An Explosion of Referrals and a Zone Activity to the Zoo

Kumusta kayo? Sounds like life is going along pretty well in America.  I can't believe Jonny is back already!  He's probably just like a Mexican now.  Snow already huh? It'll be weird not seeing that for a while.  So I guess we'll get started with questions.  No I won't get to help with any humanitarian effort where the typhoon hit for several reasons, the most prominent being that it's pretty far away from our area and it's not exactly pwede to leave your mission area.  I heard a lot of the missionaries are going to serve in Manila now.  I feel like the language is going pretty well.  I can say pretty much anything that I want to, but it's pretty slow.  I'm pretty comfortable with it right now, definitely not fluent.  I'm picking up some Ilokano though which is way more fun than Tagalog!  Grandma got stung by a scorpion!? I mean that's something I wouldn't be too shocked about hearing if the houses in America were like the ones here, but talaga!?

Ok, so I think I'll talk about the exchanges I went on with the Filipino missionary in our apartment. He speaks really good English so communicating wasn't a problem at all.  We went out to Namruangan to teach the family that came to church last week.  We gave them the baptismal challenge and they said yes!!  Dec. 21st! Then our fellowshipper Sis. Sandra (I could write a whole e-mail just about her) went crazy and started talking with all these people as we went to go see a trike driver that has a son with cerebral palsy.  We got 6 referrals in that day just from Namruangan.  It basically exploded in missionary opportunities!

We went back to Namruangan to teach Jimmy and Lili's family (the ones I just talked about) and we gave them a Word of Wisdom lesson just to make sure we got that taken care of quickly.  Sister Lili was reading the bawal things from the pamphlet and just started laughing.  So Elder Lynn and I thought "oh no, what's so funny?"  So we asked her.  She said her husband didn't do any of that stuff. And then we were like "Talaga!?"  We went through every individual thing and they have absolutely zippo problems with the WoW.  If that isn't a prepared family I don't know what is!!  

We tried to teach some of the referrals we got out there, but there were crowds of adin all around us and they basically just wanted us to stay with them and visit them.  It was kind of how I imagine Jesus being flocked with people...except He was infinitely better at teaching to crowds and adults as well.  So we did manage to get a couple new investigators out there and another baptismal date!

 

So at church yesterday we had Jimmy and Lilibeth with there whole family and four other cousin/friends with them.  Record at church again!  The only problem is that our other investigators with baptismal dates didn't come.  That's probably the toughest thing about helping investigators to progress.  So everyone takes a tricey to church if they don't have their own vehicle.  Jimmy has a motor so he takes his family and then the rest of them triceyd it.  Tricey is about 25-30 pesos per person or less than a dollar and Namruangan is the farthest area away so it could get down to 20 if you're closer.  But yeah it's less than a dollar.

Here's a cool-ish story from the week.  We were teaching a less active guy with his family and it started raining the hardest I have ever seen.  We couldn't hear because it was so strong.  So we waited and had a little merienda after teaching and then it stopped as quickly as it started.  I'd say it was about a 15 min. storm and it already started flooding the streets.  Yep, we call it the mini-bagyo.

Well thanks everyone for your care and love for me.  Can't wait to hear from you again.  It's weird, I feel like this is just some extended boy scout camp (except I'm teaching the gospel in Tagalog) and I'll come back in a week and see everyone.  I bet time will keep on flying and it probably will feel like that, so I'd better enjoy it here while I can.

 

Mahal ko kayo lahat!

-Elder Egan

Zone activity to the Vigan Zoo