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.

Quick update from Jake

I am still doing good. this week was fun and crazy at the same time. we went down to Laoag again! because the Area 70 (Elder Arden) came to speak to us. I was fun... an 8 hour bus ride full of missionaries! i got to stay another night with Elder Marsh in his apartment at Laoag, then the next day we went to the church to listen to Elder Arden. haha! It was really good I really enjoyed and learned from what he said. He talked about a lot of stuff including obedience,faith,prayer,the spirit,etc. I love how many oportunities that we have to learn as missionaries. right after the "conference thing" we all got back on the bus and came back to our areas. it was also fun but we were really tired... my trainee is doing good he is learning english and he is super diligent. he is from Laguna. Elder Ramsay and elder liska are still in our apartment.

A Week in the Life of Elder Hickey

Monday

we prepared for transfers and packed for my trip to Laoag.

Tues

woke up at 3am (happy birthday to me!haha) to catch a bus at 7am-2pm.

Then we had a trainers training at the mission office. I was

temporary companions with e. Marsh and e. Aagard. (both in my mtc district

and both are training also). We ended up proselyting in e. Marsh's

area for two hours.

Wed.

we worked the whole day in e. Marshes area. It was interesting

to see how much we have all improved in Tagalog and at teaching. It

was also fun to meet some new people in his area.

Thurs.

we met all the trainees at the mission office for breakfast!

then we had a training and we found out who our companions would be.

My new companion is E. Pingol. he is Philippino and super cool! At

about 10a,m we threw all of our luggage, supplies of Bof M/pamphlets,

and your package ( I got It!!!!!! it is huge!) onto a trycee to catch

a bus at 10:30 back to Magapit. It is always fun to go on the busses

because the drive is really pretty just really long. We got to Magapit

around 5pm. and then we took a multicab(like a van) to Aparri. We worked

for an hour. My trainee is really good at teaching and he is super

masipag! (diligent)

FRi.

We did weekly planning and then worked in the evening we got rejected

 all day! we only got a couple of lessons. But it was alright.\

Sat.-

We worked all day and  went to a baptism of an

investigator that we used to teach in our last area.

Sun.-

today we only got two investigators at church and they are both

kids. We decided to change the way we are proselyting. We decided

we needed to drop a lot of investigators because they are not

progressing and find new investigators. We started to talk to everyone

we saw today and we got a lot of good potential investigators we are

excited to go teach them all this next week.

Well that is a snapshot of this week! haha a lot happened!  It is hard to go

into details! haha! But I am doing good, my trainee is super awesome!

This next week we have to go back to Laoag again because one of the area

presidency is coming to give a training. patay and pamasahe namin!

mahal naman ang bayad para sa bus! haha! pero ok lang. we are excited

but we also wish we could stay and teach more. Last week we only got a

couple lessons because I went to Laoag. This next week will probably

be similar but we are really going to push ourselves to get more

lessons. Well not much else happened I love you!

Elder Hickey will Train and a Yellow Watermelon

Training

so this week was alright we found out about transfers... I AM GOING TO

TRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am soo excited! Tomorrow I will need to wake up around 2-3 am to get to the bus

station an hour away so that I can take a 11 hour bus ride to Laoag to pick up my

trainee! hahaha! I am so excited.

Birthday

I am not sure if I will be able to celebrate on my birthday

because we will be on the bus and in a training at night. But the mission president

gave us some money to buy a cake today! haha! So we are going to

celebrate tonight.

Fantastic Young Men

This last week was pretty good. We were able to watch two of our old

investigators in our last area get baptized! There

were a lot of members there because just before we taught the young

men in the ward about missions/missionaries. I love our branch. We have

alot of young men. They are all really good too! They are deligent

about having mutual and doing their Duty to God. I also really like

our branch president. He is very humble! He is always trying to be

better. He is also super hardworking! He works 6 days of the week

(usually away from home) and then he also has all his branch pres.

responsibilities.

A yellow watermelon.

The Great Filipino People

Investigators and Awesome Members

We won't find out about transfers until sunday. Our investigators are doing good. We had

one get baptized this last week! He is about 14 and part of a less

active family that lives near the church. It is sad because he is

super converted but his parents and syblings who are members almost

don't care anymore. His mom and two of his brothers came to his

baptism. We were hoping that seeing his baptism would help his parents

come back to church, but this last Sunday he came by himself again...

He is such a cool kid, if I get transferred I will miss and worry about

him so much! haha! I will send you a picture of him! On Pdays we play

basketball in the morning, clean, study, eat out, email, and buy stuff at

the plankay.  Mom I am sending a package to you for your

birthday! I hope it is not too late! I haven't gotten your package yet

but I got one from Natalie! it had chocolate in it, a letter from

Natalie, and all the valentine letters from grandma's valentines

party. haha.

Great Branch and Missionaries

This week we had a lot happen! We were super busy! We went on splits

twice this week! I am so grateful for our branch they are so good! we

always have fellowshipers and so many of the members want to help us.

I am also going to miss our branch if I get transfered! We also had

two exchanges this week and our Interviews with pres.(yesterday) It

was good I learned a lot on our exchanges. We have some amazing

elders(2) in our district. Elder Liska and Elder Ramsay! They are both

super happy, excited and crazy! haha! It was so much fun working with

both of them. They are both really solid missionaries, obedient and

hardworking! Well not much else happened.  I love you all. Sorry again for

not writing in a couple weeks. I hope you all have a great week!

this is me and elder ramsay on exchanges with our reacent

convert(marlon-far right) and his brother (richard- 2nd to left)with

their friend