Our apartment itself is actually a really big upgrade from that of Ballesteros. It is on the fourth floor of an auto glass shop and is really pretty nice. The major downfall of the apartment is that there is almost no water pressure since it's on the top floor. This means that we usually just let the faucet trickle all day and fill up buckets we use to shower and stuff. I hope we can talk to someone and get that fixed.
My new companion is named Elder Morely. He is 18 and from Sandy, Utah. He's actually one cycle behind me in the mission which means I've been out for about a month and a half longer than him. This means that I'm senior companion and both of us are not yet perfect in Tagalog. It's kind of funny when we teach people but we seem to manage and they seem to understand us. Anyways, it is nice because he also likes to work hard as well which is something I really liked about my old companion Elder Areola. Sometimes I think we get a little caught up in the letter of the law rather than spirit of the law when it comes to mission rules, but it's been good overall.
Anyways, the area overall is pretty different, and the work here is slower than it was in Ballesteros, but the ward is great, the people are nice, and I am excited to get to work here and help spread the good news.
Wednesday -
So I'm just going to start on Wednesday because all of Tuesday I basically just packed and prepared to leave Ballesteros. I ended up leaving Ballesteros on Wednesday morning and sat on a bus for 5 hours or so to Laoag. We ended up arriving at the Laoag stake center at around 4:00 and I was able to meet my new companion Elder Morely. Also, a member named Eric who speaks pretty good English compared to most people here, was also waiting to give us a ride to our area. I was also delightfully surprised to see that Elder Etcheverry, a member of my district in the MTC, just transferred to San Lorenzo A and is in my district.
Anyways, we headed to our apartment quick, I dropped off my bags, and then we went to the birthday party of the daughter of the bishop of our ward. It was cool to immediately get out into my area, meet a lot of people and members, and explore a little bit. My area now does have a lot more legit houses than in Ballesteros and also has lots of pretty cornfields all around which are also new to me. In Ballesteros we really only had rice fields (which are also cool though).
Thursday -
The whole morning really consisted of getting situated, getting to know each other, and discussing the area, members, and people we're teaching. Though from a numbers scale, this isn't necessarily the most productive missionary work I think it was very helpful to get an idea of what the area is really like and to discuss who needs help.
During lunch, we headed out quick and ate at a "burger" stand because I didn't have any food in our apartment since I'm new. Before we left we were kind of debating whether or not we needed to bring our bags, but we both ended up getting a feeling that we needed to. Once we got to the burger stand, we ended up talking to the worker. She was very religious and we ended up having a very good discussion with her which we happened to need our bags for. We gave her a Book of Mormon and asked her if the missionaries in the area she lived could meet her sometime and she said yes. So it really seemed like a simple thing to not take our proselyting bags out for a quick lunch break but this experience is a pretty good testament to me to always be prepared and listen to the spirit when it gives you direction. We don't necessarily know what's going to happen to her with the other missionaries but one thing we did do was plant the seed. It's kinda unfortunate that she's not in our area and our investigator but the important thing is that she can be influenced by the gospel whether it's through us or the elders in the other area.
The rest of the day mostly consisted of familiarization of our proselyting area for me. We just walked around and kind of visited members and the people we were teaching. By around 6:30 we headed over to the church for the homecoming of a missionary. I also on the spot got assigned to share a spiritual thought, which apparently happens to missionaries here in San Lorenzo pretty frequently.
Friday -
Most of the day was just scoping out more of our area. I just really wanted to get familiar with our areas, where we mostly teach, and how to find peoples houses. We also planned for like three lessons and no one ended up being available. I also really wanted to see some of the areas that Elder Morely isn't super familiar with either to see if they would have potential for teaching some time. We ended up going to this place called San Marcos (Payas) that he's only been to once in his three cycles here. We ended up finding an area with lots of friendly people and intend to go back at some point to do lots of finding for new people.
At the end of the day we headed over to a members house for a dinner appointment (which we apparently have a lot of here which was very unusual in Ballesteros). It was the home of the Barruga family. Tatay Barruga is the owner of a huge construction company here and they have a ridiculously huge house with a big staircase in the middle. It was so big and empty and felt unnecessarily large. It was basically one huge room and kind of felt warehousey. Anyways, there was tons of extended family as well along with their personal workers. Everyone seemed pretty nice though which is awesome.
Saturday -
We usually use Saturdays to invite our current investigators to church. Our day mostly consisted of trying to contact and invite them. We also ended finishing introducing me to our entire area. It took a mere three days. We ended up teaching one legit lesson but no one else was available.. again.. On the bright side we ended up managing to unintentionally get three free tricey rides. We thought they were just going to be normal rides but the drivers at the end just told us we didn't have to pay which was really cool. We also ended up eating dinner at the home of the Ortega family. Their house is smaller than that of the Barruga family but it seems nicer. It was really nice and seemed kind of nicer than most American houses. This is definitely a rare exception around here but is pretty cool none the less. They have a legit security cameras and things all over their property as well.
Sunday -
We went to church, did weekly planning that we forgot to do on Friday, and taught a single lesson to a recent convert and her sister that is not a member. Also, we were very concerned about our plan for dinner because our appointment had been cancelled earlier and we didn't really have food in the apartment so we ended up just saying a quick prayer for help and went out proselyting without a plan. An answer to our prayer came through the recent convert that we taught. They fed us from their own dinner that they had prepared after we taught them. It was really cool and a simple example of how you can really pray for anything.
Pictures -
our apartment and views from it, proselyting area, stuff
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