A New Week and Zone Meeting

Hello! :)

Zone Meeting went pretty well this past week. I was rather happy with how it turned out. It was weird though. Normally Elder Caoayan has a way of saying what he wants, no matter if it’s the right time or not. When we taught the Zone he had very little to say suddenly. I taught at least 75% of it... I think maybe he just got freaked out because Sister Carlos and the AP's came and observed our Zone Meeting while President was doing temple recommend interviews. He gets really weird around them... like he has to be perfect but is so afraid of making a mistake that he essentially does nothing... basta, the Zone meeting went well.

( I gave Elder Lundy a list of reasons why I am happy) That was a very nice list of reasons why you are happy. :) I liked it a lot. We are very blessed, aren't we?

When the children were young we would have had a much larger
group at Nana's. We would have had 37 people in the picture. As all Families
do they grow up and have a family of their own. : ) So only 4 of the
Grandchildren where there this year. Mainly us old folk went to
Nana's for Thanksgiving. Another part met together in Utah
around 22 more, and 25 where scattered around the world.

Dad sent me the thanksgiving picture. I have to say that Uncle Gary/Aunt Karen's John is super pogi (Handsome) now!!! guwapo siya (he's good-looking)! No joke. :) Eric is getting flipping huge too! Does he weight lift? This thanksgiving was just a normal day for me. We didn't do anything out of the normal. It’s ok though.

Hey mom, can you possibly email me a breakdown of the Philippines flag? You know what the colors and shapes mean, symbolism... I was just wondering about that this week. They really use part of their flag all over the place. I feel like it has a different meaning other than just patriotism...

Thank you very much for the packages you are sending me. :) I feel very spoiled with all you guys do for me. :)

So transfer day is on the 13th of December. This is Elder Caoayan's 4th cycle here in Bagabag. It’s almost a sure thing he is being transferred. But after all, we don't know the mind of our Heavenly Father in these things. Anything can still happen. As it looks we are going to have a lot of transfers in our zone come December 13...

Work was a little slow this week. All of our investigators with baptismal dates had places to go like Manila, or visiting family. It was still a good week though... we reached 17 lessons. We are doing pretty well despite the slow week. As we put forth effort, we see blessings. The progress of our investigators is amazing. As we have taught them, we can see how they have changed. They have become more open. They actually talk to us now. Those people that I thought would never progress are progressing, and all because of the Lord's blessings. They have felt the Spirit, and are following it. This week we have 4 baptismal interviews. Elder Dixon will interview them all on Saturday. Elder Caoayan is in "just baptize them already" mode. I feel several of them are very ready, but some of them I am not sure about. I feel they have a testimony, but I’m not sure their actions show that they are as ready as Elder Caoayan thinks they are. We'll see on Saturday though. It’s always a good thing to get outside input. Outsiders see things that you have become blinded to.

The zone is working really hard to reach our goal. This week, we not only reached our goal of 140 lessons (20/companionship) but passed it! :) Our OYM's stayed the same.

This past week I went on splits with Elder Dixon in Lamut. The splits went really well. Elder Dixon and I got in a couple lessons, and we worked on our goal of turning OYM's into lessons. Right at the end of the day as we were heading back to the highway to catch a jeepeny home, we decided to OYM one more house. Not only did we OYM, it turned into a lesson, and a new investigator. :) After that, we went home and had a good long talk about the splits and how elder Dixon and I are doing as missionaries. Elder Dixon opened up to me and told me that he respects and trusts me and told me to be completely honest and give all the advice/feedback I could think of. We talked for about an hour and a half on this topic... The next morning he was studying at 7:30 am instead of 9am... That extreme diligence didn't last for too many days, but I can see that he is applying most everything we talked about and is doing a lot better. I respect him a lot for making those changes.

Being a missionary is a wonderful blessing. :)

I got the letter and pictures/drawings from the Harpers this morning! :) thank you! I love it! I'm putting them up on my wall later tonight.

Well, I love you! :)

 

I gotta go shop now. :*

 

bye!

P.S. Oh... MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! People are starting to get really into it here. :) haha

One more thing I forgot... my release date is being changed I believe. Our mission transfers and incoming batches of missionaries are changing next year. All missionaries that go home in 2013 in Philippines Cauayan mission will go home 2-3 weeks early... there will be exceptions, but as I have no American batch going home, I think my date will be changed and I’ll be put with some other elders... we'll see what President Carlos does. :)