Week 45 - San Roque 4/22/2012

so fun week Monday i think i forgot to tell you but i had an interview that night awesome i spoke Tagalog i noticed how easy it would be for me to learn all i really need to do is to try and use it every once in a while and actually study i realized i have gotten lazy in my language study but that's different now i have learned a ton of Tagalog this week just by using it and my companion of course is able to help me out because the tone is a lot different for Tagalog than for Warray so sometimes even if i use the right word but with a Warray tone they have no idea what i am saying its crazy how big of a difference it makes but tuesday we had our district meeting and i gave a training about using priesthood power not just authority and it has really helped but ill get to that but after the training we taught a lesson and went to dulag to send the tithing money to Manila and then we had our branch presidency meeting and were able to get some things a little more organized but it didn't help things were still crazy but ya like i said ill get to that then wed we taught a new refferal and she will be great we just have to make sure she is ready before she has to go back home to go to school she is 11 and her mom is an inactive member from dulag cool didn't even know she was a member in dulag and i was there for 6 months so small world not really im only like a mile from my old area but still its awesome so hoping mom will start going to church as well in dulag im going to get elder ostler on that but that's about all that happened besides getting the budget from the district president for a YW activity then Thursday morning during my studies i got a phone call they said is this elder coontz i said yes and she said im sister so and so from the office i started freaking out like no i cant transfer now whats happening but it wasn't the mission office it was the tithing office in Manila and turns out money was sent but the names of the people who paid tithing were not submitted and we needed to find the problem so we went and tried to teach a few people but no one was home then we went to get the key from the branch president and he was already at the church thank you spirit for helping him and we search the whole church and there is no record so not completely sure what we need to do but they haven't called back yet so I'm not sure because we are a new branch presidency and we aren't the ones who sent the money so ya then i had to call the mission office in order to talk with the supply manager who is one of my friends from the MTC elder Cypres and order a Tagalog hand book for our branch president its hard since he doesn't have a cell phone and most of the time his daughters cell phone is dead since they don't have electricity in their home so ya but got that done then Friday we had a service project at 5:30 and finished at about 9 then ate studied and went to work we were able to teach our investigator again and she seemed to really get things she didnt want to pray but did it any way its so cool to see people learning then we tried to teach the old second councilor but the were cooking dinner so that didn't work out so we went to the YW presidents house and gave her her money for their activity Saturday then Saturday is when everything comes in to play we had our speakers planned and one is a member who used to be a branch president but lives in manila but had a stroke at 38 years old and we living with his brother while he was recovering so that becomes a problem because in the morning we taught the old branch presidents family and they told us he had a stroke again uh oh not good but we didn't have any information so we went home ate and went to the district building in Tolosa and talk with the district president and he gave us money and told us not to attend the training but to go to the hospital and i never want to go in to another hospital again after that it is the worst smell ever because people just pee everywhere i didn't realize the hospital i was in for my surgery was a private hospital we finally found him and his sister was in there with him and 20 other people with their sick family and she had a pump and she was pumping oxygen for him while all the nurses and stuff just stood around and talked like there was nothing to do i hate corruption turns out the Philippines is one of the top most corrupt places in the world but any way we were there for a reason and that was to give a priesthood blessing so we asked permission and they asked me to give the blessing i was a little nervous that the spirit would tell me to tell him it was his time to go but luckily that didn't happen but i knew it was his time to go but something stood out in my mind the only thing i can remember from the blessing i gave was that he would see his family again and i said it with complete confidence one problem his family lives in Manila and i thought about that all night and i know he will see his family again but right now he is doing the lords work in the spirit world preparing other peoples families until his family arrives because Sunday i conducted sacrament and the branch president filled in as speaker and during his talk one of the members received a phone call saying that he had died his brother ran out of the chapel crying it was one of the most stressful Sundays ever we had 18 people at church when it started the speakers were late and then all that happened ahhhhhhhhhh! but i know it all needed to happen people are changed now and i really hope to see some change in the things they do every day church ended and the only class held the third hour was priesthood because everyone else went home and then we had a training in Tolosa from what was supposed to be 2 to 4 and ended up being 3 to 5 so no work yay we practiced piano until 7 and went home and got things prepared for the service project we did earlier we made tree guards because and its a lot harder here we used bamboo and nails and machetes and hammers to make them and then it poured rain and the other people were late so we ran out of nails and left and on the way home we saw the other people on their way there but we were hungry and wet so we all went home and ya now im here emailing you well i love you all and hope those of you with priesthood are using it to help others because thats what its for and if you dont have it makes sure others use it well not to much longer and itll be May and i can hear your voices again