Arise and go into (Jones)

Hello, How are you all doing? I'm doing alright; transfers are tomorrow, and I will be heading north to the Cauayan-Alicia Zone to an area called Jones. My new companion will be Elder Anor, who came into the mission at the same time as Elder Gernale, which means I will be follow-up training him. It'll be sad to leave this area, but we're excited for more adventures ahead. Tuesday was pretty busy but pretty good. In the morning, I had a training with the content team about advertisements, which went pretty well, we hope to start running those as soon as we can. District council went well, and afterwards, we tried to meet with Annalyn and Danica, but they weren't available, and our following appointment had to be rescheduled. Right at that time, however, Sister Sadueste asked us if we were coming to help with the "mini-MTC" that the youth were all doing. We didn't know that they wanted us to help until right then, but luckily our appointments had all canceled right at that point lol. It went well; we helped some of the young men roleplay as missionaries teaching someone how to pray, and they had a testimony meeting afterwards, which was great. We then visited the family of Christine and Queenie, came back down to the church to visit a less active family (who the district president and his wife introduced us to and who have started coming back to church a few times) and to teach their son-in-law, Warren. We then had to hurry to our dinner appointment with the Martinez since it was already 8pm haha, and we still had to travel to Bambang for our exchanges with the ZLs, so we quickly went home to grab our overnight bags for the exchanges and went to Bambang to stay the night there. Wednesday was also pretty good. We had a training with our referral secretaries in the morning, and after some studies and lunch, Elder Nacar and I went out for the day. Elder Nacar was actually one of the first Elders I met in the Cauayan Mission; he was the district leader for the district I was in during the one-week transition period when I just floated between different areas before traveling to my assigned area haha, and he was Elder Sabala's trainer, so we already knew each other, and we already have a good relationship, which was great. We first went to one of their further areas to meet with a family they're working with, which went pretty well, and we were able to meet a couple new people too. We then traveled back to central Bambang to try to meet some other investigators before getting some food and heading over to meet the 8-year old daughter of a member who's getting baptized next week, which was nice. After visiting the kid who will be baptized, we walked back to the apartment, we saw a dog get hit by a truck...don't think I'll get that image out of my mind lol. It was already curfew by the time we all came back to the apartment, so we just stayed the night there again. Thursday was good. We had a content training in the morning, which was alright, and we tried to visit a lot of people in the early afternoon, but they weren't available. We then briefly visited the birthday party of one of the older members in our branch before visiting Joe, a brother in an inactive family who was working abroad while the rest of the family got baptized (President Sadueste, the district president, and his wife told us to visit them since they were inactive, but I don't know if anyone realized Joe wasn't baptized yet). We then met Jorlie and John Lloyd for the first time in several weeks; their older sister has been taking them out of town a lot for summer vacation, and while Jorlie returned a couple weeks ago, John Lloyd has still been with her, and apparently Thursday was the last day he was in Almaguer before leaving again, so we're glad we caught him at the right time haha. Friday was pretty good. After some weekly planning, we tried to visiting the son of a less active member that has started to come to church recently and his girlfriend, but they weren't home yet, so we met with Rosalinda, which went better than I was expecting haha. Since her youngest son (who we met last week) said it was ok with him if she got baptized, we continued our previous efforts to ask her if she wanted to be baptized. She initially refused again, saying that she wanted us to check with her other children first, but her friend and her daughter, Brenda, were able to convince her to make August 20 as a goal for her to get baptized, whether the rest of her kids will approve or not. For maybe 20 minutes or so haha, they mainly spoke in Ilokano to each other so that Rosalinda would understand a bit better and be more receptive to the invitation, so Elder Gernale mostly just stared at them trying to make sense of the whole situation until they finally gave us the go ahead and confirmation that she'll commit to a baptism date 😂 Brenda said that they'll talk to her siblings this Sunday to ask them if it'd be ok with them, so we'll be praying that all goes well for the next few weeks. We then visited Kathline and met her grandmother, Teresita, which went well, and we then visited the son of the less active member and his girlfriend that we tried to visit earlier, Angelo (the son) and Mary Rose (his girlfriend). Mary Rose has actually come to church the past couple of Sundays alongside Angelo's mom, but we only met Angelo today and taught them for the first time today, which also went pretty well, they agreed to have us come back again and to go to church if they can. We then just headed home for the evening and picked up some dinner. Saturday was a bit busy haha. We first visited Lovelyn (an inactive member) and her sons (John Mike and Joven) before trying to visit several other people that weren't available lol. After we tried visiting those people, we went to the actual birthday party for our branch president's son, and we both celebrated us turning 1 year old! Haha it was fun. We then visited Christine and Queenie's family with one of Michelle's (Christine's mom) old friends who is still in the branch, which went really well, we got a picture afterwards just in case one of us was getting transferred haha. We then biked over to meet a media referral, Myrna, who was interested in an Facebook ad from the Church on how to hear the Holy Ghost, which went well, but it was actually her husband Mark who clicked on the ad using her phone apparently lol, but it was still good. We then came home and prepared for our Technology Council later than evening, in which we were able to create some goals for the whole social media team to use the new Philippines Area content that the Church recently created for us, which is great. Sunday was alright. Christine's and Queenie's family came to church again today, and they stayed for the classes during the second hour, which was great. Afterwards, we had a quick mission coordination meeting, which went well, and we headed home to eat lunch and plan for our day. We mostly tried visiting some inactive families or other people we've tried to meet the past few weeks, but most of them were gone or busy. We then visited Edward; he's not keeping his commitments and is typically hot or cold with his desires to meet with us, so we told him that next time, we'll review some of our teachings about the restored gospel, and if he isn't willing to work for these blessings or doesn't want it, then we'll stop visiting and teaching him as much. Sad, but we have to put the foot down and let him know we're serious about this and about him and if he wants to receive these blessings. We then came home to make some dinner, report on our week, and do some social media work. I also had a meeting with the referral secretary team, which went alright, and afterwards, I found out that I would be leaving the zone, but I wasn't told where until today lol (I'm actually the only one from my district who's leaving, crazy). I'll be leaving the "coldest" zone in our mission, which is sad haha, I need to prepare myself for the extra heat. I hope you all are doing well, and I pray that you all continue to study your scriptures, pray to God daily, and trust in Him always. Let me know if there's anything you want me to pray for! See you next week, Elder Enger 1-3 - Pictures from the "Sea of Clouds" this morning 4-5 - Us with Christine/Queenie's family

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