April 10, 2022 - General Conference and a Typhoon?

Hello everyone,

This week has been good. Because of time zone differences, we weren't able to watch General Conference last week, but we were able to watch the Sunday sessions this week at church, and we're planning on watching the Saturday sessions later. The weather continues to either be really hot or rainy, and we even had what I think was some sort of typhoon (i.e. veey large storm), so that was exciting haha.

On Tuesday, Elder Sabala and some of the other Elders went to get their booster shots (I followed along, but since I alreay had mine, I just worked on updating our information and creating resources for us to use for the work) and to buy a few things. We then had district council in person this time, which was alright except for the language barrier haha. After that, we headed over to teach Jordan, and we met and taught a couple of his friends as well. We then taught Rizalyn and a few other people, and we later had dinner with the other Elders in our apartment and some members in their area. While we were finishing up dinner, Elder Capili and I had a mission social media council zoom meeting, so we just kept our cameras off and tried to stay muted the whole time because we were outside and it was a little loud, and of course they called on me to say tje prayer haha. I tried quickly moving to a quieter area to say it, but before I finished, a dog started barking like crazy lol, but it was alright.

On Wednesday, Elders Capili and Bito-on (the other Elders sharing our apartment besides the ZLs) were moving to their new apartment. The APs and the senior couple missionaries came to pick them and their stuff up, and they also picked up the ZLs to take them to Cauayan (i.e. the Central Zone; where the mission office is) to spend the night there so that they could attend MLC (Misson Leadership Council) the next day. Elder Sabala and I then met various members as we tried to stop by some people with baptismal dates this month since they ended up not being available at the times we stopped by, and then we biked over to the district president, who told us that he and the landlord for another potential apartment for us had been waiting for us for a while. After checking out that apartment (which was nice enough), we met with Janssen and his friend, Aldred. Aldred has a twin named Aldrin; they are friends of Janssen and are in a part-member household, and we've been trying to meet with them for a little while ever since we met them on our first Sunday here. The lesson went well, and Elder Sabala was able to invite Janssen to be baptized on May 7, so that's exciting. With Aldred, we plan on teaching his twin with him as well so that we can extend that invitation to both of them. We then met with John Raven, a young boy who has a baptism date for the 23rd, and the lesson went well. His cousin and a couple of his neighbors joined us, and they were recently baptized too, so it was great. We then got some McDonald's and headed home to the quietest night we've had so far since it was just Elder Sabala and I haha.

Thursday was pretty good; we woke up and had the place to ourselves for the first time haha. After some lunch, we went to visit Seth and Kim Jordan, and we were able to teach Jordan, Edward, and Aldwin again, which was good. We then taught Rizalyn with Ren and met her grandpa, Remie, and then we visited a couple part-member families for the night with Seth. We then travelled all the way to the west (the mountainous area haha) to visit Deshley and have some dinner since it was the birthday of someone in her family, which was fun. Since that area is a lot more rural/mountainous and has a lot of dirt roads, it gets very dark at night, so biking was an adventure haha. Luckily, I was able to put the phone in my shirt pocket and turn the flashlight on, so it all worked out. We then headed home for the evening, and the ZLs still weren't back from MLC yet, so it's another quiet night here lol.

Friday was quite the ride lol. After waiting at Seth's place for a little while for the youth that wanted to go out with us (which later proved to be our downfall as it put us behind schedule), we met with John Raven again, and then headed over to meet with Rosalinda again. John Raven seems like he'll be ready to be baptized by the end of this month like we have planned, but we still haven't been able to reconfirm baptism for Rosalinda yet, we'll get there though. After stopping by a couple more people, we went even further west to visit an area we haven't before. At this point, we were supposed to be heading back to the central part of our area to meet with the Elders Quorum President to check out an apartment, but we wanted to visit these few people first since we haven't been able to. It went well, but as we started to leave and come back, a huge storm came and started dumping rain. Because we weren't in the central part of our area to check out the apartments like we had planned to do at this time, we had to keep travelling in the rain until we reached a waiting shed, and then Elder Sabala called the parents of the various youth we were with to reassure them and secure a ride for us and the youth since we were still in the mountains and a long ride would be ahead of us in the middle of a huge storm. If I understood him correctly, I think one of the members said it was a typhoon or something, but if it was, we're luckily in the mountains/surrounded by mountains, so the typhoons aren't as bad as they could be. It was all able to more or less work out; we got a ride to our dinner appointment, and the ZLs came back shortly after we got home.

Saturday was a bit better. We did some service with the Zls and a couple of their members cleaning out an old school cafeteria. There was a calendar dated back to 2020, so I'm pretty sure it has been abandoned since then haha. We then had some lunch with the family of one of the former APs of the Cauayan Mission, which was good. Elder Sabala and I later met with Jordan, Edward, Aldwin, and another one of their friends, Cjay to talk about the Book of Mormon and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which I think went well. We then visited Janssen and the other twin this time, Aldrin, which also went well. At that point, it was raining a bit (luckily not as bad as yesterday haha), and we headed over to the house of someone else we've started to teach Dona. After her, we headed home, and Elder Realubit noticed that something had been eating his bar of soap (my fault, I get hungry in the bathroom lol). Shortly afterwards, he both found and swiftly killed a mouse, so that was exciting ðŸ˜‚ We then had some dinner and went to bed upstairs again. 

On Sunday, we were able to watch the Sunday sessions of General Conference, which were pretty good. I really liked Elder Christofferson's talk and how our highest desire should be coming to really know Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and to continually abide with them, even when things are hard or when we have to sacrifice a lot to do so. It was also cool how in the morning session---the first session I've been able to watch---the choir sang I Know My Redeemer Lives and How Firm a Foundation, two of my favorite hymns. Anyways, in between the sessions, we had some lunch with some members, and after the last session, we had some snacks/early dinner with another member haha. We then went home, sent in our weekly reports/goals, and I spent some time updating information about members and people we are teaching and trying to come up with plans to accomplish what we want to do in this area for the rest of the night before heading to bed.

As always, I hope you all are doing well; it continues to be the refiner's fire for me here in the Philippines haha, but I'm grateful for the Lord and His support as He shapes me into what I can become. I encourage and invite you all to study General Conference and the various invitations extended by prophets and Apostles of Jesus Christ, especially President Nelson's talk in the Sunday Morning Session and his invitation to increase your spiritual momentum by getting on the covenant path and staying there, discovering the joy of daily repentance, learning about God and how He works, seeking and expecting miracles, and ending conflict in your personal life. I promise it will bless you and help you develop an even stronger relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

See you all next week,

Elder Enger





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