I Am In The Philippines

This week was great.  We started it off with Election Monday.  Elections are crazy here in the Philippines so President made all the missionaries be in their houses at 4 p.m.  It didn't really affect me because we had our MLC at the mission home.  Elder Stagg went to Bata with another elder whose companion is the other zone leader.

Elder Stagg and I worked hard and were obedient, and we were able to see the blessings yesterday at sacrament meeting.  We had eight investigators at church.  It was such a good surprise and there was even a teenager who we had never met before, but just said he came because his friend invited him. That was good enough for me and we were able to get an appointment scheduled with him for next week.  The bummer part of the week is that our new investigators section was a little low, even though we were able to contact two families who were referrals.  One of the families said we could come back another day and then sent us a text that they would rather not take the lessons from us.  another family was excited to take the lessons, but the father had been drinking and there was alcohol flowing at the house.  We scheduled an appointment next Sunday and committed the brother to not drink so he would more fully understand our message.  He committed, so we will see how that goes!

Elder Stagg is doing great.  He has such a strong testimony and desire to share the gospel.  He is probably more determined to learn the language than any other missionary ever!  He recently has committed to only speaking Illongo outside of the house.  He gave a great talk in sacrament meeting yesterday in straight Illongo.  I know our investigators feel and understand all his words.  It's interesting watching the investigators when he is struggling to get through a sentence.  Even if the Illongo is rough, the investigators are almost rooting for him to succeed.  It's really hard to explain, but very cool to watch his progression.  We really went in depth in our study of how to teach the restoration this week.  I think we spent one day on each topic so that we knew how to teach it and how to help people understand it.  It is such an honor to be able to preach this great gospel with one of my good friends.

The best part of our week was our last lesson.  We had pretty much finished up with an investigator family when the dad comes staggering in.  Absolutely PLASTERED--probably five or six shots passed wasted!  he was swerving around like he was on a row boat in the middle of a hurricane.  He goes on to tell us how ugly he thinks his family is and is like yelling at Elder Stagg saying he is way too handsome and needs to be careful because someone might try and steal him because he is handsome!  All this was in Illongo, by the way.  I understood it all, which means my language skills are getting much better! Elder Stagg couldn't understand a single word.  He kept asking me why the guys was yelling at him.  It was so priceless!  We both took our entire journal entry to talk about that!  Haha!  Anyways, whenever anything happens here, we just say six simple words that explains it all -- I AM IN THE PHILIPPINES! That is just all it comes down to.  The cool thing was that even though he was hammered, Elder Stagg and I both saw what he would look like as a worthy priesthood holder.

Anyways, it was a great week!  I love preaching the gospel!  Hope you enjoy the pics!

Beautiful scenery--gross mucky water!

Bacolod Mission Leadership - May 2013

Our Zone - May 2013