Monday, June 24, 2019

Condemnant quod non intellegunt

June 17-24, 2019

So it's been another week of work without finding many legitimate people to teach. Because of this, once again, much of what I've learned has just came from my studies which is great as well of course.

Monday -

So in the morning on last p-day I watched a diesel with a big tractor on the back of it drive by us slowly. On top of the tractor was a man with a rubber pole. His job was to move all the power lines with his rubber pole as the diesel drove under them. He was supposed to make sure that the power lines didn't catch on the tractor (I think). He worked quickly and it was actually pretty impressive. Though he acted quickly we almost watched him catch his head on a power line before he ducked last second. I mean this isn't necessarily an important story or anything, but just something random I remembered. 

Also on p-day I was able to call my family, including Caylor, (even though he's on his mission as well) because it was fathers day. So that was nice. We also did our laundry and ate at a Filipino fast food place called Jollibee's. It's okay. It's better quality than I previously remember it when I was near the beginning of my mission. I think maybe I'm just becoming less aware of quality though.

Tuesday -

We had our district council in the morning as usual. Elder Butler and Lorange from Laoag 3A gave the training on goals. It was a good, down to earth training about setting and accomplishing realistic goals. After that the whole district went out to eat for lunch. The different companionships went their different ways depending on the food they wanted and Elder Doyle and I ended up at KFC with Elder Butler and Lorange. We had a pretty fun in depth discussion about the location/setting of the Book of Mormon, Hopewell Indians, the Dead Sea Scrolls, translations of the Bible, etc.

Once we returned to the apartment we did some of our studies and waited for the Senior Sister missionaries to come to our apartment to do a cleaning check. They were supposed to get to our apartment at 1:30 but the actual inspection happened at around 2:30 or 3:00. We waited around a while but then I got a phone call from their Filipino escort. The driver of their car was really confused and asking for directions to our apartment. After a while of confusion discussion in Tagalog on the phone we figured out that they were completely in the wrong barangay. I'm sure they thought that I was giving poor directions initially, but once we figured out they were in the wrong place (not by my direction) they got to our apartment pretty quickly.

As for the inspection itself, I'm sure the sisters weren't super impressed. When they had told us in advance that they were coming to our apartment I had done a pretty in depth cleaning of the apartment... but, because it's the Philippines the apartment was dirty again by the time they got to our apartment (because of water that doesn't drain correctly, leaks, windows that don't fit their frame correctly, lots of insects, etc). After the inspection they gave us a huge list of things to clean up. For much of the afternoon I decided to try and clean up some, but some of the other things are just impossible. For example I cleaned the entire bathroom last cycle, but because of the poor quality it just has tons of water stains because it won't drain correctly. While I was cleaning stuff up (and Elder Doyle sleeping) a huge thunder and rain storm started. So, I guess it's kind of a blessing we spent time cleaning the apartment so that Elder Doyle didn't get drenched again because of his broken umbrella. We then went out and worked for a little bit and then returned back to our apartment. Also, the entire night hundreds of frogs were croaking.

Also when I did my studies I found a quote from Jesus the Christ that said, "excuses are easy to find; they spring up as readily and plentifully as weeds by the wayside."

Wednesday -

We went out and did some work in our area of St. Maria. We were there to try and teach the Allado family some more. When we got there, only Aldridge the 13 year old brother was there. He's the one who we taught previously. We told him that we wanted to wait for his mom and sister to get there too so we could teach all three of them. He then told us to come with him to the basketball court with him while we waited. When we got there, there were a bunch of children to talk to and mess around with. Like usual, they told me to dunk since they must think that's what all tall white people do. Anyways, since the hoop seemed slightly lower than usual and despite the fact that I'm not in great physical shape, I was able to dunk on the hoop for them. They were very entertained and then kept telling me to do all kinds of weird dunk contest type stuff like "Mag-360 ka!" So since I'm not capable of doing a 360 dunk I just dunked it backwards and they went crazy. It seemed to suffice. Also, since my companion isn't very tall they just told him to close his eyes and shoot. He successfully made two three-point shots with his eyes close despite the fact that usual he isn't super great at basketball and he admits it. It was a pretty enjoyable time. Unfortunately, we did not end up teaching all of the Allado family since they never all showed up and we had a dinner appointment with some members. Though we didn't get to teach very much we hope that maybe our time there helped introduce ourselves and make the people of Sitio St. Maria a little more comfortable with us. Hopefully people won't be as shy if we try and talk to and teach them next time.

Later after we had got home and went to bed I couldn't sleep. After laying in bed until about 1:00 am I got up and then decided to fix some of the broken screens on our windows. There were lots of mosquitoes getting in our apartment. I used some of the leftover guitar strings that I cut off my guitar early in the day when I was re-stringing my guitar that was rusted. I basically wired the windows shut. I then took some melatonin that my last companion left behind and then I went to sleep.

Thursday -

So most of the day was spent finding in this area called Baay. We tried to return to a bunch of people we talked to on a previous occasion... but for some reason none of them were "available" or at their house. We just ended up looking around this area since we're not super familiar with it. The most significant thing is that we found a road that connected to a different part of our area that we were more familiar with. Other than that, not much happened other than our studies.

In my personal study I read a lot from 'Jesus the Christ' again. It was really good experience and I learned a lot about the final part of the Lord's mortal ministry. As I was reading I also used the New Testament side-by-side and I could feel the spirit testifying to me the truthfulness of Christ and his atonement. It was actually very powerful when it talked about Christ weeping before he performed the atonement. Sometimes I feel like we kind of dismiss what he did because he was 'perfect.' We think it must have been easy for him since he was perfect and The Only Begotten of the Father. Of course he was the only one capable of performing the atonement, but as I read I was more fully impressed of the idea that it was not easy for him. He was a little fearful and wasn't necessarily looking forward to his suffering but he did it anyway because of his love for God and for all of us. It was VERY hard for him. In Luke 22:42 He said "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." This was not just a casual statement but a cry of help to His Father and because of that I've come to a greater realization and thankfulness for His atonement and I know that it is a true blessing for all of us as long as we take advantage of it and constantly repent and try to become better. That is also my invitation to all of you. Take advantage of His atonement that he's already completed for you.

Friday -

I practiced my guitar during the extra time we had for our weekly planning. Once we started working we decided to search more of our area. Of course, our work locally more recently hasn't been the best so we made our way to further reaches of our area. We ended up just doing a lot of wilderness wandering. Most of the pictures this week are probably from that wilderness wandering.

Saturday -

We got a haircut because Elder Doyle's mom had told him he needs to get one. We then went back to the Allado family once more but this time Aldridge was sick and had sores on his arms and legs or something. We then also went and had dinner at the Bulatao family again.

Sunday -

We went to church. We ended up doing our work with the recently returned missionary Emerson. it also rained a lot.

Monday (today) -

We had a zone activity here in San Lorenzo earlier because we have one of the few churches with air conditioning. We played lots of "Filipino games."

Pictures - 

lots of pictures from our wandering in the trees, a picture of a quote from Jesus the Christ, a video from our work with Emerson, and then lots of pictures from our zone activity.


























Monday, June 17, 2019

Problematizing Intellectual Symbol: Studying And Moderately Successful Work

June 10-16, 2019

This has been a pretty decent week. It's consisted of lots of studying/reading and a little more success in our recent work. We also had our exchanges with our Zone Leaders as well since I'm the District Leader.

Monday -

So we were just enjoying our p-day like usual and ended up eating at this one place called Zark's. As we tried to pay, the worker said that someone had already paid for our meal anonymously. We still have no clue who paid for our food but as you can imagine we were both very thankful. 

Tuesday -

I lead our training in our district meeting once again. This time I choose the topic of our 'missionary purposes.' The point of the meeting was to kind of re-focus ourselves on our purpose and how we can apply it in our daily activities through both our teaching and actions. After our meeting, our entire district ate together at this place called Mang Inasal which is basically a restaurant that has a little bit of chicken and unlimited rice. As you can imagine, this is a favorite of the Filipino missionaries.

Once that was finished we continued to the mission office to have our interviews with President Petersen that we have every month and a half. The interview went alright. During the interview I explained the well being of the members of our district and then how the work in our area has been kind of slow despite the effort being put in everyday. Our area honestly has struggled to progress recently. In my last area of Ballesteros we were able to help bring 11 people to the gospel in four cycles but in San Lorenzo we've only been able to help one individual in two and half cycles. President Petersen kind of expressed concern for our area and then explained the numbers that missionaries in other areas are achieving. He really wants us to bump up our numbers and thinks our current ones are low. In all honesty it wasn't very encouraging to see the difference in outcome in other areas despite the seemingly same amount of effort used. 

After the interviews I snagged my two packages from the mission office and then we headed back to our area. There was lots of good stuff in the two packages. There was lots of trail mix and there were some Tim Tams (which excited my companion from New Zealand) as well. There were also a few books I was excited to receive. The first one, 'Missionary Special Forces', was kind of cheesy but made some good doctrinal points and scripture references nonetheless. The next one was 'Teachings of Russell M. Nelson' which of course is also good. The most interesting one in all honesty though was the last one. 'The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints' is actually just a different translation of the New Testament. The author, Thomas A. Wayment ( a professor at BYU), translated an old copy of the New Testament from Greek into modern English. It's very intresting to read side-by-side with the King James Version of the Bible. The book also has many references, alternate translations, and explanations of historical context and things. It's been very interesting to read so far and actually has made we want to dive deeper in depth in the New Testament.

After that we went out and did some finding in our area. We talked with lots of people but no one really seemed to want us to share with them. 

Wednesday -

We actually managed to find some new people to teach. We found three people and shared a little bit with them after talking to them for a while. Their names are Aldridge, Idhel and Jenelle. The are 13, 17, and 11 years old. Though these people aren't necessarily our target group (our target is families) there's no harm in sharing a message about Jesus Christ with them. It's only positive to share. Our goal is also to get to know their parents as well so the whole family can be involved which has kind of worked so far. 

I also finished reading the 'Missionary Special Forces' book. 

Thursday -

So Thursday consisted of a lot of studies and things as well. I also started reading a lot of 'Saints: The Standard of Truth' and it's been really cool to learn about the restoration and the early history of the church. The book also doesn't leave out much detail about sensitive things that some might have thought they'd skip over. 

Once we finished our studies and such we continued trying some finding in our area called San Pablo. We found this area in the past but Thursday was the first day that we really tried to do some work there. It was okay and we talked to a lot of people but no one seemed super serious about learning.

Friday -

We had our exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I stayed in our area of San Lorenzo while my companion, Elder Doyle, went with Elder Egana to Dingras. Elder Alarin became my companion for the day. It was nice because San Lorenzo was actually one of his previous areas so he was able to show me around to some of the areas that I was not yet familiar with.  He showed me a lot of the homes of less active members and we did some OYMs. There's a couple people we found that we'll probably try to return to at a later date. We also went and stopped by the houses of a couple members that Elder Alarin wanted to see again. This was the first time in about a year that he's been in San Lorenzo again. We then ate dinner with the Barruga family and ended the day by talking to the Bulatao family. 

Saturday -

We ended our exchanges at about 10:00 am and then headed back to our areas. We also received a text saying that on Tuesday we're going to have apartment cleanliness checks so I used a pretty good amount of time mopping the floors of the apartment and then quickly did some laundry since I was low on clean clothes.

Later in the day we headed back to the Allado family (Aldridge, Idhel, Jenelle) to try and teach them a full lesson. When we got there we talked to Idhel, Aldridge and their mom for a little bit. Despite the fact that we were able to kind of develop our friendships with them a little bit we ended up only teachin Aldridge because Idhel was busy doing school assignments and their mom was busy as well with laundry or something. Though we were only able to teach Aldridge the lesson went well and other kids in the neighborhood sat down and listened as well. We taught them about the restoration and prophets and priesthood. One of the kids who sat in was named Harold Allado (their cousin) and he listened VERY well to our message. He payed more attention to what we were saying than most adults do in lessons (which kind of isn't saying too much since people don't often give very much attention to us). Harold is only 11 but we're excited to hopefully keep teaching him and his family as well. 

After we got back to the apartment I also finished reading 'Saints.' I also started 'Our Heritage.'

Sunday -

Other than church, we also did some work and then attended the farewell party of two cousins; Jeffery and Benjie Tumamao who are serving missions. Jeffery is going to Ghana and Benjie to the Philippines Antipolo mission. It's cool to see them leave on their missions because they've previously been pretty helpful fellow shippers in our work. I also read the book of Abraham while people spoke in Ilocano at the pulpit since I can't understand Ilocano. 
I also finished reading 'Our Heritage' during studies and started 'Our Search for Happiness.' 

Later after the day was winding down a bit I did followups with members of our district since I'm the district leader. The whole district seems to be doing good and not to have huge concerns. I also talk to Laoag 3a (Elder Butler) for a long time out of mere conversational value because since their area is doing good as well. 

Note -

So even though the work in our area has not been the easiest lately, I've learned to love studying time even more. Recently I've learned a lot about the history of the church, both modern and ancient, and as I've done my scripture studies I've felt like my relationship with Christ has continued to develop stronger. Something that I've also been focusing on his 'pondering.' Normally I try to ponder while reading scripture but I've been trying even harder recently after reading a quote from a modern day apostle. The quote suggests that pondering is actually a form of prayer. Taking that into consideration has helped me feel like divine answers are more easily accessible and that I am not forgotten. So, being the missionary I am, I invite all of you not only to read the scriptures, not only to study the scriptures, but to ponder them before the Lord and I promise you'll receive more divine insights and direction in your life than you know you needed. 

Pictures -

us after district council, Elder Doyle, my packages, the ice in our freezer that continually builds up and floods the apartment, a random water tower we found, the thermometer showing 78 degrees (which felt slightly cold actually), and Elder Alarin and I 












Monday, June 10, 2019

Negating Problematic Alterity: Exchanges And Interviews and the Primitive

This week we had our exchanges with the other companionship in our district and it went well. Other than that there was just a lot of exploring in the new parts of our area and that's basically all we did this week.

Tuesday - 

So we had our exchanges with the Laoag 3A area. I went with Elder Lorange their area and Elder Doyle went with Elder Butler to our area in San Lorenzo.  We first met up with them at the 7/11 outside of our area and then went our ways. The day with Elder Lorange was pretty good. He's a pretty cool missionary and is actually in his last cycle of his mission. He's kinda short, has fantastic Tagalog and is pretty good at talking to people. He's a cool guy. It was a nice day. Also, I interviewed two of their investigators for baptism. The first was a 19 year old girl that they had taught for a while. We did the interview in the LPIR (Laoag Philippines Institute of Religion) building. It was a surprisingly nice building and luckily had some air conditioning. The interview went fine and she seemed to remember the stuff she was taught by her missionaries. So it went smoothly despite the fact that I was initially concerned that the quality of my Tagalog might not be perfect but in the end it was just fine.

 We then did some work in part of the area they haven't previously explored very much. Despite the fact that their area is right in the city of Laoag, the barangay we went to was pretty rural and we did some finding and talking to people. That went okay and then we later went to the second person that I needed to interview. It was a 16 year old guy that is kind of adopted into a part member family. He remembered the teachings perfectly and seemed like a great investigator. 

After our work we returned to the apartment of the Laoag 3A area. They live in what we call the 'Mission Mansion.' There are three or four companionship that live in this building and it's very nice. The apartment is a pretty decent size and even has a couple couches! It is super unusual to have a couch in your apartment here so that was kind of a nice treat. They also had a normal shower head too which is rare. The best part of all though is that in their bedroom they have one air conditioning unit they turn on at night for sleep. I of course had a very good nights sleep.

Wednesday -

In the morning we met back up with our companions at Robinson's Place mall. While we were there we all talked for a little bit and then tried some mini-donuts. We also looked in Toys R Us. It was a rare opportunity since they no longer exist in America. After that, Elder Doyle and I headed back to our area. I spent a little while cleaning up our messy apartment and washing my bed sheets before we went out and worked again. We ended up mostly just searching the new parts of our large area and talking to some new people. We found and talked to about 12 new people. Hopefully they won't run away when we visit them again.

Thursday -

So on Thursday we had our district council in the morning. Normally we have it every Tuesday but the zone leaders wanted to 'sit-in' on our meeting so we had to adjust our schedule to Thursday. The meeting consisted of our area (me and Elder Doyle), Laoag 3A (Elder Butler and Elder Lorange), San Nicolas STL's (Sister Nacalaban and Santillian), San Nicolas 1 (Sister Oroa and Calipayan), and our Zone Leaders (Elder Egana and Alarin). I also gave the training. Since it was our first time meeting I started us off with a little 'get-to-know' section at the beginning and then we continued onto the lesson a little later. Our lesson or discussion was about Christ-like attributes. We discussed the importance of Christ-like attributes and stuff in general at the beginning and then I asked everyone to write down one of their strengths and weaknesses in Christ-like attributes. We then all found one scripture of the attribute that we think is our strength and individually shared about it and the importance it's played in our lives as missionaries. I also then asked everyone to also write down one goal to improve their weakness. The lesson seemed to go alright and after we got into the legit portion of the lesson and people were sharing their experiences I could feel the spirit pretty strong. 

After the meeting Elder Butler, Lorange, Doyle and I all went to Robinson's Place mall and ate at Zark's Burger's as a post district meeting lunch.  Of course, it was delicious as usual. We then returned to our area and did some more exploring and finding. At one point it rained kinda hard for like 15 minutes and so we had to wait under some shelter because Elder Doyle didn't bring his umbrella. After that, we ended up walking super far until it got dark. The road we were walking on didn't connect to the place we thought it would and we ended up in a far away barangay in the dark... So we kind of got lost but it was no big deal. We asked some people for some directions (which is always a good way to introduce yourself to people) and eventually found our way back. We even were offered a free tricey ride on our way home which is a huge blessing because we had walked so far trying to catch our bearings.

Friday -

We did our weekly planning in the morning. We then returned to some areas we'd be scouting out on previous days but then it started raining very hard and my companion, once again, didn't have his umbrella so we had to wait it out again before we had our weekly dinner at the Barruga household.

Saturday -

On Saturday we got out slightly late to work, but I don't quite remember why. Anyways, we did some work in our last area in Sitio 5. This mostly consisted of talking to kids while we were looking for someone we taught a couple times previously. After that, we had our weekly dinner at the Bulatao family. Most of the discussion at dinner consisted of conversation about milk. Everyone there was discussing how I'm tall and they're short because they didn't drink enough milk when they were little and then Elder Doyle also discussed milk from New Zealand. He has lots of pride in the amount of cows and milk in New Zealand because that's the only thing people recognize about New Zealand here since all the milk we have here is boxed milk from New Zealand. Basically, I had to help explain to everyone that even though milk is great for your bones and growth, genetics is much more important in general. It was actually a pretty funny conversation.

Sunday -

As we should, we attended church in the morning. After church we did our studies, and then we went out to work. We went out to work with a 17 year old named Rusthel Barruga. The first thing we did was go back to someone we contacted previously. We taught her the first lesson but after the lesson she asked us not to come back because her family doesn't like us. So that was a little upsetting but alright I guess. Hopefully the little she listened too will have a big effect on her later in life. After that, Rusthel showed us around the area and brought us to some houses of different members. The members in that area all gave us merienda so we weren't too hungry. We now know a place to come back too if we're ever in need of a snack. On our way back from our work in the dark we were walking on the road. As we were walking I heard a little shuffling in the bush (which isn't unusual. It's usually a frog or something). I looked over after a second and shined a flashlight on it. It turned out to be a medium sized snake slithering directly at us. It probably wasn't any serious threat but we ran away pretty quickly. It's not worth looking at snakes too long when you're in a country that has the famous spitting cobra and lots of other venomous snakes. For dinner we ate at the graduation party of a member named Mackie Butay. 

Pictures - 

the melted chocolate Harry Potter frog my family sent in a package, exchanges with Elder Lorange, some fields, rainy days, etc.