly consumed by the whole baptism, but it was definitely awesome.
Sunday -
We had church on Sunday of course and a few of our investigators were there which is good. After church we went and gave three lessons. The first lesson was with a 15 year old investigator named Sherry Anne. Apparently she has previously been taught by other missionaries but didn't seem to progress so they dropped here. We decided to start over and teach her again after out of the blue she started showing up to church and also watched conference. We ended up giving her the first lesson and she seemed really happy about it. She also seemed to remember some stuff from her previous lessons.
After that, we talked to some recent converts for a little bit (just to check in kind of). Following that, we gave a lesson to Angelu and Angelica Pascual, who are siblings. Angelu is 16 and Angelica is (like I said earier) 14. We've taught them a lot of the other lessons and on Sunday, taught them about the 10 commandments and taught Angelu the lesson on the Word of Wisdom as well.
Monday -
That's today.. and basically we just played some basketball with some members, ate breakfast, and are now emailing.
Pictures -
The pictures in a separate email should include images from the baptism, a picture of Elder Butler with his Hello Kitty towel and coffee (both of which he accidentally bought), and pictures in a rice field "all white and ready to harvest."
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