Elder Bryan Haacke: Enjoying Every Day to the Fullest

HOLY COW! This is my last full week in the Philippines!! How crazy is that?! Easy to say but it doesn't feel real at all! But I have got to be honest, I can't wait to see you guys again! Sounds like you all had another good week. Glad Marissa made it home okay and had a good time on her trip.

As for Elder Lechoco and I we had a pretty good week. We'll start the week off with zone meeting on Tuesday. I think I could say I kinda miss teaching zone meeting. Believe it or not but I had additions after additions. I know it doesn't seem like me at all but like halfway through I told myself to stop talking since I was saying so much. That's why I think I missed teaching it. But they talked about repentance. Not really surprised though. I read something on lds.org about having the new mission presidents focus on repentance. So we're getting right into it! It was a good lesson though and something we really do need to teach better. Sometimes we take it too lightly.

So investigators are doing pretty good. Big news is Maricris passed her interview with flying colors so her baptism is all set for this Saturday, my last Saturday in the mission! Pretty excited. We had a review lesson with her Friday then her interview was on Sunday. She did pretty good in the review so we knew she wouldn't have a problem in the interview. I asked Elder Russell if there was anything we needed to focus on during the reteaching but he said she knew everything pretty well so that was good!

Tatay Enomio is still doing great! Still cracks me up every time I see him. Such a funny guy. Still going strong to meet his date in August. He was at church again yesterday but didn't stay for class. We'll work on that next week. We were able to continue with the lessons this week as well with Tatay. Sometimes he has a hard time remembering things and he can't read since it's too blurry so I think we'll just focus on helping him get a testimony through his church attendance. I think he already believes it is true because he really enjoyed church two weeks ago (his first time). One of the talks two weeks ago was really really good and he said he really liked everything she said. It was a good experience for him to have for his first time attending church.

Sister Racquel didn't come to church this week. We also didn't even teach her. She lives pretty far away so we want to make contact with her before we go out to teach her. Her only available day is Saturday but we never got through to her all day so we didn't end up going out to that area. We also couldn't contact the fellowshipper that attends the lesson with us so we thought it wouldn't be worth our time to go all the way out to that area because she might not be there. Hopefully this week we'll be able to teach her again.

The two families we teach out in Cagumittan haven't been progressing the last two weeks. We tried to focus more on them this week to see if they still have potential or not but we never taught them. Every time we went out there they had one excuse after another as to why we couldn't teach that day. So that was too bad. Those two families are referrals from a member and that member always asks us how they're doing so we had to break the news this week that they aren't doing that well. The member was sure they were going to progress and we also thought they were going to progress. I think it is because the first week every time we taught we had two other members with us, one of them being the one that gave the referral. Ever since then they haven't come with us to teach and I think that has been one of the causes that has led the two families to not progress like we thought they would. We'll try again this week then make a decision if it's time to drop them or not.

Someone I really wanted to teach again this week was Sherwin Castillo. We have never been able to teach him again since the first lesson. Every time we've gone to his house he hasn't been there so we're wondering if he might have taken off somewhere. We'll try again this week and see where we get.

We didn't really do a good job of finding new investigators this week. I think we've slacked off on that a little since we've been in the area a little longer. Of course when we were new that was all we did because we both didn't know anybody but now we've slacked off a little which is too bad. We'll focus on it again this week since a lot of the investigators we have now aren't showing many signs of progressing.

Church was pretty good on Sunday. We had two visitors from the stake that shared some good messages. Elder Lechoco and I taught Sunday School which went pretty well actually. Our sacrament meeting attendance was right around 50 again or a little more than 50. Pretty good since it rained the night before. Normally when it rains it has a big affect on church attendance but not this week.

So the second half of this week they started cutting down trees that are disrupting power lines. By the way, power lines are a huge problem in this country. They are so unorganized. Anyway, so for safety while cutting the trees around the power lines, they cut the power from 8 in the morning to 5 at night. So yeah, that was not fun. Sweating like crazy during studies and then in lessons there is no electric fans to sit in front of. Luckily they are done now so we won't have that problem anymore.

Also, we are supposed to be looking for a new apartment since the one we have right now isn't that great. The senior couples don't want us living there I guess. The landlord came last week and said they were going to fix it up but I guess the mission would rather have us find a new apartment then go through the hassle of fixing the one we have now. So Saturday morning, we went out with a member that has been looking for us and we visited some houses for rent. Long story short, didn't find anything. Actually there is one that might have potential but we haven't been able to see the inside of it yet so that might happen this week, hopefully.

That's pretty much it for the week this week. Got a pretty busy week ahead of me. District meeting tomorrow where I just learned I will be teaching for about 15 minutes just giving some farewell thoughts. Then I will be heading to Cauayan early in the morning Wednesday for our career workshop. Then we have a baptism Saturday morning. The days will go by very quick so I better enjoy every bit of it to the fullest! Hope you all have a great week! Love you all!

Love Elder Haacke