More Phoul Things and Typhoons

Well, let me just start off by telling you that the worst experience of my entire mission happened this week (ok, that's a slight exaggeration). But it was pretty bad. We had just finished an investigator lesson. We had taught the wife 2 or 3 times and it was our first time teaching the husband. All through the lesson, their brother-in-law or something kept walking back and forth holding a giant rooster in his hands. It was the kind they use for cock fighting. Pretty common, I’m used to people holding their roosters and taking them everywhere. No big deal. Then right when the husband said the closing prayer, the rooster leaps onto my upper back! It latches it huge talons into my back and starts to flap around and freak out. It was flapping all over my hair and on my head! I slid out of my chair onto the ground in an effort to get away from the huge bird. Then the guy half-dove over the chair and finally was able to catch the rooster! My hair was all tangled from the flapping of its giant wings. Everyone thought that was pretty funny. They all just laughed. Luckily I laughed too... I brushed it off pretty well, but as soon as we got home I ripped off my shirt and right after nightly planning I washed my hair very, very thoroughly. Sister Smith just laughed and said that could only happen to me because of my hatred of birds.

So far in the Philippines a rooster has attacked me, a chicken has pooped on my head, several children have tinkled on my leg, this morning we found lizard poop in our rice, I sweep up the rat poop upstairs almost every day and every day I go back and there’s more... ok, I better start a new topic now...

Good news! Sister A (the lady we found tracting in Baguio) passed her baptismal interview and will be baptized on Saturday!

October 4 is still the day Sister J (age 32) and her 11 year-old son will be baptized. Sister J’s husband is a returned less active brother. We are just making sure everything is set and they will have their baptismal interview on Saturday. We still have some stuff we need to teach them. They recently changed it so now we have to teach lesson 5 out of Preach My Gospel before someone can get baptized too. They are doing great though. It’s kind of hard to make sure that the 11 year-old is ready. We have to teach things pretty simply.

There was another typhoon... we missed quite a bit of proselyting time on Friday and Saturday. The zone leaders made everyone go home. It was very boring just sitting there at the apartment. This typhoon wasn't nearly as bad as the last one though. As soon as we were allowed to get out we ran around and taught lessons like crazy while the weather lasted.

Once again Sacrament meeting attendance took a huge hit because of the storm. People refuse to leave their house when it's raining. Also, I feel very sad because I feel like everyone has been having all these problems lately. The other sisters in our ward have investigators who were kicked out of their house and are now living under a bridge. They have 8 kids. They also have investigators that had to stop all their kids’ education because they can't afford transportation to the school. I just feel so sad for them. People in our area have been having lots of problems too. A lot of people’s houses flooded pretty badly... the water was probably as tall as Maddy [5’2”].

Our apartment is pretty elevated so it was fine. Although the other sisters’ apartment next door had their desks and beds soaked from rain coming in somehow through the windows and like seeping through the ceiling and walls.

One of our other investigators that used to always be drunk is doing well. Too bad she didn't come to church. We taught her the Word of Wisdom. She just readily accepted it and committed to live it. She hasn't drunk in almost a month, but she smokes. But she's already cut it from 2 packs a day to 5 sticks... so hopefully we'll get that figured out. I was about to extend a baptismal date to her and then a thought popped into my head in the lesson that I should make sure she isn't a special case... turns out she and her "husband" aren't married. Too bad. So we can't extend a baptismal date until they decide to get married... but she has been reading like crazy and she is doing great.

There are lots of problems before people get baptized... and alcohol and cigarettes are extremely popular in The Philippines, as is living with people before marriage.

I don't like this. Right now people are waiting for computers and there are all these teenagers looking at my screen hovering around waiting for me to be finished.

Also, Brother Romero still writes me all the time. He wrote this poem about his conversion and stuff. Very sweet.

Love you! I’m out of time. Have a great week.

 

 

 

[More Photos from Baguio]