OH HEY COME IN! IT'S FIESTA COME AND EAT!!

So this week I actually have some stuff to talk about (but no pictures, sorry, I left my camera at the apartment)

On Wednesday of last week, we had a giant service project that took like all day to complete. Well, we thought it was a service project at first, but then turns out that we were just doing landscape work for an old lady in the branch who didn't wanna hire other people to do it. But hey, it was nice, I love doing physical service out here! The rest of the day we went around and tried to find people to teach, but there was this huge event called "Fiesta" going on in Libon. It's pretty much just everyone partying and eating and stuff all day for no reason. So every time we tried to go to an investigators house, they would just say "OH HEY COME IN! IT'S FIESTA COME AND EAT!!" And then we would say no because we had other places to go, but it's apparently SUPER RUDE to reject food at fiesta. So long story short, we ate huge meals at three different houses in succession. That'll hurt your stomach. Woo-hoo Filipino culture!

Thursday we had interviews with our mission president, President Dale Kotter, which was pretty nice. I don't necessarily like interviewing with him just because I don't really know what to tell him. I just told him how the area in Libon was doing and how me and Elder Nonu were doing, so not much really. He took a lot of notes while I was speaking to him, so that made me super nervous too. It's like I was being interrogated. But after the interviews we went home and finished up our studies and that was it for the day!

Saturday we spent the whole day (Yes the WHOLE day) cleaning the branch meetinghouse with the branch members. We weeded the whole yard, moved the coconut trees, and cleaned literally everything! Hard work, but it was good!

Sunday was packed with lessons and stuff, which was really nice! Me and Elder Nonu went on splits, and my companion was a guy in the branch named Aries. He's actually from Manilla, but he's vacationing down here and he is THE BEST member present! He's an RM and He and I went around and did some amazing, spiritual missionary work that I haven't been able to do in a long time. It was such a relief to be able to teach people with purpose and move urgently from appointment to appointment. Aries really is a gift from God in this area. 

Well that's it for this email! Sorry that there are no pictures, but I'll try and send them all next week :) I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Elder Austin Cook