First week of home MTC

Hello, How are you all doing? I'm doing alright, I'm now in the Jones area with Elder Anor, which is going well so far. I'm just trying to adjust to the new area/people for the moment, so nothing too crazy has happened yet, except for the earthquake that happened on Wednesday (don't worry, we were far from the epicenter, so we are all ok, but it was still a little strong where we were). Tuesday was transfer day. We met the ZLs and a few other Elders at Bambang terminal around 7/7:30am, and after saying some goodbyes, I travelled with another Elder to Santiago, where we saw Elder Harrison, Elder Goldstein, and quite a few other missionaries there, including my new companion, Elder Anor. He's from the southern area of the Philippines, he's 20, and he's first companion who isn't mostly fluent in English, so this should be fun haha. Anyways, he and Elder Angkiangco, our district leader, drove me and my luggage to Elder Angkiangco's area to have lunch with some members, which was nice, and then Elder Anor and I travelled to our apartment for me to unpack. After I had done some unpacking, we visited Ivhana, with her member friend, Joan; she's someone we're trying to prepare for baptism by the end of August if we're able to meet her father soon, which went pretty well, she's a lot more engaged in the lessons and at church than other teenagers I've taught haha, so that's pretty good. We then visited a few more people before heading over to Elaine's for a FHE that evening. Elaine is someone who is being baptized this Saturday, which is pretty exciting, and she has a really great testimony. Some of her family/neighbors are members, and her husband is less active, but she was never really interested until a couple months ago when she met the missionaries, which is pretty neat. Wednesday started out interesting haha. In the morning, we had our monthly Philippines Area Social Media Council, which went well overall, but a few minutes in, we had an earthquake hit the Philippines haha. It was pretty funny at the start, honestly: right when it happened, I stood up to go get something, and I almost tripped over myself, wondering why I felt dizzy or couldn't stand up straight. As I tried to recover, Elder Anor kept saying "lindol" (earthquake) to me a few times as he got out of his chair, but I didn't know what he was saying at all lol until it finally clicked that we were having an earthquake when he went out the door. So we just stood outside for a few minutes, keeping our balance as the earth shook around us, it was pretty neat haha. I later saw our social media chat, and they were all experiencing it too, so it must've hit at least most of the mission, but the epicenter was several hours away, so it was only about a 4.0-5.0 here, I think. The people here also said that it's the first earthquake they've experienced since about 1990, which is pretty neat. Anyways, after all that fun stuff haha, we got some lunch and headed over to Cristel, someone who they have recently started to teach and is a friend of a recent convert, Althea, which went well. We tried visiting a couple other members and investigators in their area, but no one was available, sad. We biked through long stretches of what I think were cornfields to go to their area and to come back, which was pretty neat haha, and we visited an older member, Brother Pang, who is a bit of a funny guy haha. We then tried to visit a family they have recently started to teach, but they weren't available either, so we visited a couple members, tried to find another investigator whose address we don't know to no avail haha, picked up some food, and called a couple referrals we received, one of whom was down to have us call him back (he lives a bit further away), which is nice. Thursday was pretty good. We had a Messenger training meeting in the morning, and afterwards, we traveled to Echague (about a 30-45 minute drive) for our district council, which are now on Thursdays instead of Tuesdays. Afterwards, we tried visiting quite a few people, but most of them weren't available until we visited the mom (Romarilyn) of one of the YSA members in our branch, which went pretty well, but right when we were going to leave, a huge storm hit, so we had to chill there for a little while haha. Once the rain lessened a bit, we headed home and picked up some food along the way. After calling a few people, I worked on a lot of DFTC things that I need to do, and thankfully, the signal was a lot better this time haha. It was tiring lol, but I'm glad I got some of my tasks done. I then checked out the transfer roster for this cycle to see where the new American missionaries are haha; we received two American missionaries, and both of them went to the same districts as our American ZLs, Elder Herrman and Elder Harrison. I found this pretty funny but understandable that they were sent to the same districts as other Americans who have already been their for a while, especially since there are now three Americans in the district with Elder Harrison haha. On Friday, we met with Ron Van (but he goes by "Kuya"), a returned missionary, so that he could join us in our lessons for the day, and we visited Elaine to prepare her for her baptism tomorrow, which went well. The three of us then visited some YSA members that were having an activity at the church, one of which was a former Sister from our mission (during the pandemic, she was reassigned to her home mission, here in the Philippines Cauayan Mission), who was just released a couple days ago lol, so that was neat. We then travelled to teach Ivhana again, which went well, and I was introduced to a few other members nearby as well. After those visits, we then travelled to our dinner appointment before heading back to our apartment to do some DFTC work and make a few more calls. On Saturday morning, we went to an Elder's Quorum activity, in which we were to give a lesson. We also helped prepare some food that we all ate for lunch, and while I was helping with the food by peeling some ginger, the others killed a rooster and chicken that were then cooked for our lunch, so it's a little disappointing that I wasn't actually able to see that happen lol (they actually asked earlier if I wanted to be the one to kill them 😂 surprised me for a quick second haha), but whatever, I just saw what it looked like afterwards lol. Lunch was good, and afterwards, we headed over to the church for Elaine's baptism, which went well. Afterwards, the branch president, President Acosta (who's actually from a different branch, but he was given an assignment from the high council to be the branch president for Jones, pretty interesting); the recently returned missionary, now Sister Joyce; and a couple others joined us in a couple lessons. We first met with a part-member family before meeting Sister Joyce's mom, and we ended the evening by teaching the Bulan family, a family that Elder Anor and his last companion found last week, which all went pretty well. We then headed home and I did some DFTC work as usual before heading to bed. Sunday was alright. I gave a testimony/introduction of myself in church today, which went alright, and after church, we did some planning and headed out with Nik, someone in the branch who's preparing for a mission, to try visiting a lot of people, but not many were home haha. We ended the evening by visiting his mom (Romarilyn) to teach her and have some dinner with their family, which was nice. I then had our August content calendar meeting when we came home to plan for our Facebook page's posts this August, which went pretty well. I hope you all are doing fantastic and having a wonderful week. Remember to keep studying the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon, and always always pray to receive help from God. I know that those things will enable you to receive peace, comfort, and guidance from the Lord while also protecting you from Satan's attacks, so I invite you to start doing these things daily if you aren't already, and if you are, find ways to make them more meaningful and to share the light and love of Christ with those around you. Have an amazing week, Elder Enger 1 - Some sheep in front of the church building 2 - Us at Elaine's (center) baptism 3 - We've been fed a lot of dragonfruit and avocado since I've arrived here haha 4 - Biking through fields 5 - Meeting Elder Anor 6 - Saying goodbye to Elder Gernale