As for the week this week, it was pretty long. We're still trying to get things rolling here in our area. We still have only gone to a few of the barangays here in our area. The boundary of Tuao is HUGE and we've only gone to a little bit of it. We mainly go to the barangays that have been shown to us. We went to a couple new ones but just felt lost while we were there. The information left for us about the area wasn't a whole lot so we are having a hard time getting going. The members are really nice but they don't come out to work with us. We planned a one day mission for this coming Saturday so hopefully all the members will come out and we'll split into a lot of groups get the area covered well.
Started the week with district meeting on Tuesday. That was pretty good. Elder Russell is my district leader and he's from Rexburg so we talk a lot about home. He's good friends with Caleb Allred if you remember him from soccer. He's a good teacher and we have a pretty fun district. Last Tuesday we talked about how to teach Faith and Repentance. Sometimes it's easy to skip teaching the importance of those two principles and just going straight to baptism but those principles are very important. We've been taught that a few times here in the mission and I think I've done a good job emphasizing the importance of those principles, especially repentance. But it was a good district meeting. We then traveled home which once again took forever. Totally sick of these two hour rides just to get to our area. Good thing I'm only here for one cycle so I just tell myself to endure it until then.
I don't really want to give a description of what happened everyday because like I said earlier our week was pretty slow. I do want to tell you about one of our new investigators that is really progressing. Her name is Maricris Pamittan. She's 24 yrs old and her mom and little sister are recent converts. We just started teaching this week and now we teach her basically everyday. They live somewhat close to the apartment so we make them our first appointment of the day before we go to whatever barangay we are going to work in that day. So anyway, she is doing everything we ask her do to. She's read every reading assignment. And she only has one day to do it since we come back the next day. And she prays really well. And she has good support from her mom and sister. We extended a baptismal date on Saturday for July 30 which is right before I go home so I'm hoping and praying everything goes well. So far it's going great. She came to church yesterday and really enjoyed it. Also it was a great sacrament meeting. Remember how I said there are a lot of older people in this branch? Well that means it's not near as noisy as in my last areas and almost all of them bore their testimony. There was never a period of down time where we were waiting for someone to go up and bare their testimony. So it was a great sacrament meeting for her first time at church. We are really happy with the progress she's making and we are excited to see how she continues to do.
Other than Maricris, we don't have any other investigators that are progressing. We had another referral that looked good and we were going to contact it on Saturday with the member that gave it but it ended up falling through. The referral just got a job here in Tuguegarao and isn't going to come back to Tuao for a while.
So I want to tell you about this one family here in Tuao. Nanay and Tatay Pagulayan. Nanay is the relief society president and Tatay is just straight up hilarious. We felt like trying to eat lunch with a member this last week so we called them and set an appointment. They were also happy to have us at their house for lunch. We had lunch then after, Nanay made hot chocolate out of pure chocolate. As in like picked from the tree, dried then crushed into powder kind of chocolate. Anyway, the best part of the visit was talking to Tatay. He can go off on these random stories for ages. And he kept telling us to take a nap at their house since it was so hot outside. He's been a member for a long time so he tells a lot of stories about how the church started here in Tuao. We went from that to talking about zodiac signs then what day we were born and so on. No idea why but he remembers he was born on a Tuesday. But they are awesome and we look forward to continue building our relationship with them.
Church on Sunday was pretty good. Like I said earlier, sacrament meeting was great. Then classes went well as well. Maricris was our only investigator there. Don't really have any others that are close to coming but we'll see how this week goes. That's pretty much it for the week this week. Hope you all have a great week this week. Talk to you all again soon!
Love Elder Haacke
Smallest pig I ever seen. Good for about one piece of bacon.
Elder Lechoco and I
So here in Tuao, this is how we get from one place to another. By horse drawn carriages.
This is the Pamittan family. Next to me is Nanay and Maricris then the little sister Angel on the side. Also our friend Jeremy.
Nanay and Tatay Pagulayan
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