Preaching to the Dead

Well unfortunately, with my companion Elder Perez, I can't say that it has been a super productive week which is pretty frustrating. On some level it's kind of difficult to realize that I only have control over myself when we're supposed to have the same goal in mind. Though there wasn't a ton of work, the little work that was done was good and I'm glad it happened.

Tuesday - 

We had our district council.. and then the companions of Elder Butler and I just went off and did there own stuff until we had a dinner at the home of a member named Brother Nical. Elder Butler and I ended up doing a decent amount of studying.

Wednesday -

This day also included a lot of studying. I also saw an old white dude with a thick mustache on a very rusty old bicycle which was interesting. It's always weird to see white people here. Later when we went out to actually work we saw a whole bunch of kids around the age of 10-12 smoking tobacco (which isn't unusual) and they all had tattoos. We asked them about their tattoos and they said some adult dude just gives them tattoos for free. So that's pretty messed up, but not unusual either I guess. We ended up teaching 4 lessons. We taught two people that I've been visiting almost my whole time here in Ballesteros and then also found this elderly couple that we talked to and visited with for  awhile. 

Thursday - 

Today was potentially the least productive day so far. There was more studies and then Elder Butler and I started trying to figure out how to play our harmonica's we both have. It was kinda funny.

Friday - 

We went out for a little while and saw two of our investigators.

Saturday - 

Some teaching was done on Saturday. We ended up going to some investigators and also to Fugu to teach my convert Dan-Dan. Then later we had to re-baptize the 9 year old named Wayne that we baptized last week because the baptizer said the incorrect middle name, so that ended up eating most of our day away.

Sunday - 

This was probably the most busy day and it felt nice. The day started at 10:00-12:00. There was a live area broadcast from Elder Holland to the whole Philippines that replaced stake conference. It was a really cool talk and he hit on the topic of our job as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints. He basically said that our job as members is to prepare the earth for the second coming of Christ and we need to be prepared to present the church to him when he comes again. He also taught about how the first law of the gospel is obedience which was awesome as well. Obedience brings forth blessings truly. 

Later we went out on splits with members of the ward. Apparently this is allowed as long as the missionaries split with another Melchizedek Priesthood holder. I ended up going with a member and fellowshipper named Rence that will leave on his mission in March. We ended up teaching to a few people and it seemed to go very well.

After a while we met back up with my companion Elder Perez and his fellowshippers. There was this long time investigator named Brother Oandosan(?) and he invited us to teach at the home of his sister. Their father had recently passed away at 101 years of age. In the Philippines it is tradition for whole extended families to gather after the death of a loved one. For 10 days they mourn with the body of the deceased person in their home in a coffin with a glass lid so you can see the body. Anyways, we went in there and taught a fairly large group of people about the Plan of Salvation and how families can be together forever while standing next to the dead body. We stood up in the front and gave a sermon like lesson as they were expecting and people were crying and things. It was a very interesting experience, but I'm very glad we were there.

Pictures - 

I don't have many pictures this week because of lack of work in all honesty but the few that I do have should include... the less amazing Filipino version of the White House, a couple pictures of a decent meal I had called "Grigliata del giorno" which is Italian for "Barbecue of the Day" (very delicious by the way even though I don't know exactly what meat it is), a picture of Elder Butler's mini-statue of Jesus that I used to explain idols which there are so many of here in the Philippines, a picture of Wayne that we re-baptized (clearly he didn't want a picture taken of him), and finally this notebook that says "Turkey" with the Turkish flag but also elements of Thanksgiving pilgrim stuff mixed in which was just hilarious to find.