Pulling Weeds

Once again another week already gone! Week flew by again and I can't believe I'm already back here writing again. This email might be a little shorter than normal. Normal week this week so I'll just do some updates on are investigators and some less actives.

Start out with Sister Cyrene. I don't know if I've mentioned her before but we were able to get a couple more lessons in with her this last week and she came to church for the second week in a row. She is 16 years old and her step mom is a member. We found her a good friend in the youth, Grace, to help her learn and feel welcome. There is a youth conference the second week of April so we will work on getting her baptized before then so she will be able to attend.

Didn't teach Brother Neo this week. I guess our set appointment with him is the 16th so hopefully that will happen so we can see where he's at with the Book of Mormon.

We were able to teach Sister Merlyn this week. She is busy getting ready for her wedding so that she can be baptized. The wedding is planned for the 28th. She and Bishop have been busy getting all the papers done so that it will happen.

So we thought Sister Ghen was at church in Santiago last week but we got a hold of them this week and turns out they are in Manila. Explains why they weren't at church. They will get back during the week this week. We might actually end up teaching her here instead of the Sisters in Santiago. She hasn't decided for sure yet but hopefully we'll get her here.

Sister Clarissa came to church this week. She wasn't able to attend last week which was too bad since she wanted to have her baby blessed. She talked to Bishop about it yesterday and made plans for the first Sunday in April. It made me really happy to see her at church again. I have been pretty close to her and her family since I am always the one that has taught to them. I have always been on splits with one of the SA when we have gone to their house so I've had the privilege of getting to know her well and help her come back to church. Also it is really cool seeing how happy her sister, Marvilyn, is when Clarissa comes to church. Even though their houses are only like a 10 minute walk away from each other, it's almost like a reunion when they are with each other at church.

As for some things that happened this week, I went to Jones on Thursday and split there with Elder Kane. This is his first area/4th cycle in the mission. He is doing really good with the language for how long he's been in the mission. We had a pretty good day together and got to know each other a little bit more. I enjoyed going to a different area for a day and working there. It's always fun to see other areas and meet new people.

We got up early Friday morning and left right away to come back to Echague and end splits. After about an hour of traveling we got back right in time to go to a csp. We cleaned up a lot that was full of weeds. Not my favorite type of csp's but it was still a lot of fun being with the other missionaries here in Echague. We worked pretty hard to be honest and went pretty fast. We weren't quite done yet but Nanay came and told us to stop since she had to leave and go take Tatay to the hospital for something. She said we can come and finish it another day so there should be another csp in the near future! 

Bishop worked with us on Saturday and we went out to Pag-Asa. Highlight of the day, teaching two pastors of a different church. We taught for like almost an hour. It was interesting to listen to their beliefs. We focused on the Godhead, families, and went into prophets a little bit. It never really turned into debating which was good but it did get close at some points. Nothing had really changed by the end of the lesson. I think they were finished being that the one just got up and left. I did enjoy hearing their beliefs and stuff though.

That pretty much sums up the week this week. Had a couple visitors from the stake at church on Sunday. Really focused on home teaching. Something that needs work here. Just got a new stake president/presidency and they are really pushing it which is good. That could be really helpful to strengthen the ward if there was home teaching.

Anyway, hope you all have a great week this week! Love you all!

Love Elder Haacke

 Decided to take a pic of us 4 since we were all wearing blue.

 

 Having our merienda after we finished work.

 

 All of us at the Layugan's for dinner Sunday night.

 

  Power went out at dinner so we had a candle light dinner.