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.
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