Monday, July 7, 2014

Another Wonderful Week

No More Money
This was a good week. we ran out of money! hhaha. we had to use our emergency money to get through last week. its cool though we were able to withdraw our support again this morning.

this week was good we did a lot of finding! haha! we found a bunch of new investigators and new families. we have continued to teach the car mechanic guy. he is shy to invite his family to join in lessons and they seem to always be gone when we come to teach him. we reextended his baptismal date because we need more time to teach him and he needs time to follow the wow and come to church. we were also hoping to give his family the same baptismal date so they can be baptized together.


we also went on exchanges. I was able to go with e. Liska an elder from palawan. he is a really energetic and funny guy and does a lot of random funny things. this week it also rained a ton! it made it really hard to wash our clothes and dry them so now i am almost out of clean clothes i think i might take a bunch of my laundry to a cleaning store later on. not much else happened this week. it was pretty normal. Next week is transfer week! it is crazy how fast the time is going now. i don't think that me or elder pingol will be transferred but elder Liska or Ramsay might. so everyone is a little worried and excited about transfers. well nothing else exciting happened it was a good week.

Redemption by Christ and Destruction by the World

The Ruin of Drugs
this week was good sorry so much happens everyweek that i can never remember everything. we went on exchanges this week. me and my district leader. it was really good. we had some interesting experiences. the first was meeting an insane man... we were finding and we heard someone yelling from a house off to the side of the dirt road that we were on. He kept saying "Halik ka" which means "come hear". he was kind of far away so we weren't sure whether he was yelling at us or someone else. we decided to go and see. as we got closer to the house we found that he was inside of a wooden cage next to the house. befor we got too close his mom came out and explained that he is sick and told us that we shouldn't go too close to his wooden cell. She invited us to meet/talk with him and we followed her to the front of his cell. It was really sad she told us that he was a 4 year college grad. but had overdosed on drugs and it had messed up his brain. when we talked with him it was like talking to a 4 year old child. He was super hyper active. he couldn't sit still and he was super bipolar. as we tried to talk with him he at one moment would cry and ask to be healed by christ then the next minuet he would jump up and scream jehova witness songs at the top of his voice. His mother and father had to build and put him in the cage/cell that he was in. She told us that he never comes out. they give him everything he needs and he has his own bathroom and water. so the moral of this story is: don't do drugs. follow the word of wisdom.

Rain!
the second interesting experience was running home in pouring rain + ankle deep water. haha we got back completely soaked. nothing on us was dry! It rained so hard there were no trycees so we had to run! haha it is a good thing it is warm here! haha!

The Promise of a New Start
This week we also taught the car mechanic guy (Helario) it was another great lesson and experience. we extended a baptismal invitation to him and he accepted it. he was a bit worried that he wouldn't be ready because he has commited a lot of sins and has a lot to repent of and give up. but we know he can do it and through his faith Heavenly Father will bless him and his family.


this week we also had fun surviving! haha our gas tank ran out of gas and we had to buy a new one and we ran out of rice and meat on friday! Patay! we are all scraping up the pesos! haha this week all we bought was meat,rice,vegitables and fruit. we didn't buy any canned food or snacks. we just need to make it to next monday (withdraw day)

Finding and Shopping in the Philippines

Finding
This was a good week! we did a ton of finding! we found and talked to so many people! finding is turning out to be my favorite proselyting activity! haha! whenever we find we meet knew people, joke and laugh with them, meet their families, play with the kids, and teach short lessons(HTBT mostly)  I love when we find families who are happy and excited to hear what we share. I feel like our area is really improving and we have seen many blessings here! for example: This on sunday we had a really cool experience. we had set an appt./lesson with a car mechanic that we met this last week. he had told us before that he had been 7th day adventist and muslim before, so i was a little skeptical that he wanted to learn, but instead to bible bash. It was amazing though. he has been so prepared by the lord. He does not drink,smoke, or worship reboltos(the statues of christ,etc.). He loves his family so much and just wants them to be happy. he told us that he wants to center his family on christ! even before we started teaching/HTBTing. He also explained his belief in christ and the cleansing power of christs atonement. of all these things we bore testify and added to! he also explained that he has always felt something was missing in his life and he has never found it. he told us that he has also never before felt the way he felt when he was with us! he couldn't explain it! haha we told him that it was the HG testifying that our message is true and that Heavenly Father had sent us to teach him truth. it was an amayzing experience for both me and Elder Pingol. this is the first time something like this has happened to me on my mission. after i felt rejuvenated and excited to continue the work! both me and Elder Pingol feel like the Lord is guiding us always and that he is sending us to those who he has prepared for us. I love this work! even though i miss home I don't want to stop my mission! I am glad that i still have a long time to go! haha!

The Market
the fish market looks a lot like a plangke, but a lot more clean and organized! haha! I am jealous that you get to go on such a cool vacation + have nice toilets. haha! yeah food here is really cheep expecially if you buy from a plangke! every month we recieve  1000 for each week. It is just that here in this area the food is really cheep so we only use 500 P a week! it is really nice! it has saved us from the travel expenses earlier this month. this week with a bit of the extra we bought some dragon fruit. elder Pingol and I have never had it before. it is super expensive! 90 a kilo (well when you compare it to other foods here!haha) I will try to send a picture! yeah this week we have been getting a lot of thunder storms. almost everyday around 6 pm... haha. they are really cool because so far not too much rain but lots of lightning! once as we were going to our next apt. we walked on the beach and we watched the lightning strike the ocean and the island/volcano nearest to my area. It was really exciting and beautiful.