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.  

brown out, ear wax, bad water, snakes

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Bugasong, Panay Island, Philippines

So this week was pretty crazy. We're meeting with the couple missionaries in a little bit. They called and asked to meet with us.  I'm not sure why.  If it's about medical stuff, I might kill myself.  Doctor offices are an earthly trial that I'll be glad to be rid of when I die.

A brown-out occurred while we were in church.  So, we had tropical temperatures and no electric fans.  I suppose we went to church and got a preview of hell?  So, that was rough.  We told all of our investigators to come to church at 9:00, so they did.  We forgot to mention to all the members to come on time.  It was actually embarrassing. We started priesthood with us four missionaries and one male investigator.  I taught from the George Albert Smith book.  I taught about the power of kindness. 

It was fast and testimony meeting.  I slaughtered the piano on the last hymn.  Filipinos do not sing the songs with any rhythm at all!  First off, I didn't know the chord changes quickly enough, and I couldn't get the rhythm.  Plus, I couldn't really hear them either - ill discuss that later.  The worst part of the meeting was that one of our local leaders, sitting up front on the stand, was a chatterbox.  No one was looking at the people giving their testimonies because he was laughing and smiling and whispering - but kind of loud.  He was like me when I was seven.  I wish I could have been his father, taken him out in hallway, dragging him by the wrist, and told him a thing or too.  After church I was pretty angry.  I just went into the apartment and calmed myself down for a few minutes. 

You’ve got to understand.  The whole time, I was trying to catch his eyes so I could help him be quiet.  He looked at me once.  He saw what I was trying to say, and then he wouldn't look at me again.  Then I tried praying in my heart that he'd quiet down.  By the end of the meeting I had worked myself up.  I brought up reverence in the correlation meeting; even though I didn't say his name, he got offended.  Oh boy. looks like I’ve got to go and school my feelings again.

Good news: we had four investigators at church!

This week I had to visit a few hospitals, only down in San Jose where we go on Tuesdays for district meeting and to send e-mail.  Why?  Well. . .

I couldn't hear well for most of the week.  My ear wouldn't pop.  I asked Elders Thayne and Gregerson for a blessing on Friday night, and I tried a ton of stuff, but it just wouldn't pop.  After church on Sunday it got to be too much to handle.  I could barely hold a conversation with someone.  So, I did what I hate to do - I called Sister Pagaduan.  She set an appointment for me the following day.  Since I was going anyway, she also set up an appointment for me to get a new skin test for TB.  I just did it despite the suckiness of it. 

The ear check-up went great, though I had to wait forever, but it was really ok.  Apparently I had a bunch of hardened ear wax in my ear.  They had me lean over into Elder Montecer's lap, and then they poured stuff in my ear. Then Elder Montecer tugged on my ear for 30 minutes until the stuff soaked in.  Then they drained the liquid and pulled the wax out with tweezers.  Laying my head in the lap of my companion was weird, but it's nice to hear again. 

The first doctor I went to for the skin test doesn’t actually do the test, so she wrote me a referral for another doctor in town.  This doctor was a pediatrician, and really nice.  She had me wait maybe five minutes, gave me the test, and told me where in Bugasong I can get the results checked.  The doctor visits took most of the day yesterday. 

We had a member make us four missionaries matching planner cases.  Mine has a picture from the Children’s Friend of a kid fishing. 

Sunday afternoon we went out to the bukid.  We have a bunch of less-active members in a far away area.  We decided to go ahead and break our fast before the hike back to the road.  It was a rather hot day, and we felt like it was better to do the hike with water in us.  I was thirsty and chugged a bunch of water.  I don't know what happened, but about halfway through the hike I got a really bad stomach ache.  Elder Montecer and I sat down on some farming equipment for a while.  I expected it to pass, but it didn't.  Then at a certain point I realized that I had to go.  I made for the woods like I was running from a bear.  I jumped down a wooded hill to a ravine for some privacy from anybody who would pass on the road, and then I did what bears do.  I barely made it.  I won't go into detail, but it was quite an experience. 

I went on splits with Elder Thayne on Friday.  We did an excellent day of work.  He was my pal back in the MTC, so it was great to catch up with him.  It's funny - we used to talk in the MTC about what kind of missionaries we'd be.  Now that we've got a year and a half under our belts, it's cool to see the missionaries that we came to be.  We actually didn't do much talking because we had a full day planned, but it was cool to see each other's teaching style.  Man, I wish we could be companions. 

On Monday, between hospital visits, we got lunch with Elder Thayne, his companion Elder Foshee, and Elder Perez, whose companion just finished his mission.  We got seafood, and the restaurant was showing the NCAA tournament.  It was Kansas vs. Ohio State.  That was fun to watch.  It was from that TV broadcast that I learned the terrible news: Louisville lost to Kentucky.  It was nice to relax and talk and watch basketball. 

It rained most of the week. Talk about mud. 

When it rains, the snakes come up from underground.  We had a ward missionary working with us.  We were walking on the rice paths and she came across a snake.  She freaked out!  We all laughed about it after the snake took off, and then about twenty feet later a frog jumped out at her and she freaked out again.  We all laughed again.

Elder Montecer playing for older lady

We have this extremely old lady in our area.  She is confined to a bed, and was baptized back in the 60's in Manila.  She's fun to visit, but isn't all there anymore.  Elder Montecer and I go visit her because we want to.  It may not be the most effective use of time, but we feel good for visiting her, and no one else does.  We took the guitar with us to visit her this week.  We sang her a bunch of hymns.  Elder Montecer even premiered his guitar skills for her.  After we finished, we asked her to say the prayer.  About halfway through the prayer, she started drifting off and she forgot she was praying.  She started telling us about her children.  Then she couldn't figure out why were we wanted her to say "in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."  It was super funny.

God led us the entire week

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Bugasong, Panay Island, Philippines

We had a great week - the best of my mission.  I can't really explain how crazy it was.  I really feel like God led us the entire week.  We taught eight more lessons this week than we did last week.  We blew the record out of the water.  Every day was so amazing.  We came home everyday completely beat.  But you know what?!  I am up to date on my laundry.  Let's talk miracles!

after church

On Sunday I went on splits with Elder Dalu.  It is important that I know his area as well.  We visited some difficult less-actives.  Man, they gave us a hard time.  It actually really got to Elder Dalu.  We explained the Sacrament.  They were throwing a fit about it not being wine first of all.  Then they complained that the church throws away the bread after Sacrament Meeting.  "It's holy, you can't just throw it away!"  (Balaan Guid tana, Hindi mo mahaboy tana sa basura!)  Man, we were beside ourselves on how to approach that. 

We wanted to give Sister J and family a baptismal date last Friday, but it wasn't the right situation.  We just taught baptism, and then offered the invitation to be baptized.  She said that she was open to it, but had so many questions that it was impossible to give a date.  She and the family aren't ready for that kind of commitment.  At least we talked about it, though.  They know where it's leading now, even if they don't have a specific date.  They actually asked us "If we are baptized, what is going to be expected of us?"  That's a million dollar question that we really didn't have time to explain.  We will explain it tomorrow.  At first I kind of felt defeated after the lesson.  We had set a goal to give them a date, but failed to.  Later, thinking about it, the lesson was just as effective, even without a date being given.

We also had one of the best Word of Wisdom lessons of my mission.  We had this 21-year-old investigator who has some addictions.  We knew it was going to be a rough commandment for him, so we focused on it in our companionship study.  We decided to first start off talking about faith, and then lead it into obedience, then have a member bring up the word of wisdom.  The lesson ran kind of long, but when we left the investigator understood it well, had committed to stop smoking, and knew how using the gospel he could beat it.  It was awesome.  We even took a picture as "the day he decided to stop." 

Church was dismal.  The speakers and teachers were not prepared.  The teacher in Priesthood was so quiet!  I was literally two chairs away from him, and I could not hear him.

Sacrament was O.K., but lasted only about 30 minutes.  After the sacrament itself there was a five minute primary program, a five minute spiritual thought, then a closing song and prayer.  I was surprised when we went to the closing song.  I was expecting another two speakers.  

Elder Montecer, avoiding the rain

It's been raining pretty hard lately.  In the morning it will be super hot, and then about noon it will rain on us until the evening.  Our shoes and pants have been just covered in mud.  I like the rain because it keeps it pretty cool, but it sure is a mess. I don't know if you guys remember in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" when the guy comes around saying "bring out you dead!"  Anyway, in that scene everything and everyone is just covered in mud.  That's what Bugasong looks like after five straight days of straight. 

Elder Montecer is awesome.  He is from Rizal, Manila.  He went to school to be a welder.  That's a pretty good job here.  He sleeps with his feet in a mosquito net.  We don't need a mosquito net in our apartment, but he can't fall asleep without one because he's so used to it.  It's like his teddy.  Whenever I speak English to him he tells me "Don't English-English me, I am not a school."  He is pretty funny.  He also always says "Patay Tayo Dyen" which basically means "that'll be the death of us."  He always says it while walking on small muddy rice paths.  He always jokes with me that I gave him TB because one day I accidently drank out of his drink.  I thought it was mine, then asked him why he was drinking out of my bottle.  He was like "What are you talking about, this is mine."  I argued with him saying it was mine until he pulled my water bottle out of the fridge and showed it to me.

I don't really have much to write about.  The work is going well. Sister M couldn't come to church because of her stomach ache.  Miguel confused Adam and Eve as the Savior.  I eat rice three times a day.  The couple missionaries made us brownies. 

So anyway, I won’t go to college when I first get home.  I will retake the ACT or SAT, though.  I feel more smarter now anyways.

The Holy Ghost was poured out

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Bugasong, Panay Island, Philippines

This week has been great.  We’ve been having a lot of fun, and it’s all going great.  We’ve for sure seen some miracles.  Just last night, we met a guy named Rolin and his mother.  The mother is a former investigator, and told us how much she loves the church.  We talked with them for like 15 minutes, and we hardly did any talking at all. His mom is now a single parent, and explained that she wants him to be part of our church because she knows that he needs the good influence in his life.  He says he wants to be a missionary just like Elder Montecer and I, and asked what he needs to do!  We explained it’s kind of a long process.

We also had another investigator read until 2 Nephi in between one visit and the next.  I may have already told you about that, but it was awesome.

This week we ate lunch at a resort that a member owns.  She fed us well and we enjoyed it.  Before we ate, we sang karaoke.  It was a bunch of fun.  Karaoke is big here in the Philippines.  I sang “Blowin’ in the wind” and “one love/people get ready.”

This week broke my personal record, and the record for the area.  Elder Montecer and I are doing great! I feel like a few weeks back Heavenly Father led our tracting.  Now a ton of those people we found are progressing and doing very well.  We have a great schedule, and very few appointments are falling through; and if they do, we find something else great to do within a few minutes (visit a less-active, tract a house nearby, and other things like that.)  It’s crazy!  Through our tracting efforts, we are finding less-actives and part member families.

You know how on the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost was poured out onto the apostles?  Well, I feel like that’s been happening to Elder Montecer and me.  Not like we are walking on pure bliss and stuff, but things are going well.  I’ve worked hard my entire mission, but now the work is just exploding!

We had a few people at church.  One person we needed to come didn’t, so that’s a bummer, but some others we didn’t expect did.

One of my favorite investigator here is J.  Her husband died a few years back, and she is a single parent.  I think she is part Ati, but I don’t know for sure.  Anyway, she’s pretty poor, but is one of the happiest people I’ve met here in Bugasong.  Remember the story about two women who were listening to us, and one said she was just listening to be nice but wasn’t interested, then the other llady told us “I don’t know about her, but I’m interested, my family needs this.”  That lady is J.  Her mom is the one who said that she was just being nice.

Anyway, we teach there twice each week, and we teach the whole family.  It’s great.  We never get through much of a lesson, but the spirit is felt and the kids love it and are included.  I love this family because they have it pretty rough, but all pitch in and help.  The oldest kid cooks, and they all clean and work selling veggies in the local market, they all wash their own clothes, etc.  They make it work.  It’s tough, they are busy, but they make ends meet.  Usually, if a family is in a situation as tough as theirs, they’ll say that they don’t have time to listen because they need to put food on the table.  Sister J is different.  She recognizes the spiritual needs of her kids.  She gathers them for us.  After the lessons, she thanks us for the visit wholeheartedly.  It’s just makes me feel great.  Then she waits with us by the road until we can catch a ride.  She has a billion things to do.  I’ve told her that she doesn’t need to wait with us, but she insists on doing so.  The other night I talked with her while waiting.  She told me about the adjustments her family made after the father died.  She wasn’t trying to complain or express how hard she has it - she was just simply telling me about how her family has pulled together.  Man, it just about moved me to tears.  My hat’s off to her.

Sister J and us

I was a little hesitant to invite her to church because I know she is super busy, and it would cost a lot for her family to go.  The spirit told me to go ahead and do it, but it didn’t feel right during the lesson, so I didn’t do it.  After the prayer the spirit gave me the go ahead, and as I shook her hand to leave, I mentioned it to her.  She said “yes” flat out.  I was a little surprised.  I explained a little about church and then that was that.

On Sunday she showed up. She had ridden a bicycle maybe about 10 km. That was great.

Church was great.  I played organ, and we had great speakers.  It’s weird in the Philippines.  The adult speakers do kind of bad, but the youth speakers tear it up.  We had youth speakers this week.

We have a lot of members way out in the bukid.  It’s darn near impossible for them to come to church.  Plus, one of them has son who can’t walk, and one is blind.  Every once in a while there is Sacrament meeting out there in the barangay nursery.  Elder Montecer, the Branch's second counselor, and I conducted the meeting.  The attendance was low because they hadn’t let the people know it was happening.  The people that attended were only the people that we could round up.  I was the sole speaker.  I felt like Joseph Smith, no podium, just teaching to humble people in a not-church.  It was great to have a meeting out there. I could tell those people were happy to have the sacrament.

This week we found a blind less-active member.  I didn’t get to talk to her much, but hope to in the coming week.

We also contacted an old less-active member.  She is bed ridden and doesn’t make much sense when she talks, but it was great to visit her.  She had picture of missionaries from back in the sixties.  Back when they didn’t even have black name tags!

I wrote a song this week. I had about 30 minutes before we had to go back out and work.  I decided to play the guitar for a second.  A song was there when I sat down.  It was pretty cool.

baby snake

We had a baby snake in our house.  Elder Gregerson and I flushed it down the drain.  The other two missionaries wanted to kill it, but we didn’t.

We have an awesome 21-year-old investigator.  He had a bunch of questions about vocab in the introduction of the Book of Mormon.  He wrote down all the words he didn’t understand, then found the answers for himself in the back of the Book of Mormon.  We were way impressed.

TB, and Time Flies

Tuesday, March13, 2012

Bugasong, Panay Island, Philippines

A ton of things happened this week, but I didn't bring my planner, so I don't have anything to jog my memory.  It was another great week, though.  Actually, one part of this week sucked, and I will go ahead and tell you about that. 

Remember how that doctor lady in Iloilo said I have TB?  And how I told her I didn't?  Well, she called Sister Pagaduan again.  Sister called Tuesday night to tell me that I had to go to Iloilo Thursday morning for an appointment.  I was annoyed!  I am so tired of going to the doctors.  I told Sister Pagaduan, "Sister, I can't go to Iloilo, I'm in Antique."  That didn't phase her.  She insisted that I had to go.  So, we set it up that Elder Montecer would stay here and work, and I would go with a ward missionary to Iloilo.  Thursday morning I went to Iloilo.  We rode a hot bus through the mountains.  Right before I left the mission office to go to the doctors, I was informed that if I had Tuberculosis, I would have to take two weeks rest and isolation.  I told Sister Pagaduan that I didn't have it, so we don't need to worry about that. 

When I arrived to see the doctor, she right off the bat claimed that I had TB, and told me all the medicine I need.  She declined to show me the x-ray.  She said "I don't have it; it's in the x-ray room."  She prescribed me 6 months of medicine!

This was something like my sixth visit to this lady.  Each time, she is surprised that I don't have a cough or any other symptoms.  In fact, last time when I asked her why she had prescribed me what she did, she said "for you cough."  The cough I don't have!  I have not missed a day of work for health reasons since September.  This is also the doctor of Sister Danner and Elder Ball.  Those two are now home for medical reasons, and neither of which needed surgery, and Sister Danner didn't have anything as far as I've heard!  So, I don't trust this doctor.

I didn't buy the medicine, and went back to the office.  I asked to speak with President Pagaduan.  It didn't go the way I wanted.  I told him that I didn't want to miss work, and that I didn't trust the doctor.  I told him that I didn't want to go back to the doctor either.  I offered some evidence as to why I didn't trust the doctor.  Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up, but I mentioned Elder Ball and Sister Danner.  He didn't seem to like that.  He did explain that if he allows me not to follow the advice of the doctor, then he would be responsible.  He then mentioned that unless my parents and my stake president signed some form, then he had to make me take the medicine.  He was saying that to show how absurd it is for me not to take the medicine, but I was thinking "Yeah, let's do that!"  As we left his office, he said "Get well soon."  I told him "I feel fine!"  He then pulled me back into the office, and told me that even if I felt fine I could still have TB.  He couldn't tell me if I could work or not, so he directed me back to Sister Pagaduan.

She told me I couldn't work for two weeks. I told her that is ridiculous because I’ve been working forever with no problem.  She said it was just procedure, and said "We follow procedure, don't we Elder Waggoner?"  I told her something like "I don't know, Sister."  She saw that I wasn't open to the idea of taking off work, so she called the area health guy.  He gave me permission to work.  That's sweet!  After that, I submitted to the demands of the mission and bought the medicine.  It was about 4,000 pesos of medicine!  I am taking it, but I don't like to.  I take four pills daily, and it turns my pee orange.   

I hate to be a burden, and I hate to have to visit the doctors, and I already met with both President and Sister, so I'm just doing as they say now.  But man, isn't it stupid to take pills for something that you don't have?  I don’t think the pills are too harmful.  The label said that it may cause liver failure.  That's not too bad, huh? 

It's true that I may have TB in a very mild form.  That's possible, but I'm not convinced because last November or so I got a shot to see if I had TB and it came out negative.  How about that?  It's kind of frustrating.

Maybe I need a second doctor’s opinion?  However, I would hate to miss more work for it, and I would hate to bug Sister some more.  I don't want to seem rebellious to them - which is weird because I never cared about that before.  Maybe I should just let it drop and take the pills, and then this all will be over.

That was the annoying part of this week, but there were good parts. 

Tibiao

We broke my personal record for the work. The area is on fire.  Although we struck out for investigators at church, it was an awesome week for less-actives at church.  Usually, we have about six priesthood at church.  This week we had about 25!  It was awesome! 

We saw an interesting change in one of our less-active members. The first few times we met with him, he didn't seem to care too much, but this week he came to church.  When we met with him after church, he was listening and intent and seemed excited.  As we left, he gave us star apples.

Elder Dalu

This week I went on splits with Elder Dalu in his part of the area.  We went way up north to Tibiao.  There are some members and less-actives and investigators up there.  It's way cool up there.  We got to see two islands off the coast.  Apparently they have pure white sand beaches.  They don't speak Kinaray-a.  I guess they speak some more tribal language.  The work with Elder Dalu went great.  I went on splits with him in my first area and it didn't go so well, but this time it was different.  We worked in unity and had a great time. 

Some of old ladies just love us missionaries - especially the white missionaries who speak Kinaray-a.  They usually just love to make us feel comfortable and talk to us, but this one lady in Dalu's area takes the cake!  She gave me like 10 pieces of "uga" (sun dried salty fish) and a gantang or rice! (a lot of rice.)  It was way overly nice, but I had to take it.  She gave it to me mid-lesson.  In fact, she was a neighbor and interrupted the lesson to give it to me.  I then related it to the lesson.  Some people are too nice here.  It's like that Josh Ritter song "Best for the Best."  Or like the "widows mite" from the New Testament.  It's way more meaningful when people give from their poverty. 

Elders Montecer & Waggoner

Elder Montecer and I are doing great.  He'll probably transfer really soon now.  Bummer. 

Sister Lyman goes home this transfer, and the other sisters from my batch the next transfer.  I just found out that I might go home October 11.  I'm hearing a lot of things, so I don't know for certain what the final schedule will be.  We'll find out when we find out. 

It's funny.  Every time I feel like I've reached my potential, I find that I have so much more to do.  For instance, I used to think "If I could only work this way, it would be sweet."  But now that I'm working the way I wanted, I've got so many more things to apply.  Actually, at the end of this week, I felt like I had finished climbing the mountain and wanted another challenge.  It was kind of like "this area is now doing well, what's next?"  Of course there is a ton more I need to do, but the really challenging part is over.  Now that the area is on its feet, the work is more about the “enduring to the end” part and harvesting.  I was kind of bummed, but today in zone meeting I learned a bunch more stuff that I need to apply. 

It's been that way my entire mission.  Just as I can speak well in one language, I'll transfer and need to learn another.  Just as I know all the members, I'll transfer.  As soon as I get comfortable, God will throw me a curve ball of a companion or something.  I was afraid that I'd get sick of being on a mission after a while - you know, get tired of the same thing day in and day out - but it hasn’t turned out that way.  There are always enough curve balls to keep things interesting.