it was a nice lift

Monday, September 17, 2012

Molo, Iloilo City, Philippines

Many names in this blog are changed to protect privacy, and any editor comments are italicized in purple.

Life is pretty alright.  I just had myself a good p-day.

Last Tuesday was zone meeting, which meant we didn’t have District Meeting, which meant I didn't have to prepare a lesson.  I was happy because I usually spend my Monday evenings skipping writing in my journal, and spend it making a lesson plan.  I was happy to relax and just enjoy the meeting.  It went pretty well.  At one point I had to stand up and do an accounting of the work in my district.  I did that, and then I said "Now, to show my love for my district, I would like to sing a little song."  It was at this point last zone meeting that Elder Light took the mic away from me, but this time I got to really do it.  "District I love you, district I do, Father in Heaven has sent me to you; When I am near you, I love to hear you, whisper so softly that you love me too.  Elders Nunez and Domincel and Galloway and Johnson and Maneateata and Foshee and Advincula, I love you, I do."  (This is an adaptation of a song that Elder Waggoner’s mother sometimes sang to him and his siblings at bedtime.)  There was not a dry eye in the place.  Just kidding.

The following day was a district leaders’ training meeting.  It was pretty good.  I had a lot of fun, and I got to catch up with Elder Lowry.  He's having a good time on Guimaras.  He says that Elder Sefeti is still pretty Kinaray-a.  Apparently people on Guimaras think it's way funny to hear Kinaray-a.  I learned a bit at the training, and got to participate quite a bit.  Sister Pagaduan even called on me to help everyone wake up.  I decided to lead the 16 of us in a round of the Hokey Pokey.  Sister also told me that she is glad I am extending. 

The meeting ended at 3:30, and we were out working at 4:00.  As we were leaving our apartment and getting to the main road, a car pulled over to us.  It was President and Sister.  They said "Get in we will give you a ride."  They drove us about 100 yards before we all realized we were headed different directions.  It was a nice lift though.

On Thursday we got a call from the office asking us to take an elder with us for a couple of hours.  His name is Elder Turner.  He's from the same batch as Elder Maneateata, so he doesn't really know what's going on in lessons yet.  It was alright, but it wasn't too smooth to bring two elders who don't know what's going on in the lessons.  One of them fell asleep!  I remember what it was like to walk around all day in the heat and not know what was going on.  Those poor guys.  Elder Turner worked with us until 3:00 p.m. that day.

Danielle is doing great.  We had a lesson about temples with her the other day, and she just loved it.  She is attending institute, which is something I'd hate to do, but I'm glad she is.  She has a goal to go to the temple in October, and she was confirmed this past Sunday.  She is way solid.  She may be the most solid convert I've taught.  She was just so ready. 

Since I've arrived here, we've been teaching four girls, all about 19 years old.  They are Jessa, Maria, Isabel and Angel.  Jessa and Isabel are members, but Isabel is less active.  Angel joins the lessons sometimes, but mostly listens because we're cute.  Maria used to be a great investigator, and was so close to getting baptized.  She's still doing well, but in the past she was on fire.  We are currently trying to get her on fire again.  She's having a rough time with her family persecuting her a bit, but she thinks they'll understand sooner or later.  Anyway, this last week I decided it would be a good idea to talk about the atonement again, but talk about it more in depth.  Yeah, bad idea.  Man, it confused them so badly.  I wish we hadn't taught that lesson.  We ended pp somehow getting into Pre-mortal Christ.  It was lame.  The lesson a few days later was a lot better though.

We've been kind of punted lately.  People in the city flake from plans so often, it is unpredictable sometimes.  We set awesome plans, we coordinate with members, have everything arranged, and then one lesson falls through, and then the next, and then they all fall through.  It is so inconvenient.  I knew I had this coming because back in Antique, I told Elder Sefeti that patience is a waste of time.  Now God is showing me what he thinks of that comment

Church was all right.  We had two investigators there.  I got to teach the investigators class.  We talked about faith.  Elders Galloway and Johnson had two investigators there, too.  They were some die hard Catholics, and really enjoyed the lesson.  After church we had a pretty good correlation with the bishop, and Danielle joined the ward choir!

Later that afternoon we were teaching a family when I heard shouts and crying, and the sound that a piece of bamboo makes against skin.  At first I let it go, but then it just got more intense.  I stuck my head out the window, and saw a 14-year-old girl beating a four-year-old for "lying to her."  I interrupted the lesson to call to her to stop.  Elder Maneateata didn't think I should do so, and told me it wasn't our business.  I ignored him.  I went over to the house after the lesson and told the girl never to do it again. 

I have only two months left.  That's weird.  I can't believe that time has gone this fast.  I'm kind of ready to move on and do other things, but at the same time I feel that I am just getting good at this whole mission thing.  I don't know.  Elder Lowry goes home in three weeks.  Weird.  I plan to keep working and finish strong, but still have fun.  I got my x-rays today - the ones you have to get before you go home.  Pretty soon, I’ll receive my flight plans!  It's just plain weird.

Our work area is way flooded.  I asked President if we could use mission funds to buy a canoe; he hasn't gotten back to me yet.

another interesting week

Monday, September 10, 2012

Molo, Iloilo City, Philippines

Many names in this blog have been changed to protect privacy.  The italicized, purple text are the editor’s comments.

We had another interesting week, with lots of ups and downs.  The work in Molo is unpredictable.  In Bugasong, we had three separate routes that we followed twice each week.  This place has no route, and I have never seen a day go as planned.  The twists and turns are ridiculous -  I wonder why we plan.  One day we'll teach eight lessons, and the things will go great, then the next day we'll teach only one lesson!  This week, our timing was bad every day except Sunday.  For instance, we worked from 1pm - 9 pm on Wednesday and taught three lessons.  Sunday, we worked from 4-8:30 and got 5! 

My district meeting this last week was kind of boring.  We covered the material, but I just didn't seem to make it interesting.  I was pretty prepared, too.  Maybe most of us were just hung over from P-day? 

After district meeting, I went on splits with Elder Naylor in my area.  He was here to interview Danielle for baptism.  She frequently needs to change her schedule, and she changed the time of the interview about eight times before it happened.  The interview went fine, and she passed easily.  Also, she kept on joking around with Elder Naylor, pretending she had done serious crime in the third grade and stuff like that.  After each joke, she would admit she was just messing with him and then shoot him straight.  He and I did some good work together.  He's from Salt Lake City.

On Wednesday I did an interview in Elder Foshee's area.  This investigator used to be mine when we worked together.  Her name is Kiara.  She was way solid even back when I was teaching her.  The interview went about an hour, and it turns out that Elder Foshee was nervous because it went so long.  We discussed a lot of stuff like serving the church, sacrifice, and missionary work.  We also talked about her father, who just passed away.  It was my favorite interview ever.  I've been so lucky as a district leader.  I get to interview all the people whose testimony just got sparked, and is burning like a roman candle.  I walk out of those interviews wanting to be a better person. 

This last week we had a great lesson with a person who was referred by Danielle.  We brought a convert of about a year with us.  Danielle was there too.  It was awesome.  Basically, I just asked these two about the restoration and then the Book of Mormon, and how they came to know it was true.  I just filled in what they omitted.  Elder Bednar showed us how to do that in his training last week, and it was awesome to do it.  It wasn't a testimony meeting, but more testimony was said in that lesson then a typical 1st Sunday of the month in sacrament meeting.  After the lesson, we were all just so stoked.  We haven't been able to visit him again yet.  We hope to later tonight.  It will be an interesting follow up lesson.

Many evenings, we meet up with some other elders at a local gas station.  It's a nice American-style gas station.  We talk about things.  Elder Galloway and his companion are usually there, and sometimes Elders Foshee and Advincula.  It's just a nice time.  Last Wednesday, we finished our work kind of early and decided to hit up Caltex for some food.  When we arrived, Elder Galloways and Johnson were there too.  We talked for a good hour, just telling crazy mission stories.  We had Elder Maneateata rolling on the floor. 

Leading up to the baptism was super stressful.  Some things weren’t being completed on the ward’s side, and after some lame exchanges of text messages, I went ahead and texted the bishop.  I told him what still needed to be done before the baptism.  The bishop followed up on things, and for the most part the baptism went ok. 

One problem we encountered was that it was Danielle’s semi-final volleyball game at the exact same time as the baptism.  She chose the baptism, but only after a member had talked to her.  I think she kind of got cold feet about it.  It’s a good thing our member was there.  Then she showed up a bit late to the baptism, which is completely acceptable in this country.  The person responsible for her baptismal clothing hadn’t checked on it, even though we reminded him.  The only suit that fit Danielle was broken.  The zipper wouldn't go up.  So we spent a while trying to fix that, and then decided to just go buy safety pins.  After obtaining those, we ran into the Mandurrioa Elders who had a baptism at our chapel directly after ours.  There ward mission leader had brought all the baptismal suits from his ward, so he saved us.  The only problem now was there baptism was supposed to be at 5:00, and ours was just now starting and it was 4:30. 

Everyone was taking their sweet time during the service.  Sister Danielle was stressed because she was missing her semi-final game, and I was stressed because there is baptism starting right after ours.  Still, it was a nice service anyway.  Elder Maneateata and I sang "How Great thou Art."  It was good.  Elder Maneateata has such a smooth baritone voice, and I managed to get some treble in mine.  It was nice.  We sing together a lot. 

Church on Sunday was heartbreaking.  It was the first time months that I've struck out.  We had no investigators at church, and not only that, but Sister Danielle showed up to late for sacrament that she wasn't able to get confirmed.  Danielle is one of the most solid converts of my mission.  She has a great testimony, but she has her clock set for the wrong time zone.  I felt like dying, but I guess she'll get confirmed next week.  Man, do I feel stupid reporting that I had one baptism and zero confirmed!  Only in the Philippines! 

The work that afternoon went extremely well.  After a good meal and some good lessons, I got over my Sunday-worship-induced depression.  We had maybe one of the most effective days of work I've ever had in Molo.  We taught a new less-active we found.  She has been a real prodigal daughter and feels way bad, and is super shy to come back to church.  We talked about repentance.  It was a pretty weird second lesson, but it was a great lesson.  She really opened up to us so we were able to really teach to her needs.

Another lesson was with a less-active family that we inherited from another set of missionaries.  There was a complication, and President suggested that we teach them.  I didn't really know where to start, so we talked with them for a while.  I still didn't know what to share, so we had a testimony meeting.  We all bored a short testimony.  After that, I knew what we should teach about.  We talked about how trials build our faith.

Another lesson was with Maria, and Holy Grace was there too.  We talked about 1 Nephi 3-4, but really drifted into different subjects.  We also discussed Ether 12, showing how we receive "no witness until after the trial of faith."  Then, to make things super clear, we talked about "faith without works is dead."  One part of the lesson was way good.  She had drifted kind of far from us when she got a job, but she realizes she isn't as happy and wants to get back to where she used to be.  We have an appointment with her again tomorrow night.

a very busy week

Monday, September 3, 2012

Molo, Iloilo City, Philippines

Many names in this blog have been changed to protect privacy.  The italicized, purple text are the editor’s comments.

This was transfer week, and because Molo is by the mission office, we see a lot of things go down.  It’s an exciting and stressful scene, and with Elder Bednar’s visit this last week, that added a whole new level of excitement and stress. 

Last Monday, we visited a member of ours in the hospital.  I think this was his third stroke.  His name is brother Sanz.  I may have told you about him before.  He's a really less-active member.  He's actually been pretty rude to us a few times, but I think that's because he's a cranky old man, and not because we did anything wrong.  So, we let that slide.   Well, we figured it was a good idea to bring the guitar and sing to him.  When we arrived, and finally found him, it wasn’t even visiting hours.  They let us visit him anyway because we were two white guys in a dress shirts and ties, and we are carrying a guitar.  We sang him two hymns that we thought would put him in good spirits.  It worked.  We sang “Count Your Many Blessings" and "Sunshine in my Soul."  Maybe he liked them a little much and we sang them a little too well.  It attracted the attention of a lot of nurses, and then Brother Sanz started to laugh.  Laughing is normally great, but I just learned that it’s not so great after a stroke.  He coughed and choked, and then we had to tone it down before the nurses chased us out.  All in all, we felt good about it.

Later that night we had a really fun FHE.  The other Elders came too, which made it a blast.  We had the FHE over at Holy Grace's house, and two investigators and a less-active were there.  The lesson was a little lame because people weren't all that into it yet.  But everyone got really into the games.  We got pretty loud I guess, and some neighbors came by to see what was going on.  We had a ton of fun.  Later that night, we got a text from one of our investigators saying that she hadn’t thought she could have that much fun that way. 

District Meeting on Tuesday morning went really well.  We talked about solving concerns using the Book of Mormon.  I used as many Elder Bednar quotes as I could.  I was trying to get my already anxious district more excited (or stressed) about Elder Bednar coming.  He was arriving a few minutes after District Meeting. 

Elder Bednar was great.  It was a very spiritual three hours, but it didn't seem like three hours.  It was too quick.  He talked about asking good questions and helping investigators find answers for themselves instead of just giving it to them.  He talked about faith and learning through the power of the Holy Ghost.  He talked about a lot of things that I felt the mission needed.  I don't mean to sound cocky, but for a long time now I've been saying a lot of the things he talked.  It was cool to see him talk about it.  The last hour was just questions.  He advised us to only ask good questions.  So that meant I had no questions.  When he answered people's question, he usually answered them through the scriptures.  He had people read them, and explained the scriptures.  He didn't just answer questions straight.

After the closing prayer, we were all really happy and reverent, and we each stayed put, waiting to be called up to shake hands with him.  It was very reverent, and we were still feeling the spirit.  Then out of the blue the unthinkable happened.  Some sister missionary stood up and asked at the top of her lungs "Elder Bednar!  Joseph Smith saw God the Father and the Son!  Have you seen God the Father and the So?"  I can't imagine what was going through that brain of hers.  Elder Bendar said "I will not answer your question."  What followed was the epitome of awkward silence. 

The next day I worked with Elder Soderquist and Elder Romanillios.  The latter replaced me as companion with Elder Sefeti.  They were in town picking up their new trainees, and they worked with me.  We did some good work, and it was a blast working with two extremely good missionaries.  We ended up doing a lot of tracting, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  We worked hard.  Near the end of the day, Elder Romanillios made a remark something like "Now I know what Elder Sefeti was talking about."  I asked what he meant.  He said that Elder Sefeti complained a bit about how hard I worked him.  That made me feel good.

Later that night, Elder Sefeti slept at the Molo apartment, and I asked him about it.  He said something like "Yeah, you always made me so tired!"  Again, that made me feel good.

Earlier in the day Wednesday, I got a call from the A.P. asking me if I could put 12 missionaries to work in my district.  I kind of did, but they mostly did it by themselves.  We had elders working in every area in the district, just tracting and meeting people.  It turned out to be a good success.  We got a list of eleven people to go and follow up with.  We've only had time to find two of them so far, though. 

It would be nice to be on Guimaras right now.  Some of my favorite elders are there.  Elders Light, Loe (in Sibunag), Elder Quinantoto (ZL in Jordan), and Lowry (senior of Elder Sefeti.) 

Elders Waggoner & Maneateata

My new companion is Elder Maneateata.  He's from Kiribati.  A small group of islands somewhere.  He's way nice, and not too great at English.  He wakes up early every morning and plays my guitar.  He sings some awesome island songs in his language.  I can't think of a better way to wake up.  We have hard time communicating, but it's all good.  He really likes mango smoothies, and we've had maybe three each day.  Yesterday was hard for him because we were fasting, and it was Sunday, so he couldn't get any.  I am super happy that's he's my last companion.  It will be super easy to "endure to the end" with him.  The ward already likes him.  He smiles really big, and is just happy.  He is the only member in his family, and was baptized in 2008.  There is no electricity on his island.  Anyway, he's cool.

Elder Manwill is in Passi. 

I took Elder Maneateata out for Arroz Caldo.  He didn't like it.  He wouldn't say he didn't like it, but he only had a few bites. 

Danielle is doing great.  She gave us an awesome referral too.  She's going to be baptized this Saturday.  We are hoping her member friend can do it, but if not it will be Elder Maneateata's first.  Anyway, things are going great.  We did have a bit of hic-up Saturday night.  A concerned member told us that Danielle has recently entered a relationship with another girl.  I laughed at them.  They didn't laugh back.  They were dead serious.  It didn't make sense in my head.  We clearly went over the law of chastity with her, and she had no problems.  I told the members that it's probably just a joke, and we don't need to worry about it.  They said that I needed to make sure.

We talked to her the next day after church.  Like I thought, it was a joke.  If the member had told me all they really knew, then I would have been able to tell that it was a joke.  She says she’s engaged to another girl on her Facebook.  If I had known that before, I wouldn't have had to worry about it.  It felt stupid asking an investigator about a rumor that started on her Facebook page, but it was alright.

We finally got to teach Maria last night!  She's been so busy with her new job that she had stopped progressing entirely.  Then she felt bad, and started not texting back.  We finally got to meet with her.  She told us that she wanted to more or less put us on the backburner because her life is too hectic right now.  I've never really been a bold missionary, but yesterday I was.  We used Alma 32, and explained what would happen to her faith if she continued on the path she was on.  We also talked about some spiritual lessons we've had in the past.  We talked about how far she's come, and how she can't just throw it away.  By the end of the lesson she said she'd start having us over at least twice a week no matter how busy her schedule was.  She's also having some persecution from her family about it.  Holy Grace helped us with that one.  She went through that too when she joined the church. 

Church yesterday was O.K.  Two investigators came, but only right before the last meeting, which was Sacrament.  My new comp bore his testimony and told the ward he loved them.  The ward was heart struck.  They seem to really be taking him in.

This morning we woke up at 5:30 and played basketball.  I hate waking up early nowadays, but Elder Maneateata wanted to play basketball, so we did.  We ended up having a real good time.

I just barely we caught lunch with Elder Johnson and Elder Galloway.  It was Elder Johnson’s birthday.  We ate a lot of pizza.

This week I have seen a ton of elders come and go at my apartment.  The departing missionaries slept there Sunday night.  A ton of people slept there Tuesday night in preparation for Elder Bednar.  The new missionaries slept there Wednesday night.  By the time I brought Elder Maneateata home on Thursday, the place was a mess.  We got to clean it today. 

the Bronx of Iloilo

Monday, August 27, 2012

Molo, Iloilo City, Philippines

Many names in this blog are changed to protect privacy, and the editor's comments appear in italicized purple text.  

You may not be aware of this, but Molo is like the Bronx of Iloilo city.  It's crowded and loud, but we make it work.

Last week in district meeting, I taught about resolving concerns with prayer.  I don't know how it is in Argentina and Holland (Mom’s and Dad’s missions), but people here have a difficult time learning to pray.  Some people will pray like they aren't even talking to god.  They will use the word naton instead of namon.  Naton includes the person you are talking to, but namon doesn't.  So, when somebody says “amay naton sa langit" it means our father in heaven.  The our includes the person you're talking to.  They don't even understand that prayer is really communication with God.  Also, they pray to Mary, and think they can only pray in church, and they use a rosary or the recite memorized prayers.  It’s an uphill battle for prayer in the Philippines.

In district meeting, we practiced resolving concerns about prayer.  I had three more experienced missionaries role play like they were investigators, each with a different challenge with prayer.  We had everyone rotate stations, and afterward we evaluated how we had done.  Some people really got into their characters. I had Elder Galloway act like someone who was super fancy, but not sincere in his prayers.  He got way into it.  He might have bordered on sacrilegious, but we run into all these things a lot so it was appropriate

There are once again a ton of people in my district.  The replacements for the office are already here.  The district had 11 people last week, but this week it may have 15.  Elder Bednar is coming tomorrow, and I teach district meeting at the same chapel as the mission office.  So yeah, if that happens I'll tell you how that goes.  Pray for me.

On Tuesday, I went to Mandurriao and did some baptismal interviews.  Elders Light and Christianson are baptizing a family of eight.  The DL of Mandurriao interviewed four, and I interviewed the other four.  I was so cool.  This family was super prepared.  It was quite a spiritual experience interviewing these people.  I interviewed the father.  He gave up alcohol and some other things in order to be baptized.  It made me think “How can it be that I'm the one who interviews people for baptism?”  Anyways, they all passed.

We got our apartment checked Wednesday morning.  Having had some unpleasant experiences in the past, I was a little uneasy about getting checked.  I was ready to fight to the death to keep my UNO cards.  I didn't need to.  The Dyers, a senior couple from Guimaras, were super nice.  The only problem was our fridge.  We joked around a bit with them, too.  They asked us what kind of clean up stuff we used.  I told them muriatic acid.  They said that muriatic acid is a little too strong for most clean up jobs.  I told them we let it get so dirty that muriatic acid is the only thing that can do the job. 

On Wednesday night we got punted, so we went to visit one of our favorite members, Holy Grace.  We talked to her about the joys of serving a mission.  She said she wants to.  We went over Section 4 in D&C with her.  Elder Manwill had a good time.

After the lesson about missionary work with Holy Grace, we had something funny happen.  We were walking home and found a poor baby kitten in the middle of a busy road.  I hate cats, but we did what we needed to save it.  When Elder Manwill put it down, it cried.  Then it walked over to him.  It obviously had no momma.  We debated about what to do with it.  I said it was ok to bring it home until we can find a home for it.  Elder Manwill didn't want to break the rules in the least bit, so we decided to run back to Holy Grace's and ask her to take it.  She thought we were weird.  She didn't want to take it.  We had her hold it real quick and then we ran.  We laughed all the way home. 

She put the cat in an abandoned house by her place.  I guess there are a bunch of other cats there too.  She named the cat Wagwill. 

Our investigator Danielle is doing super well.  We reviewed the Ten Commandments with her.  We talked to her about not praying to statues and stuff.   She asked us "but what about Catholics?  I was raised Catholic."  I was about to explain how we have to change in order to follow God’s commandments, but she cut me off "I'm just kidding.  I'm going to be LDs on the 8^th."  Man, she's funny. 

On Friday I went on splits with Elder Light for the last time on my mission.  He's going home in October, and transferring this week. I enjoyed being with Elder Light, but it was one of the hardest days of my mission.  Man, we got so punted.  I had texted everyone the night before, so I had a pretty solid schedule.  If the day would have gone as planned it would have been excellent, but it didn't.  In fact, only one of our lessons actually pulled through!  It was insane.  We had to resort to tracting!  And we didn't just have the lesson fall through.  We had investigators drop us!  We had some sweet investigators, and they straight up dropped us!  I was bummed.  Three in total!  Man.  I was devastated that day – just so out of it.

At one point in the day I hopped on the wrong jeep!  My mind was in some other place.  We had one appointment at 6:00 that I was so stoked for!  It was another one with Danielle.  We had set it up to teach her at the church.  She asked to be taught at 7:00, so we changed it to then. Then the fellowshipper bailed on us.  We tried to find someone else, but all the people her age were at institute.  Then we get to the church and they were locking up because seminary ended early.  The only people there were from the other ward, so I couldn't borrow a key.  We texted her and cancelled with her.  At that point my mood turned sour.  We just walked off in the direction of backup plan #123.  

On the way we ran into Danielle.  She said it's ok to teach her wherever, so we decided to take her to Holy Grace’s.  (I had texted Holy Grace, but she hadn’t texted back).  We just showed up, and Holy Grace was cool with it.  Also, Maria was there.  She’s a super awesome investigator that recently got a job and has become difficult to get a hold of, so that was sweet.  We taught them all the law of chastity.  There were some local male young adult riff raffs that joined in too.  They caused some problems with their laughing and taunting questions about condoms and stuff like that.  Elder Light and I didn't get aggravated, but Holy Grace got a little embarrassed.  Danielle met every taunt of theirs with a quick witted reply.  Man, it was cool to watch.  Usually distractions like that suck, but this time it was good.  It was cool to see Maria and Danielle stand up for what we had taught them.

We ate at the Indian food place on Saturday.  We talked about Elder Manwill going senior, and me training again.  The food was good, and the conversation was great. 

Right now my district consist of Elders Manwill, Foshee, Vennard, Lado, Advencula, Nunez, Galloway, Loe, Domincel, Johnson, and me. 

Church was lame.  We kind of expected it because of how bad the week had gone.  I felt like I was serving a mission in Germany or something.  Danielle came, so that was sweet, but no one else did.  We had four less-active members that we thought were going to come!  If they had come, they would have now been counted as active.  Because they didn't come, we have to restart the count again. 

I'm fine.  I'm happy, but we did have a sucky week.  I'm sad to have a new missionary come right now when the area is like this.  I'm going to try get it back up and running as quickly as possible, though. 

Yesterday was nice though.  We had some appointments pull through, and got fed at the Katipunan's house.  I talked with the father about raising kids.  He taught his many kids how to use the potty.  I've taught my first kid how to speak Kinaray-a, and when my next one arrives, I'll teach him Ilonggo. 

We had departing missionaries come sleep at our house last night.  They are scared to go home.  They mostly just talked about working hard now because it ends real soon.

We went with a bunch of them to a member’s house here in Molo.  They fed us to within an inch of our lives.  I ate a lot because I could. 

A little bird told me (naghutik ang isa ka pispis sa akon) that I'm training another Polynesian.  It could be Elder Sefeti's cousin!  Really. 

Dako means big

Monday, August 20, 2012

Molo, Iloilo City, Philippines

Last week's P-day was nice.  We went to the Iloilo City museum.  I learned a lot.  There was some real cool stuff there.  I don't think I would have appreciated the place as much if I had recently arrived in the mission.  Now, being a seasoned, well-traveled guy, the stuff had more meaning for me.  I've been to most of the places it talks about.  There was one section about the island of Panay in WWII, another section on how the Ati lived before the Apanish took over, a part about Spanish Imperialism, and then a part about Chinese business.  It was pretty cool.  I like history and museums, and haven't been able to learn history or go to museums in years now.

Last week’s district meeting was on the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion.  I had thoroughly prepared.  The lesson went well, but not as well as I had hoped.  I sometimes feel like doing district meeting for the office elders is more of a hassle for them than a blessing.  They've got a billion things to do.  Plus, their weekly meeting with President, where they report on their jobs, is directly after district meeting so I'm doubt they are excited for it.  I try and make it interesting.  I brought candles and we passed the Holy Ghost to each other.  (Yes Dad, I got that from your Christmas story.)  We held candles during the closing song, which I was hoping was going to be reverent.  Some people just raised the candles and acted like they were at a concert.  I was a little frustrated.  It was still a good lesson, and I can't complain.  How many dozens of school teachers, Sunday School teachers, and seminary teachers have put in a ton of effort to teach me, and I just acted like it was game. Yeah, I've got no right to complain.

This week we had a relatively of recent convert work with us.  Most of my mission, we've just had a young man work with us for five hours, and whichever lessons he was there for were our lessons with a member present.  In the city, we can do it differently.  We have members meet us for one appointment at a specific time.  This week we had a lesson with an investigator named Danielle at the church at 6:30 pm.  Her peers were all at institute over in Jaro, so we were up the creek.  Elder Manwill suggested we ask Holy Grace to come.  She was thrilled to be invited.  She works a lot, takes care of her dad, and isn't heavily involved in church, but she has a great testimony and loves the church.  We ran over the lesson with her before Danielle came.  We taught the atonement, and gave Holy Grace the part about the garden of Gethsemane and spiritual death.  We practiced it a few times, and then during the lesson she nailed it.  The lesson was great, but I think the best part was having Holy Grace teach with us.  She says she wants to serve a mission.  She's 19. 

On Wednesday we met the San Padro barangay captain.  We volunteered to do a service project with his barangay.  Next week we are going to clean up trash from the bank of the river. 

Our landlord is Brother Dako.  "Dako" in ilonggo literally means big, and Bro Dako lives up to the name.  He enjoys the missionaries, and he'll always talk to us while we to laundry and stuff.  Whenever he sees us, he tries to have an hour long conversation with us.  He's a funny guy, but sometimes we've don't have the time to talk to him.  He really wants us to play majong with him, and even put a majong table in our house so we'd play with him.  We told him "if we had time."  So on Tuesday, Elder Manwill and I played "speed" together right after lunch.  He killed me, but I acted like I was killing him.  I was pretty loud, and the next thing I know, Brother Dako is calling us.  "Hey, are you playing cards right now?!  I'll be right over.”  Elder Manwill and I looked at each other.  We said "O.K., but only for a little bit."  So, there we are playing majong with our landlord when we are supposed to be doing personal study.  After about an hour, I told him that we have to stop now, and that we have stuff we have to do.  I had told him that we were going to have to end about 30 minutes earlier, but he just kept on pushing the game.  Majong is cool, but I'll wait until I'm home to get good at it. 

We joined choir this week.  Truly, we got drafted.  Usually I'd rather just work than do ward activities, but we felt like it was good way to build relationships with the ward.  Also, we sang "Come Thou Fount" which is one of my favorites.  We rehearsed Tuesday and Saturday night.  We needed the practice because we didn't have much talent.  On Sunday at Ward Conference it went well though. 

I went on splits with Elder Vennard this week.  We did some good work, and in the evening he taught me some music theory about passing chords.  I went on splits with Elder Vennard back when I was in San Juaquin and it was interesting to compare and see how far we’ve come since then.

Saturday I went on splits with Elder Galloway.  He'll be pretty busy soon because transfers are coming up, so I went ahead and got it out of the way.  While working with him, he had to take a few calls from President, and we had to run to the office twice.  We still did good work.  We got punted pretty hard, though.  Most of the big appointments fell through, so we only got to do our back up plans.  Also, we got a surprise call from the Mindoriao elders.  They couldn't do their baptism in their area because they had no water, so I helped then get it all set up for doing it in Molo.  The hardest part was running around trying to find a key in the heat of the day.  It took us an hour and half to locate a key and pick it up.  By the time we got to the church to open it up, we were sweating from head to toe.  The Ward mission leader of Mindoriao wasn't there yet, so we started cleaning out the baptismal font for them.  It was disgusting.  To repay us for our sacrifice, Elder Light brought us burgers.

Sunday after church we got punted like I've never been punted in my life.  We got punted 16 times!  We went to everyone in our area.  All of the members went to the 85th birthday celebration broadcast of President Monson, and all our investigators were at the new boardwalk that just opened up here in Iloilo.  We had nobody to teach.  Usually, if we get punted, we go and buy a soda.  Since it was Sunday, we couldn't even do that!  We eventually got a lesson at 7:30 with our recent convert Faye.  She is now enrolled in seminary!  So that's pretty sweet. 

Church was nice.  It was reverent.  The stake president is boss.  He gives some of the best talks ever.  He actually talked about reverence for his talk.  That's the same subject I talked about 6 weeks earlier.

We played soccer this morning.

Yesterday after church we got invited to a birthday party.  Maria, of one of our investigators, has a baby brother that turned one.  We were happy to go because we had not yet met her family.  We tried our best to make a good impression.  It was difficult, though, because there was a lot of drinking.  They fed us to within a inch of our lives.  People don't really know what to say to two white guys, so they just say "here, eat more."  We'd rather talk, but we didn't have a choice in the matter.  We left full. 

. . .died of dysentery

Monday, August 13, 2012

Molo, Iloilo City, Philippines

I have been suffering from a very upset stomach.  I would not be surprised to learn that I have something, but the jury is still out.  It's been killing me for a few days now.  If it lasts another day, I'll tell Sister Pagagduan, but I don't want to be diagnosed with liver failure, so I'm not going to tell Sister about it yet.  I think she'd do this:

1. Tell me to drink water

2. Tell me to take Pepto Bismol

3. Get me a doctor’s appointment

4. Tell me not to work for x amount of days

Then the #3 of that would say

1. Drink water

2. Take these 50 drugs for 5,000 pesos

3. Come back in three days

Then, three days later the doctor would say

1. You've got liver failure

2. Buy these drugs for 6,000 pesos

So instead of all that, I'll just drink water and take Pepto Bismol.

We had a good Family Home Evening last Monday.  We were super stoked about it.  It was with a really strong member family, and we had invited a ton of investigators and less-actives from their area.  When it came time to do it, we went to round up everyone, but no one was to be found.  Only one investigator attended, and she felt out of place.  That was a bummer.  We tried to make it as fun as possible so the lady would forget that she felt out of place.  We succeeded, I think.  We had a lot of fun.  Afterwards, when we ate the snacks and were just talking, the parents of the family were talking to only us and not to our investigator.  They were asking us about how we like Filipino girls and stuff like that.  It wasn't too fun. 

That investigator avoided us the last two times we went to their house. We don't know what is up.  

Zone meeting is now three hours long.  As a DL, I stand and give a report on how my district is doing.  I stood up front and said a few things, and then said "And now to show you the love I have for the district, I will now song a song . . ."  I was about to go sing "district I love you . . . district I do . . . father in heaven has sent me to you . . ." but Elder Light grabbed the mike from me and said “O.K., we'll stop you there.”  Afterwards he said he didn't want me to sing because President Pagaduan was there.  It was funny either way though. 

We went over the Sermon on the Mount with one of our investigators, Maria.  She has gotten through all the missionary lessons, so now we are teaching additional lessons.  We’ve expanded on things like forgiveness and charity.  Most people here know Jesus died on the cross, but that's about it.  They have no idea what Jesus' teachings really are.  They know he's "our savior" the same way I know George Washington is a founding father, but don't really know much about him.  I am really happy to do stuff like read Jesus' teaching with investigators.  I don't feel like we get to do that enough as missionaries. 

We gave out two more baptismal dates this week, one of which was to a gay kid.  He's not quite making some promised changes, but he is at least reading the scriptures and stuff.  He didn't show up for church yesterday. 

We also gave one to our investigator Noel.  He's doing really well.  He's reading and understands why he needs to get baptized and stuff.  In the last lesson we had with him, he gave a great closing prayer.  He asked for help to make his goal of October 6.  We set a ways off cause he'll have some Word of Wisdom stuff to take care of.

I fasted yesterday.  I don't know if that's a great thing to do when you're dealing with diarrhea, but I got through it okay.  Between fasting and diarrhea, I was pretty dead during church.  After church and lunch in Arevalo, I got super sick.  We only did one lesson yesterday because I was feeling so sick.  I'm doing better now, but this morning was pretty bad. 

In fact, during that one lesson we did yesterday, I felt super bad.  We decided to go out and get that lesson because it's not far from our house.  It's good that's all we tried because after the lesson we had to run back to the house.

I totally understand how people died from this stuff back in the day.  Dysentery.  We are being real upbeat about it though. 

We actually had a great week for work.  We have been doing great working with the ward and have their trust.  This is the most any ward has been involved in the work. We are asking a wide range of people to help us out. We are surprised a lot of older people are willing to join us for an appointment or two.

In Bugasong, we used to have a few people work with us and they'd usually work for 5 or 6 hours.  Here we have two or three people work with us for an hour and a half each. It takes a lot of planning, and it is really using up the load on our cell phone, but it seems to be more effective. We are also taking our investigators to members’ houses that live close by and teaching them there.  That way we're playing a home game opposed to an away game. 

Well that's about it. Go ahead and laugh about the dysentery. We are. The whole mission office has it too.  They just got theirs yesterday.  It's not from me because I didn't see anybody from the office until yesterday midday.