Maulan ang linggo

So this week has been alright once again. The weather has been kind of weird though. Sometimes it has been pretty rainy and we've needed to use raincoats and umbrellas but then it will immediately stop and become super hot and humid again. Trying to anticipate the weather is also a little difficult since we can't really see the news, but other than the weather, it's been pretty normal. We've tried lots of finding pretty much every day.

Monday -

Not much happened last Monday other than our typical p-day activities. I also prepared a lesson for our district council meeting.

Tuesday -

In the morning we headed to San Nicolas centro for our district meeting with the two sister companionships in our district. The lesson I prepared was about the first lesson we share as missionaries, the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and why it's so important. We discussed techniques on how to simplify our teaching for people and emphasize the importance of authority given of God.

Once we got back to our area we did some finding once again and talked to some people but it never really turned into much serious work. At the end of the day we ate dinner once again with the part-member Tumamao family. While we were there we saw part of the nightly news. There were two weird stories we saw. One of them was about elementary aged students being issued coconut helmets just in case of an earthquake, and the other was about someone giving the victim of a car wreck a pig for forgiveness. The coconut thing was pretty funny because they interviewed a teacher and during the "serious" interview she was wearing the helmet and it looked hilarious.

Wednesday -

In the morning we did some work in this area called Samac. We just talked to a bunch of people as usual and actually ran into the father of our bishop's wife. He was not very interested in our message and claimed be a member of "all religions." Apparently he's been in contact with missionaries for a long time but just doesn't care too much about what we have to say. After some work we had our interviews with President Peterson in Laoag at the mission office. The interviews themselves went smooth as normal, but the journey back home took forever. Of course we always travel around by riding on a mix of triceys and jeepneys which is slow anyways, but for some reason there was also ridiculous amounts of traffic as well and it took forever. By the time we got back to our area, there wasn't really a ton of time to get much work done.

Thursday - 

So in our work we found some new people, the Payaoaon (I think that's the spelling) family. They were super nice and allowed us to talk with them. The doctrinal aspect of the conversation didn't get super in depth (of course it wasn't non-existent either)  but we did have a nice time getting to know them and talk to them. Unfortunately, the two people that talked to us the most are actually leaving in a couple weeks. This couple, both of whom are in their up 20's, are returning to Saudi Arabia to continue their work as nurses. We talked to them for a while and they even bought us some merienda. Though the most talkative of them won't be around when we return, we are still excited to return and try and teach their family. Also on our way home to our apartment we got invited into the home of the Rafol family. They're members and they gave us some hot chocolate because we were all wet from the rain.

Friday - 

While we were doing our weekly planning in the morning the office elder stopped by our apartment and gave me a couple packages from home. They're nice packages specifically designed for my one year mark in the mission. Though, they're slightly early they are greatly appreciated and the contents of the package will be in the pictures below. 

Once we headed out for some work we went to our area in Bingao. When it hit dinner time we then headed over to the wealthy Barruga household for our weekly meal with them. After dinner ended we headed over to the church to have our missionary council meeting with the ward missionaries and ward mission leader. Unfortunately it was cancelled because no one else showed up.

Saturday - 

On Saturday we always eat dinner with the Bulatao family. Because of this we talked with Sister Bulatao and organized an opportunity to teach their neighbor who had attended church last week. Unfortunately she never showed up for us to teach her. That was a little disappointing since that was the appointment we had been anticipating the whole day. At the end of the day I also started preparing a talk that I was asked to give in church about choices and accountability. I prepared an introduction but then decided it was talking too much time and just did a general outline for the rest of the talk with some scripture references.

Sunday -

I gave my talk and even though I didn't have much in depth preparation it actually went very well. Usually I like to have the entire talk planned out, but this time I went moderately unprepared compared to usual. I ended up going up and speaking about whatever came to my mind concerning the topic while citing fairly random scripture references and quotes from prophets and apostles. I also joked around a little bit. I wasn't very concerned about preparation for my talk though because the last time I talked in sacrament meeting here no one really paid much attention. This time people seemed more engaged and it went well. Bishop Sugui told me it was a good talk and was impressed that I managed to fill the rest of the time since the first two talks were pretty short. I was actually surprised because I was pretty sure I was going to be short on time because of lack of preparation, but by the time I finished I had taken way more time than I was anticipating.

Also, this Sunday only one of the four interested people that attended church last week returned. That was a little disappointing but we are glad that the one did return. We ended up teaching her again later after church. Also during our work we had a fellow shipper named Ezra with us the whole time.

Note - 

So I just want to share this quote from Elder Dallin H. Oaks that I used during my talk, it says 

"if our works are to be credited for good, they must be done for the right reasons... it is not enough to serve God with all our might and strength. He who looks into our hearts and knows our minds demands more than this. In order to stand blameless before God at the last day, we must also serve him with all our heart and mind"

This quote, though not necessarily referencing very deep or unusual doctrine, is very powerful and important to us. We can always be doing the right things and make the right decisions, but if it isn't with the right heart it credits us nothing at that last day of judgement. So, I invite all of you, including myself as well, to try and be more sincere in all that we do. Though it can be very hard sometimes I know that as we simply try to be more sincere in our righteous works we will find ourselves having greater desire to do those things the Lord has asked of us. His work will become less of a 'task' and more of a joy that we want to do.

Pictures - 

some goats on a car, starving cows, our rainy weather apparel, pictures of things from my one year package, pictures with our investigator