Feb 24th--San Enrique Area needs some TLC and Prayers

Sa Akong mga Pamilya kag mga Amigo,

Leaving Esclante

Mt. Can-laon from this side of the Island

Transfer Day

Guess who the ZL is now...Elder Pulsipher.  Reunited!

If you haven't heard by now, I have been transferred. I transferred last Monday. It was a long day. It's the first time that I've ever been south of Bacolod City in 17 months of my mission. I've always been on the top half of the island, so now I got to see a little bit of the bottom half. I'm in San Enrique Branch. It's about an hour and a half south of Bacolod and it's in La Carlota District. So, it's another district, weird, I've only been assigned in one ward my whole mission. There are 11 zones in Bacolod Mission. 4 Zones are Districts and I've been assigned in 3 of the zones out of the 4. Let's hope I don't make it to the 4th zone that's a district because it's super far away. Sipalay, where Elder Garner was for his second area. In Bacolod on Monday I had the chance to eat McDonalds with Elder Garner and Elder Pulsipher, so it was a good Monday! Elder Wilstead was also at the mission office where we all meet for transfers so I got to see a lot of my friends! It was a good Monday, like I said. Elder Pulsipher is my zone leader and on the bus ride back he says, "So... there has been a turn of events." haha. Punk, since I was his zone leader and now he's my zone leader. I got to my new apartment and it's actually quite nice, no complaints. Well one, it's right on the highway so all the dust flies into my house and so if don't sweep every morning, it gets super dirty.  But it's an upstairs apartment! We have a water pump from a well underground, so there's always water to our house, we just pay the electricity for the pump. So far we haven't had any power outages like we always did in Sn. Carlos and in Escalante. It's a decent sized house, my bed is smaller than my mattress, still trying to figure that one out, but I got it situated so everything is still okay. There's a like double bed in our apartment too that my companion has claimed. He's smaller than me so I was gonna throw him on my bed, but I decided to just love him and let him have it. Lucky kid, he got the good side of me. But all is well. Monday was a good night, the church is right across the street from our apartment pretty much, at least I can see it. It's an OLD church... it still has the old church logo on the outside. Nothing like any of the other churches I've been in, so it's good. Small, but good. 

Tuesday was my first district meeting. My district consists of Elder Vibal and Elder Gibbons, then me and my companion, Elder Urgelles. There's only 4 and 3 of us come from Escalante Zone in the past. So we all know each other. Elder Vibal is our district leader! He's a cool guy and a good missionary. Super smart at scriptures too. Elder Urgelles and I then went to meet some of the members and actually we just walked down one big long street and taught tons of less actives. There are tons! I also got a chance to meet the branch president and his wife. Great people, tons of fun! Sealed in the temple! ;) Which is good! We also ate at a less actives house, they think if they feed us that they don't have to listen to our message, which is quite funny, but that's how it goes sometimes. They made sure to keep busy and no down time so that there was no time to share. However, one of the brother turned on the Olympics, but it was over, but I see the US didn't do that well. 

Wednesday we had a huge day! We've got very few investigators, it's super hard to find interested people here. They're super busy! Our area is near the ocean so if people are home they're still cracking shells with oysters to sell or some other type of shell fish, or selling fish or doing anything! But we caught some of the investigators that they've been teaching. The Delepedro Family, Sister and 2 kids, have been attending church for the past year on and off. Not been baptized, but we committed them for baptism and to come to church. But they didn't come on Sunday, so we don't know what happened. They say they're poor, so maybe they didn't have fare to ride the tricycle. There's another part member family that we're teaching, Sister Balijong and her husband. Sister is a member who was baptized in Manila, but can't remember where. Brother isn't a member but willing to listen. Neither of them were at church either. They're not married either, so that will be another thing that we're going to need to do for them! The Comporaso family is a less active family. The Mom is returning to church now and they have a 9 year old daughter who isn't baptized yet, so we will be baptizing her on the 8th of March. She was actually at church! There are a few others that we teach at their house, but so far, they're not too interested and they are just kids. But President said, baptize kids, so I guess we'll try to baptize them. One of the kids though, we talked to the Mom and she said that we can continue teaching. Her name is Maricar Amor. She's 12 years old, super smart girl. We want to teach her mom too, but her mom is a different religion that isn't super fond of the Mormon faith. So, I think the Mom is ruled out, but she said her daughter has her choice to choose what she wants. So that's a plus sign! ;)

The Comporaso family

Thursday was another good long hard day of work! We teach a ton of people in this area! It's not as spread out as Escalante was, which is a good thing, we can focus on certain areas more and more, so it's a plus! Only if we were teaching lots of investigators and not tons of less actives. That's what I want!!! Investigators! So we're going to try and focus on that a lot more this week, finding new people to teach especially around the houses of less actives. I think if we give the LA's an assignment to help the investigators, they'll want to come back maybe, it's worth a shot. We even gave a less active some pants to fix, I had the hem on my pants come undone, so I gave it to a less active to fix so that she had money to come to church and she still didn't come to church!!! AHHH!!! That's the worst! 

Sister who fixed his pants

Friday all the Americans were needed at the La Carlota chapel for picture taking for more of our visa papers. I don't know we keep needing to do this stuff! Fingerprints, pictures, this time just pictures, but I though our visas were good for the time that we asked! Oh well, I guess the church is just taking care of it, so I'll take the picture and continue with my day. We taught a lot of other people, I'm not familiar with all their names yet, they're in my planner, but I don't know who is who exactly. I'll just say our area is pretty big! We'll never run out of things to do I think, there's always places to go and there are some other places that we ride a bus too, it's that far. On Friday night though we had BBQ, it was pretty good, I think I ate a bit too much BBQ though cause... it didn't feel good after. haha. But I was okay when I went to sleep. 

Saturday if I was still in Escalante I'd be reporting on baptizing 2 people, but I"m not. Here in San Enrique we just worked a lot again. haha. We had some good lessons and then we had a church activity! We had a branch family home evening and we invited selected less active families only to be in the church and with the missionaries and the branch presidency! It was a success! And only one of the families came to church on Sunday... so I guess not a success. haha. 

Sunday...GREAT! Elder and I were chosen as speakers and I just nailed my talk! I think I did. I didn't have that many problems with the language and everyone said I had a good message. I talked on, 'How can I be happy in this life, despite all the trials and troubles?" I gave all the members that were there certain steps and things that we can do to be happy and to make sure that we're all on the path of happiness. After Sacrament we went to class, good class. After class, we walk out of the room and there's a member talking to a Korean guy in English. She signals us to come over there and to talk to him. So I talked to him and he wanted to know more about the church. He was just waiting for his wife to come get him and he stopped by the church I guess, I don't know, anyway, since I speak English and so did he and he didn't speak Ilanggo, it was awesome. I taught him about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and gave him an English copy. HE WAS STOKED! He kept flipping the pages and looking at the pictures. He's a Christian, so that was good. I got his address and phone number and gave it to the office. He's married to a Filipino in Bacolod and so he lives here right now, so I gave it to the office and they'll tell the missionaries assigned in his area! Super awesome! His name was Dennis Han. Totally a cool Korean name! He lives an hour from Seoul, so I know there's missionaries in his area somewhere if he ever goes back. I hope to see him in the after life. We had 71 attendance at church... it's a small branch, I'll take a picture of our meeting house this week and send it next week. It's been a good week though. 

Well that's my week! I'm excited for another week of work here in San Enrique. The real transfer week is this week and I swear my companion better not transfer because I don't know this area yet. Hope all is well back home and that everything is okay! I love you and miss you! Keep sending prayers please... they're needed ;) Love y'all! Have a great week!