Philippines Cauayan Mission

Philippines Cauayan Mission

Monday, April 4, 2016

Bloom Where You Are Planted

March is out the door and April is here already! Can't believe a quarter of the year is already over! Probably wondering where I got assigned so I'll keep you from waiting any longer. I'm where I thought I would never be assigned... Burgos! I'm still a zone leader. My companion is Elder Castillo. He's great! Area on the other hand is in the middle of nowhere! But that's alright! I told myself no matter what happened on transfer day I was going to apply what President taught us in zone conference... "Bloom Where You are Planted." And so far it has been going really good! The area is actually really small. We have three barangay's. Masigun, Cullolabo and Ururbon. So basically everyday we work in Cullolabo in the later afternoon then switch off between Masigun and Ururbon for the first few hours of work. Makes it easy to learn the area I guess! Before I get too much in to being here in Burgos, I'll write a little about my last day in Echague. 

Tuesday morning we got up and went to a csp in the Sisters' area. We cleaned up some weeds in a members backyard so that she can get it ready to plant a garden. We made shirts again for the six of us there in Echague so we all wore them on Tuesday to get a picture together before we split up the next day. The rest of Tuesday we went around and I said goodbye to a lot of the members. There's a few there that I will definitely miss. Then, for the second to last time in the mission, I packed my bags and got ready to leave. 

Got up early Wednesday morning and finished getting everything all ready to leave. Bishop's nephew picked us up and took us to the highway where we waited for a bus to come by. Finally got on a bus and went off to Cauayan. Just like always it was really fun seeing a lot of the other missionaries there. Also got to go eat at KFC before we went out to Burgos. We took a member's tricy all the way back out to Burgos. We took the back way so it was a lot of gravel roads. Then with our luck we got a flat tire! Not only that but like 4 spokes broke off and like 5 more were really loose. So we just waited for ages for someone to come by. Finally someone came by that was willing to help. He had tools to get the tire off then they left and went somewhere to get the tire fixed. We found a house that had some hammocks under a tree so we just laid in them till they got back. Actually pretty relaxing. They eventually made it back to us, put the tire back on and we got back to Burgos around 2 in the afternoon. We dropped off my bags, took a few things out and went out to work. Little did I know I already went to 2/3 of my entire area my first day here! 
As of now we have one investigator with a baptismal date. He's 11 years old and his family isn't active. He's been coming to church though so hopefully that will have an effect on his family in the long run. 
We have a couple of other investigators that we're teaching but none of them seem that close. We do teach a lot of members which isn't really a bad thing since the branch needs strengthening here. We just had district conference this weekend and I guess the leaders got chastised a little by the visiting area Seventy. But that's not a bad thing since from what I've heard so far the leaders are not doing the right things. 

I've met a lot of the members so far and they are really cool. Super nice people out here. We have a ton of food appointments. I guess they aren't really appointments but when we see them we just ask if we can have dinner with them the next day or something like that and it will happen. One family in particular is the Ancheta family. Nanay washes our clothes for us and every time we go there they feed us. We have dinner with them quite a bit. Brother Ancheta is the old branch president and now he is in the district presidency. We dropped by this morning to drop off our clothes and they sat us down and fed us breakfast as well. They are super nice to the missionaries. But it's not just the Ancheta family. For the most part all the families I've met so far are super nice to the missionaries. 

Nanay DelaCruz is a member that we teach every once in a while. She's reading in the D&C and always has a lot of questions so that is always what we share with her. She's 83 but really funny though. We taught her on April fools day and we taught her as well what that means back in America. I guess they don't have that day here or not a lot of people know about it. Anyway, once she learned what it was she took it to a whole new level! Everything she said was a joke. We couldn't get her to say anything serious but it made us laugh and she was enjoying it. We just made sure she knew that it only lasted for one day so by the next time we're there she doesn't go off joking like crazy again. 
A little more about the area here in Burgos. There's not much to tell you about other than a lot of rice fields. Kinda like when I was in San Pedro. Speaking of San Pedro. One of the older single adults from San Pedro has moved out to Mabini (a branch in Burgos District) and I saw him on Sunday at district conference! And he is getting married to a sister that came with a friend every once in a while back in San Pedro. Really cool to see them again. They said they hadn't been out to San Pedro in a while but from what they knew everyone was still doing good out there. But we don't have a lot out here in Burgos. On pday we go to either Roxas or Ilagan to net and buy food since there is no place to do that in Burgos. Trying to think of what else to say about Burgos but I can't think of anything. But even though it is really small and not much out here I've really enjoyed my time here so far and am looking forward to being assigned here. 

That's pretty much the week for me. Hope you all have a great week this week. Love you all!
Love Elder Haacke
 
Pic of me and my new companion, Elder Castillo.
 

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