August 13, 2012

This week was full of new things for me. My companion got transferred on Thursday, so I have a new companion now and am leading the area. That just means that I'm responsible for all the appointments now until my new comp gets used to the area.  It's new, but I'm excited for this next transfer and all the good that Elder Lozano and I can do!  He's a way sweet Elder from Bacolod, Philippines (which is south).  He's a hard worker and helps me a ton in learning the language. It's hard because sometimes he'll only speak Tagalog to me, but it forces me to learn which is good. He is also good at speaking English. There were a lot of other new and exciting things that happened in the work this week as well.  We meet new people all of the time.  We were able to go back to the family from last week and teach once; we had an appointment with them but when we returned he was kind of drunk because there was a birthday celebration.  It was kind of funny, we haven't taught them the Word of Wisdom yet, so that's okay for now. It was neat though; because his family said he was drunk, we were just going to continue on without talking to him, but i had i strong impression to go back to see him.  We didn't even really talk to him that much, but were able to talk to a nanay that was selling ulam around where he was that we would've missed if we didn't go back.  We invited her to church and she came!! She met a friend there and liked church a lot.
We were invited to the birthday party of a young girl (one of our investigators) who just turned 8. We brought her the Book of Mormon as a present! haha, that really is the best thing that I could think of to give; the fullness of the gospel. 
The ward here is starting to accept us a lot more, and we've been able to work with more of the members in finding new people who want to hear the gospel.  On Sunday after church, we worked with the single adults and went to a new area that I'd never been to before.  There we found Many less active members of the church, and part member families.  I am excited for the work that we will be able to do out there! 
All in all, a good week, I'm healthy and well!

haha - the rain's okay, it's just the wet feet all day that's the only thing but it's nice and cool when it rains!  The word out here is "Baguio" for storm ;) I'm great and healthy mom! Seriously, don't worry.  I had an ingrown toenail come back, but one of the members here was able to dig it out and clean it for me. My foot feels great now!
There aren't really that many monkeys in my area just a lot of dogs and cats and chickens lol. I live in an area referred to as "the bukid". Bukid means farm, so it's pretty rural but no monkeys! I'm okay with that though, they say that the monkeys here are vicious.  I'm actually quite a ways a way from Angeles, the setting is a little bit different but probably pretty similar.

love,
Elder Blackham