Elder Bryan Haacke: Two Weeks Gone

Well it's been two weeks since I last sent an email home so I'll try and sum up the last couple weeks. First I gotta wish mom a Happy Birthday for this Thursday! Hope it's a wonderful day for you mom!!

Last week was an alright week. Nothing special happened I guess but it was still an alright week. Friday last week we split with the zone leaders. One of my most favorite things to do since I've been here in Roxas. I'm not a fan of the area I have so when I get the chance to go on splits and work with one of them in their area. The part of their area we went to was really far and straight rice fields. Most of their area is more city like and neighborhoods but they have one part that is straight rice fields and that's where we went. We spent half the day out there then came back to Roxas for the evening. We got 6 lessons together which I really liked since we never get days like that back in my area. But we get the transfer list a week from today so maybe I will transfer! At church last Sunday we had the most members there on time that I have seen since I have been in the area so that was great! Still no investigators at church so I guess nothing new there. Last Tuesday we had zone meeting so I got a week off from teaching a district meeting. In zone meeting we just went over a lot of things that missionaries should be taking a little more seriously like the way we look and stuff. Also we went over qualifications for baptism which was pretty good also. Last p-day we went to Santiago so I could say bye to Elder Poulter since he is leaving in like a week. We said we'll see each other again in about 15 months! That's pretty much it from the week last week.

This last week was another alright week. Had a couple problems with one elder in my district. He's kinda turning on the entire zone and says everybody hates him but nobody has a problem with him so I don't know where he is getting that from. He's not exactly all there though so we just had to be patient with him. He's doing better now but still has a problem with a couple others in the zone. Maybe transfers next week will solve the problem for good. He didn't want to come to Roxas last Tuesday for district meeting so my district meeting was very small. As in me, my companion, the sisters and one zone leader. My district is already small and without them there it got even smaller! But it was good though. We had a nice discussion as a district on things we struggle with then help each other figure out new ways we could do it. We talked about stuff like language study and teaching skills that we all do differently. I liked it since it was more of a discussion than normally. So do you remember our investigator Dominga Cantor from a while ago that I was pretty excited about? Well we haven't been able to contact her forever and this week we finally saw her. We sat down and talked for a little then asked if we could share a message. She told us no because she already knows everything. Pretty good excuse huh?? We'll still follow up with her when we see her but as of now she doesn't want to continue with the lessons.

A few evenings this week it down-poured like no other! It was a perfectly fine day then out of nowhere a storm comes in and rains super hard. Well since both Pawin and I don't carry umbrellas, we got soaked a couple times this week. We were running for cover and when you're in an area of flat rice fields, sometimes cover is further than you would like. Sadly, we are still not able to progress with anybody. I don't know what the problem is. What made it worse was church on Sunday. You know how the week before was the most I had seen? This week was the least I've ever seen. After church, the Elder's Quorum President came up to me and talked to me about it. I told him we will visit some that weren't there that we noticed but he wanted an answer why there was nobody at church. Felt like I should of just asked how his quorum is doing on home teaching but I didn't feel like making the conversation longer than it needed to be cause I didn't know what to tell him. I guess over all I'm hoping I am going to transfer. Not to sound like I'm giving up on the area but I don't really know what else to do. We're still praying that something will turn for the better. Hope you all have a great week this week!

Love Elder Haacke