Philippines Cauayan Mission

Philippines Cauayan Mission

Monday, April 11, 2016

General Conference Week

Another week gone by once again in the blink of an eye! That rhymed by the way. Didn't know how to add commas correctly into that sentence so I just left them all out. Tells you how ready I am for school when I get back. Which is in like 16-ish weeks! Right around the corner believe it or not. So crazy. 

 
Start out the week on Tuesday. Had district meeting like usual. I don't know if I mentioned this before but here in Burgos since the zone is so small, there is only one district leader. Then in the other district the zone leaders teach it. So Elder Castillo and I just switch off every week so this week I got to teach. Kinda weird teaching district meeting again especially with only 4 missionaries on there. Two elders and two sisters. But we had a good time and talked about how we can bring back less actives. There are a ton here in Burgos. Last week, President Rahlf gave me a paper with the total membership in each branch in Burgos district. It also has a few other numbers about each branch but the membership in all the branches are anywhere from 400-500. Then I asked each companionship what the attendance was in their branch and they said around 100 or less and not really consistent. So long story short there are a lot of less actives that we can bring back to the church here in Burgos. After district meeting we went straight to work since we knew we wouldn't be able to work most of Wednesday because of MLC. We had a pretty successful day of work on Tuesday which was good. The last appointment was with the Abbad family who were preparing to go to the temple the next day. We got there and asked them how their preparation was and we can just say it hadn't really started at all. There kids weren't even all there. The one was still in Roxas. Tatay still didn't even have a white shirt. They had no idea what time they were meeting to leave or where they were going to stay. They hadn't been followed up with by the Branch President and they were just kinda waiting to be told what to do. Not a good thing to do. Pretty sure if we didn't go there that night they wouldn't have been able to go to the temple the next day. So we helped them out as much as we could and they ended up going but only two of their kids were able to go. We went by there house Friday and one of the kids that was supposed to go was there at the house. Apparently they couldn't find anyone to watch the little kids while they were gone so one of the older daughters stayed back. Kinda funny because Tatay's brother lives next door and as much as I know isn't a very busy person. He's always home by himself so I don't know why he couldn't watch them. I don't know how long the Abbad family has been members but their knowledge/understanding of the gospel and the church isn't very vast so we're helping them become more familiar with those things. Especially now that they've entered the temple. 

Wednesday we had MLC. Left early in the morning and ended up being the first ones to get to Cauayan. Guess we thought it would take longer to get there than it really did. But MLC was pretty good. Discussed a few things then we were taught some skills to help our teaching. Also it was Sister Rahlf's birthday that day so we ate some really good cake and ice cream. Also each companionship bought a little simple gift representing them or their area to give to her. It was really fun.
 
Thursday we had a csp. Probably one of the funnest csp's I've done. We went out to the Branch President's farm in Mabini and helped him move his little hut. Sounds easy right?? I thought we were just going to pick it up and move it. Well the pillars on the 4 corners were 3 feet in the ground so we had new pillars and dug new holes for them. The dirt is like clay. Like what you'd use in pottery class. Made digging the hole a pain in the rear end. Then when we had the pillars in we went to move the roof from the old to the new. It looked really light since it was just made of bamboo but holy crap it was heavy! Probably was the funniest thing ever watching us try to move the dang thing. I'm sure the sisters got a good laugh out of it. But we finally ended up getting it somewhat in place then went to President's house for some lunch. Went home right after that, showered and went out to work. Thursday and Friday, we went around and taught a lot of people and members about prophets since it was General Conference Saturday and Sunday. Not a lot of members go to the Saturday session of conference so we wanted to do our part in helping people attend. We taught a lot about it but it didn't seem to take much of an effect since not a lot of people attended. We did our best though. Last week we met Nanay and Tatay Plemente. Tatay is less active and Nanay has become our investigator. We were able to teach them on Thursday as well as on Sunday this week. We are taking it principle by principle with them since I think it is hard for them to get the concept. By Sunday they started to progress a little bit. Nanay listens really well and Tatay kinda just chills there while we share. We'll see how this week goes with them. They can't read so they won't progress that well on their own so we're going to try to visit them a few times in a week. 

Saturday morning we went to the church at 8 to watch the priesthood session. We joined the other 3 people there other than the other missionaries and watched the conference. By about midway through the session, we had a few more show up but not much. The other two sessions on Saturday didn't change much. A few more came with it now being open to the sisters but no more than a total of 25 of us there out of the entire district. At least it made it easy to get comfortable on the bench and listen to the speakers since it was quiet. 
Sunday morning session there was a lot that showed up just like usual. Then went back down to about 25 for the afternoon session. Can't really blame them though since it's hard to go to something that you don't even understand since it was in English. Also Pacquiao had a fight during the afternoon session so that took a lot away as well. When we left the apartment to go back to the church for the second session, we looked in President's house and he was watching the fight. It had just started. We looked at each other and told each other to not expect to see him show up to conference. And we were right. But I did enjoy conference weekend. Realized this was my fourth and last general conference in the mission field! Pretty crazy. I kept my notes with me throughout the day Saturday and Sunday and in every lesson we taught I was able to take something from conference and apply it to what we were teaching. 

Oh also Saturday during work, we saw a member from branch 1 that we are pretty close with and went and talked to him. He gave us a name of a less active member he wanted us to contact. So like 3 hours later we contacted her and then she ended up coming to church Sunday morning! Pretty awesome. She said she hadn't been to church in a long time and was shy to go back but she still came. Her name is Munik. No idea how to spell her last name so we'll just leave it at that. She turns 18 in a few weeks so it shouldn't be too hard to get her a good friend in the single adults to help her come back to church. 

Sunday was a fun day of work. We had two members work with us. They both have their mission calls and are preparing to leave. Sister Wilma is going to serve in England and leaves August 17 then Brother LordJay is going to serve in Las Vegas and leaves August 16. They are both preparing really well. Especially Sister Wilma. Don't think I've ever seen someone so ready to serve a mission. She's going to be a great missionary. 

All in all it was a great week and went by so quickly! This week should get back to normal since we don't have MLC and won't have general conference. I'm back here in Roxas today for pday. Been looking for people I know but haven't seen any so far. Also the computer won't read my sd card. I tried all the computers or other missionaries here and it won't work. I think it's this net shop though. I netted here back when I was assigned here and I don't remember it working every time. Gonna have to try a different one next week. The pictures are starting to pile up so when I finally get the chance there should be quite a few. Anyway love you all and hope you're all doing well! Have a good week!

Love Elder Haacke

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