Christmas Conference

So basically, I won't break down the email this week day-by-day as usual. I'll summarize it pretty quick because we don't have as much time because we didn't have preparation day on Monday because of our zone conference.

This last week overall was moderately unproductive. We still did our typical work (kind of) but Elder Viador and Elder Magadia seemed kind of lethargic since they knew they were being transferred and had already been in Ballesteros for 7 months. Anyways, on Sunday afternoon we hopped on a bus to head 5 hours to Laoag for our Christmas Zone Conference. We ate at McDonalds of course and after we ended up staying the night in this hotel called Northview. It was alright quality and had A/C. It also had warmish running water. Much better than bucket showers either way.

The next morning we ate at McDonalds again and then met all the missionaries at the Laoag stake center. We had a little introduction and then had lunch there. Then all the missionaries hopped on a bunch of buses and headed to the venue called Fort Ilocandia. It was a resort that actually was pretty decent. It had actual flushing toilets, a warm shower, and air conditioning. It was kind of old but very clean and super nice for us. They also had a golfing driving range (the grass was kept short by grazing horses of course), archery, basketball courts (that were very slippery and low quality), the beach, and a mini zoo with poorly constructed cages and fighting monkeys.

In the morning there, we basically got to go around and do a bunch of the activities we wanted, and then later that night we had our first part of Christmas Conference. We got to wear pretty normal casual clothes (but needed pants) and all the zones performed some dance or song or something they performed no matter how cringey it was. We also got fed. It was pretty cool and fun overall and took a long time. After that, we stayed the night, had some activites and games in the morning and then had our more legit zone conference later. We basically discussed the mission culture and a new work schedule we got. It was good. We also got new companions.

I got a new companion named Elder Perez. He's from Tarlac, Philippines and seems to speak alright English which will be nice for translating Tagalog for me to learn. Also Elder Butler got a new companion named Elder Vae. He actually was already in our zone and was really wanting to leave Cagayan to Ilocos Norte, but just got moved a town over. He lives with us now too. So even though he's not my companion I'll be seeing a lot of him as well. I guess we'll see how this cycle goes. That's pretty much the week so far.

Pictures - 

Some final pictures with the Ballesteros district in our custom shirts, pictures from Fort Ilocandia, the sketchy zoo of Fort Ilocandia, the monkeys, the things and stuff, pictures from the performances, our Manila MTC district reunited, a picture on a viaduct highway thing on our way back to our zones, and I picture of me with my new companion.