San Jose's Tagalog group

Hello, This first week in the Tagalog group went pretty well. My companions are fun, we're actually all fairly similar haha. We were all "nerds" in high school (one of them even did IB), we all played tennis, and we all don't like choosing things lol. The apartment is nice; it's a two-man apartment, and we're a trio, but we're making it work, and we have a war with the pigeons haha. Before Elder Bundy came here, the previous Elders let the pigeons lay an egg on our porch (bad idea), so now we make sure to scare them off whenever they're on the porch (Elder Kindall often throws an orange at them to try to hit them lol). Elder Bundy (from Texas) has been on the mission for over 1.5 years, and Elder Kindall (from Idaho) came in the transfer (6 weeks) after him. The Tagalog is coming along, and we have a car to cover the English ward and Tagalog group, so my legs can finally take a break thus transfer haha. Tuesday was transfer day. Elder Bennett and I drove to the stake center in Fremont, where he picked up his new companion and Elder Kindall and Elder Bundy picked me up. We then did some studies, had some lunch, and went over to meet Elise. We had a good lesson, and she said she wanted to be baptized on May 7. We'll be trying to help her set up an earlier date haha, but we're excited that she's willing to make that step in the first place. We then stopped by a couple more people, including Moises, a teenager who was recently baptized, and read from the Book of Mormon Stories picture book with him. We then met Jester, whose personality matches his name haha, he's a character. He said he wanted to be baptized before Elder Kindall leaves, which is great, but we were a bit hesitant because we felt like he didn't fully understand what baptism is and that he wasn't too willing to make the changes necessary for baptism. But we planned for next Tuesday anyways and started hoping for the best. On Wednesday morning, we had service with this organization called POSSO and several other missionaries organizing boxes of food for people in need. When we got home, we got a call from President asking me if I'd be interested in going to the Philippines soon. He said it could potentially be the week of March 8, but there's nothing confirmed yet. It was pretty hilarious because it was literally my second day in the Tagalog group, and Elder Bundy will be losing both his companions before the transfer ends lol (Elder Kindall leaves to the Philippines this Wednesday) . After lunch, we then went over to the mission office to translate something into Tagalog for the social media missionaries, and I said something in Tagalog for one of their reels, though I don't know if they posted it or not because we realized that the mike didn't end up working haha. We then visited with a couple Filipino members; one was a family (the husband was recently baptized almost a year ago; the rest were members) and fed us a lot of food (a lot of "Elders, eat more!" haha) and spoke mostly Tagalog, and the other was an sweet inactive member who spoke mostly English lol, and he ended up coming to church this Sunday which was awesome. We then had a Tagalog Group Correlation and discussed the needs of the group and its potential in becoming a branch soon, so that was good to end the evening. On Thursday, we had district council at the institute building downtown, and a member that was there cooked us some German pancakes with chicken in them for lunch...it was actually pretty good haha, we were all pretty surprised. We then dropped off Elder Kindall at the office again to fill out some visa/travel paperwork, and Elder Bundy and I went to visit a Filipino woman named May. She got baptized this Saturday (the 19th), so we just prepared her for baptism, and she had both of us sign her Bible and Book of Mormon even though I just met her haha, so that was nice. We then went back to the office to print some programs for May's baptism, and we afterwards tried stopping by a few people and talked with Jester again. We then had dinner with the ward mission leader of our English ward, and then we played volleyball and soccer with the Pajes, the family of the Filipino group leader, which was pretty fun. On Friday morning, we helped Jester pack his things to move to another apartment, and after lunch, we had a lesson with Sean, a kid that the Sisters (they cover the same area we do, English and Tagalog) had been teaching and is planning to be baptized in a couple weeks. They thought it'd be better for us to teach him, so we joined them for a lesson with him, and the lesson was pretty good. We then met with another Filipino woman who was recently baptized, and then had dinner with the Sisters and another member and her friend (also recently baptized), so it was a fun night. That night, we also gave some blessings, and when we got home, we had a zoom call with Jester and let him know that he couldn't be baptized this Tuesday because he wasn't ready yet, which was a bit rough. He afterwards blocked us, but he recently unblocked us, so that's good I think haha. Saturday was pretty interesting, but it was fun. May's baptism was at 9:30am so that her son and his family could come before he had to work, and the baptism was great. One of the other Tagalog missionaries (Elder Maughan) and his trainee (they aren't in the Tagalog area anymore though; he is an English missionary) came because he had taught her as well, and Elder Kindall and I gave a lesson/message on the Book of Mormon and the Restoration while Elder Bundy and May were changing after the baptism, which went well. Her son and his wife were pretty cool, and they loved being there. They aren't too interested in the gospel right now, but we could easily see them progressing towards baptism down the line, especially with the good experience they had at her baptism. We then went to lunch with May, one of the members of the ward/group and her friend that may be progressing towards baptism soon too, and Elder Maughan and his trainee. It was pretty good, it was a fun time. After lunch, we and the Sisters went to pull some weeds for a part-member family, and then we all pulled some more weeds for our ward mission leader. It was good, but that took up the rest of the day haha, so we just got some dinner and made some calls. It was a fun day. Sunday was pretty good too. The Tagalog sacrament meeting is at 9, the combined English/Tagalog 2nd hour is at 10, and then the English sacrament is at 11. I said the opening prayer for the Taglog meeting, so that was nice haha. After lunch, we tried stopping by several Filipino families, and we had dinner with a family in the English ward. We then had a zoom call with someone Elder Kindall had been talking to on Facebook, and he ended up sharing this whole presentation for this one company/life insurance thing (very likely a scam/pyramid scheme sort of deal), so we were all laughing after the call ended haha. Then Elder Kindall started packing for his flight this Wednesday, so it was a good night. I hope you all are doing well and have an amazing week! Elder Enger

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