Trainer/Trainee

Can't believe a school year has already come and gone since I've left! Still feels like yesterday! Bet everyone's happy they're out for summer and it sounds like there's some pretty fun plans ahead! 

This week was a pretty good week. Like you already know, I got my anak (trainee) on Wednesday. All the missionaries that came in were Filipino and I knew that last week so at least I knew I wasn't getting a foreigner. I did not want that cause I probably wouldn't have patience with them having to learn the language. 18 missionaries came in so that was the biggest batch we've had since even before my batch I believe. My companion is Elder Estuaria from Davao which is like opposite side of the Philippines. It is way down South. His hobby is basketball but we weren't able to play this morning so hopefully next p-day we'll be able to play. He said he wanted to go jogging which was awesome cause I do too I'm just to lazy to get up and do it. So far we've only gone once and only went about 1 1/2 miles. So far all is well with the training. It is actually better than I thought being able to teach someone about the mission. Also you pretty much make all of the decisions so that's pretty cool. The training is also nice because it makes me lead pretty much everything. Not that fun but you learn a ton more! 

Work wise we've been focusing on finding new investigators and contacting. I think that's what we will do pretty much this whole entire week this week also. This last week I talked to more people than I ever have and just by talking to random people we found 5 that are actually less actives just in one day. Hopefully with all the people we talked to this last week and all the people we will talk to this week we can get a lot of new investigators and be able to be teaching a lot more lessons by next week. 

Church was great this week. We had 72 in attendance which is way better than the last few weeks which has been in the 30's. I don't know if it was because it was the first Sunday of the month or what but hopefully it will continue. Also had 3 investigators at church. One I don't really count because it is a child and we've never taught her before but all the RM's in my branch said it counts. But that was exciting to have them at church. Summer break just ended so everyone is getting back in school but hopefully we'll still be able to teach to those that were at church and hopefully set a baptismal date. One of them is going to Tuguegarao this whole week and won't be back until next Sunday afternoon so she won't be at church next week but we set an appointment with them right when they get back on Sunday. We also had 3 less actives that were at church. One of them was his second Sunday in a row and it was the first for the other two. I was pretty happy with the success we had this week. Even though it wasn't a lot, it is still improvement from how it's been.

I'm looking forward to this coming week and I think it'll be a lot of fun. The work is finally getting better and more exciting. Plus we have zone conference on Friday in Cauayan so that'll be a lot of fun. Hope everyone has a great week this week! 

Love Elder Haacke

 Me and Elder Estuaria coming back from a part of our area called Marcos.