Bonus Pictures

Thanks to Elder Etchverry's mom I have a few more pictures of Brodie from last week.

Elder Reamon got murked by a kurong-kurong.

So this week, specifically the end of it, was pretty crazy. As of right now, our companionship actually gained a new person, Elder Etcheverry. We are currently a tri-some companionship because Elder Etcheverry's companion, Elder Reamon,  got hit by a drunk tricey driver and broke his leg. 

Monday -

So anyways, the only thing that happened last Monday that I didn't put in the last email is that fact that we went to Pizza Hut in the mall which was awesome.

Tuesday - 

We didn't really do much on Tuesday in all honesty. We woke up, exercised, ate breakfast, daily planned, and started studying like usual. Unfortunately, after we started our personally study we received a phone call from Elder Reamon asking why were weren't at the church for district council. Because we were trying to make sure that we started our morning schedule perfectly on time we actually failed to remember that we always have our district council on Tuesday. It also meant that our daily planning was also messed up since we didn't take district council into account. Anyways, that was pretty much the start of the day and in the afternoon we ended up talking to the Tumamao family. There's a member named Jefferey Tumamao and he's going on a mission to Ghana in a couple months and we were at his house and shared a short message to his sister that's a recent convert. We also tried to get to know their parents better because the dad is less active and the mom is not a member and we are interested in teaching her. Luckily, we were able to schedule a lesson to return to her on Thursday.

Wednesday - 

The schedule for Wednesday was also a little weird and out of place. In the morning we did pretty typical planning once again, but during personal study the plumbers we requested came to our house. Because our water pressure has been really annoying we asked our landlord to help get it fixed. The plumbers showed up and were there all morning. They didn't really end up doing anything to increase our water pressure but they did change the rusty faucets which made it so more water could come out so we now have slightly more water. It's not great pressure but better than it previously was.

Later in the day we went out and taught a lesson to a recent convert named Jamaica. It was a cool lesson and we were able to teach her in depth about the gift of the Holy Ghost which she apparently didn't previously understand. As we talked about it and described what it should feel like she said "Does it feel like there's a light inside you?" And we said "Yes, it feels different for everyone but you should feel a sense of comfort and peace" and she said "Okay because that's what I feel right now." It was a really cool experience because we went to teach her thinking that our lesson would probably be a simple review, but it was an awesome opportunity to explain the gift of the Holy Ghost that she has access to as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. It also is a very key part to the baptismal covenant which is good that she now understands a little more. If she's worthy she can have the companionship, help, guidance and comfort of "ang banal na espiritu ng Diyos" constantly in her life. That is God's promise to us in the baptismal covenant, and really is one of the greatest gifts we can receive from God here in mortality. He will tell us all things that we should do if we simply seek for guidance ( 2 Nephi 32:5).

Even later that night we ate at the home of the Valedez family. It was weird because they are a Filipino family that lives in California but are staying here for one year in the Philippines because the father needs to keep watch over his construction business. They wanted us four elders to share our spiritual thought in English and it seemed super weird. I kind of didn't know what to say or how to say it very well, but it was good. Now I'm not saying I'm a master at Tagalog, I'm far from it actually", but I can say it was very weird to try and teach in English and I'm very thankful for the opportunity to serve and teach in Tagalog.

Thursday -

In the morning Elder Kartchner the senior missionary actually came to our house to do some work in the bathroom. We told him that we got a little more water pressure and he wanted to come give us a new shower head to see if it would be enough pressure to work. He also gave us a bidet, neither of which have enough pressure to function completely like they should, but they're kind of nice to have I guess.

In the afternoon we taught a the first lesson about the restoration to the Tumamao family. We taught Jefferey's mom and the spirit was VERY strong during the entire lesson. Previously Jefferey's mom had never been taught by the missionaries and always avoided it but we ended up being the first one to teach her. The whole time the spirit super powerful. I could feel it the whole time. The lesson seemed to be going well but at the end we invited Nanay Tumamao to to pray to know if our message was true and she simply would not accept the invitation to pray alone. Finally, after a while of convincing her to pray, she agreed to "try". After the lesson I talked to Elder Morely about it and he said that Nanay Tumamao's daughter, Jackie ( a recent convert), when she was being taught, was actually very hesitant to pray to know if she should be baptized before her baptism because, as she would later say, she already, knew it was true. Elder Morely and I both think that Nanay Tumamao might just be scared to find the truth because she kind of already know's it's true, which is kind of a reasonable fear. Change is sometimes scary, and recognizing that what you've been taught your whole life might not be correct isn't easy either and it will become even harder to deny the message if she receive's an answer directly from the spirit through prayer. Now, we just hope that she really does pray about it.

Friday -

We did weekly planning, finding, and taught a lesson to a long time member. We also taught a lesson to the Paguirigan family. We've been debating whether to drop them or not. Apparently they've been taught for a very long time and never seem to progress or follow through with commitments. It's a very difficult decision though because every time we go to try and teach them a "final" lesson before dropping them the lesson always seems to go pretty well.

We then headed back to our apartment once we finished our dinner appointment we had had with the other two elders in our district. While we were preparing for bed  We then got a phone call from a member of the YSA. It was very concerning. The member said that the Elder Reamon (our district leader who we see all the time because they're apartment is actually in our proselyting area) got injured. We found out that he and Elder Etcheverry were walking on the road and he got hit by a drunk kurong-kurong (motorcyle with an open sidecar) driver. He was rushed to the hospital with a broken leg and that's all the information we really got.

Saturday-

In the morning we headed to the hospital and brought Elder Reamon some donuts from Seven Eleven (that was the first time I've seen a Seven Eleven here in the Philippines). It turns out that from the accident Elder Reamon was thrown about 10 feet backwards and broke both his tibia and fibula in his left leg. He's very lucky though because other than a few scratches and his broken leg, he was virtually unscathed. The doctors were very surprised that he wasn't more highly injured and say that in most situations like this the victim usually hits their head on the pavement and becomes severely injured. The whole day we mostly stayed in the hospital helping Elder Reamon and Etcheverry. Because they were a companionship Elder Etcheverry couldn't leave so we went on splits to give Elder Etcheverry a break and also get more things from their apartment for them. We also helped occasionally lift Elder Reamon around and we also helped support his leg and things since the hospital itself wasn't very helpful.

Later both President and Sister Peterson came and checked on Elder Reamon. We also went and got McDonalds with them for all four of us elder.

Sunday -

My companion and I went to church and explained individually to what seemed like a 50 members what happened to Elder Reamon. After church we headed back to the apartment. to help the other two elders more. We helped for a while, took a break and did some quick proselyting and then returned again. Anyways, Elder Reamon's parents came from Manila to come get him, and then he was shipped home to Manila in an ambulance in order to get surgery on his leg. Apparently there's no orthopedic surgeon here in our mission so he had to go all the way back to his home. Now Elder Etcheverry, Elder Morely, and I are a three member companionship and now have to figure out where all three of us are staying and how to manage our areas. 

Pictures -

in the hospital, x-rays,  our new companionship in the computer shop, Pizza Hut, the water in our apartment, a couple pictures from proselyting

Casual Work with an Area Seventy

This week has been pretty crazy and fun. First of all, we had the opportunity to meet and work with both Elder Schmutz of the Seventy and Elder Pangan of the Philippines Area Seventy in our district on Friday. That was a really cool and awesome opportunity. We also did a lot of finding this week as well. When I first got here in San Lorenzo I was kind of disappointed in how slow the work was here compared to in Ballesteros my previous area, but we've been attempting to change that with a pretty good amount of finding new people which is something that my companion isn't super used to, but it went pretty good. 

Monday -

We spent most of p-day just exploring Robinson's which is the only mall in our mission. Because San Lorenzo is about 15 minutes away from Laoag we actually have a lot of resources available to us and can buy a lot more things that you have in American compared to back in Ballesteros. It's pretty awesome and we were even able to buy moderately legit groceries. The high quality of the mall even made me forget where I was for a little bit. Aside from being close to Laoag it's kind of interesting because our area still has lot of bukid (farm fields) and still maintains a  pretty rural feel to it in some places.

Tuesday - 

Most of the day we kind of spent figuring out what to do with our dirty worm infested water situation. Seeing as we don't have running water always we usually have to let it sit stagnant for a while. We ended up cleaning out our basins we use to collect water, and then putting a super small amount of bleach in all of our different water collecting containers in order to stop bugs from laying eggs in it, which so far seems pretty effective. We also taught a couple lessons. 

One of which was to the Bumanglad family which recently lost a teenage child of theirs in a motor accident. We shared the message of the atonement and eternal families. The nanay cried and it was a very good lesson. It is a great feeling to help bring people, through the spirit, to the knowledge and peace that families can be together forever because of the Plan of Salvation and Christ's atonement. It feels nice especially when the people you are teaching are in a specific situation where they need the comfort.

Wednesday -

We didn't necessarily teach many lessons on Wednesday but the one we did teach was fairly powerful. It was with an investigator that isn't super progressing but we hope that this lesson kind of helped out with the situation. Also, someone we were talking to asked if I was Arab. People always get confused here because I have brown eyes and a lot of people think that Americans can only have blue or hazel eyes or something. Later we went over to the home of a different family, but no one was there except for the drunk tatay. We tried to talkt to him for a while but of course he was really out of it so we just left with a prayer. We also ate dinner at the home of the Mejia family. We probably stayed a little later than necessary and by the time we were finished and walked to the main highway there were was no ride. All the triceys and jeepneys were gone so we had to walk all the way back to our apartment. Unfortunately we ended up getting home at about 10:20 and then had to still shower and write in our journals and things. 

Thursday -

So we did some alright work on Thursday and even had a fellowshipper with us. This was the day that we went to our area called Payas (everyone calls it Payas but I think it's technically called San Marcos) and did some finding. Previously Elder Morely and his last companion didn't come here very frequently, but when I saw the area I suggested that we do finding here, and that's exactly what we did. This was also the first time Elder Morely did some legit street-contacting and door to door finding. He was super excited and nervous as well. With his last companion he hadn't ever really went finding but we ended up finding 11 new people that told us we could come back and teach them, and we also taught two full lessons. One of the lessons was to a single tatay, and then the other was to the Simpleciano family. Tatay Simpleciano is actually the Barangay Captain which means he's important. He's just kind of the government official dude over the whole Payas barangay and was voted in. We're really excited to teach him because typically if you help convert the barangay captain that means it has a big influence over the community and also that he knows what's going on around with other families.

Later on that night we got a text from President Peterson. We were startled. President rarely texts individual missionaries unless it's an important matter. The email said that for Friday we needed appointments ready from 2:30-4:30 on Friday because either Elder Schmutz (of the Seventy) or Elder Pagan (of the Area Seventy) was going to be working with our companionship because they wanted to get some regular missionary work in. This kind of freaked us out because this time of day is usually pretty unproductive because the kids are still in school, people like to nap, and many people are still in work.

 We ended up staying out a little later than usual in order to try and solidify a real lesson. We were able to secure one and then after that we walked home. It was so late that we didn't want to go home and make food so we also stopped at a "burger" shop. It was pretty light and stuff was getting weird where we were. There were lots of drunk people and random women all around. It was a very uncomfortable environment so we made sure to make our order to-go. Though we were hoping this would speed of the process, we were there long enough for a drunk guy to hop off a bike an sit right next to me. It's not really unusual for us to deal with drunk people but this guy was getting unusually close, was super dirty, and had a huge cut on his arm that was caused by him wrecking his bike. He was also managing to get blood all over the table. It was just an uncomfortable situation because I didn't necessarily want any of his "dugo" (blood) on my or any of my stuff. That was basically how we ended the night.

Friday -

In the morning we headed out to set some more appointments before Elder Schmutz and Pangan came. We managed to set one more lesson. Later at 2:00 we hopped in a tricey and headed down the road to the hotel that they were staying in. We were first greeted by Elder Pangan and then later Elder Schmutz. It was cool for the four members of our district (me, Elder Morely, Elder Etcheverry and Elder Reamon) to sit and talk to them for a little bit before we headed out. It was easy to recognize the spirit they had with them as we conversed. 

We found out that we (Elder Morely and I) would be working with Elder Pangan and the other two Elders with Elder Schmutz. We ended up only having enough time to teach two lessons with him but they were very inspired nonetheless. Our first lesson was to our investigator that isn't married and lives in and has a kid with her boyfriend. We taught faith and repentance and Elder Morely and I had two separate object lessons prepared and they both went great. At the end Elder Pangan encouraged the person we were teaching to get married and his message about the savior seemed to help change her perspective on things. It was really cool. You could tell that he was very spiritual inspired in his actions and approach and I know that our leaders in this church are really called of God.  We then taught another great lesson to the family of our recently found barangay captain. It was also a fantastic lesson.

Later after we finished our work Elder Pangan complemented our Tagalog and also said that even though our Tagalog isn't perfect he knows that the people we teach understand us and he said that he knows we really are capable of being effective missionaries. 

Saturday -

We taught two lessons on Saturday. The first lesson was to the Bumanglad family again who had lost a member of their family in a motorcycle accident. The lesson went really good and Nanay Bumanglad even asked how she could know for herself that our message was true which was exactly where we were going with our teachings. We told her about how she could know for herself through prayer and the power of the Holy Ghost. So we are super excited for her to receive her answer.

Our next lesson on the other hand was kind of long and painful. Our one investigator named Lolita Tumamao has attended church seven times now but doesn't want to set a specific baptismal date yet. We taught her for a very long time about baptism and how it's an important sacred ordinance and part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but she think if she's baptized we'll stop teaching her and she doesn't want that.

Also in the morning on Saturday I managed to lose my tag in a tricey but I only notice afterward. It kind of made me a little upset because it's my original tag from the Provo MTC that I've worn my whole mission and it looks a little different than the other replacement tags you can get here at the mission office (because they come from Manila). It really wasn't a big deal but I said a little prayer in my heart that I'd get my tag back even though the tricey driver was long gone and would probably be busy the rest of the day. Fortunately, a couple hours later the same tricey driver (who I of course didn't recognize after one ride) pulled over and handed me my tag he had found. So I know this wasn't necessarily a story about anything of great importance but this simple event is one of the many little things (2 Nephi 28:30) that has built my testimony about the power of prayer.

Sunday -

We had stake conference in Paoay. We were able to listen to both Elder Schmutz and Pagan again as the stake presidency was reorganized.  Later in the day we taught one lesson to a new person we had found on Thursday. Her name was Katrina Medina and she had been texting us a whole bunch after we found her (and we tried several times to casually explain to her that our phone was for missionary work only but she didn't seem to get it). Once we returned to teach her it was kind of disappointing because she didn't seem super interested in our lesson and there was a ton of little neighborhood kids distracting from the lesson. We now know she was probably, unfortunately, more interested in the fact that there were two "cute" white Americans coming to see her rather than two missionaries coming to teach her about the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Pictures - 

 ice cream cones from a member, us with Elder Schmutz and Pangan, our zone activity, Robinson's Place mall, kind of actual groceries, a typical breakfast, a corn field, a couple pictures with signs in our area, construction with bamboo, our 100.5 degree apartment, the only stoplight in our entire mission, me squatting on a pig.