Extra Pictures

No letter this week just some sweet pictures:
Monzairel

this is my favorite kid(Rio) in our area! He always yells ELDER HICKEY when he sees us!

Some of our recent converts

Lyka(left), Jasmine(reacent convert), and Rio at their home

Viagan zone

Teaching While Finding and Finding While Teaching

Bringing People to Church

this week was really good. we got punted a ton! haha! we went finding everyday because our old investigators are not progressing. Levi, the investigator who was progressing, went back to school so we can't teach her anymore! darn. It is alright we are meeting a lot of new people who have a lot of potential. especially on saturday. we went to teach a refferal with the member that reffered her to us. when we got there, a bunch of people came to listen. as we began to teach we started to realize that there was one woman there from Cabugao who is Golden. she has been soo prepared! it was like  she realized, right there that our church is true. she asked about baptism and asked when we were able to teach her again! haha! It was a great lesson! even though one of our RCs almost destroyed it. haha! he is a little different but he still fellowships with us sometimes. when we were explaining baptism a little bit to the group he cut in suddenly saying "the catholic church has a great sin because they baptize babies!"(they are all catholic) we could tell from thier expressions that they were very offended. we cut him off before he could say anything else and began to explain how christ set and example and taught children don't have sin. it turned out to be alright but it nearly gave us a heart attack! haha! the next day 5 of the investigators came to church!

Zone Activity

earlier today we also had a zone activity. it was in Sto. Domingo. we went to the beach and played games such as(sharks+minnows,rugby,baboy bahay bagio (pig house storm), and they had a slip n slide. haha after we had a boodle fight! its were they put all the food on bannana leaves and everyone just uses there hands to eat! it was a super fun activity! I will send pictures!

Some Extra Pictures of the Zone and of Jake at the Beach

Learning and Lots of Pictures

Learning

this was a good week! I learned a lot. I feel like i am getting better at teaching investigators. I am learning a lot about myself and my weaknesses. the more i do the more i feel like i am progressing. I used to get so frustrated with myself because i didn't feel like i was improving/ wasn't as good as everyone else and i didn't understang why. I have learned that president Uchdorf's talk about looking inward before outward is true. this week i found as i evaluated myself and let others evaluate me i felt more happy. I am able to see where i really am at, what i need to do and how i need to do it. I am getting better everyday and i can see it.

Writing in Cursive

you may think this is funny but among all the other things i am trying to improve and learn i decided i want to learn how to write in cursive. haha i learned how when i was in elementary but i never used it and i quickly forgot. this past week i was thinking about the General Conf.story about the woman who forced her kids to read and give reports and i kinda realized that successful people all have libraries(they read) and (this is the revelation part) they all write in cursive. haha. so every night i have been writing my journal entries in cursive. haha at first it looked worse than joe's handwriting!haha(don't tell joe) but it is slowly getting better and i am slowly getting faster. there are still some letters (especially capital letters) that i can't remember how to do. can someone send a guide? haha! thanks!

Zone Leaders

this week the Zone leaders came to our district meeting to see if i am doing everything i need to. they are both very good at giving trainings and inspiring missionaries to do there best. at the end of the district meeting they gave me really good advice(improvements haha). After the district meeting we went on exchanges again with the elders in our district. this time i went with the Jr companion, Elder Francis. he has only been here for 4 weeks and he is experiencing the joys of not knowing the language. haha. He is a great guy. super nice and always happy but, I never realized how hard it is to teach without the support of a companion that can speak the language. I have always had companions that could speak very good tagalog. haha lets just say i gained a lot of respect and gratitude towards my trainer Elder Payne. haha.

Pictures

Vigan! a large spanish type city near our area

Vigan2

meet the district- Sis Diolata,Sis Smith, Sis Dollete, Sis. Richards, Elder Williams, Elder Hickey, (bottom) Elder Hontanosas, and Elder Francis

A FISH!

hmm... yup its a rock! Haha

this is probably the best picture we took (hope you liked all the pictures!!! this is the last)

Exchanges, Hot Peppers, and District Leader Learning

we started the week with exchanges with the zone leaders on tuesday. Elder Iosefa (a Huge Samoan) came with me to our area. haha he is a great guy and we had fun riding the bikes to our areas. Elder Hontanosas was scared his would break if Elder Iosefa sat on it but it turned out fine!haha. It was a great day and i learned a lot from him. the next day we went on exchanges again with the elders in our area. this time I went to their area in Sto. Domingo. I was with Elder Williams he reacently stepped down from ZL to train. haha. even though i am the DL an i am supposed to evaluat/teach him. it was deffinetly the other way around. he is a super good missionary and he seems to know everything!haha.  I will send a picture of our district.

Other than that...not much new happened. I am still learning all the District leader stuff out. but it is getting easier and i am enjoying how much i am learning. I hope i can stay as a district leader for a while. It is actually kind of fun. haha

I ate a really hot pepper!

Epic Missionary Photo