Stormy Week, Locked in Apartment, New People

August 5 - 11, 2019

It has been pretty stormy this entire week. It's has been pretty windy and rainy, but it's also pretty inconsistent weather. It will rain very hard and be super windy for a few minutes only. Once it gets rainy we immediately put on rain coats (but a lot of the time we are already wet by the time we get them on). After it rains for a short period of time it will just stop and then we get really hot in our raincoats. We then continue to remove our raincoats, but then it will start raining again once we take them off. It's been like this for most of this week. So the weather has been slightly annoying but the work has been alright. We also had our zone conference this week.

Monday -

So Monday was all good and normal but I also studied a talk by Elder Tad R. Callister of the Seventy called 'Becoming a consecrated missionary.' We were told to study this in preparation for our zone conference. It is a VERY good talk about missionary work and pretty inspiring. It's about not only being a fantastic missionary, but being someone who is willing to lay everything else on the 'altar of sacrifice.'

Tuesday - 

We had our zone conference for this cycle at the Laoag Stake Center as usual. It was really focused on becoming what we call 'consecrated' missionaries and was highly related to the talk we were assigned to study. So if you want to know what was discussed you can just read the talk. After zone conference all the missionaries were given flu-shot and any other vaccines needed. Some missionaries were not very excited about this.

Wednesday - 

We returned back to Sitio 1 of Baay to try and teach some of our new people. No one really seemed to be available so we just continued to do some finding nearby. We ended up finding two new people to teach. One was an 18 year old girl who's originally form Manila and the other was a lady that owns a little store. Both lessons went pretty well and we talked a lot to the lady that owns the store. 

Thursday - 

We went to San Pablo to continue finding and to also head back to some return appointments. We successfully recontacted two people we previously taught and were able to teach them again. The first one we recontacted was an elderly lady named Anita and we taught her a lesson about the Plan of Salvation. It felt right so we also gave her the baptismal invitation but she denied it. It was interesting because she says she want us to teach her about God, but that's all. She's already comfortable with her religion and has already been baptized in her church. We tried very hard to explain the importance of authority of the priesthood to her but the necessity never really seemed to become clear to her. The other person we taught was a 20 year old Dexter Agustin. We taught him and his 15 year old sister (who was not with us previously) about the Book of Mormon and each gave them their own copy. It was a good lesson and I feel like they have started to develop an understanding of the importance of the book.

 Also, side note,during my personal study early that in the day I found two scriptures that really stood out to me:

Mark 8:

34 ¶ And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.
36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

I really liked these verses and specifically the final one. We could have everything in the entire world, all the glory, treasures, money gold, etc. and it's still nothing compared to the happiness and joy that is found in living the gospel and receiving everlasting life.

Mark 6:

54 ...straightway they knew him..

So this verse needs a little context. This is Christ's disciples exiting their boat. When they saw Christ, they immediately recognized him. This verse is kind of a good point of self reflection. Christ's apostles, after hearing his voice and seeing him, instantly knew it was him. If we were to find ourselves in the same circumstances would we recognize him without hesitation?

Friday - 

We returned to Baay again and were able to teach the 18 year old girl named L. Jay again. We also were able to find another new person named Jun Madrid. He's probably 40+ and a security guard in Laoag. Apparently he and his family were previously taught by missionaries two times but because of his schedule it was really difficult to keep having lessons. We shared with him about the restoration of the gospel and he seemed to be receptive and said we can keep teaching them if they're around. It was also super rainy when we headed home and Elder Doyle and I were very soaked.

I also found another scripture I liked during my personal study.

Mark 10:

43 But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister:
44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.
45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

This verse is very applicable to everyone. If you want to be "great" or the "chiefest" in anything in any aspect of your life, you need to be the servant of those around you. You need to help others be better and as you do so, become better yourself. You need to lead others in a positive, helpful way, just as Christ did. We need to sacrifice our time and efforts for the sake of others in order to become more like him.

Saturday - 

We returned to San Pablo once again. We seem to go to each area (San Pablo and Baay) every other day. Work seems more effective if we just focus in a few specific areas. While we were in San Pablo we returned and taught the Agustin's again. This time we taught Dexter and his brother DJ. Apparently, DJ was even previously taught by missionaries as well. We taught them about prayer, its importance, and how to do it. After that lesson we found a couple new people as well. We found the Dumapay couple. They're an older couple. They're Marylita and Wilfredo Dumapay. Wilfredo has really bad arthritis in every joint in his body and also has kidney stones. Because of his plight of pain we gave them a short overview of the Plan of Salvation and focused on resurrection and our perfect bodies. This message seemed to bring them some comfort and they said we can come back and continue teaching them.

I also forgot to mention that after we returned from church in the morning and did our studies we were locked in our apartment. We did our studies and stuff and as we were about to head out the door wouldn't open. We have two doors, one wooden door and one screen door. For some reason our screen door has two separate bolt locks. There's one outside and one inside. I'm not sure why it's designed like this, but someone had locked us inside our apartment. It took a while but I was able to unlock the door by using a wire hanger. That's just a weird random side note.

Once we returned home from work and got to our apartment we found that one of our windows was left open and seeing as it's been rainy season my bed was drenched in water. I then decided to hang my bed sheets outside but a few minutes later it started raining once again and the wind knocked my sheets off the rope into some dirty water. I slept that night on a dirty mattress probably used by hundreds of missionaries over the years. When I got cold I used the window curtain as a blanket. Luckily it was freshly washed.

Sunday -

We had church and then taught Menchie Segui her final lesson before baptism. She will have her baptismal interview this week and probably be baptized on Saturday if all goes well. We taught her at Nanay Gadu's house again and whenever we go to Nanay Gadu's house we are stuck there for a very long time because Sister Gadu tries to give us any excuse not to leave and gives us LOTS of merienda. 

That was our week.

Pictures - 

I completely failed to take pictures this week. I think we were more concerned about not getting wet when proselyting as we traveled from location to location and in the process I didn't remember to take pictures. Though I don't have any pictures really, I did manage to take one picture of Elder Doyle and I before we left the apartment this morning. I also have a couple videos of stormy weather.