Soaking Rain

Dad that was an interesting way to start out the weekly letter this week! I ruined it for myself though since I always scroll down to the pictures first so I saw the p.s. at the end so it was the first thing I read. This week went by super fast. As I have been thinking about what to summarize for the week I haven't been able to think of many things to write about. Transfer day was on Wednesday this week but not a whole lot changed in my zone since only two people were transferring. Elder Brandon if you remember from Bambang, came and took Elder Frank's place and a Sister from Bambang also came to my zone so I knew both the missionaries coming in. Something I look forward to every transfer day is meeting new missionaries but that didn't happen this transfer day. Since it was transfer day this week we had district meeting on Thursday instead of Tuesday. I taught about "Our Purpose". Teaching district meetings have gotten way easier for me since the first one. Now I just write down a few notes and just talk from that and have some activities and role plays then the time is up. I thought it would take me forever to get used to teaching district meetings since teaching has never really been my thing but I actually got it down pretty fast. 

So Tuesday for work we went to one of the furthest areas, Maligaya, since we had scheduled a dinner appointment with our branch president there. At about 6, clouds started coming in super fast then pretty much within a blink of an eye it started pouring rain the hardest its rained since I've been here. We ran to Presidents house and just decided we'd have dinner a little earlier since we had no more appointments and it was pouring rain. While at dinner we sat down with President and talked about some less actives that he knows that we can contact. He gave us a couple names to find in the area Marcos but we weren't able to go out there this last week. Well the rain never stopped while we were eating and we had a 40 minute walk ahead of us. Elder Pawin left his umbrella at the house and my umbrella broke in my first cycle in Bambang and I haven't gotten a new one. We were soaked to the core once we finally got home.

Saturday I had my second baptismal interview. This one was a lot better than the last. It also helped that this person was 20 instead of 11 like the last one. During the interview, she knew the questions before I would even ask them! Once we finished I was talking to the Sisters that have been teaching her and they said they went over the interview about 7 times with her so no wonder she knew all the questions haha.

Still didn't progress with any investigators this week and we are still trying to find new ones that will progress further than the first two visits. We did have two less actives at church so that was really nice to see after all the bad luck we have been having the past weeks. One of the talks given in church on Sunday I thought was really good. Pretty much the first time I've really stayed focus on a talk during sacrament meeting since I've been here since normally they just read straight from the Liahona. But the speaker talked about the priesthood and she talked about how she has her own doctor right at home because of the priesthood he holds. She specifically mentioned how she doesn't have to rely on the missionaries to give blessings which is the part I liked. Of course we always will go when we are called but the members here rely way too much on the missionaries. We are always the go to people even though there are elders quorum members as their neighbors and we are like 30 minutes away. 

Overall this was a pretty good week and a little more successful than the past weeks we have been having so we were happy with it. Hope everyone continues to do well at home. Love you all!

Love Elder Haacke

Some old pictures:

 Went to KFC on transfer day (last transfer day in March).

 

Decided to have my district meeting outside this week since all the fans didn't work inside the church. That is my district except for Elder Latu who is taking the picture.
 

Elders Iuli, Lavelua, Latu, Frank, and I in the back of the AP's pickup when Iuli came and visited district meeting.