threesome week

Monday, December 5, 2011

San Joaquin, Panay Island, The Philippines

This week was a breeze; it was really fun, and went by quickly. 

Elder Eror leads District Class, and he can be pretty funny.  He had us do a "Whose line is it anyway?" version of practicing OYMing.  (OYM stands for open your mouth and offer your message.)  It was so funny.  We drew locations that he had chosen, and we had to fit in the phrase "Merry Christmas" as many times as we could.  The locations were hilarious.  They included in a catholic cathedral during mass, in a market, in the male bathroom, in an emergency room, and a few other locations.  My favorite was the one in the male bathroom.  Elders Lowry, Eror, and Domincel were in the role play.  Two of them stood against the wall acting like they were in the act, while Elder Eror joined them, and OYMed them.  Elder Domincel was sitting in a chair off to the side. I was afraid the sisters would have a cow, but they just laughed.  The purpose of the role plays was to show that there are some situations that aren't appropriate to OYM.  We sure learned that.  When we did the emergency room OYM, I was the dead person lying on the table. 

Elders Lowry & Eror in Miagao

Work with Elder Lowry was fun.  He's really a good missionary.  He knows the language well, is so smooth, and teaches to needs.  It was such a breeze.  We worked as a threesome from Monday until Friday morning.  We did good work.  On Tuesday we worked in my area, then Wednesday we cleaned his apartment and worked in his area, and then worked back in our area on Thursday.  The Miagao apartment had needed a cleaning for a long time.  We spent most of the morning getting it done.  I cleaned the bathroom!



Barangay Nadsadan, where we went to look up a referral



On Wednesday night we received a referral from the ZL's.  They made it seem like it was pretty urgent, so we re-arranged our plans to go contact the referral the next morning.  It was so freaking far.  We walked for at least an hour out into the bukid.  Not just out into the bukid, but up into the bukid.  We went to a barangay called Nadsadan.  We arrived in the barangay and started asking around where this person's house was located.  At one house someone just shook his head while we talked to him - almost like he didn't want it to be there.  People up there were so shy.  When we arrived at the right house, the people hid.  It was kind of ridiculous that we'd walk all that way, and then the people would hide from us.  So we turned around and went back.  We hitched a ride with a motorcycle.  Sitting on that regular-sized motorcycle were three full-grown missionaries and one full-grown, half-drunk Filipino, driving through mountainous dirt roads.  Sometimes this mission gets crazy!  I have a video of it. 

Friday we went to transfer meeting. Elder Workman is Elder Lowry’s new companion.

a less-active's monkey

On Friday evening we visited a less-active way up in the mountains.  It wasn’t as far as that referral, but it was still far.  We rarely visit her because she is so far away.  In fact, this was my first time there.  The lesson went well, but the coolest thing is she had a huge pet monkey!  It was wild, so we couldn't touch it, but I did get a good picture.  Monkeys are so cool. 

On Sunday we went to pick up some investigators who said they would come to church.  We had told them the day before that we'd go with them to church, but could not pay for them.  When we got there, they expected us to pay for them.  Ugh.  Also, the parents weren't going to come, and neither were the older siblings.  We ended up taking 7 kids to church, the oldest being 16.  We rented a tric for 50 pesos, and it got us all to church.  The kids seemed to enjoy primary - up until the primary president disappeared.  After that, they just wanted to play basketball. 

I got a haircut today.  It's pretty short, but doesn't look too bad.  Whenever I have gotten a hair cut here, people move my part way over to the side of my head instead of where it's always been.  I kept on having to ask the guy if I could use his comb so that he would cut my hair with the part in the right place.  I've usually just said "cut it" and let them go at it, but this time I really watched what they were doing. 

There is this dessert treat here called ice candy that I love.  I eat it as often as I can.  I can make my own, too, so I'll show you when I get home.  Anyway, this week we had peanut flavor ice candy!  I had my doubts at first, but that stuff was so good!  We had about 5 each. 

On Sunday, we got rained on pretty good.  Everyone was shivering.  I loved it. 

We got a sweet referral from one of our members.  The referral is a family.  The father of the family just got back from the marines.  He was wounded in Mindanao and retired early.  He said that he gave up drinking and cigarettes, and just wants to spend more time with his family because that's what is really important.  We shared our "gospel blesses families" lesson, and he loved it.  We have a service project there on Thursday morning.

Happy birthday, Dad.  I hope it is a good one.  I'll be at your next one!

I love you all

Tuesday night, Elder Eror stepped knee deep into mud.  He actually couldn't get out without leaning over and getting his shirt dirty.  He was caked in mud.  I fished out his shoe for him.  We got him washed off at a water pump, and then continued working.