Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Week 38: Just stare at the ground and keep walking. Or look up! that's an even better option. Just don't look straight ahead because it is Holy Week here in Bataan, Philippines...

This week was very very interesting. It was also very successful but yeah. Holy Week is an interesting thing here… 

Monday: monday was my companion's birthday. So it was a lot of fun. We did our normal p-day thing. Partied it up, you know. At 5 we went out to work just like every p-day and we went to Brother C's house and taught him. He's an interesting kid. If you didn't know, filipinos are really really good at dancing. And Brother C is a recent convert who is on a dance team. And because of that, he doesn't have any time. After the lesson to Brother C, we went to a family home evening at the home of our recent convert, Le. It was a ton of fun. And then we got to eat a ton of food :) I love the Philippines.

Tuesday: District meeting! That was a lot of fun. i like our zone. After district meeting we went and got Shawarma. Remember on the Avenger's at the end when Iron Man says that he saw a Shawarma sign and he thought they should go get some after the big battle was over? Well Shawarma is actually a filipino food and it's super yummy. It's kind of like a pita wrap but nevertheless, they are delicious. I ate two :) yummmm. After that we actually got the chance to meet up with the Cobb family. Brother (used to be Elder) Cobb was
wearing weird normal clothes and his mom was super nice and gave us all hugs and we all took pictures with them. I'm sure you've all seen them by now. They're a very sweet group of people. Then we went home and took a 15 minute nap and went out and worked. We first went and visited Sister Li. We taught her about the plan of Salvation. I love teaching that to recent converts because it has so much more significance to them now. They know that it's true and that all they need to do now is endure to the end and then everything's gonna be ok. it's awesome. And then after that lesson we were super punted. Dangit. but that's ok. We just went around and talked to everyone but EVERYONE was BUSY. Patay. But we did get to teach Sister P's daughter and son. Her daughter's name is Pr and she's 21 and her son is M and he's 20 but honestly you'd think he was 16... he's super immature and loves joking around. But we taught them anyways and now they both have goal dates for baptisms. Woohoo!

Wednesday: We went out in the morning and taught Brother J who is a die-hard Catholic. He's also a member of the Catholic church's choir. He's invited me to join them multiple times. Not gonna happen but thanks for the invite. Anyways, we taught him the word of wisdom and he was funny about it because he said he would live it. That's the weird thing about him. He knows all the stuff we teach him is true but he doesn't want to become Mormon because he's Catholic. Or that's what he says... Interesting. 

After teaching him we went back home and ate lunch. And then went right back out into the heat. 

We visited Brother T who is someone who contacted us on the street and said he was Mormon when he was a little kid. So we said we'd come back and visit him. And we finally did. We taught him Lesson 1 and he said he vaguely remembered it. He's kind of old and we're still trying to figure out if he's an actual member or not… 

Then we went and visited Sister Le again and taught her. She fed us fish balls which are super duper yummy. Then she brought her neighbor, D over and we taught him. He's super nice and wants us to teach him. So we did. And he said when he knows that what we teach is true, he'll be baptized. ok sounds good to me :)

We then went and taught Sister D M who is another recent convert. That lesson was interesting. After that we walked to the next appointment and taught the P family. 

Thursday: If you're ever here in Bataan in Holy Week you will see decorations of huge crosses. You will also see people crawling around in the street with bandannas covering their heads, shirtless, and people hitting them with a rubber strap. You will also see more men walking around shirtless, with a bandanna on their head, tied to a cross. And last but not least, more men walking down the streets, shirtless, whipping themselves and getting blood on everything.

But anyways, Thursday was another punted day. But we still got some lessons in. We found Sister M J who thinks that the only people who go to church are those that have sins. We also taught Sister Li again and Sister P and Brother M and then we went and visited Brother B. 

Friday: Good Friday. Me and Sister L went to Balanga for a leadership meeting. Yes! And the meeting was really good. I learned a lot. Then we came back and worked and I've got to speed this up because we're almost out of time. We went and taught Sister Le's husband D and that was interesting because he was drunk haha but it was fun. And then we taught some other lessons

Saturday: good good good

Sunday: It was fun and we got to teach Le's daughter, J and she was good too.

So yeah. Sorry. But this week was interesting and I'm so glad that I'm here. I love this work and I love the Filipino people when they're not doing crazy things to themselves. Yup.

Thank you for everything. Mahal ko kayo!
-Sister Hess 

No comments:

Post a Comment