More Photos

The week started off with Typhoon Pablo.  Yep, I went tracting in a typhoon--beat that!  We went out and worked, but we didn't get a whole lot done.  The people were all preparing for the typhoon, so not too many of them had time to listen to us.  We taught four lessons in eight hours!

We had a good week and were able to get a lot of work done.  Elder Paano and I are doing our best to work as hard as possible and to adopt and adapt to the new rules.  We were a little discouraged when we found out we couldn't attend the Christmas Devotional or the ward Christmas party, but we will obey.  We know that, just as it says in Preach My Gospel, sometimes we won't understand the reasons for the rules until we test them and see the reward.  That is what we will do.

We weren't able to have our baptism this week.  He got sick with a fever all week, so we had to postpone it until this Saturday.  He is very excited to be baptized and even more excited when we told him he would receive the priesthood after he turned 12 at the end of the month.  We taught a great lesson on the priesthood and then we gave him a blessing.  He said he was extremely excited to receive that power from God.

We taught a new family yesterday and they agreed to be baptized.  The mom and dad are both my age, married, and have a baby girl.  It is crazy seeing so many people my age with families already, but that is not uncommon here.

We continue to try finding new people to teach.  OYM-ing (not sure what this is--I will have to ask Cole) is not one of my strongest abilities.  I get really nervous and it is even harder for me to speak Illongo.  However, we will keep practicing and try to become better at it.

This week we have our zone conference on Wednesday.  We get to sleep at the mission home, so that may be fun.  I am kinda expecting a solid helping of new rules, but it is to the point now that I just laugh.  I figure there aren't many more things President Lopez can make "bawal" or forbidden for us.  He is starting to get creative, so I guess we will see!  We have received about 13 pages of new rules in the last couple of weeks.

I love you all as much as ever!

I was worried Cole wouldn't get his Birthday package in time,
but he sent this picture showing he had received it.

The Bandoy family bought him cupcakes.

The Borogo family baked him a cake.

Cole and his new companion, Elder Paano

They celebrated Thanksgiving in the mission home.

Another photo on Thanksgiving that President Lopez posted
on his Facebook page.  It is great to have a "techy" President.