Elder Bryan Haacke: Last Mission Letter

Well, this is it! Finished my last full week in the Philippines! Can't believe it's come to this point. Something I thought was never going to actually come has now come faster than I could've imagined. But I can not wait to see you guys later this week!

So we had the career workshop this week on Wednesday. Woke up early and left with Elder Walstad. We picked up Sister Edrington on the way to the bus station and met Elder Capulac there. Everyone we asked said the early bus was at 6 so we were there at 5:45 ish. When we got there they said it wouldn't leave till 6:30 which was going to be late so we just went out by the McDonald's and waited on the road for one to go by. While waiting, we decided to go get some breakfast at McDonald's which ended up being a great idea because I don't think I would have lasted the almost 3 hour trip on an empty stomach. The career workshop was actually pretty good though. Elder Jones taught it to us. I liked some of the things we talked about. It will be really helpful in the future, especially when it comes to job interviews. Also he mentioned that he had a son that went into finance so I stayed afterwards and talked to him a little about that. He's had a lot of success and Elder Jones just talked about how many different opportunities there are in finance. I think it mainly helped me confirm my decision to go into finance. But it was a good meeting and fun to be with my whole batch again. There are a total of 17 of us leaving the mission so quite a few of us.

Most exciting part of the week was Marycris's baptism on Saturday. It was on Saturday morning, supposed to be at 9 but didn't start till 10. No surprise there right? So nothing new. But the zone leaders told us that the last baptism they had in Tuao was only attended by the branch president and other missionaries. I guess like four other missionaries came all the way to Tuao just to attend the baptism. So I as a little worried there wouldn't be anyone there to support Cris. Even her mom told me she wouldn't be able to attend but I said no she has to make a way to be able to come because it's her own child that's being baptized. She ended up being able to go so that was good. Surprisingly, quite a few other members came as well. Quite a few as in like 10 but that's a lot better than I was thinking would come. Speakers gave good, short talks and the baptism went well. It was a good experience for Sister Cris and she shared an awesome testimony at the end. She talked about how out of all the different churches she's gone to in the past, she's never felt the way she feels now. She's also met some other single adults in the stake recently and I guess they always text her and ask how she's doing. I'm glad she's already getting a lot of friends that will help her stay active in the church.

Tatay Enomio is still doing pretty good. He has some Word of Wisdom problems but as soon as he learned they were against a commandment of God he said he won't do them again. As of now, he has avoided them so hopefully he keeps it up. Saturday was the last day we taught him and I told him that the next time the elders come back to teach him it will be someone else. He asked some questions and was determined to do anything to get me to stay but I told him my "contract" (that's what they call it sometimes) was up and I had to go home. Then he started tearing up which caught me off guard big time. I guess he expected me to be here for his baptism. But we took some pictures and said goodbye.

So Saturday night, I needed to wash all my clothes since if I wash on Monday they won't have time to dry. So I wash all my clothes which took ages then I put them out on the clothes line to hopefully somewhat dry overnight and Sunday morning. So once I finished, a friend called and said there was a storm coming in that was supposed to be a pretty big storm. I looked outside and the sky was clear so I didn't worry about it. Then about 5 in the morning I woke up and heard the rain hitting the roof. I swear I jumped out of bed and ran outside so fast if you would've blinked you would have missed it. Luckily I think it had just recently started so at least my cloths weren't dripping wet yet but they were pretty wet. Brought them inside and stuck the fan on them and they still somehow got dry by the time church was over. That's another story though. So we got to church and there were about 10 of us. By the time the sacrament was passed we had gotten up to exactly 20 people including Elder Lechoco and I. Elder Lechoco and I were the speakers in sacrament meeting and that was pretty good. Also gave me a chance to say goodbye to everyone, even though there was barely anybody there. We sang "God Be With You Til' We Meet Again" as the closing him and the branch president pointed at me at the start telling me it was for me. To be honest, it wasn't even planned that way. I guess he didn't know it was my last Sunday even though I had told him many times. Ended up working out well though. In Tuguegarao South Stake, they cancelled class and sent all the members home after sacrament meeting because of the wind and rain but that didn't happen to us. We all ended up combining together for the two hours of class though since it would not have been worth it to break up into separate classes. Classes were actually pretty good though. Studied Alma 32 in Sunday School then in combined Priesthood and Relief Society we talked about how we can teach more like Christ, focusing on home and visiting teaching. After church, now raining even harder, we had lunch with the Dingil family.

After that we went home so I could pack. So there is a bridge to cross when you leave or are coming in to Tuao and it is pretty low. It floods when it rains a lot so we were worried that might happen especially if it is supposed to rain harder. We talked to our neighbor to see if he thought it might flood or not and he said yeah maybe so we decided it would be better to go to Tuguegarao Sunday then to try and go Monday and not be able to because the river is so high. So I packed everything up really quick and we went out to the highway and waited for a jeep or van to come by. Long story short, waited for 2 hours and nothing came by! So we had no options and just went back to the apartment and slept there. Also, while we were out waiting for a jeep, water was apparently making it's way across the ceiling and dripping rapidly right onto my bed. So we went to sleep and the bottom half of my mattress was soaked. Then at like 5:45am, our neighbor comes over to the window and yells through the window that a lot of jeeps were going by. So that was a nice alarm clock! Anyway, because the rain stopped sometime overnight, the bridge didn't end up flooding so we could still get to Tugue this morning. And that brings us to today! Pretty good last week in Tuao. I can talk more about it this week when we're together! Can't wait for Thursday!! Love you all!

Love Elder Haacke

Marycris's baptism.

This is Tatay Enomio and his wife.

Realized while washing Saturday night that I haven't sent a picture of me washing clothes my whole mission. So I went and got my camera and had Elder Lechoco take a pic.