Transfers and finally done training

This has been an unusual week with transfers.  I have a new companion.  It took about two days for my new companion to get here because he had to take a 1.5 hour flight from Manila to Palawan and then take a 3 hour shuttle ride to quezon.  My new companion is Elder Ramos.  He is from somewhere in the Philippines I have never heard of and speaks a language that I have never heard of and can't remember the name whenever I ask.  He speaks Tagalog and English though luckily.  There are a lot of languages in the philippines.  Last transfer Elder Beltran and I were teaching a lesson to a native palawan couple and I realized that none of us were speaking our native language.  My companion was Cebuano, I was English, and the people we were teaching were some strange palawan language (palawano or something).   

My new companion is good.  He has been on his mission for about seven months so he knows what he is doing.  I still feel like I am figuring things out.

     I didn't get to write in my journal a few nights last week so I can't really tell you all everything I did.  For the first part of the week I was with Elder Nakalaban because both of our companions were transfered.  We took turns working in eachother's areas.

     On Friday Elder Ramos and I worked really hard to find new investigators to get our numbers up (they were low because of transfers and working in Elder Nakalaban's area)  One new investigator we taught had a baby that wouldn't stop crying and as a result the lesson wasn't going well.  No matter what the mother did she couldn't get the baby to stop crying.  She asked us to put our spit on the baby's feet to get it to stop crying.  We ended up not having to do that but they did rub some weird liquid on the baby's tummy.  It just goes to show how superstitious these people can be.

     Saturday we worked really hard again and found a couple who seemed interested in the Book of Mormon.  We haven't been able to go back but they seem like really good investigators.  We also had a baptismal interview for some of our investigators that are supposed to be baptized next week if everything works out.

     Sunday Elder Ramos and I gave the lesson in gospel principles.  It was a little hard because we didn't know we were teaching until the class was supposed to start.  I really felt the gift of tongues helping me speak during the lesson.  It really boosted my confidence with the language.  After church we went out and talked to people and were able to get a lesson.  

     It has been a good week this past week and I have grown a lot in my abilities with the language and being a missionary.

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Love, Elder Harkness