Hello Hello Hello,
So this was probably the longest week of my mission, a good week just long, and very hard...it kinda sucked... anyway this is what happened. I was transferred! Goodbye Baluarte. Well I knew it was gonna happen sometime. I was transferred to a sick new area, its hard to not compare it to Baluarte, cause it was such a awesome area. But this new area is awesome too, it has somethings that baluarte didn't have. I got transferred to Bagabag, Nueva Viscaya it is sick up here. Its in the mountains...so its not quite as hot, and it is absolutely beautiful, Banue is pretty close by too so we are planning on going up there as a zone in 4 weeks for pday...I'm not gonna lie I am pretty stoked! Bagabag isn't very big, the Branch is small too, the building is really small. We are about 30 minutes outside of Solano the biggest city in the zone. Its nice there, they have a macdo's and a dunkin donut! My new companion is Elder Valdez, he is sick, really funny, he talks soo fast in tagalog its sometimes hard to understand him. He is always happy though and a good teacher, so far he has made me start and lead all the lessons which is nice, but I am still not the best at Tagalog so its kinda hard, but I am learning a lot from him, I got transferred on thursday and found out on tuesday, during district meeting. Packing was kinda weird. What really sucked was saying goodbye to everyone in Baluarte....man saying goodbye to the balagbagans was by far the hardest thing I have ever done on my mission. Ha...ya it sucked! We got there sat down I told them I was getting transferred, then nanay got up and left, she came back, and was like I thought we were gonna celebrate your birthday...haha ya that really sucked. I still miss them, but I trust elder Alfonso, and I know the Elder that got transferred into baluarte, Elder Rapsing, he is a Filipino in my batch, he is awesome, baluarte...and the balagbagans are in good hands.
Anyway I am here in Bagabag and it is awesome, Bagabag is actually a very interesting branch, because it is one branch with 4 missionaries! Sister Carlos told me that if they have enough missionaries they like to have 4 missionaries in Bagabag, because it is such a big area there needs to be 4 elders. There are 2 cities in Bagabag, Lamut and Bagabag. Elder Valdez and I are in Bagabag and Elder Molino and Elder Proctor are in Lamut. So the history of Bagabag is this, it was closed like 5 cycles ago, then Elder Sarignaya and Elder Lasaya opened it up again, then Elder Molino and Elder Valdez got transferred in, so then there were 2 sets of elders in Bagabag, then Elder Sarignaya and Lasaya both got Transferred out then Molino and Valdez became companions, then Elder Proctor and I got transferred and so now there are 2 sets of Companionships again. This cycle is gonna be awesome, one because the work here is pretty good, two because elder Molino and Valdez are awesome, three were going to Banue, four because my best friend in the mission is Elder Proctor we were in the same mtc batch..honestly I'm not gonna lie I was really hoping I was just gonna be in the same zone as him..ha I am in the same area as him thats awesome. All four of us live in the same apartment.
The work here is good, we still need to contact our 15 names. We teach alot of kids, I dont really like teaching kids, but they are our investigators and they are still souls..so we will teach them. Sorry I cant really remember the names of everyone we teach I still am still trying to learn everything but some main people we are working with is Angelica, her family is less active so we are trying to reactivate them while teaching her. She is only 9. We are teaching the Bodigoin Brothers they are in there teens, they are the sons of a recent convert, we are teaching their father too, he is nice, is really smart and has a good desire to learn. Drinks alot daw.
Conferences were great, I love hearing the testimonies of the Apostles, and man the talk by Elder Nelson was great and the ones afterwards too, I cant remember his name but he talked about special kids and how they are special to the Lord. There was a lot of focus on less actives, the members can help with the less actives sooo much, just by reaching out to them, if every member reached out to one less active, the activity rate would sky rocket. Like the activity rate here would go from 25% to 50% then the next year it might go even higher if members did it again and again, till all came back to the Church. Members sometimes are afraid to reach out. But the less actives need them so much to just reach out, a simple jesture, anything really.
We didn't do much for pday it was nice and relaxing. Love those pdays always my favorites. Alot happened this week but I forgot some of it, and just dont have a ton of time sorry.
Oh yeah its my birthday tomorrow, 20 years old...weird.
Mahal ko Kayo
Elder James
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