All family and friends those whom I love so dearly,
This week was crazy. Technically my first full week as a missionary here in Siaton, and wow a lot has occurred. First of all, Visayan is way hard, but I know that if I am patient and work and seek the lord's guidance,i will eventually be able to speak all that is needed. As a missionary, there are certain standards set by the mission president to track the progress of missionaries throughout the mission. The standards are 20+ lessons a week, 140 i2l's(invite to learn), 7y7(7 days comp study, weekly planning, 7 daily planning), and our zone leaders have just instituted a new standard which is 5 copies of the book of Mormon a week. I have already seen some good missionaries, and some bugoy(disobedient) missionaries here in the mission, and the success of missionaries definitely is reflected by effort, and diligence. My companion, Elder Taylor and I, rocked the standards last week with 26 lessons, 144 i2l's and 7y7. I can already feel the success and the blessings that will come to us by our diligence. we have 8 investigators with baptismal dates, and this past week found 22 new investigators. i know that even though my Visayan is not the best, these people understand and feel the urgency of our message through the holy ghost.
so there were some funny/crazy experiences i had this week. first of all, on Friday while we were studying a man came and called to us saying he had just come from the Garcia's house, and that he knew the missionaries could help him. his name is Oliver and just by looking at him i could tell that he had not eaten for at least two days. very sad. he was really pleading and asking for help, and we decided that we would pay him some pisos to clean and trim up the weeds in our yard. he was super pumped, and started going to town on those weeds, which was cool. about and hour and a half later he asked for some water so my comp and i decided to take a break, and eat some pan with him. he asked us for 600 pisos so he could find a place for his homeless kids to sleep so we prayed and talked to pres and then decided that it was okay. so after that he left, and said he would come back tomorrow (Saturday) to keep working. he didn't show up until like 10 with one of his kids. he had bought him some briefs and thought it was necessary to show us. Filipinos are pretty open, but he was like super pumped to go to church and he said that he wanted to be baptized which was sick. so of course brother Oliver doesn't show up to church, we see him last night (Tuesday) riding his pot-pot around and when he sees us he pulls his shirt up over his face so we couldn't see him, we knew it was him though. funny stuff. BUT, the moral of the story is we gave a hungry man 12 bucks for him and his kids not to die. and maybe one day he will realize, once he runs out of money again, that the things of this world do not matter and will hopefully turn to the lord.
another funny thing happened yesterday ( Tuesday) when we went to Cabangahaw, another place in our area. we were going to teach two ladies and a tatay a lesson, but there was a drunk nanay, tatay, and some sister. they were SUUUUPER wasted so it was very distracting. we ended up not sharing with them, but while we were sitting there talking this old nanay, straight up 88 years old, was sitting in her hammock with her super long Marlboro cigarrio, and flipped out of her hammock. just fell... TWICE!! it was the funniest thing ever because of what she said(direct translation from Visayan) oh no i just fell from there to the earth. it is hilarious trying to talk to people in Visayan while they are drunk because they freak out when Americans can understand it.
oh so we get called guapo (handsome) like 5 times a day because elder Taylor is just super guapo. they all laugh, especially the girls, when we smile and wave. they try to hide behind each other because they are shocked that me guapo comp is smiling at them. it is fun stuff.
so yeah umm we are the only two elders in Siaton and our area is like a 30 minute bus ride from the next area closest to us. so its pretty big. we have a cool house with two bathrooms with shower heads that work, but the water is freezing. a cool kitchen, a little couch, a room for just our beds and fans, another room for our clothes and where we can hang our wet stuff. it is a pretty sweet set up, but there is no aircon but since it is so spacey and there are only two of us it is pretty cool, not too hot. so its cool.
from Cebu to Siaton it was a 6 hour bus ride, then an hour barge(boat) ride, and another 1 1/2 hour bus ride. so not too far... haha. but yeah it is pretty cool here on the mission. hard at times, but i know i need to be here doing work. it feels good coming home at night exhausted from a hard day of missionary work, and yeah i like this opportunity i have to serve the lord. stay strong and don't worry about me. i'm doing fine.
lots of gugma, Elder DeSchepper
