As you can see, I'm struggling to be super creative with the titles, but aside from that, it's been a good week. It has included lots of work (of course), our interviews with President Peterson, service, and a beach barbecue.
Monday -
So aside from our typical p-day activities on Monday, we also had a beach barbecue. All the missionaries came together and everyone gave 100 pesos each so we could buy some meat, charcoal, and, of course, rice. So basically, near the end of our preparation day, we all headed to the beach, made a fire in our black magnetic sand, and cooked some pork. This was one of the few occasions that we had lean meat without bone. Usually we have either complete fat without bone or lean meat with nothing but bone. So it was a nice change.
Tuesday -
The day started with our district meeting. That went well as usual. Later in the day we taught 4 lessons that all seemed to go very well. Even though it wasn't a ton of lessons it felt like a pretty productive day. It always does when you can tell people are touched by the spirit.
Oh, also near the end of the day we were going out to get some food and a drunk guy kept talking to me and grabbing my arm and stuff a whole bunch while he talked about how he used to be a sailor or something and has been to America "maraming beses (many times)." It's just a funny story, but also happens very frequently. Basically, you can find a super drunk person at any point in the day here and they love to talk to you a lot.
Wednesday -
We had our interviews with President Peterson on Wednesday. They went good as usual of course and President hinted to me in my interview that I would probably be transferring this next cycle. During Elder Areola's interview (supposedly) President Peterson also told him that I would be transferring as well because they "need leadership" in other areas. I don't know if my companion is just joking with me or if President actually said that about me or not. Either way, I guess we'll see next cycle on March 5th.
Thursday -
For Thursday we headed to our further barangay called Fugu to do some work. We went there taught four lessons and also did some finding. It was a good day of work.
Friday -
Another of day of work it was. We ended up teaching four lessons once again. Also Elder Areola showed me this weird thing that he did with a chicken. He basically but it's head under it's wing and then put it on its back and it couldn't move at all. And he claims that because it couldn't move, it would sit there until it dies if he didn't help it up. It seemed legit. Anyways, it was good and we taught our lessons to our new investigators that seem pretty sincere about their interest.
Saturday -
The whole morning we did service. Our service was basically mowing the weeds of the branch president's "yard" by hand, using machetes. We did service from 8:00-3:00. It was a lot of work, but I think it took way longer than it needed to because in service projects I've done here, everyone (members and everyone included) seem to stand around and talk most of the time and do very little work. After we finished my hands were super blistered, but everyone harassed the three "Americano" or "Puraw" (whites) for "talking" the whole time "without work", but luckily my hands beg to differ.
After that, we went out and did a little teaching later, and at the end of the day went to a family home evening/ birthday party with all 6 of Ballesteros elders. When we got home both my companion Elder Areola and Elder Vaea felt really sick. Elder Butler and I suggested that it was the questionable looking meat that they ate (that neither of us ate and we were fine) but they said it was because after the hot day of service they drank cold water and it made them sick. Apparently that's something they believe happens.. but from all my experience from drinking cold water after football practice and feeling amazing, I disagree. I kinda think that they didn't want to admit that the lack of safely prepared food here is what caused their sickness. Anyways, I ended up giving my companion a blessing because he said it felt like his brain was going to "explode." He woke up a couple times in the night, but the next morning was alright.
Sunday -
We had church of course. Then we had our branch mission meeting. Basically the whole time was just the Branch Mission Leader telling us Americans (not even Elder Vaea the other foreign missionary from Tonga) that we're not allowed to speak English in our apartment and that he was able to learn Cebuano (a different Filipino dialect) in one month. He thinks we're slacking and bad learners or something, but little does he know that Cebuano is just a different dialect, not whole language, and that we're actually right on track with what's expected as the average foreign missionary learning Tagalog. So we basically just endured harassment towards the "puraw" for an hour and a half.
After that, we went out and did work in our far area called Fugu and taught a lesson (kind of) to our investigators called the Bauno family. While we were trying to teach the drunken dad just cried and asked questions the entire time so we couldn't really do much.
Pictures -
Should just be a lot of random pictures from work, service, our bonfire, etc. Also, I'm attaching it to a different email this time because there's more than usual.
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