Busy With the Work

Another week done and another letter to write. As you might have noticed, my letters get shorter and shorter and I still have more than a year. If my emails are still of any decent length come 7 months from now, I will be very surprised haha! But it sounds like this week was another good week for the family back home and for Sam! Super jealous you guys went boating. I've been thinking about it and now you finally went out. But since I'm still stuck in the field, I guess I should just focus on the work haha.

 

Not a whole lot happened this week other than the usual. For district meeting on Tuesday I taught about he Holy Ghost. Probably the best lesson I've had so far. Everyone was sharing and it was a nice discussion. Also the STL's came and the STL that went to my district meeting is one of my favorite sisters in the whole mission. We always laugh so hard. We were in Bambang together. I'm not gonna try to spell her name because it is crazy. She is from Samoa I think. But all that made the district meeting really good and enjoyable to teach. 

 

Work on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday was alright. Nothing special happened. We visited with those that we usually do, mostly less actives. Something kinda funny about this one tatay, Tatay Cabading. We were teaching him about the plan of salvation and we were on the part of the afterlife. So we're teaching him about the three kingdoms of heaven. While we were teaching the second one, he cuts us off and says, "That's where I want to go." We just paused and were like, You sure Tay?? Ha we told him he should want to go to the highest but his goal was set on the second one. Then he asks us how he's doing to be able to go to the second one. Didn't really know what to say so I just said he was doing good so he wouldn't ask more questions like what can he do better to get into the second kingdom. 

 

On Friday I had to go to Aurora to do a baptism interview so I just made splits out of it since I needed to split with them anyway. I went with Elder Labrador and we worked over in his area. I liked the area in Aurora. Also the work there is going really good. We were able to teach a few lessons together then we went and did the interview. Interview went well and she didn't have any problems which always makes it easy. I had a good time being with Elder Labrador. This is his first area but he has been here for almost 7 months so he has experience. He definitely knows what he is doing and he is a great missionary so it was really fun to be with him. 

 

Saturday morning we had a csp at the sisters apartment. We were cleaning up in their backyard. We got there a little late since Labrador and I had to wait for the key to the church before we left Aurora and came to Roxas. The best part was the food the sisters made for us. They also have a mango tree in their backyard that still had some mangoes on it so we ate up on those as well. So when we got to the csp, my companion came up to me holding the phone and says, we have some bad news. My first thought was someone in the branch died or something. He showed me the text and it was from sister Roann. She said she has decided to stop letting us share to her. She said it was because of personal reasons. I know this happens all the time to missionaries but this was the first time for me. First time in my mission I've felt heart broken because of an investigator or less active. My companion hadn't yet replied to her so I replied and just asked if it was okay that we come by and talk. She said probably not a good idea but that she was grateful for us and will never forget the things we were able to share with her. My thoughts are it is because of her husband. I know before she wanted him to listen to us also but he didn't want to. I've never seen someone as happy as sister Roann when we show up at her house to share with her that's why I don't think it is her decision. That's only what I think though, might not be true. That was the biggest news of the week and too bad it couldn't have been good news. We had planned to give her a baptismal date on Sunday because that was our appointment with her. Sure was disappointed but on the bright side, we were able to find 2 other people this last week that are really interested. Had another baptism interview in Roxas on Saturday so we waited in Roxas until then. Interview went well again. I will baptize her next week so that will be pretty cool. 

 

Sunday was a pretty good day. Church was alright. Same old I guess. Speakers were pretty good this time though so that was nice. The songs we sang were songs that nobody knows again. It was worse than last week. We don't have a piano player in the branch so that made it like twice as bad. The rest of church was pretty good. Elders quorum did the usual. Discuss the quorum activity until it is time to leave so they don't have to have a lesson. At least in Sunday school we talked about something. Studied the signs of the second coming. Sunday work was good though. About the two investigators I talked about earlier, we taught them again yesterday. Sister Flordeniza and Sister Jen. We met them at a store when we were buying some drinks one day at work. Talked to them a little bit and gave them a pamphlet. Followed up with them and turns out they read the whole pamphlet. They didn't remember that much though but were excited to talk about it. We just teach them at the store as of now. We asked if we could meet their families and teach as a family but they said it was better this way. It will be hard to get them to come to church without the support of their husbands but hopefully something will work out. 

 

Overall it was a pretty good week. In total we got 9 new investigators this week which is a high for me in my whole mission. Pretty exciting. We keep increasing our teaching pool little by little which is paying off by being able to get more lessons. Hopefully it will continue this week. We will be going to Cauayan this week on Thursday for a follow up meeting for the new missionaries. That means a nice big lunch at the mission home. Looking forward to that this week! Hope you all have a good week this week!

Love Elder Haacke

Sorry I didn't take any pictures this week. Didn't even realize it until today. I'll do better this week