Zone conference and missionary work

Tuesday we went teahing with Rodel again.  We taught a few lessons here and there.  It is hard for me to remember details.  Whenever we get back to the appartment at night and sit down to write in my journal sometimes I can't even remember what we did that day (unless something cool or unusual happened) but I try my best.  After dinner we went to teach the Lipalams, a newly investigating family.  We taught the plan of salvation.  We taught by the light of an oil candle which happens pretty often here.  I think it is fun.  When we told the family about the kingdoms of glory the father pointed to the Celestial kingdom and said he had a dream about it.  When he was sick a long time ago he had a dream where he saw angels singing in heaven wearing white robes.  He related that to the picture of the sun representing the Celestial kingdom.  It seems like their family will progress very well but I try not to get my hopes up because sometimes they don't keep commitments as well as they should.   

     We also taught jerson.  It had been almost three weeks since we last taught him because he is always either gone or drunk when we come to visit.  He accepts what we teach but he isn't keeping commitments.  I don't think he will progress but I don't want to drop him yet.

     On Wednesday we traveled to Malatgao but all the people we were planning on teaching were gone.  It was fun to see the country as we rode there.  There are jungled mountains, rice fields, workers, and people plowing using karabaw.  It is cool to see people do things the old fashioned way.  We also picked guavas from a wild guava tree.  They were pretty sour and hard but that is the way the people like them here.

     On Thursday we traveled to Puerto Princessa for zone conference.  It was great.  We traveled by shuttle for three hours to get there but when we got there we found that we would be staying in a nice hotel.  I was super excited.  The rooms had air conditioning, and I actually got cold during the night.  They also had hot showers which I haven't had in a month.  One elder told me it had been a year before he got a hot shower.  

     Friday was zone conference and I really enjoyed it.  There were a lot of great talks.  I was also asked to give a three minute talk on part of Alma 5.  They served us lunch and it was great.  There were lots of different Philippino foods.  After, we traveled by shuttle back to Quezon.

     Saturday we celebrated family with the branch.  For the past week we had been inviting people to attend.  There were tours of the chapel and activities, singing, and devotionals.  Some investigators came.  It was a good opportunity to introduce people to the church.  They also did dinner which was super good.  I learned that coconuts are meant to be soft on the inside and the ones we have in the U.S. are hard because they are a little older.

     Yesterday we went teaching after church with some people from the ward.  It was a lot funner to do it that way.

     Well, that is pretty much everything that happened in this past week.

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Love, Elder Harkness