Monday, April 4, 2016

Week 90 (April 4, 2016 Gabaldon, Philippines)

Dear Mom,

First off, what's Kambree drinking in those pictures? It looks really good, haha. And I'm glad you all enjoyed conference! We're super excited for it here, but at the same time it's always hard because I've never been assigned in an area with a Stake Center, so Investigators always have a lot of trouble getting their way to the church building. Considering Amparo and Mateo's difficult financial situation, I don't know if they'll be able to attend :( They weren't able to go to church yesterday either. I don't remember if I already explained, but Tatay Mateo has the Sunday shift of their little neighborhood watch thing. He switched his shift with a coworker a few weeks ago, and always fulfilled his end of the bargain, but his kapalit (which sort of means switch mate) never showed up. This happened two weeks in a row, and they eventually found out that his kapalit would just spend the whole day drinking, but Tatay Mateo was still the one who got roasted by their boss, so he's back to working on Sundays :( Satan is super determined, and keeps throwing up little hedges in our path. Others only take a few minutes to get over, but the others can be a real pain. Not all is bad though. Despite their financial situation, Amparo continues to be faithful with tithing, and has quite a bit set aside. She was going to pay it yesterday, but wasn't able to attend because she was helping Mateo at work. We've got to talk to our Branch President and Branch Mission Leader and see what they will do to help solve these concerns. We got to talk with President Clark a few days ago, and he gave us some really good advice. We were talking to him about all the concerns these people were struggling with, and he asks "Who's going about to solve all these concerns?" We said that we were, and that the branch was helping a little as well. He replied that the branch was supposed to be fixing everything, with us helping a little, should they need it. So we've given the branch a lot more responsibilities these last few days, haha :P

In other quick news, we had a really good this week. We hit our 210 Testifying Contacts Goal again for the 3 week in a row :D It does get sort of exhausting some time, but the people who actually do listen make it all worth it. Also, we were able to teach a total of 40 lessons this week! Compared to a lot of other companionships or areas in the mission, that's not too many, but it was definitely a lot of hard work for the two Gabaldon Elders. We got a few good new investigators, and even got 4 of them to attend church. I'm super stoked to see all this progression, and even more excited to get the Branch involved in getting any kinks ironed out. Missionary work is lot easier when you're not trying to fulfill everyone's callings for them :P

Anyhoo, that's the extent of the week that I have time to write about. I'll keep you updated with everything happening :)

Love you Mom!!!

Elder Syphus

PS I actually think I will stay at DSU for a few semesters until I at least get my Associate's, then I'll consider transferring up to BYU.

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