Philippines Cauayan Mission

Philippines Cauayan Mission

Monday, February 1, 2016

Fourth Week of the Cycle

Another good week gone by! It hit me that this was the fourth week of this cycle this week. Going very fast. This week could be my last week in Echague if I transfer. We will find out next Monday who is transferring. There should be quite a few missionaries transferring from Alicia zone next week since a lot have been here for a while and others are finishing training a new missionary so they might transfer as well. That's all stuff we'll find out in a week though.

Start this week off once again with district meeting. We were supposed to go to Cauayan for a broadcast this week for district meeting but it got moved to tomorrow instead. It is the same broadcast that Sam just watched this last week. I heard it was pretty good from Jake so I'm looking forward to it tomorrow. Not so much about waking up early to get to Cauayan on time though but it'll be worth it! This last week was just a normal district meeting. I attended Elder Reyes' district meeting this week. We talked about representing Jesus Christ and how we can be better instruments in his hands. Elder Reyes taught it really well and we had a good discussion with everyone in the district. After district meeting we quickly went to a tailor shop and got everyone fitted for a zone basketball jersey. It was a last minute thing so we had to do it all in one day. We wanted a zone t-shirt but nobody designed one until right now and it ended up being a jersey but that was okay with everyone. We should get it next Monday which is right before transfer day. Talk about procrastinating. At least we'll end up with one even though it won't have everyone's name on the back it will still be nice to remember the zone.

This week we were pretty much adopted by the other ward. We were invited to quite a few dinners in their ward and since we didn't have any appointment in our ward, we didn't see a problem going over for a quick dinner. In all, we were invited Tuesday night, Friday night, Saturday night and then the usual Sunday night dinner. Tuesday was a last minute dinner with the Sandaga family. It's just Nanay and her son at the house so they were happy to have some company. They specifically asked Elder Labrador and I to come back this Tuesday and we are the ones to share a message next time. Friday night was with Nanay and Tatay Rivera. We actually eat at their restaurant that they run which is really in our area but they attend church in the other ward because of where they live. They both served missions a long time ago so every time we eat with them we always hear some good stories from their missions and get to learn from their experiences. Saturday was a new place I've never been and actually pretty far. It was with the Bercero family. You could probably be safe to say they live in the middle of nowhere. We thought we were going to have to walk all the way back since they don't have a tricy but luckily we were able to get a ride not long after starting to walk. All 6 of us piled in the tricy and were home in no time.

Work wise this week was actually pretty successful. We got a referral this week (something that doesn't happen very often) and we contacted it on Friday. It was a really old Tatay that I guess was taught before by missionaries. His name is Raymundo Subaba. We were able to share with him when we met him. He said he is always sick so the missionaries weren't able to visit him very often before so we'll have to see if we'll be able to work around that.

Best part of the week was when we had our one day mission with the Elder's Quorum on Saturday. We met at 8:00 in the morning, which as we all know by now became 9:00, then split up and went to different areas. I worked with Brother Acosta and we went to Dammang. That's the place where the bridge got destroyed when the river rose. They have somewhat fixed the road since then so that's where we worked. We went to places I had never been before and were able to visit 4 families before we met up again for lunch. 3 less active and 1 active. Brother Acosta is a great member missionary. He converted to the church after he was married so he obviously couldn't serve a mission but he is probably one of the best non-full time missionaries I have worked with my whole mission. After eating lunch all together at the Dumaliang's house, Brother Acosta came with Elder Labrador and I to work the rest of the day which turned out to be a ton of help. We taught Brother Neo and that was an amazing lesson and Brother Acosta was able to help him relate well to the gospel. Brother Neo is a Catholic as was Brother Acosta before he converted. We taught about Joseph Smith again and more about the Book of Mormon. Then we recommitted him to pray about the things we shared. I think he understood a lot better this time than the first time we talked about him. Brother Neo is beginning to recognize the Holy Ghost which was awesome to hear him tell us. He didn't know what it was when he shared two experiences from this last week of how he was prompted to do something. We were happy to help him understand what that was and how it works. Made it easier to show him how we receive answers to our prayers. I'm looking forward to getting back to him later this week.That was definitely the highlight teaching moment for the week. 

In all we had a pretty good week this week. Sunday was Elder Carrington's birthday so we celebrated at night with the Layugan family. That was a great way to finish off the week.

This week will go by fast since we go to Cauayan tomorrow then go back to Cauayan on Wednesday for MLC.
Hope you all have a great week. Love you all.

Love Elder Haacke

 Us with the Layugan family.
 
 
Us with Nanay Quisisem (white) and Sister Bernadeth (grey). Sister Bernadeth is their relative that has been here for the last month from Saudi. Caught them just before they left.
 
 Elder Carrington and I on top the side car of the tricy coming back from dinner Saturday night.
 
All of us with the birthday cake.

 Me with Elder Romo.

Went to the mall earlier today and had lunch together as Echague missionaries. We got three pizzas and we each got lasagna as well. Super good until we were all so full we could barely stand up after eating. We also made a t-shirt for the 6 of us which was pretty cool. Send a picture next week!

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