kumusta na po kayo? Everything is still beautiful in "paradise" as mom calls it. I mean it's sweet out but I don't know if I'd call it paradise haha. Its cool tho I love it out here I hope I'm out here awhile even if its probably the most difficult area I've been in or will ever be in.
For example we currently have one investigator, Rosalie, she's awesome. the problem is her husband and her aren't married and he lives/works in Manila. Good news is he came down here to see her on Tuesday so we thought, sweet we'll teach them both, get them married and baptized cuz he wants to listen. The problem is he leaves on the 14th back to Manila to work and we don't know when he'll come back, and one requirement for baptism in the Philippines is to go to church 4 times. So ya that's impossible. So ya it just kinda sucks. It's tough going out here, trying to find investigators. The areas around where we live and around the church have been tracted a lot and people don't really want to listen. The places that haven't been tracted are way far out and even tho we go out there the people are too poor with no transportation to go to church, but we did try to go to some of those far out places and found some former investigators. They're really nice but once again really far to be able to go to church. It's tough going. I mean the best thing for us to do out here is strengthen the branch and work with the less actives but its always good to have a few investigators too of course, helps the branch out as well. I love our branch president, President Raguin, he's the man, so hard working. But work is fun. Me and elder Hand have a ton of fun I gotta say. If it wasn't for him I'd be going crazy, we just have a good time. Like since we have to come in early on Friday we had a little man date hahah with the area book and some dinner haha. So much fun this guy. It does suck we have to come in early but I can see why. Last night we were in by 7 and at 7:30 we had a brown out (black out) and oh man was it dark outside, couldn't see anything. We would have been in a rough spot if we were walking around in that dark aha. I also got to do some exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I did mine with Elder Arthur here in San Jose the city (still pretty small). It's fun, he's from New Zealand/Australlia, a Samoan, way cool, sick accent haha. He use to be in a band before his mission, really good on the piano. We had a lot of fun and he gave me some good advice. I could see him being one of the two new Assistants they're calling for the new mission soon. Fun times tho he's a really cool guy, real good missionary.
So much work to be done but not enough time to do it with all that's going on these two weeks. Like this weekend we had the jubilee for the church being here for 50 years. It was cool, Saturday they had a big cultural thing with youth dancing and I saw old members from my old wards and even recent converts pretty cool stuff. Then on Sunday they had a broadcast where president Packer and elder Cook spoke from Salt Lake. It was in Tagalog and its hard to listen to Tagalog like that without zoning out, not to mention there was a black out there too in the middle so we had to start over later on. haha interesting day. Our branch came all in a hand tractor. That's why our branch is the best, so masipag. The other branches have a big problem with gossip but our branch is pretty good about it, I love it. Gotta love Rizal, definitely is a lot of fun
this week we have mission tour with President Edwards, the area president. On Thursday we have training with him and he may be coming to see our apartment. I really hope not haha but we're cleaning tonight to be sure.
Anyways it's always fun. The work is hard, maybe not so much hard as just way different. Different focuses and sometimes you don't get to see the rewards as easy in say baptisms and lessons taught. But we're working and trying. Like Elder Arthur told me, in hard areas you have to be creative, look outside the box, and when one idea doesn't work you set it aside and try something else. That's what I'll be doing out here so don't worry about me I'm gonna be fine haha
Anyways love you all. Hope you enjoy the pictures too. Keep being faithful, the church needs everyone it has and then a whole lot more.
love
Elder Stover
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