Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Week 23 - Dulag 11/20/2011

A little info about the workings of our church.  Our congregations are divided geographically.  Where you live determines which ward or branch (a smaller congregation) you are in.  Which building you will attend and what time.  Each ward/branch is staffed by it's members.  We are the teachers and leaders.  The head honcho of the ward is a Bishop, in a branch he is the Branch President. The Bishop/Branch President has two counselors that assist him in tending to the members.

ok so that's cool that they are in porters mission! (some local friends parents are serving in my nephew Porter's mission, and his brother is the Mission President.) and i think its funny that dad climbed in through the play room window.

this week has been crazy since my new companion is the branch president we have been meeting with every member i know and we were able to get our attendance up to 40!  its crazy, i think we are really going to make a difference this transfer. so one day we got a text from someone who said their name was anna marie and we were talking to her. she said she knew us but i couldn't remember her so we asked when we could come visit her and she said Wednesday. so we asked what we need to ask people to find her house and she told us her name was kenneth lopez? we were like what the, that isn't even close and she lives in one of the farther out parts of our area. so we went and asked around for her and found her house she was across the street helping her mom with the school but she had no idea who we were. but in the end she was like well sorry, but you can share with me. she said she doesn't even know anyone named anna marie but her name is kenneth. so she had all these great questions and it was amazing but still have no idea who texted us. elder ostler said it was a referral from God! i think he may be right. so then another day we went to see an apostate member who used to be the branch president i don't really know to much about him but we talked and we thought he was starting to soften up but then he just got mad and rode of on his peddy cab. so we walked down another street and then back by his house to his neighbors and i kind of had a feeling we should stop, but elder ostler said something so we did, and turns out a girl is working there she is from tacloban and she is a member but doesnt know where the church is. so we ended up sharing with her and her to friends who are the grand kids of the owner and they came to church, yay! and then on friday we got a text from the district president saying he wanted to meet with elder ostler for some quick training, so i am going through a lot of this training as well. its kind of cool all the stuff we get to do now. then we had a lesson with a guy we met the other day who is from manila so he only speaks tagalog and so does his family. amazingly i was able to follow along and actually say some things in tagalog as well. the lord is amazing, but i really need to start studying tagalog as well now if we are going to keep teaching him. then we had basically a rolling black out all day on saturday from 6-6. it was not fun it was about 90 degrees and its the first day it hadn't rained in like 4 days. so it was super humid. so finally they turned it on at 6 and then back off at 7 we were like, what the heck! so then when we got home we were sitting trying to cool off a little before we had planning and i went to turn the fan on and as soon as i hit the button the fan came on and the neighbors lights came on it was awesome. then sunday elder ostler got sustained as branch president and the old branch president gave him a hug. i laughed a little, he was really excited to be getting released. so then we had some more training until about 1 then we ate and went to tolosa for the branch presidents meeting they have every 1st and 3rd sunday. so that will be fun. our sundays are basically full from now on and we have to do tithing so we have to take it to a money sender and then go to tacloban every p day now so we can send the receipt to manila. I'm actually a little excited about it, I'm in tacloban right now in the AC is really nice, and we can buy real food now. I've been eating hot dogs and tuna and corned beef lately. I'm excited for thursday, mashed potatoes gravy and a chicken because that's all we got, and turkey is extremely expensive. 

so all in all a great week and i know there are many more to come its going to be long days from here on out but i know we can turn this place around i love you all bye bye ngan paghinay ha mga aswang
i wear a size 10 and i would really like an english to tagalog dictionary if you can find one and of course my contacts and solution and we have christmas conference on dec 12 and 13 so the next time i can get a package after that is the 23 but that's only if i transfer because transfer day is 2 days before christmas so ya i really hope i don't transfer that would be a weird christmas

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