Dear Pamilia,

It is officially the rainy season here, I dont know if it is technically the rainy season, but since there is like a monsoon every single day, its pretty much rainy season to me. I sent a picture of how bad the rain is, when it gets really going. I took this picture on Friday, it was about 5 in the afternoon, we had just gotten out of a appt at Tatay Pong a recently returned less active. And we were on our way to the Fernandez family, when it just suddenly started raining, luckily there was a tindahan (a little store thing) there that we were able to hide under for about a hour until the rain stopped, the rain kills our work, because everyones roofs are made of tin, and so the rain is super noisy, and then we are soaked on top of it... i hate rain.

We had another fairly disappointing week again as far as work, when we do teach the lessons are usually awesome. There are a lot of cool things that are happening in our area, the first is Matramil Hipolito, the son of the Elders Quorem president in the ward, Matramil was less active, but now he has come to church 3 times and is reading the Book of Mormon is in 2nd Nephi, and he is working with us, he is 20 and is planning on going on a mission. I am not sure where his new desire is coming from, nothing we did, a switch or something just went off and he decided he wanted to come back to the Church.

Another cool thing, is a lot of the contention in the ward is starting to go down, I have seen and heard about a couple of people asking forgiveness during church. Like the Branch Presidents wife, who a lot of the people in the ward have a grudge against. She asked forgiveness from sister Ferrer the other sunday, they both started crying it was kind of funny.

I am trying to stay as positive as possible, but it is hard going out everyday, realizing that you will probably only teach one lesson, and walk around all day, my legs hurt so much last night when we got back from work. There are some very exciting things here though, the people that we are teaching are pretty awesome though. You learn to really appreciate lessons here in Jones, my whole mission lessons came really easy, we didn't really have to work hard to get lessons.

Something I am gonna work hard on, is loving the people, thats all I can really do sometimes, is just when we go inside of peoples homes, just loving them as much as I can. Sometimes when we get to appts, I am super tired from walking so much, I feel like just sitting there for a few minutes and relaxing, not focusing on the people there. If I just show my love to the people, maybe that will make a difference.

There is some exciting news this week, and some even more exciting news about August. Elder Tah, a member of the 70, and the Area President, is doing a mission tour here in Cauayan, he is arriving tomorrow, we will have a special missionary devotional on wednesday, he is gonna randomly go to some apartments to check them out, we cleaned our apartment earlier, but I dont think he will come to ours, its really far away. Also he will be randomly interviewing some missionaries. Thats kinda scary, I hope I dont get picked to be interviewed... I guess it would be cool, talking to Elder Tah one on one... its just kinda scary.. Also something that is gonna happen in August is, Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Bishop Dean M. Davies of the Presiding Bishopric, Elder Brent H. Nielson of the Seventy and Area Presidency are coming to the Cauayan mission to do a mission tour. I am so stoked, a Apostle, the Presiding Bishop, and a member of the Seventy are coming to Cauayan. They will also do a special missionary fireside. We will probably get to shake hands with them and stuff. I am pretty excited for that one... maybe they are coming to see if the Cauayan mission is ready for a Temple... haha probably not but that would be awesome.

Anyways, as far people that we taught this week, we taught Brother Aquino, a less active Melchz Priesthood holder, and he two kids. The lesson was awesome, it was are first lesson with him. All we did was share a script thought in 2nd Nephi 31:20. The lesson was awesome, he said that he really misses coming to church, he actually almost started crying, he barely held it back. His daughter was way into the lesson too, she is like 14 maybe, his son was pretty interested too. We taught them on saturday, they said they were gonna come to church on sunday, but they didn't, but the son did.. so that was cool that he was able to come to church.

We haven't been able to teach Sister Quijas again, we taught brother Quijas last night, he is awesome, he just needs to kinda push his wife a little into getting more into the Church and stuff, sister is super catholic though... so she will be a tough cookie.

We taught sister Fernandez, she is awesome, when we got to their house the Book of Mormon was out and she said that she was reading again. Apparently their family was super active back in the day, it just that brother got a job and has to work on sundays. So first of all we are gonna focus on sister and her kids, and if they can come back, brother I think eventually will. The Rebuca family, a active family in the ward is working with them.

The rebuca family is awesome. The other day President Rebuca came out and worked with us, he told us his conversion story, it is pretty awesome. Back in the day he was a baptist. He was at his grandpa's house and saw a Book of Mormon on the shelf, was curious about it, started reading it, but as soon as he started to read it he got a head ache, then he tried again, same thing happened. Then a couple days later he tried again, but prayed before he started. He read the whole thing in like a week, he read it two more times, in ilokono, then found out where the LDS church is in Jones, then went, the missionaries met him, gave him a tagalog Book of Mormon, he read that again, the missionaries started to teach him, in the first lesson he asked if he could get baptized... eventually he got baptized, and his wife too. After one year excatly they went to the temple got endowed and sealed there. Pretty cool story.

We also taught the Abarquez family, they are pretty legit, the are less actives and they have been to church three times straight.

We having been teaching a lot of members, to strengthen them and to try to find out where less actives are and asking for referrals... we are slowly finding people... it will just come to a matter of being able to teach them...

Next week during Church elder Lasay and I are speaking, I am not sure what I want to speak about, either Forgiveness, or the Book of Mormon. I am thinking the Book of Mormon, they're a lot of members who haven't read it yet.

I am pretty excited for this week. To meet and learn from Elder Tah. To keep on trying to find people to teach... I think that they're always people ready for the gospel in every area, we just need to work hard, do what we are supposed to do and rely on the Lord. If we have the spirit it will tell us where to go, like it did for the missionary Nephi in the Book of Mormon, its says that the Spirit led Nephi from place to place on where he needed to go, if we can qualify for that same spirit it will do the same thing for us.

I am loving being a missionary, Elder Lasay my companion is great, I am growing and learning more with and from him then I think I have from any other companion of mine. The cycle is already half way over.

Thanks for all of your love and support,
Elder James