September 29th--Sherwin's Baptism

Dear Friends and Family,

Mt. Canalaon

Well, this week has been a little different. Work hasn't been that great. I guess I'll start with Elder Sobreviga spraining his ankle on Monday while we were playing basketball. That wasn't a fun thing. Literally rolled the whole ankle right on top of another Elder's ankle. It was so black and blue... then purple the next day. Poor guy couldn't walk at all for a day and a half. We did all that we could though and then work from then on he was walking slow, with a limp, and it was very painful for him, but we still got some work done thankfully.

Monday night we were trying to figure out what happened to his ankle and he was icing it, so not much work was able to get done. So Monday was a complete bust.

Tuesday morning we wake up and his whole ankle is the color purple and when he stood up from his bed he couldn't put any pressure of his ankle. So that was an interesting morning. We did our studies like normal, but he couldn't walk, so what could we do? So I did my best to just clean the house and then serve him I guess. We did go to district and he pretty much was just bragging my shoulder the whole time while walking into the church and back out of the church. We did do our online facebook thing and we're pretty much having zero success with it. In Branch 1 Elder Garcia and I were having some success. But our facebook has received not a single referral and it's just a joke. We have to add everyone and we have people from Manila adding and just all over the place, rather than just from San Carlos. So it's pretty hard to just keep track of everything.

Wednesday Elder wakes up and it's the same thing. His ankle isn't better at all. We did our studies and everything and then made lunch. He then iced it and tried to walk it off but we couldn't get it back to where he could walk. At about 5:00 he said, Elder, let's just go. So I said, you sure man? He's like... yup. So we walked to our Branch Presidents house because we're teaching his "yaya" or maid type person. Just like helper is what they call it. I guess maid is derogatory or something. She's been reading the Book of Mormon and has accepted a date for the 26th of October for baptism. We invited her to go to church on Sunday, but we're not sure what happened because she said yes she would go. Sunday comes and Nope. No Sister yaya, or Sister Crisencha is her name. We eat dinner at President Dellomes' house whenever we teach her so it's nice. He's a way cool Branch President and really tried to help out with everything in the church and do awesome. He's great. We then taught Brother Roberto about the role of a father and what fathers need to do for their children and for their wives. It's always good to teach those kinds of things. I like teaching about the family and the roles of the father and husband ;)

Thursday we worked with Brother Ryan Purca. We went to the Leduna's house in Punao. Sherwin had school, so we teach his LA sister, Joan, who has a day off everyThursday. She works at Gaisano here, which is the mall, in San Carlos. She only has Thursday off and isn't a high enough or long enough worker to request to change toSunday as day off. So we teach her and just to strengthen her faith. We also needed to get the parent signature for Sherwin's baptismal record so we grabbed that from his mom. His mom isn't a member yet nor his papa, so we're going to work on teaching them. They've been taught before, but not really sure what happened. We keep trying to visit Malo, but she's never there anymore. She always out with her Grandma, which that's who she lives with and calls mama... that's pretty sad. Grandma is mama in this case. We also taught Romel about the first part of the plan of salvation and then his older sister shows up from work and sits down and starts asking all the questions. It was great, so at the same time we turned around and taught the restoration right after. That was a long lesson because she kept asking questions.  She thought we were a branch of Catholic at first which is the first reason why you can't have a true church with branches? So... we pointed that out that this is the restored church and it has no branches. The Church of Jesus Christ is the church of Jesus Christ. We invited them to go to church on Sunday, but still nothing. So, we're going to keep trying I guess. We also taught Brother Roberto about Alma 30, about Corihor and how he lied... and then was killed. We were thinking maybe he was still lying to us, so we were just trying to scare him a little bit. But yeah, it worked I guess. We feel he's okay now.

Friday was a decent day. Elder's ankle started to do better and so that was nice. We haven't taught that many less actives this week because with Elder not being able to walk for a day and a half, we decided to focus on investigators. So we needed to teach some less actives and that's what we did. We taught the Sebuyan family about the word of wisdom and hey said they didn't have any problems so that's good! They actually came to church yesterday! We also then went to a Recent Convert and taught him and his grandma who isn't a member. We mainly focused on the RC because the grandma isn't super interested and so we're just working on building a relationship for now. Then we taught Crisencha about L3. We watched a video of the train bridge guy, who loved his son but his son was stuck on the track and he could either throw the switch and save all the people on the train or sacrifice his son. I've heard the story, but Elder has a video of it and we watched it with her and it was way awesome. Just then taught of Jesus Christ and his gospel. Oh, I guess you don't know what Lesson 3 is. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. So that was a good lesson.

Saturday we had our baptism. It was great! President Lopez was in attendance and it was nice for him and his wife to attend. They were doing a training in San Carlos and so they were already here, so I asked if they would just stay and attend and they said they would. So we were happy. Sherwin was baptized and now has no more sins. The branch was then doing a family week/day on Saturday and asked if we would present some things. We were actually the judge of poster making and I spoke about eternal marriage, AWESOME! The branch was blown away I think. So it was a great branch activity and there were investigators and tons of less actives there!

Sherwin and family

Sunday we had to do two interviews. One in Guihulgan which is an hour and a half away. Then right up to Canla-on to do another interview there, so we spend over 170 pesos on bus fare in one day. That's more than it is to go to Bacolod. We got back home at 8pm last night... we got to do absolutely no work in our area because of interviews. It's sort of makes me upset, but that's my job I guess. It's fun to interview though and to meet other missionaries investigators. We had Roberto, Wishely, and a few other investigators at church yesterday. So of the young women brought friends and so that was good. People that we've never met before. Overall the chapel had a ton of people and President Dellomes was super happy.

This week's been busy. This upcoming one is going to be even busier! We've got our meeting in Bacolod tomorrow and we're spending the night there tonight. On Wednesday Elder Wilstead and I are doing exchanges here in San Carlos while Elder Sobreviga works in Canla-on. On Saturday I have to go to Bacolod with Elder Shaffer to do fingerprints for my exit visa... not sure what's up with that. Then in the afternoon on Saturday Roberto will be baptized. He passed his interview yesterday and so we're going to have another one. 

I love y'all back home. Thanks for all the love and support you give. It's hard, but put your shoulder to the wheel right? Talk to you next week!

Love,
Elder Ellis