This week was actually a pretty good week though. The week started
off pretty slow just like last week but everyday had improvement and we
got things picked back up again by the weekend.
Start off the week on Tuesday. Elder Hardy taught a different
lesson for district meeting, not just the usual pick a trait from the
Preach My Gospel and talk about it. He did more of a doctrinal lesson
which was actually pretty interesting. He taught us about the Urrim and
Thummim. What it looks like, how it was used, where it came from. Stuff
like that. It was actually pretty interesting and I enjoyed listening to
him. I will be teaching tomorrow so now I'm thinking if I'll try and do
something like that. We got three new investigators while at work on
Tuesday. Two of them are related to Tatay Edwardo Passion who I talked
about last week. Out of the three, one of them is progressing more than
the others. That is Marinel Lapao. Her husband isn't too interested in
listening to us yet but we have a good fellowshipper lined up to help us
with that this week. She is going to Baguio later today so hopefully
she'll be able to fellowship with us later in the week. Tuesday night
the sisters in Caliguian invited us to dinner so we went with Brother
Roland and the sisters in the other branch in Burgos in Brother Rolands
kulong kulong (like a tricy but with no top) and traveled to Caliguian.
It's not far so it was okay to go but while we were on the way, it
started pouring rain! Like crazy hard. We had umbrella's out while
driving down the road but that served basically no purpose at all. We
were drenched like we just went swimming in proselyting clothes. When we
got up from the chairs at dinner, there was a nice puddle underneath
each of our seats. Luckily the rain stopped while we were eating and we
were able to go back to Burgos a little more peacefully.
Wednesday we went to the school in the morning and helped brother
Roland clean his kitchen. That's where he works and school will be
starting here in a week or two so we went to help him get his kitchen
all set up and cleaned up before it starts. We'll go back this week on
Thursday to finish it up. I don't even know if you could call that room a
kitchen though, it was filthy. I'll take some pictures on Thursday. We
had to shovel out dirt that the rats had brought in. I'll just leave it
there. But we will eat there at his place a lot once he gets up and
running so we're pretty excited for that. Wednesday was a long day of
work. We didn't have very much success and so time went by pretty slow.
We were still able to teach Tatay Romolo and Monique. They are both less
active. Since Elder Dialino has been here, we have been working really
hard with Romolo to come back to church. I guess he saw a leader of the
branch doing something that wasn't right and now he doesn't want to
attend because he doesn't want that kind of person running the branch.
Any guesses on who that leader is?? We don't know what he saw or what
specifically happened but we trying to help him put it behind him and
come back.
Thursday was when work started to get better and it finished strong
through the whole week. Best lesson on Thursday was with two new
investigators we just met that day. Roenna and Nestor Biernes. Nestor
was stabbed a couple times 3 months ago. Him and some others were
drinking and things got a little heated and he got stabbed a few times.
Now he just lays/sits in bed all day and slowly heals. He got messed up
in the inside as well. He has a catheter right now. He made sure we knew
how much it hurts when he replaces it with a new one every two weeks.
Made me laugh. But he's just grateful to be alive at this point. Our
lesson went really well with them and it's a perfect time for him to
start reading the Book of Mormon since he's got nothing else to do! They
have two kids, the oldest is a boy that's 10. They are really receptive
so far and I think Nestor wants to attend church. We'll just have to
continue teaching him until the time comes that he will be able to walk
again and be able to go to church.
Friday was a normal day. Didn't really have any stand out lessons.
Taught Nanay DelaCruz again. She's awesome. She doesn't like that
section 76 of the D&C is like 119 verses long but she's making her
way through it. She makes me laugh every time we visit her. She'll
probably be done with it by the time we visit her next.
Saturday was the best day of work we've had since the cycle
started. We went back to the same area we worked on Wednesday. We had no
luck on Wednesday but it totally changed on Saturday. We were 3 for 3
on our first three appointments. Almost never happens. Our third lesson
was with a new investigator. We contacted her on the street last
Wednesday then followed up on Saturday. Were able to share a good
message with her but her baby was pretty distracting so that made it
hard for her to focus. We'll go back this week and see how it goes. So
after that third appointment, it started pouring rain! Like we left her
house, got like 15 yards down the road and it was pouring. We ran to a
tindihan (a little store) and waited under the tent for a little while.
It continued to rain harder and harder and the lightning and thunder was
crazy. We were already pretty wet from running to the tindihan so after
we had a little snack we decided to leave and just get more wet. Then
as we were about to leave, the rope holding the tent up broke from the
weight of the water on the tent. Then all that water went straight on
Elder Dialino! It only landed on my leg but it got his entire body wet!
The lady in the tindihan and I were laughing so hard! There's a picture
of the tindihan we were at. I'm still standing underneath the tent that
fell. So after that, we went to Tatay Romolo's house but he wasn't
there. His house had like 3 inches of water in it. I guess that always
happens when it rains hard so they don't leave stuff on the ground. So
anyway, our day started really good then got destroyed by rain. We were
soaking wet as well. Water was squirting out of our shoes every time we
took a step. Believe it or not we were still able to have a pretty
successful rest of the day. Definitely had the temptation to just go
home since it was still raining but we were blessed by staying out. We
were able to get three more lessons even with the rain and one of them
was to a less active who has never let us share with her since I've been
here. I think she felt bad since we were soaking wet. Blessing for
staying out in the rain.
Sunday was pretty good as well. It took a while for people to show
up at church. I think a lot of people had water problems so they didn't
go to church since they were cleaning up. Also some people we went to
later in the day said the got wet which made them get sick so they
couldn't go. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the speakers were good. Everyone
seemed to enjoy the talks. I, once again, used the time and made my
grocery list for later today since I had no idea what they were saying. I
was sitting by Josan and he saw me making my grocery list and laughed
at me. Told me I should learn Ilocano but Tagalog is good enough for
me.
We didn't have any investigators at church this week which was too
bad. We did have our three young men there that we're working with.
Jayvie, Josan and Ian were all there. Pretty sure buying that basketball
is paying off. They've been coming to church ever since we started
playing. We did a surprise visit on Jayvie and when we walked up he had
an English and Tagalog Book of Mormon on his lap and he was reading.
Made me happy to see the progress he's making on his own.
Overall the week was pretty good. Started with some struggles but
we worked through it and finished strong. Pretty happy with the week
this week and with the new investigators that we got this week. Should
be another good week this week! Hope you all have a great week!
Love Elder Haacke
The tindihan where we waited. The tent above us is what fell and soaked Elder Dialino.
The tent that fell. That's me still under it. Funniest thing ever.
Saturday's storm. This was a break in the storm, then it started pouring again until the evening.
Punted day at work. Elder Dialino decided we should take a picture of what a punted face looks like.
Stayed at this waiting shed Tuesday night for a little while as we
waited for Roland to pick us up. My comp told me to model the Royal
(soda I'm drinking).
This was us at dinner Tuesday night. Hard to tell in the picture how wet
we really were but you'll just have to trust me we were soaked to the
core.
Elder Dialino and I with Tatay Abad. We had him take us on his motor to our dinner appointment since we were going to be late!
Last three pictures are cleaning Roland's kitchen.
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