Record investigators and Zone activity

I think this will be a short email because I accidentally left my journal back at the house and it is pretty hard to remember everything I did this week. 

     We had two baptismal interviews and should have two baptisms is Saturday.  This last week was pretty successful.  We had 14 investigators at church this Sunday.  That is the highest I have ever had.  One of them was someone we have never even taught but we just talked to them while we were out.

     We had somewhat of a vacation this week if you can call anything on a mission a vacation.  We went to Narra for a Zone activity.  President Ostler let us watch the Chronicles of Narnia (but only if we talked about all the symbolism).  It has been years since I saw it and back then I didn't understand all the symbolism.  Later Elder Ramos and I spent the night with the Aborlan elders.  The next day we had a zone meeting.

     The rest of the week we basically just taught lessons and walked lots of places.  I wish I knew how far we walk each day.

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Love, Elder Harkness

Missionary work

Recently we have been working a lot with the branch missionaries.  Sometimes it is really good because they become friends with our investigators but sometimes it is better without them (especially when some of them just act like immature teenagers).  Usually it is really good to have them.  They try to speak English to me.  I think that they know more English vocabulary than I know Tagalog vocabulary but  I think I can speak tagalog better than they can speak English.  I just can't really have conversations with anyone unless it is about the gospel. 

     Yesterday I started talking to someone to see if he would be interested in hearing our message.  This is part of the conversation:  Me:  We're missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. . . . We know that because of Jesus Christ we can live with our families forever. . .   Could we share our message with you?  Him:  Sorry, we're Christians.  Me:  Oh! we're Christians too.  We're from the church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day saints.  (Honestly, did he not hear anything I was saying to him?)

     We went to a funeral this week for the branch president's father in law.  I was asked to speak on the Atonement and didn't know before so I quickly prepared some scriptures and what I was going to say.  When I gave my short talk the words just flowed out and I felt the spirit so strong  I couldn't help but smile while I was talking.  It was a great experience.

     This last week we also taught a lesson to two kids, probably 11 and the other one 12.  The lesson went great.  They are also coming to church pretty frequently.  If I could I would spend my entire mission teaching people from ages 8 to 15.  They are not prideful, stubborn, rude, rejecting, and don't bible bash.  They are also willing to keep commitments.

     On Saturday we went to the market to OYM (open your mouth) people.  Basically share a short message.  There were a lot of native palawans there.  When I asked them where they are from they tell me they are from the mountain.  A lot of them are farmers and grow corn.  They have their own religion and language but they speak Tagalog too.  They are also seem to be generally really friendly.

     This last week I saw some more people training their roosters to cock fight. In real cock fights they put spurs or other sharp objects on the roosters' feet.

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Love, Elder Harkness

My birthday and round two to Panitian

After P day was over last Monday Elder Ramos and I went to go teach a lesson with some of the branch missionaries.  The branch missionaries are between 15 and 22 years old so they are a good help when the investigators are around that age.  We taught one lesson to one of our investigators that is progressing really well.  After the branch missionaries surprised me with a cake because it was my birthday.  It was pretty fun. 

     Tuesday we got invited to dinner and it was pretty good.  When we came  back to the apartment the other elders told us about how they cast out a devil earlier that day.  I was a little bit jealous because I think it would be cool to do something like that.

     Thursday we went around trying to teach lessons to investigators with one of our investigators to help us.  It really helps in lessons to have more than just two missionaries.

     Saturday was round two with panitian.  The drive was about 25 minutes on a trycicle with a total of seven people.  Motorcycles are a lot stronger than I thought.  We were trying to find a member who hasn't been to church in a long time.  We weren't able to find who we were looking for but we did find an inactive member that we didn't know about.  He hasn't come to church for a long time because he is too poor to pay to travel there.  He seemed really poor.  His shirt had holes in it and his jacket was way too big for him.  There was also a girl there who wasn't a member.  We taught a lesson to them.  At some points during the lesson the girl seemed to be holding back tears.  I think their lives are hard.  When I asked her what she wants most in life she said she would like to go to church.  I feel really bad for these people because they can't do the things we sometimes take for granted or complain about.  The longer I am on my mission the more I realize how dumb it is to take things for granted.

     Sunday I taught the gospel essentials class.  It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  It was really cool to be able to teach a lesson by myself in Tagalog.  Later we went out to try to teach lessons.  I saw some people training their roosters for cock fighting.  I have never seen cock fighting before but it seems to happen a lot here.  There are a few cock fighting rings around Quezon.

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Love, Elder Harkness

I haven't really noticed a difference in the weather here.  Some days are hot and others are a little bit cooler.  We might have some bad rain tonight because there is a tropical depression that might hit Palawan  I think that tropical depressions can turn into typhoons but this one  probably won't.  The weather is a lot more crazy in Manila I hear.  

Love, Matthew 

on P days we just eat lunch, email, shop, and then go back  to the apartment for laundry.  we might have a little free time but it is still a nice break from missionary work.

Christmas and New years

We had some good success this week and seem to have some good investigators. 

Wednesday was the sweatiest day of my mission so far.  At one point my shirt was pretty damp.  After getting home I took a nice cold shower.  One investigator we visited is progressing amazingly.  We found her about three weeks ago and she has already been to church twice and has read the Book of Mormon up until 2 nephi 17.  It is awesome.  She is very interested in the church.  The only problem is if her "guardians" won't like the church.  They are gone right now and were gone when we began teaching.  It shouldn't be a huge problem because she is 22 and doesn't need anyone's permission to be baptised.

     Thursday was a very successful day.  We were able to teach 6 lessons.  It was also transfers today and I will be staying in Quezon at least until mid February

     Saturday was a fun day because curfew was 6:00 pm.  They just wanted us to be safe for New Years eve.  We had snacks and played some games so it was really fun.

Sunday I was pretty tired in the morning because of a bad nights sleep due to the noise outside.  At church we had 11 investigators attend.  It was awesome!  I have never had that many at church before.  Elder Ramos and I also taught the the gospel principles class.

A dead rat I found under my desk

Loading up everyone to go to the beach for the Christmas Party.

At the beach

A guava

We found this giant spider outside with an egg sack underneath it.