Monday, September 30, 2013

Funerals, rain and falling off motorcycles

HELLO!!! This week has been a really great week and has flown by, as they all seem too. I love seeing all of the blessings that the Lord has for us in our lives as we are serving here. It’s hard, it always will be, but it is definitely worth it. I think that the event of this week was, well a long line of events actually. Last week we contacted a less active family on our 15 focus and the dad wasn’t a member. The father is really sick, he has lung cancer and it has come so quickly. He only had it for 2 months. So we taught them twice last week and the dad wasn’t doing well at all. The mom and the daughter committed to come to church and then on Sunday, they didn’t come. It turns out that the Dad past away last Friday. So then this last Wednesday we went and taught about the plan of Salvation and they committed to come to church after all of the services and stuff and how it was really heavenly father looking after them by sending us to them right before all of this happened. They asked if we could come back Friday at 2 with President Quebedo…. Weekly planning…. We worked it out with the schedule so that we still got it fit in. SO then on Friday (mind you this is family week) President Quevedo texts and says that he can’t come because he is too busy. SO we went to tell them and hopefully share with them and we got there and then President came we got everything worked out for funeral arrangements for them. President Quevedo was a little stressed but he handled everything really well. On Sunday after church they had the funeral service and we came at the end to show our support and the mom and daughter both just gave us the biggest hugs (hopefully it wasn’t too bawal in the circumstance) and told us how they don’t know what they would have done if we hadn’t have come when we did and they promised to come back to church. Hopefully it will spark the fuse for the rest of the less-actives in their family.

After the service they all walk to the funeral and we were asked to join, so we started walking…. In the pouring rain, with only one umbrella. I got a little wet. On the way home it poured!!! We gave our bags to some members to take to the church for us so that all of our stuff didn’t get all wet and then we just started to walk. When we got back to where we could take a tryce… oh yeah, we gave our bags with our money to the branch. Just keep swimming. Literally we were drenched! Finally a branch member came and picked us up and took us to our apartment so that we could change. The funeral was definitely different.

Shout out to David and Jamee! That song by one direction is playing right now in the computer shop.

I’ve been pretty homesick over the past 2 weeks…. Thought that that would be over with, it’s not yet. L but hey! Only 5 months left!

We were finally able to contact a long term investigator. We weren’t sure what to do in this situation because she says that her “asawa” lives in Bagio and that’s why they aren’t married but that she is pretty sure that he has another  asawa there too and so he doesn’t want to get married to her. We told her to drop him and get baptized. J We will see how that goes. But she was way awesome and we are all basically best friends!

On Friday night, they had a show at the church for family week and a big dinner with the Mayor. When she arrived at the chapel, they has Sister smith and I greet her and the vice mayor, and then we sang an ilakano song for them. J We didn’t have time to stay for the dinner, but the show/presentation went over really well!

This Branch and the area has a lot of potential, the leaders are really masipag and they know how to get things done. I know that as the work of the Lord increases in this area and we are able to cover more area, that the branch will really grow and hopefully become a ward.

On Saturday they had a huge dance show at the chapel the entire day! Well until 5, and there were people there from all over Ilocos Norte. It sounds like it was really fun but it was against the rules for us to attend. We did anyways. Haha but before you think that we are disobedient, really we only taught an investigator at the church at the same time that it was going on, then we recorded Paoay doing there dance and then we left. Not really disobedient…. Just clever. Then after everything was over we went and cleaned the chapel…. Oh man! It was sooo gross! Who knew that people could be so messy!!!! It was almost as bad as cleaning our apartment the first day that we got here after the elders left this area….sickening!

I fell off of the back of a tryce this week…. It’s easier than you might think! It’s basically just sitting side saddle on the back of a motorcycle, so when we went around the corner, I sort of just slipped right off…. For falling off of the back of a tryce, I was PRETTY graceful! I just sort of stepped off and ran along side of it for a second. The only thing that hurt was my pride…. So no worries there!

Love you al! You only have like 2 and a half months to write me to be sure that your letters get to me before I go home, so better seize the day!

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