Week 8

Kumusta pamiliya ko,

This week was great, probably one of the best, sooo much happened! i hope i can remember it all!

First of all our investigators! Tatay Balagbaggan this week told us that he has been drinking every single day for the past two weeks, he was def drunk when he told us that too, that literally crushed us. Cause we just came from the villinazos and we were like before we go to din lets stop by balagbaggan cause earlier that day he wasn't there when we stopped by. So anyways we were walking and we head in to the path way to his house and we look to the right and there are a bunch of people drinking and we were like "is tay over there??" but to our great relief he wasn't. so we were like "Ya tay is staying sober." Not so. We go to his house and we walk in and say hi sit down..elder kelson does his joke he says every time, kumusta ka? buhay pa? which means how are you? still alive? haha i don't know why that's funny but everyone always laughs. anyway we sit down and start..after a while elder kelson leans over and was like "I can smell alcohol in his breath." boom game over, we asked and he said that he has been drinking everyday! gaaaaa! means tay isn't gonna get baptized before elder kelson leaves. But! I do have some good news nanay balagbaggan came to church again, the lesson we committed her was bonkers. We read her alma 37:17 and say that the Lord promises us blessings when we keep the commandments and going to church is a commandment. He promised her that if she doesn't go to the palanke (market) and sell, and comes to church instead that the next time she sells she will ubos. (sell everything) she was like i need to sell or else i cant feed my family. We were just like do you trust in God, she said yes, then we were like well then show him, exercise your faith and come to Church...and that is what she did she came to Church! We are going back tomorrow to follow up and everything. The crisologo's have been a bit hard recently, idk why, cause every lesson we have is super solid and they say every time that they can feel the spirit and that they know the Church is true, but then brother crisologo is never home, always working in the bukid and then when we did get to teach them this week they weren't really interested...i don't understand it, we cant teach them once every week or two. we gotta find out something better. Next sister Villenazo, she is doing alright, it is also hard to teach her cause her husband is always working too, and so we cant teach her alone. We went over to her house this week and she said that she was going to get baptized before elder kelson leaves. And she might her date is feb 18 and she has been to Church 2 weeks in a row. We just gotta keep on teaching her, she has already been taught, but we figured that we should teach her again so one we could build her faith two she can just have a solid knowledge of everything. But thatd be awesome if she was magpapabinyag (baptized). John nicole is prob our best investigator, he is keeping commitments finally and he comes to church every sunday and we just taught w.o.w. He doesn't have any problem there thank goodness! Then there is sarah she is doing alright. We were able to teach he twice this week and she is doing alright. Didn't come to church. So prob isn't gonna hit her date of feb 18. Richard..well is richard still. He is def handicapped. This week we were teaching him and he prayed and all he said was "O Diyos, Richard velasco sa akin, salamat po sa akin. Amen" hahaha all that is, is "Oh God, I am Richard Velasco, and I am thankful." haha good ol Richard. Once he yelled while praying I couldnt stop laughing. Usually we try to get he brother in on the lessons, that's the biggest reason why we are trying to teach richard is cause his brother is interested he just, isn't always home when we go over...even though richard is. But ya richard is def gonna be baptized on feb 18 as long as he keeps on coming to church..and so far he hasn't missed one since I have been here. We picked up a new investigator this week too...sorry I cant remember his name..some hard Filipino name...Anyways there is a good story behind that. So his family just moved into Baluarte and in Bishops office during Church we met them. The wife is a member and so is the Mom, he isnt but he wants to be taught. So after Church we go with them and they kinda showed us where they live. We were walking with them and sister pointed and was like "Yung bahay namin doon" Which means thats our house there. We saw this little house just surrounded by the bukid (rice patties) and we were like...okay...it was this little beat up worn down shack...so we were like okay we will be back at 3:00 sa hapon (afternoon.) We return with Philip a member. And we go to the shack...and it is in the middle of the bukid and we get there and we are like there is no way that this is their house,it was completely run down and had stuff growing in it. So instead of doing the smart thing and going back on the solid path road thingy. We were like lets just go through the Bukid. Which is super muddy and wet..but they have these little strips of "solid" pathway to walk on. Should have been easy, we were gonna save us some time....nope! We were going and the "solid pathways" were super super muddy and I fell in the muddy bukid a couple times...then eventually took off my shows and rolled up my pants. End of the story is that I was super muddy, pants shirt, tie, hands, legs, everything. We got to the investigators house eventually and they started laughing and said that there is a good part of the canal that we can wash off in...so we went washed off and taught a weird lesson...mostly cause they were both breastfeeding during it..which is normal here.... Its weird cause in the middle of a lesson boom! they will just start. My comp is like eyes in the skys, when that happens...bleh! Gross!

Oh one of the best parts of the week too! So what our ward council decided to do during ward council, is for all of the in-actives we were gonna do a fhe with them. So on Saturday we went to the Gomez's house and had a solid fhe, played games had some great spiritual thoughts!...by the members too. (People rely alot on the missionaries here.) Anyway at the end of the Fhe, I was saying bye to Tatay Gomez and he was like see you in Church tomorrow. And he came too. Tatay is great, he is this old man who is blind as a bat and his knees are junk. But he has a ton of faith, and he is a ex-drug dealer. He was one of the biggest one's in Santiago in his day...not anymore ha! Anyway they have this guy named "Preacher Mike" who is the bible baptist guy who always stops by and teachs them. Tatay knows they are wrong, but Nay goes to there prayer meetings...well she used too. On sunday in gospel essentials they talked about going to the Temple alot!

Also this week I did something kinda of scary...first time. Elder Kelson had a leadership meeting in Cauayan, but I stayed in Baluarte with Elder Cruz..this weird pasuay (disobedient) filipino, anyways we stayed in Baluarte and I was the Senior comp for one day! Which means I lead all lessons and decide where we are going to go and everything really...Elder Cruz didn't really do much...And he asked alot of weird questions like, "How many Justin Biebers there are in America?", ummm one...why? Anyway ya that day was hard, it was cool we still got in 3 lessons and did some tracting...Elder Cruz kept on saying, "When are we going back to the apartment...gahh! Anyways that day actually wasn't too bad as far as teaching. Oh one cool thing that happened is that we went to teach Nanay Melgapo, this old old Nanay who we are trying to help her Magtiis hanggan sa Wakas, endure to the end. But she is great has great faith. Just always talks about how she cant go to church and how she really wants too. Anyways we showed up to her house thing, and she was on the ground...she has a little sun bathing thing as a bed..one of those chairs that they have at the swimming pool..it goes all the way back...anyway thats her bed and she is usually on that. And we showed up and looked over and she was one the ground, naturally her kids or anyone didn't help her get up..she was on the ground crying. We get there and were like Nay what happened. She was trying to walk somewhere and fell. And has been one the ground, so elder cruz and I helped her get back on her bed. And she said that she is glad we came she prayed that someone would come and help her. And then we showed up!! So that is cool, how the Lord is always directing our paths even when we dont know it. So yeah that was that day.

Now pday, or well today, that was nuts. We went to some caves! And goot muuuuddddyyy! We went to this cool, cave place and went into 6 different caves. We had a guide of course. But it was great, we walked through them, there were these weird looking spiders everywhere who have no eyes and these weird sensor things. There were bats everywhere, stalagmite and such. We had to crawl through some super tight spaces a few times. One was this little crack in the ground that went for 75 yards and to get through it we had to army crawl...got super super muddy. It was great. I bought some sweet under armor compression shorts from a second hand store for like 2 bucks, when in America they are 50 bucks! And I wore those, so my garments didnt get destroyed. Everybody kept on saying to me "Hindi kashya yung puit mo." Which means your but isnt gonna fit. haha, proved those suckers wrong. We did some hiking in the jungle too, to get too the caves. There was a trail though. But you look to your left and right and it was straight up on tamed jungle. So cool, couldn't see for very far. Then when we finally got out of the last cave, and we got back on the trail that lead to the exit, there was a giant giant tree along the way. Like a tarzan tree. So we climbed to the top of that and swung on the vines a little. Kinda... it was scary! Worth it though the tree was great, soo old.

Anyways this week has been great, we got to give 3 blessings. And I did one...in english pa. They for the most part understand english, they just cant speak it very well. Kinda like me with tagalog, haha.

Anyways thanks for everything.
Ingat
Elder James