Area 2!

So I finally made it to my new area. Paracale A. No big deal. Just a nice view of the ocean to the north and some green mountains to the south. It's pretty beautiful I guess. Kind of scenic for our ocean baptisms. Now I am at the far North end of the mission, about 7-9 hours away from Naga. I was reading our safety evacuation page in our area book where it talks about dangers specific to the area. They are NPA (the Philippines rebel group), tsunamis, mudslides/rockslides, and river flooding. My favorite part of that page is this, and I quote "River Flooding: Flooding coming in from the river, if such is the case, move to the apartment, sorry but you're kinda screwed. Go to Labo if possible." Obviously the area is great. They've got a pretty strong branch here with some great members. There is also a ton of potential for improvement here. My new companion, Elder Llanera, just finished his training, but apparently, they didn't work super hard in the area. But that's just fine by me! That means there are more people out here for me to find that haven't ever been talked to before. My chance to make an impression in the area and help these people come unto Christ. I will let you know next week a little more about the people we are teaching, because I'm still working on getting to know them all. 

So far this week, we have put in some pretty good work. We ended the week with a higher amount of total lessons than Elder Llanera said they had for most of his time here. So we are off to a good start, but we've still got a long way to go. We've already given out some baptismal dates, that hopefully will work out. One issue we have is that we need to get parental consent for some of the baptisms and the parents don't really want that. Also, the previous missionaries basically told the investigators the bare minimum requirements to be able to be baptized, so the investigators don't always aim to be truly converted, but to just reach baptism. Just more stuff to improve! We also found someone with a pet monkey which is pretty cool. I sent a picture of it.

I love you all so much, and will have more for you next week! Just trying to work out everything in the new area. 

1/5/14

We found someone with a pet monkey 

District Newsletter (click on pic to see a closer view)