me and Elder Bangal my 2nd companion on my mission

So only half of this last week was actually spent in our area, and the other half was spent in the area of the Assistants to President in Legazpi. But in the half week of work that we got, I thought it wasn't too bad. We have been really working with the leaders in the church to get some awesome activities set up in order to find new people to teach, but the leaders seem to be moving pretty slow with all of it, so we are just gonna have to take the initiative ourselves to work it out if they won't work with us. We are writing some letters to get permission from the area officials in order to use certain facilities in the city to present some videos and put on a Christmas show for the people in Masbate.

Last Tuesday we went to Legazpi to have MLC again, so we were able to receive some great direction from President Kotter. Also I got some more letters from Twinkle and her family, so those always make me happy because I know that at least they haven't forgotten about me!

Last week we had an area realignment with the Sisters in our Zone, which means that we took a part of their area so that we can proselyte in it. In that area that we just took from them, we found a whole new family of investigators, the Ramos Family, and right away they came to church with us! Just yesterday we stopped by their house to pick them up and we walked with them all the way to church, and we have another return appointment with them tomorrow, so we hope that it will go well.

We also have been working with a less-active girl named Rea this past week. Actually we have been working with her for the past two months, and she has yet to come to church again. She has opened up to us saying that she WANTS to come back to church because she really misses it, but she is just having a problem working up the courage to actually make the journey back to church. But yesterday she FINALLY came back to church! She only stayed for the first hour, but hey, we gotta start somewhere right? We really hope that she will continue to progress towards becoming active in the church again.

Elder Bangal & I at MLC, He was my 2nd companion on the mission

Last night we met with the Cantre family for the first time. They are a less-active family that was baptized about a year ago, but it has been a really long time since they have had any contact with the church. We only met with the mother, Melissa, and talked with her about why they stopped coming to church. She explained that they ARE going to church-just not our church. They have found their way back to their Catholic traditions and roots and no longer have the desire to come back to church. She refused to accept it, but her life seems to have gone significantly downhill ever since they left. Her husband used to have a smoking and drinking problem which went away when they joined the church, but we saw some cigarettes hidden in the roof in their house, so obviously that problem has come back. Also her husband does not treat her well at all and always yells and gets mad at her and the kids. We just hope that we can somehow show her that we can help her through the Gospel. But as sad experience shows, once members go less-active, it is so much more difficult to bring them back to church.

Elder Pullicar (He's a cool guy from Idaho) 

These are the cemeteries here in Philippines.
We just kind of walk all over them and stuff, so that's fun

Filipino Cemetery