We had traveled for the space of (many hours)
Hello,
How are you all doing? This week has been really good and really busy; we've been travelling a lot, and I've had a lot of responsibilities to fulfill as I've been preparing my team of brand new social media missionaries for their various roles and building on our mission's social media momentum, but it has all been great and fun.
Tuesday was alright. After district council, we visited John Raven, which went well. We then taught Edward, which also went well; him finally being able to go to church is a good sign that he'll hopefully be progressing towards baptism soon. We then met with Queenie's/Christine's family, which went a bit better than we were expecting haha. A couple of their family members have been a little more aloof in our lessons with the whole family in the past, but in this lesson, they were much more engaged and asking questions to understand/remember what they've been taught before by other missionaries, so we're taking that as a good sign. We then reviewed the message of the Restoration with Hermie and had a good discussion about the Book of Mormon and how it has impacted each of us, and we had some dinner with his family for the night.
On Wednesday morning, we had a zoom meeting with President and Sister Craig and all the trainees/trainers to congratulate them on surviving one month in the field lol. It took up most of the morning, so we had some quick lunch and headed over to the Bambang public transportation terminal to meet the ZLs and begin our travels to Cauayan for MLC. At our first stop, I saw an American wearing a Bryce Canyon t-shirt (wonder where he's from lol), so once he saw a fellow American, he came up to talk to us. He had actually served a mission in the Philippines too about a decade ago, and he's visiting the Philippines again for most of summer break, which was pretty cool. We eventually arrived at the Cauayan ZLs' apartment, which was the second apartment I stayed in (after the APs) when I first arrived in the mission and before I was able to transfer to Almaguer, where I am now, so I was already a little familiar with the place. It was a bit cleaner than when I first stayed there, so that was a plus 
Thursday was MLC, the mission leadership council, which took up the whole day haha. It was a little cool since I already knew at least half of the people there because I had met them, served with them, or lived with them in my first few weeks here in the Philippines (like Elder Harrison, the APs, the two sets of ZLs that I've temporarily lived with, etc.). It made me realize how much time I had actually spent around the mission leadership while I've been here the past 3 months (wow, almost 3 months already, crazy), and it made MLC a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting since I already knew a lot of people there, and they were ready to welcome us and catch up/joke around with me, which was nice. Anyways, MLC went well; we had our DFTC/social media discussion, where I introduced ourselves and the various changes that the social media team was undergoing, and we all discussed ways to help the social media effort and how we could better help them as well. Even though we are almost all new at this new structure/new roles, it actually went pretty well, and we discussed a lot of good ideas that we'll start implementing in the near future. Anyways, after a couple more discussion items and the testimonies of a couple outbound missionaries, an AP being released in order to train for his last two transfers, and President and Sister Craig themselves, we began the long drive back to our area.
On Friday morning, I woke up and started to finish some of my social media responsibilities that I had begun when we got home last night and helped out the new content team. I've realized that this new calling is like a never-ending school project; I'm using Google Sheets, Canva, messaging my different "group project members" to get their assignments done while I try to finalize everything else....it's been a while since I've done big school projects like this Anyways, we then did some weekly planning, and we were both just so tired and our brains muddled after all the traveling/busy couple of days, but we got through it lol. After our planning, we met with John Raven---and later John Lloyd---to review the baptism interview questions for their interviews tomorrow. We then met with Edward again and tried stopping by a few other people that we're trying to meet before heading home for some late dinner.
Saturday was very very busy haha. Almost as soon as I woke up, I was trying to coordinate with the content missionaries and send them the picture I created last night so that they could publish their first post today, which took up all the morning hours until our daily planning. After our planning/studies/lunch, we visited John Raven for his baptism interview, which went well. We then visited several other people nearby before heading over to John Lloyd for his baptism interview too. We also gave him and Jorlie a Book of Mormon Stories book (the picture book) to encourage them and help them read the Book of Mormon, and we read the first chapter with them. We then visited Queenie/Christine and their family, and the lesson went pretty well, hopefully they come to church tomorrow haha. After their lesson, we visited a couple part-member family referrals near our house, but they weren't available at the moment, so we met with the Elder's Quorum president before going to dinner at the branch president's house again. At dinner, I tried "ararawan"; they didn't know the English word for it, but we think that they were roasted crickets or grasshoppers or something like that. They actually didn't taste that bad Anyways, once we got home, we immediately started setting up for our social media council with the new team, and after that, we then had another zoom meeting with our zone to discuss travel arrangements for transfers on Tuesday and for a missionwide visit from Elder Renlund on Thursday, and that lasted until 10:30....so yeah, it's been a crazy busy day and we didn't even do everything we wanted to do lol. We also got transfer news, and poor Elder Gernale has to stick with me for another 6 weeks lol. Funny story: once the new transfer begins on Tuesday, this will be first time since I was with my trainer, Elder Schumann-Curtis, that I've been with a companion for more than 6 weeks, and it will also be the first time since January (when I left Bernal, my first area) that I've stayed in the same apartment for more than 6 weeks can you tell that I've been moved around quite a bit this year? Haha
Sunday morning was a mix of emotions haha. We first got a text from John Lloyd's cousin, saying that he wouldn't be able to come today because something happened to his leg, so, according to our mission rules, we have to move his baptism date again ahhh. We also tried helping Andrei and a couple others come to church that came last week, but they couldn't either, so that was sad. However, John Raven came, so he'll be baptized this Saturday, and Christine/Queenie came, which surprised both of us haha. Their parents still didn't come, but we're making progress. After church, we had some lunch with a member family and headed home to plan/prepare a bit more for the day before going to the west to teach Rosalinda. Right when our lesson ended and we said a prayer, it started raining super hard, and we had to wait a while for it to stop because there was so much rain. Luckily, the rain came after our lesson instead of during, otherwise it would've been very difficult for us to hear/understand each other haha, but it did derail our plans for the day. Once the rain got a bit lighter, we created ponchos out of some garbage bags haha and biked over to our dinner and back to our house to report on our week and end the evening.
Thursday was MLC, the mission leadership council, which took up the whole day haha. It was a little cool since I already knew at least half of the people there because I had met them, served with them, or lived with them in my first few weeks here in the Philippines (like Elder Harrison, the APs, the two sets of ZLs that I've temporarily lived with, etc.). It made me realize how much time I had actually spent around the mission leadership while I've been here the past 3 months (wow, almost 3 months already, crazy), and it made MLC a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting since I already knew a lot of people there, and they were ready to welcome us and catch up/joke around with me, which was nice. Anyways, MLC went well; we had our DFTC/social media discussion, where I introduced ourselves and the various changes that the social media team was undergoing, and we all discussed ways to help the social media effort and how we could better help them as well. Even though we are almost all new at this new structure/new roles, it actually went pretty well, and we discussed a lot of good ideas that we'll start implementing in the near future. Anyways, after a couple more discussion items and the testimonies of a couple outbound missionaries, an AP being released in order to train for his last two transfers, and President and Sister Craig themselves, we began the long drive back to our area.
On Friday morning, I woke up and started to finish some of my social media responsibilities that I had begun when we got home last night and helped out the new content team. I've realized that this new calling is like a never-ending school project; I'm using Google Sheets, Canva, messaging my different "group project members" to get their assignments done while I try to finalize everything else....it's been a while since I've done big school projects like this
Anyways, we then did some weekly planning, and we were both just so tired and our brains muddled after all the traveling/busy couple of days, but we got through it lol. After our planning, we met with John Raven---and later John Lloyd---to review the baptism interview questions for their interviews tomorrow. We then met with Edward again and tried stopping by a few other people that we're trying to meet before heading home for some late dinner.Saturday was very very busy haha. Almost as soon as I woke up, I was trying to coordinate with the content missionaries and send them the picture I created last night so that they could publish their first post today, which took up all the morning hours until our daily planning. After our planning/studies/lunch, we visited John Raven for his baptism interview, which went well. We then visited several other people nearby before heading over to John Lloyd for his baptism interview too. We also gave him and Jorlie a Book of Mormon Stories book (the picture book) to encourage them and help them read the Book of Mormon, and we read the first chapter with them. We then visited Queenie/Christine and their family, and the lesson went pretty well, hopefully they come to church tomorrow haha. After their lesson, we visited a couple part-member family referrals near our house, but they weren't available at the moment, so we met with the Elder's Quorum president before going to dinner at the branch president's house again. At dinner, I tried "ararawan"; they didn't know the English word for it, but we think that they were roasted crickets or grasshoppers or something like that. They actually didn't taste that bad
Anyways, once we got home, we immediately started setting up for our social media council with the new team, and after that, we then had another zoom meeting with our zone to discuss travel arrangements for transfers on Tuesday and for a missionwide visit from Elder Renlund on Thursday, and that lasted until 10:30....so yeah, it's been a crazy busy day and we didn't even do everything we wanted to do lol. We also got transfer news, and poor Elder Gernale has to stick with me for another 6 weeks lol. Funny story: once the new transfer begins on Tuesday, this will be first time since I was with my trainer, Elder Schumann-Curtis, that I've been with a companion for more than 6 weeks, and it will also be the first time since January (when I left Bernal, my first area) that I've stayed in the same apartment for more than 6 weeks can you tell that I've been moved around quite a bit this year? HahaSunday morning was a mix of emotions haha. We first got a text from John Lloyd's cousin, saying that he wouldn't be able to come today because something happened to his leg, so, according to our mission rules, we have to move his baptism date again ahhh. We also tried helping Andrei and a couple others come to church that came last week, but they couldn't either, so that was sad. However, John Raven came, so he'll be baptized this Saturday, and Christine/Queenie came, which surprised both of us haha. Their parents still didn't come, but we're making progress. After church, we had some lunch with a member family and headed home to plan/prepare a bit more for the day before going to the west to teach Rosalinda. Right when our lesson ended and we said a prayer, it started raining super hard, and we had to wait a while for it to stop because there was so much rain. Luckily, the rain came after our lesson instead of during, otherwise it would've been very difficult for us to hear/understand each other haha, but it did derail our plans for the day. Once the rain got a bit lighter, we created ponchos out of some garbage bags haha and biked over to our dinner and back to our house to report on our week and end the evening.
Since becoming the DFTC/social media leader for the mission, my life has become a lot busier, but that's when the joy in serving others kicks in and you feel satisfied with work/efforts. It's a good reminder that "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God," and I know that He will support and guide you as you serve others and strive to magnify your callings in life, whatever they may be and even despite your personal weaknesses. I hope you all are doing fantastic, and let me know if there's anything you want me to pray for or know about!
See you next week,
Elder Enger
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