Elder Blake Ellis' Mission Life: September 16th---Anniversary week, Hump Day, or whatever you call it. It's been a YEAR!

Hello Everyone!

This week has been really good! We've been working really hard this week. Since we're the zone leaders we can't let any other area in our zone have higher key indicators than us, so we've been working our tails off. The city is a little different than in the bukid, or the mountain areas. People here are always busy, gone, doing other things, the people in the mountain work early in the morning and then just hang out during the day and then return back to work at night. That's just because it's so hot. So here it's really hard to catch people to teach so it takes a lot of planning and patience. If you tell someone you'll come back tomorrow at 4, they say yeah sure, then you go to their house and their never home. Nobody is ever home for a returning appointment. They just do what they need to do, when they need to I guess.

Merry Christmas! Just kidding...

Average meal minus stuffing Grandpa Ellis sent

So last Monday, sort of a funny story. So we played basketball. Elder Wilstead worked me, it's hard guarding a 6'4, but I managed. My fade away is really what's working on him, kind of. He's big. While we were playing, I put our cell phone in his bag. After we were done playing, I forgot to take it back out. Of course, they go back home to Canlaon, which is like an hour and a half up the mountain from here. We have no phone. We're supposed to text President every night when all the missionaries are home safe. So, yeah, there was nothing else that we could do. So... we went to Canla-on to get the cell phone. They were in the process of putting an addition 2 missionaries there in Canlaon, so there's an apartment right next to the other missionaries apartment. It had beds and everything, so we got to Canlaon about 8pm and then just stayed the night in the new Elder's apartment. It's so stupid, just for a cell phone, but it's my fault for leaving it in Elder Wilsteads bag. They did put 2 new missionaries in Canlaon this week, so now that branch has 4 and one of the missionaries is ELDER EDEM!

Tuesday we just went to the district meeting in Vallehermoso district. That's where Canlaon has their district meeting, so we went to observe to make sure that they were doing everything okay and making sure that all was in order. They split the district this week and made the 4 Elders in Canlaon their own district and then Vallehermoso and Guihulgan their own district, so in my zone, there are 4 district, with 4 Elders in each districts. We then went straight to work. Everyday this week we've planned to teach 3 investigators with member presents, 1 other lessons, just finding on our own. Obtain 1 referral everyday, and find 2 new investigators everyday. We were able to achieve that goal! And we have a goal for teach 3 less actives for recent converts a day as well. As you can see our day is way packed. We walk everywhere too so that makes it more fun. There's never not anything to do! So Tuesday we reached all our goals and we taught a few less actives, the best part was teaching Melma, who is an investigator. She's 15, her mom is member, but less active and we're going to baptize here. She hasn't been to church yet, but we're working with the young women to go and fellowship her. Her only problem is that she doesn't have a friend at the church yet. We haven't set her a date for baptism yet, but will this week for October 19. Roberto is still doing good. We actually teach him every single night at their house. It's right by our house, well close, so on our way home every night, we stop by and we teach him a lesson. He'll be baptized on the 5th of October.

Canla-on District, Vallehermso District and San Carlos District

Wednesday was transfer day. Elder Robertson actually got sent to Mabini! haha. My batch mate, is now in my old area. I told him to go follow up on some people. I'll see him at Zone Conference this week. Oh yeah, this week is Zone Conference in Bacolod, so be looking for pictures on facebook. There's like 6 zones at the same time, so it's going to be a ton of people, so I'll try and pop in some pictures :) Then Elder Edem and Elder Bragas are the new missionaries in Canlaon, so make them 4. Elder Bragas was Elder Sobreviga's companion 2 transfers ago. So it's cool that we now have our old companions in our zone with us. They're eating lunch with us today. Actually, they're buying us a chicken and we're going to eat it. Anyway, back to Wednesday, we taught a lot of Less Actives, and they are the ones that frustrate me the most and make me go crazy. We actually have 2 RM's in our branch, both Less Active now... One has WOW problems and the other is living with his girlfriend... palagpat. Pretty much Wednesday we did a lot of walking and talking to Less Actives trying to bring them back to church... and they all have stupid reasons why they can't come to church. Ambot sa ila.

Only the goat would listen?

Thursday we worked in Punao. Sherwin will be baptized on the 28th of this month, in like 2 weeks. His parents aren't members, but all his siblings are. One is sort of less active, the other works on Sunday, but this Sunday he was at church with one of his sisters, only the two of them came. His sister that was with him is 15. So that was cool. A 13 and 15 year old came to church by themselves and they probably are one of the farthest places in our area. We also found a new family to teach that claims they are devoted catholic, but after asking how their church attendance is going, they haven't been in the longest time. So... I'm not buying it. We taught them the restoration and gave them a Book of Mormon and challenged them to read it. So we will follow up this week when we return back to them. We've been working with a less active named Efrin to come back to church and his family, we teach him about once a week and still nothing, but I"m not giving up. Giving up never got anybody anywhere. So that's what life is about, not giving up. Roberto, we taught about the prophets and then he always has the crazy doctrinal questions, which is good, I just want to know where they come from sometimes. He always talks with his buddies at work about the church and I think they're the ones that ask him things.

Friday we planned for all this week and prepared for the Zone Conference, just in case we're asked to share something about our zone. We also found another family that we've started teaching. The Aparan family. They're a family of 10!!!!! However, the dad we've met once, but he's never home, but way nice guy. The Mom always calls up "sir", which is funny, but it's okay. I'm only 20... not really a sir. But we've taught them the Restoration and the Book of Mormon so far and how to pray. They are catholic and yes, she is an active member, I think... she seems like it. The mom always asks questions and we've got answers. She has a son that is really interested. It's a good find, we've just got to get them to church. They're lot super far, just one ride in a tricycle, but it's far and they're a little poor. But they live right on the beach, nice area! Then we've started teaching Roberto the 10 commandments, he didn't know what they were, so it's good that we teach that. It's interesting that nobody here knows the 10 commandments. Which is any catholic would just study the 10 commandments, they'd realize that they break 2 of them all the time! It's just interesting... they don't even read the Bible, only the Priest. It's just a sad thing to me I think.

City apartment is much nicer than mountain apartment, but they aren't home much.
Mom cares more than Elder does....

Preaching from the rooftops....almost!

Saturday we went back to Punao to teach Sherwin and Malou. Sherwin was home and we pretty much just taught him the baptismal interview questions to see if there was anything we missed or need to address. He passed fine, so we're good to go. Malou however, wasn't home. Or was playing somewhere, we couldn't really find here. We were then invited to the church to the young women activity and to give the devotional before their activity. So we did. It was good and they actually had 2 investigators at their activity. One of them was Wishley. An investigator who will be baptized on the 12th of October. Her family is members, she just moved in with the from Cebu, where he mom is. Her parents are split, but the Dad is an RM. I don't know what happened to the mom... After the activity we went to dinner at Jollibee, which they have this really good pineapple burger. Sort of like the teriyaki burger at Carls Jr... but not as good, by any means. haha. Oh Thank you for the J DAWGS sauce by the way. My companion doesn't understand why you sent that, but I put it on my rice yesterday and it was sooooo good! Then we went to Roberto's house and he wasn't there... which is weird. Him and Sister were on the way back from Bacolod, so we didn't get a chance to teach him on Saturday.

Sunday we had 5 investigators at Sacrament. Then we need to go to Guihulgan to do an interview for baptism. Since it's the District Leader area, we have to do the interview... it's an hour and a half away. So it totally just kills our Sunday. After getting back home, i received two packages. One from Courtney and One from my family! Thank you so much. I have the best Friend in the whole world and the best family. Thanks for everything that was inside and i love it all. I do not need to buy a lot of food for this week! I'll try and share with some of the other Americans though, that's just what we do here. We've got to get each others back. At least her in my zone, that's what we've established. If we've got something good from home, we share. haha. Then we went to teach Wishley about the Law of Chastity and Word of Wisdom. Does someone want to explain to me why it's not called the Law of Wisdom? It's only a Word of Wisdom? I've searched. I've watched a video where 2 missionaries in the 1850's taught a man and they said it's not a law, but a word of wisdom... True of not?

This week was really good and I'm looking forward more to this week with the Zone Conference and everything. I'm excited to see some of my batch and some of the other Elders that I haven't seen in a long time. Elder Garner doesn't have the same Zone Conference as me, his is the day before, but the ZLs have a meeting on Thursday night after the ZC, so I'll see him then. I love going to Bacolod. Good food and more fun! :) I love you all back home. Thank you so much for all the things that you do for me. Even your prayers just carry me through the day and give me strength for this very physical demanding labor. I love you.