This week was pretty good. Last Pday we went to Plaza Independcia which has Fort San Pedro and nearby there's the place that holds Magellan's Cross for when he first got to the Philippines. It's actually encased in another cross now so the picture isn't of the actual cross but of the thing that's like encasing the cross. It was a beautiful area. We took lots of pics.
Sunday was interesting because we went to visit a less active member and he was in the middle of a chicken surgery with his son. Cock fighting is pretty big here and I guess that night he had the winning chicken. It got pretty cut up though so he was giving it stitches and stuff to fix it up. Last time we tried visiting him, he literally just walked away. So we took the opportunity of him sitting there working on his chicken to get to know him and his son. So ya we got to watch a chicken surgery. It was good though, he let us talk with him and teach him so it all worked out.
We have a few different people taking lessons from us right now. I'm just going to talk about one right now because it'd take forever to talk about all of them. Brother Nat is the one we are really trying to help right now. He's a 70 year old Tatay who owns a restaurant and lives a pretty simple life. He has actually been taught all of the lessons 3 or 4 times. He was first contacted by missionaries in 1978... so 40 years ago. He believes the church is true but his problem is that he really likes to smoke. He believes there is nothing wrong with smoking. He doesn't believe any of the science saying smoking is bad so it's been really hard trying to explain to him why he needs to stop. This last monday we taught him again and really emphasized the spiritual side of why he needs to quit smoking. He then told us, "Ok, there's 5 days before sunday. I'm going to think about what I've been taught and pray and read the book of mormon for the next 5 days. If I come to church this sunday, I will join your church." Elder Clegg has been in Sikatuna for 6 months now and he's been teaching brother Nat for all that time and he said that he hasn't heard brother Nat say anything like that before. It'll be interesting to see what happens this Sunday. I think he really believes though, and that he will come.
We have district meetings every monday and zone conferences once a transfer (6 weeks). My first zone conference is next week which'll be fun because then I'll get to see some of the people from my batch.
As far as personal study goes, I've started reading Doctrine and Covenants along with my reading in the Book of Mormon. I'm now in the Book of Mosiah, reading King Benjamin's address. It's a good read, pretty enlightening. I don't have time to write anything super specific about what I learned from it, but it's really enlightening if you take the time to really go through and understand all that he is saying.
Sounds like you had a pretty good week back home. I miss how beautiful it is there. We don't really have that many places that look good in my area since it's like literally as downtown as it gets. I love the pics, makes me miss home a little bit but the work here makes it worth not being home.
Gihigugma tika!
Elder shirley
Colon street (oldest street in the philippines)
magellan's cross
Fort San Pedro
Flood pics
We also went to the hospital this week because our zone has the hospital (Chung Hua) that like all missionaries go to when they get sick on the island of Cebu, and my area is the closest to it so we generally go and take stuff there for people. There was an elder in the hospital for Dengue so we stayed over night with him and then switched out with some other elders from our zone the next day. We also took lots of pics there because we were bored out of our minds.
Messing around in the Hospital
