Elder Bryan Haacke: Harvest Time

Last week of the cycle already! Big news of the day is I found out a few hours ago my companion is transferring. I'm not really excited for that. I liked this companion. We got along really well and we worked good together. My time with him flew by so fast. I can't believe the cycle is over already. The week once again went really fast!

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were full days of work. Progress with investigators wasn't good this week at all! Any investigators that were progressing didn't this week. We weren't able to contact Dominga Cantor this week who is someone I think can progress as long as we are able to continue to visit with her. Brother Dennis Ramos, I don't know if I've talked about him in the past but he went out of town and won't return for a couple months and he was progressing just hadn't gone to church. The investigators that attended church last Sunday didn't this Sunday. Very difficult week with the investigators so I don't have a lot to write about. Hopefully the week this week goes a little better even though it will be really busy with transfer week!

Friday switched it up a little bit. We had service in the morning in the zone leaders area so we traveled to Roxas in the morning. We weeded a huge garden and watered all the plants. It's like a mini squash farm. The weeds really weren't that bad so it wasn't too bad to weed. We got our zone t-shirts also so we got to wear them at the service. Pictures are on someone else's camera from the service though so hopefully I can get those sometime. Elder Lavelua, my zone leader from New Zealand, got a huge package this week and had a ton of New Zealand chocolate bars in it so we went to their apartment after the service to eat some chocolate before we went back to our area. They definitely have the best chocolate I've ever tasted. Got back to the area and went and visited Nanay Macadangdang since it was her birthday. She was just laying down watching tv when we got there. She is turning 60 but she honestly seems like she is closer to 80. We had a good visit with her and ate some cake together then went on with the rest of the day. At the last appointment, to Brother JunJun, we were leaving and a coconut had fallen from the tree during the lesson. Brother JunJun took it and cut it up for us and we each got a cup and had a drink. I've never liked it in the past but since I've been here its become one of my favorites! So about 30 minutes before that visit, we got a text from an Elder in the Mallig area that said his comp just ran away from him and got in a tricy and left. So walking back to the apartment that night, we walk in front of the church and get to the corner where we turn to go behind the church, we turn around and there is the elder that ran off haha. Long story short they haven't gotten along all cycle so it wasn't a surprise. The one that ran off is kinda difficult sometimes. But he spent the night at our apartment and the zone leaders went out to the other elder and they went back to Roxas. So that means Saturday morning, we had to go to Roxas. We planned to stay there until lunch then just leave and go straight to the area we were going to work at. The zone leaders and the other elders went on splits and eventually worked out the problem. We took a jeepney to go back out to where we were going to work that day. The jeepney was packed fuller than full and guess who was the first person to get off? I was. I was at about the middle of the jeepney so I had to climb over people and boxes to get out the back. It was quite the experience. You could probably say I tackled those boxes. I thought I could step over all of them and so I went for it but didn't even come close. They were all probably just thinkin, "Dang Americans..." Haha I probably actually get that quite a bit. But the day was alright. Disappointing with the investigators though. Weren't able to share with any of them. Finally made the long trek back to the apartment.

Sunday we got to church at 8:20. It normally starts at 9 but I saw on the paper of the branch clerk that it is supposed to start at 8:30. I didn't know that before but I didn't think it mattered since everybody shows up for church at 9 and we are the only branch in the building. Well this time the second counselor of the mission, President Pasqua, was there so the branch president wanted to be at his best. That means sacrament meeting started at 8:30. We were outside standing, waiting for people to get there then someone came and told us we were starting. We walk in and there is only like 15 people there since nobody knows it is starting at 8:30. By the end of the meeting we were to the normal number but not even half got to take the sacrament. I passed the sacrament again. President Pasqua did give a good talk about the purpose of fasting and that we need to take it more seriously. The rest of church was good. We worked close to the church for the most part of the day. Then later went back to Brother JunJun since he promised us some more coconut juice. We got there and he wasn't there and his parents (nonmembers) were out in the rice fields. We decided to go out and talk to Nanay and Tatay until JunJun got back. We walked out there and while we were talking to them, Nanay asked me if I wanted to try harvesting. Of course I wanted to try it so I did. It was way harder than I thought! They were laughing at me haha but it was a lot of fun. Also helped break the ice a little bit with Nanay and Tatay since they never want to listen to us when we go over. JunJun eventually arrived and we shared to him but didn't get any juice. That's okay though since at least we were able to share.

Pretty busy week but didn't have the success we wanted. We'll have to work harder this week to try and get back on track. Hope everyone is doing good back home and it sounds like Sam is doing awesome! Love you all!

Love Elder Haacke