rain, Elder Neilson, rain, work, rain

Monday, June 4, 2012

Bugasong, Panay Island, Philippines

(Most names in this blog have been changed to protect privacy.  Italicized, purple text are comments from the editor.)

rain

This has been an awfully rainy week.  I've been soaked and muddy.  It's been a good time, though.

Last Monday was a blast.  I'm pretty bad at volleyball, but it was fun to do some sports.  We also played some basketball.  I was winded after twenty minutes.  For a long time, my only exercise has been walking and hiking.  I could really feel my heart rate going up.  We also rode a ferris wheel that night.  It was fair in Sibalom, and they had a rather sketchy one there.  I convinced Elder Sefeti to ride it with me.  He's afraid of heights, not to mention its questionable structural integrity, but I told him that I'd pay.  He got on, and he even enjoyed the second half of the ride. 

On Tuesday we had district meeting out there in Sibalom, and all of the ward missionaries from Sibalom attended.  The lesson was about coordinating lessons with members.  I learned quite a bit, and it was worthwhile.  That afternoon I worked with Elder Quinantoto.  He wanted to go tracting with me, so we did that.  We had a bit of success with that.  We also taught one of their progressing investigators.  Then it was time to go to Iloilo. 

Elder Quinantoto getting fresh air

That was quite the ride.  I love it.  We took a van.  Elder Lowry, the ZL here, thought that it would be a good idea.  It's faster, and it has air conditioning.  I was of the same opinion.  Well, in between Hamtic and my old area of San Joaquin, we changed our minds.  Both of us having grown up in hilly areas, we were fine with sharp turns going fast in the rain, but some other folks where not.  Some of our other zone mates had a hard time keeping their food down.  You would have thought we were at Chucky Cheeze’s with the way things were going in that van.  Some people got super car sick. Elder Quinantoto had his head out the window, and the cold air and rain kept him from throwing up.  

The next day, we heard Elder Neilson (of the Seventy) speak.  He is the man!  He is touring the missions in our area.  I really liked him because we could relax around him.  With many previous speakers here, I've been kind of bothered with the way talk to us about missionary work.  It seems like they were pushing the way missionary work goes where the church is highly developed, and that way doesn't work here.  I've even felt like President Pagaduan has been doing that.  Elder Neilson didn't. He related everything to the way work goes in the Philippines.  He showed us a lot of numbers of the rescue effort in the Philippines.  I've already been convinced that this is what we need to focus on, but after he showed us the numbers, man, he's got vision.

For a long time, I have been concerned how people just talk about going to church when they teach the Sabbath day, and skip things like not working and shopping.  I've made a point to teach that, and when I do, the members seem to be hearing it for the first time.  Well, Elder Neilson talked about the Philippines’ problem with the Sabbath day, and how it needs to stop.  He showed us how to treat less-actives who have been less active forever, and how to work with lazy branch presidents.  It was awesome.  It was so dead on.

Elder Sefeti, early on Friday -
before accumulating a day's worth of mud

On Thursday I worked in Sibalom, and Elder Quinantoto went to my area to do baptismal interviews.  I was a happy man to get back to Bugasong Friday morning.  I had really missed Elder Sefeti.  While I was gone, they didn't teach many lessons, but they did what they needed to do.  The entire Balgos family passed their interviews.  I hear that took about four hours to finish, and that it was a super spiritual experience for all of them.  They are going to be baptized in the ocean this Saturday.

Sunday was almost a bust.  It had been raining for most of the week, and some parts of our area are pretty flooded.  At 9 am, it was Elder Sefeti, me, and one other member.  I thought I was going to have to conduct, but slowly some people started showing up.  By 10:00 we had enough people to start, and by 11:00 we had a packed house.  It was scary for a while, but it worked out.  I think the rain hurt us a bit.  Some of our investigators didn’t come, but the Balgos family did. 

That afternoon it rained especially hard, and we had promised people that we would visit them.  We had expected that we would be able to go on splits, but that fell through.  We decided we need to go see all of the people we had promised anyways.  It was a lot of running around.  We got pretty darn muddy, but we got to them all.  In fact, the wind was so strong that my umbrella folded up on itself. 

That was our week.  I can't complain.  We had lunch with the ZL's at a seafood place today, it was tasty.  We'll see if I get food poisoning from it. (just kidding.)  We have a lot of things coming up this week.

I love you all.   



Antique Zone Conference, Elder and Sister Neilson in the middle



FHE and District Conference

Monday, May 28, 2012

Bugasong, Panay Island, Philippines

(Most names in this blog have been changed to protect privacy.  Italicized, purple text are comments from the editor.)

Things are going well. We had an awesome week. Most of the good stuff happened later in the week.

We had a cool FHE on Thursday.  Most of the members live in Elder Dalu’s old area, and we are having a fun time meeting them.  We had our FHE over at the Aquino’s house, and they invited a ton of folks.  It was also their oldest daughters 12th birthday.  It felt more like a birthday party than a FHE, but she insisted that we did it FHE style.

When we first arrived, we kind of had low expectations.  The first thing we saw when we arrived was the father, who was drunk as a skunk.  We had been working with him on keeping the Word of Wisdom.  Yeah, that’s not going so well.  Sister Aquino pretty much just ignored him throughout the evening, and went on doing her stuff.  I had been asked to bring my guitar because the father plays the guitar and sister thought it would be a good way to fellowship.  Playing with him wasn’t going to happen – in his state, he didn’t know the difference between a D chord and a coconut tree. 



FHE at the Aquino's



Still, we put the guitar to good use.  While Sister prepared the food for the upcoming visitors, we played a bunch of church songs with the kids.  Our investigators were there, too.  We sang songs like Silent Night and The Spirit of God while people slowly started to arrive.  Like I said, there was a ton of people. We got to meet a few people, and I talked gospel with one or two.  Then in the actual FHE, we had opening songs with guitar, prayers, a lesson, another song, a closing song and a prayer, and then it was cake and games time.

I gave the lesson.  I taught a kind of universal lessons about faith.  We used Alma 32.  We had some teenage girls fall backwards into the arms of some teenage boys to demonstrate faith being unsure at first.  It was funny, but it worked.  I got to teach it standing alone, not sitting down or behind a podium.  That’s the style I like.  Maybe next time I’ll get me a soap box.

We played some games and tried to get out of Dodge, but the food kept coming.  We ended up missing our last appointment for the night, but we texted her and let them know we couldn’t make it.

Allen, the white guy from Mississippi in our area who goes to church in San Jose, got the Melchizedek Priesthood this week.  He was stoked about that.  His wife also came to church with him for the first time.  On Wednesday night, when we visited him, he fed us some sausage he had made.  He had used that mesquite seasoning.  It was so good.

Elder Waggoner

The Balgos Family is a family of four that is getting baptized on the June 9.  It’s the first full family I will get to baptize.  We taught them tithing on Thursday.  Usually that’s a hard one to explain to poor people, but it wasn’t his time.  They accepted it and basically already knew it.  It was great.  We also went over the baptismal interview questions again, and they’re fine.  Their interview is coming up this Thursday.  We’re getting it out of the way so that we can announce it to the branch early.

We visited Sister Batao once this week.  The first time we went she wasn’t there, but we got to talk to her on Friday.  The lesson went well, although she speaks deep Tagalog which I struggle with.  She had talked to her Baptist preacher, for whom she washes clothes, and he had a few things to say.  She brought up a few things, but we didn’t really address them - although the natural man in me wanted to real bad.  We focused on reading the Book of Mormon.  It was good.  I see a lot of potential there.

This week we’ve been teaching a ton of charity, forgiveness, and other lessons.  These less-actives have only ever been taught the first 4 missionary lessons, and they’ve heard them over and over again.  We decided we needed to switch it up, and we also used the Bible a lot more this week.  People here know who Jesus is, and that he died on the cross, but they haven’t “listened to the words that Jesus said, about the road to happiness through love and charity.”  (That’s a direct quote from Man in Black, by Johnny Cash.)  So we taught that this week.  It was a blast.  We’ve only had two less-actives make the complete return to church (4 Sundays in a row) but we have some less-actives coming every other week, so attendance is doing better (except for last Sunday.)

Hiking fell through today.  I badly wanted to go, but the guides bailed on us.  I suggested that we don’t need any guides, but nobody else wanted to risk it.  We are going to play volleyball later.

Thursday I brought the guitar with me all day.  We sang a hymn in every lesson.  It was fun hiking across rice fields with a guitar.  The people we taught seem to appreciate the guitar.

Jeep to San Jose

Sunday was the best day.  The Branch rented a jeep.  Basically, I coordinated the pick-up of people.  I texted to them where and when they should wait, and the jeep picked them up.  Sunday morning we got everyone on!  It was a full jeep, but that’s nothing new in the Philippines.  All the priesthood sat on top, the women folk inside, and the missionaries on the back.  We started in Bugasong, and then picked up a few more people in Ilaures before heading to San Jose.  We had seven investigators on that jeep.  If it had crashed, there would be no work in Bugasong, and Bugasong would go back to being a group.

All four of the Balgos family came; one of J Dolap’s daughters, who is 19;  Hillary May, who we found tracting and is in a part-member family, has a baptismal date for the June 23; and sister Rabe’s mom all came.  Sister Rabe’s mom is a diehard Catholic who has avoided the church ever since her family joined, but all of the sudden decided she wanted to start coming to church and listening to the missionaries.

The District Conference itself was fun.  It was a combination of Tagalog (President Pagaduan), English (Elder and Sister Nielson) and Kinaray-a (everyone else.)  The meeting was nice, and the Spirit was there.  It was well run.  Elders Sefeti, Lowry Quinantoto and I sang in the choir.  We had been practicing after district meetings on Tuesday.

Elders Waggoner and Sefeti, members and investigator

I was concerned that our investigators felt out of place.  The members wanted to talk to other members from other branches and wards, and that left our investigators sitting alone.  Elder Sefeti and I can only do so much at once.  We kept on sending members over to talk to them, but they’d only say a few things then go away.  It was kind of frustrating.

Things were a little awkward after the meeting as well.  I knew everyone was hungry, but some people had meetings.  I somehow was in charge of the jeep because our Branch Presidency wasn’t around, and we had some tension.  Some people wanted to leave, some people went to get something to eat, some people had a meeting, and the owners of the jeep wanted to leave.  Some of the people in meetings had young kids outside, and the investigators were yet again not comfortable - although that had improved a bit.

After about an hour of waiting, we got together and sang hymns around the piano.  I played the piano.  This at least kept us busy, but ten minutes later I was informed that we had to go.  The jeep driver was demanding it.  So, I had to poke my head in the meetings to explain our situation.  When I did that to the Relief Society meeting, I was shrilly barked at. I did not deserve the wrath of an RS lady.  (I hope I’m never a bishop)

The ride home was fun.  It rained.  The priesthood got soaked on top of the jeep.  I sat inside to help fellowship the investigators.  They actually had a good time.

That afternoon we went on splits.  I worked out in the bukid, and Elder Sefeti worked near town.  We got a lot of work done.  We needed to because we won’t be back in our area until Thursday.  We leave for Iloilo tomorrow (we have a mission tour) and today is our p-day.  We will just sleep in Sibalom.

Well, that’s that.  Love you guys.

travelling, training, teaching

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Bugasong, Panay Island, Philippines

Last week, I went to leadership training.  The trip itself was wild.  We left Bugasong about noon thirty, and got to San Jose a little past two p.m.  Man, it was so difficult to get a ride, but we eventually did on a rickety ceres bus.  Once in San Jose, I got off, and Elder Sefeti and I went to get Elder Quinantoto.  We picked him, I handed Elder Sefeti off to Elder Dalu (who had just come from Iloilo because Elder Gregerson is sick) and then we got on the road.  We hitched a ride with the same rickety bus that I rode from Bugasong.  I got a window seat next to a lady with kids – who were all sick and throwing up.  I helped her out.  She had one of her kids lean over onto some boxes in the isle because the kid was so sick.  The driver kept on getting ticked at the lady because every time he made a turn the kid scooted closer to him.  He was afraid she would mess with the stick shift.  I told the driver that I'd take care of it.  I did for about an hour.  The lady was really thankful for the help.  She couldn't manage alone.  After that hour, we were near the Antique-Iloilo border, and the bus started having trouble.  Something went wrong with the brakes.  Just after New Gumawan, the driver decided to abandon ship.  I agreed because the next thirty minutes of that road are all downhill and curvy mountain roads.  Not a good thing to do without breaks. 

We walked back towards antique about a half mile so that when the next bus came by we could hop on it.  About twenty minutes later we were back on our way to Iloilo.  It was so cool to go through San Joaquin again.  Man, I miss that place. 

Once in Iloilo, Elder Quinantoto and I headed for SM Mall.  I had to find marbles for the training I was going to give.  We ran around until we found them.  We finally did in a book store.  I also bought a new tie.  It's brown, just like the rest of the ties I usually wear.  It was so weird to be in a mall.  SM feels like the U.S.  It's weird, after being in the bukid for so long, I barely knew how to walk around naturally.  Also, I'm such a sissy now - I freeze in air conditioning. 

In the evening, we crashed in the Molo apartment.  That place was loaded with some of my best pals in the mission.  We talked until really late.  I got to catch up with Elders Galloway and Thayne, and Elder Lowry was there, too.  There were some others that I really enjoy, like Elder Chandler and Gunnel.  I played “Gospel Train."  We even got Elder Chandler playing some harmonica on it.  Elder Galloway and I made some after-mission plans.  He's a wild man – he’s won wilderness survival competitions, and is a folk music genius.  

I feel like I went on my mission at the right time.  I've gotten to meet some way cool people - some folks I feel I'm going to be life friends with.

The next day at training, I was the first to go.  I was glad to get it over with.  It went well.  A lot of folks said they enjoyed it, and that it was fun.  I had made a fake "check you progress" chart on a regular piece of paper, and had hand written it.  Then I drew the church emblem down at the bottom, in terrible handwriting.  It was funny. the "check your progress" was about the 12 week program.  We talked about how the 12 week program sets out the missionary skills and stuff in a "line upon line" way.  I included an object lesson.  I had a cup full of marbles and an empty cup.  The full cup represented a mature, experienced, knowledgeable missionary, and the empty cup represented the trainee.  The marble were knowledge.  Then I had a funnel, and when I dumped all the marbles in the funnel, it got clogged.  We talked about that method of training.  Then we tried putting in the marbles one by one, and talked about that method of training. I made a few jokes, but was mostly serious.  (Since President doesn’t speak Illongo, most of the jokes went over his head - they were mostly jokes about making mistakes in that language.)

After my training, we took a ten minute break.  President came and put his arm around me, and told me that if I wanted to work at the MTC in Provo that he'd recommend me.  That was pretty cool. 

Later that afternoon, I worked with the Elder Anderson, one of the AP’s.  We worked in a crowded part of the city.  It was nuts - just thin alleyway after thin alleyway.  I was so lost.  We taught four lessons, and it was fun.  The work in the city is so fast paced.  It's not like in the bukid, where you walk twenty minutes to your next appointment.  And in the city, if your investigator isn't there, you can just come back in an hour!  I actually wouldn't mind being called to the city. 

I lost my voice later that night.  God was punishing me for staying up too late.  It's still gone. 

Sister Pagaduan gave a fun training session about health.  It was almost like she was teaching kids.  She taught us about blowing our noses, washing our hands, taking showers, etc.  She even included some voodoo Filipino health things, such as “if you are hot, don't drink cold water or you will get a sore throat.”  And “if you are sweating, don't go shower immediately or you will get a cold.”  She gave us candy for participating, so we all did.  I got some gummies. 

Elder Montecer was also at the training.  They called on the two of us to demonstrate a teaching skill together.  We did well.  (Another Elder accused us of cheating because we had been companions before.)  Man, I miss that guy.  He seems to be doing well. 

Church was a struggle.  The branch president and first counselor didn’t come, so our shy second counselor had to do it.  I helped him out where I could.  We didn't have a key to the branch president's office, and the sacrament trays and cups were in there, so I used a bamboo stick through the window to unlock to door.  That way we could at least have sacrament.  It was a hot day, and things were disorganized.  Good thing it was fast Sunday or we wouldn't have had speakers! 

I taught the gospel principles class about baptism.  We had a lot of fun with it.  My voice is shot, so I had every one scoot in.  We had a great discussion, and I came up with a few object lessons on the spot. For instance, we were talking about our sins being lost at baptism.  I had Elder Dalu stand up.  I handed him one hymn book after another until his arms were full.  It was pretty heavy for him.  We asked him how he felt.  We took our time about it.  The whole time, he was struggling to hold the hymn books up.  Then we took the hymn books away, and asked him how he felt.  There were some other things we did, too.  Nine investigators attended, six from our area, and three from other elders’.  Unfortunately, two of ours slipped out before Sacrament Meeting!  Lame!  I didn't see em' slip out.

On Saturday night, we taught Sister J and family.  We had been teaching lesson two about resurrection, but I decided we needed to stop that and switch gears.  I realized we hadn't talked about eternal families before, even though Sister J’s husband had passed away.  We talked about it, and the spirit was there.  It was such a cool experience.  We talked about how 80 years isn't near enough time to be with our loved ones.  It went well. 

We went back to a former investigator this week.  We taught her back when Elder Montecer and I were just tracting all day.  Anyway, during the time since we had last seen her, she got an infection in her hand and had it cut off.  She's pretty angry at God about it.  I don't blame her, really.  We had an interesting lesson with her.  We didn't teach too much, but mostly just let her talk to us.  I don't know what to teach the upcoming visit.  I'll probably figure that out in my personal study tomorrow.

Yesterday we went by the radio station here in Bugasong.  We got the go ahead from President at training to sing and introduce ourselves to Bugasong on the radio.  We’re in the process of setting it up.  Right now, it's in the AP's hands, but it's likely that it will happen.  We’re just trying to get them to do it as a public service instead of paying for air time. 

Life is good.  No worries.  I go on splits with Elder Lowry tomorrow.  I'm excited about that.  We're working hard.  Success is so close that we’re bound to have some, but it's still just flirting with us at this point.  We've had a ton of folks come to church lately, but not on consecutive weeks!  That makes it impossible to have a baptism.

teaching

Monday, April 16, 2012

Bugasong, Panay Island, Philippines

I’m writing a day early because we’re back in San Jose, where they have an internet connection.  I’m here for another appointment with the ear doctor, and have a long time before I'll get in, so this is a better use of time.  We have about three hours to wait, so I'll go ahead and send my email now.

Anyway, life is good.  I wasn't planning to again bring up this ear thing to Sister Pagaduan, but yesterday in church I could hardly hear, so I figured it was better to get it addressed.

This week was great.  It looks like we can still keep up the pace of work that Elder Montecer and I used to have.  I thought it was going to be difficult to do because we have four hours of study every day.  But, in regard to lessons with a member present, we had the highest of my mission.  We were a eight short of the highest number of lessons I've ever done, but we still had a great week.  We were just super stoked. 

Church yesterday was kind of wild.  It was a really, really hot day.  We got all five electric fans from our apartment and brought them to the church to help out a bit.  Even with all the fans, it was ridiculously hot!  I ended up teaching the gospel principles class.  I hadn't prepared, but neither had anyone else, so I taught it.  I taught about obedience.  It went all right, but not the best.  I could have used some preparation time.  The church is right beside the highway, and it has no windows.  It's not a great environment.  Trucks and stuff go by three feet away from us.  I tried to make it work, though.  I talked about how the people didn't listen to Noah and ended up dying.  I drew all the people laughing at Noah, then Noah's ark up on the hill.  I made a speech bubble for one of the laughing people.  It said "buwang tana" which means "he's crazy."  Then I drew the water about waist high on him, and changed the speech bubble to say "o gali" which means "Oh i guess he's right."  Then I drew the water over his head and made the speech bubble say "patay ron" which means "dead now."  That may have been the highlight of the lesson.

Elder Sefeti and I spoke in sacrament meeting.  He bore is testimony in part English, part Kinaray-a.  He did really well.  The members really love him here, and are just so enthusiastic about helping him out.  When he spoke, everyone was silent and paying attention.  I was impressed.  Often, to the untrained eye, Filipino Sacrament Meeting may seem like circuses.  I spoke about the Holy Ghost and what we need to do to qualify for its companionship.  I felt like that went well, too. 

We had a few investigators at church, but not the one with dates.  In fact almost all of our investigators have come to church now, but not consecutively.  For instance, they'll come one week then miss the next; then only the kids will come, and then only the mother the next week.  We are happy that people are coming to church, but it makes it impossible for them to be baptized!  It's a rule here that they have to come four times in a row.  Each time they miss, it starts over.  We would have already had baptisms here if we didn't have this rule. 

Last night we were on our way home, and it was a little early, and I had the impression to visit a family on the way.  It was still way far from our house, and pretty soon there wouldn't be any more rides, so I was reluctant.  We followed the impression and told the tric driver to stop.  Elder Montecer and I had only visited this family a handful of times because they aren’t anywhere near the areas we were focusing on, so I didn't know them that well.  They are pretty less=active by the way.  So we took the chance to get to them.  They just loved Elder Sefeti's mixed language. Right now he's using English sentence structure, but putting in any Kinaray-a word that he knows.  They thought it was super funny.  

We talked for a while, then asked if we could share a message with them.  We went into their roadside stand and sat down on the dirty bamboo floor with them.  One of the kids had just come home from college in Sibalom, and so the family was almost all present.  We talked about the Sacrament and how it relates to repentance, baptism, and the Gift of the Holy Ghost.  We read the sacrament prayers, talked about their feelings when they were baptized, and how they would feel if they could take the sacrament.  It was an awesome visit.  Even Elder Sefeti did a great job sharing, though it was mostly English.  We said a prayer, and after the prayer I didn't yet feel like we should leave.  So, asked if we could sing for them.  We sang "Be Still My Soul."  It was good.  After that, they fed us some soda and spaghetti.  It was a great, uplifting visit, but we got finished late and there was hardly anything on the roads.  I wasn't feeling up to walking all the way home, but we didn't have a choice.  About a minute into our walk, we caught a ride with people in a random, beat-up pickup truck.  They took us straight to our apartment. 

We had some other just great lessons. We are teaching a recent convert’s daughter who is home for the summer from school.  She’s a great investigator, and this last week we talked about Alma 32.  We took it slow, but it was great.  My favorite part of the lesson happened super randomly. I wanted to demonstrate how taking the first step of faith is hard, but then afterwards it gets easier.  The thought came to me to show them an object lesson.  I asked Elder Sefeti to stand up, and took my tie off and wrapped it around my eyes.  Then I told them that I was going to fall backwards and Elder Sefeti was going to catch me.  After we did that, we sat back down and talked about how I didn't really know that Elder Sefeti was behind me, but I trusted him to be there.  Then I explained how if I did it again, it would be easier for me to because Elder Sefeti had already caught me once before.  

The lesson actually drifted a bit because of some of the recent convert’s input, but it drifted into a great direction.  We talked about how having temptation helps us build our faith, just like playing basketball against someone makes us a better basketball player. 

One other great lesson was with Sister J and her family.  We made sure we had a fellowshipper that matched up well for J before the lesson.  We asked a Relief Society leader to join in the lesson.  I was reluctant to ask because it was far for her to come, and it was only one lesson, but we asked her anyway and it was a great lesson.  The fellowshipper had great input.  We talked about the first part of the plan of salvation.  The spirit was super strong.  It was a completely free-form lesson.  None of it was prepared, but it ran so smooth.  We talked how our personalities are not just from our experiences on earth, but also from the time we spent with Heavenly Father before we were born.  The kids really liked that idea. 

She didn't come to church, though. Bummer. 

We had interviews with President on Friday.  It was a good experience.  My interview with president went well.  I was glad, because the only times I’ve really gotten to talk with him for the last couple months were when I was in trouble, i.e., out past curfew or having a messy apartment.  Also Sister Pagaduan and I talked a bit.  We mostly talked about culture shock, but then she out of the blue said "Elder Waggoner, do you remember when you told me you weren't sick.  It turns out you were right."  That made me feel like a billion pesos.  I said it was no problem, and that she was just following protocol.   That was about the extent of the conversation, though she did request I give back the remaining 5000 kilos of elephant pills they had prescribed me.  I told her that it was no problem (seeing as there are no elephants in Bugasong.)

Elder Sefeti and I have been singing to investigators.  He is also starting to teach a little.  He can pray in Kinaray-a format, but still does it part English.  Our language studies are going well.  I hope I get to train again after him, but it's not too likely. 

That's all the noteworthy things I remember from this week.  Life is good.  I love you all.

Fijian

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Bugasong, Panay Island, Philippines

Elders Sefeti and Waggoner

I've got some big news.  My big news weighs 95 kilos, and is my new companion from Fiji.  I like him.  His name is Elder Sefeti, and I picked him up on Friday.

He can sing super well.  We sang while we did laundry.  He already knows how to do laundry by hand, so all I need to teach him is how to speak the language.  He can actually understand where one word stops and where the next word begins.  He'll do a lot better at learning the language that I did.  You guys have actually been in the same room as him before.  He sang in the MTC choir.  (Our family attended the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference.)  If you watch the rest hymn, he’s on the right in the middle.  He's the big brown guy.  He and I are having a blast.  Within the first couple of minutes after transfer meeting, I had him buy some fruit.  I told him the vocab and a few phrases. We ran through it once or twice, and then he did it.  We've kept on doing stuff like that.  It's really helping him out. 

When I found out that I was getting a brand new missionary as a companion, Elder Montecer and I decided to wait on giving some folks baptismal dates.  So, on Elder Sefiti's first day, we gave out three baptismal dates.  One of them was super funny.  He didn't know how to say the whole sentence, so I said the first part "kon namaan mo gne ja ang mutuod" (if you come to know that this is true. . .) and then he said "gagawin mo magpabunyag sa may 5?"  (Will you be baptized on may 5?)  It took them a bit of effort to understand because what i had said was Kinaray-a, and what he said was in Tagalog. 

My mission has totally changed.  It's like when folks have real kids, you know?  They aren't too concerned about other stuff any longer, they don't care as much about personal development.  Now, everything is about getting Elder Sefeti up to speed, speaking the language and teaching well.  Elder Motecer and I were a super companionship.  We broke records and stuff, but now all that doesn't matter.  Now it's not about working super hard, it's about working at a pace where Elder Sefiti learns.  I'm having a lot of fun with it. 

General Conference was great.  Somebody made DVD's of it, so we got to watch it in Bugasong's hot, uncomfortable meeting house.  Still, I loved it.  Conference is so much better as a missionary.  You'll hear stuff said in the conference and think "that's what Sister So and So needs." 

On Saturday, we four missionaries were the only one's watching it.  On Sunday, though, we had a good turnout.  We had a ton of less-actives come, plus two investigators.  We could have done better with the investigators, but I was super surprised at how many less-actives came! 

The DVD gave up the ghost near the end of the Sunday morning session, so we ended up singing a hymn on our own and having a closing prayer. That's too bad because I really wanted to hear "Come Thou Fount".

On Saturday during President Packer’s talk, I wept like a baby.  I haven’t cried like that in a really, really long time.  It took me a few minutes to get myself back together. 

Elders Sefeti and Dalu

Elder Sefeti slept through most of conference.  Jet lag had him all out of whack, but it was okay because he'd already seen it before he left the MTC. 

It was holy week here, so the work didn't go as great as it usually does.  It hurt us a bit, but we did our best.  It was nice because a lot of people were at home, but there were no rides to go anywhere. 

Elder Montecer went DL  He was practicing teaching district meeting in the mirror.  He was stoked. 

We had our Branch President work with us this week.  It was good to get to know him.  I've only seen him at church on Sunday, and we hadn't talked much.  We took him around to some less-actives.  He's a great guy, but is really struggling to help the branch.  We were so thrilled to show him around.  We had some great lessons, and he talked to us about the branch and stuff.  We talked to him about how he might be able to help. 

Another local leader, though, is on my naughty list.  We went to his house for lunch on Thursday right before we left for Iloilo. We had a female branch missionary with us because she had worked with us in the morning.  She was also invited to eat.  While we were waiting for the other two elders to show up, the leader put in a CD with a ton of pictures on it.  It was a slide show of his trip he had taken, and it contained a lot of inappropriate images.  I just turned my head.  I couldn't call him out about it or he'd be offended for years to come, but come on!  He knows better!  I was especially embarrassed for the sister who was working with us.

My TB test came out negative - for the second time in my mission.  It was funny the doctor was like "You don't have TB."  I was like "Tell me about it".

It's fun introducing Elder Sefeti to all the good Filipino foods.  I’ve shown him halo-halo, dirty ice cream, and batchoy.  He really likes those.  He and I made a thank-you card for the lady who gave us the halo-halo.  He says most other Filipino dishes are the same as Fijian dishes, just with more sauce.

That's all I really have.  Life is great.  Elder Sefeti and I are singing to our investigators.  He's not shy about it.