May 9-15, 2011

Wow!!! What an awesome week!! We got more members to work with us this week and the in actives that we visited came to church!! I am now getting used to my new area, comp and calling. And its sweet. We are still just helping our investigators strengthen their faith so they can come to church, and finding new investigators. Some of our investigators our really great, they believe in the Book of Mormon and are reading all the time, but church is the only thing difficult for them. So that's what we are focusing on for them right now. We also found some new great families that are interested and want to listen, both of the families are way nice and very potential. The one father finished reading the Restoration pamphlet and now we gave him a Book of Mormon.
I also was shocked and surprised and happy to see the less-actives that we visited come to church. One is a family, their parents are always gone. The father is always at work and the mother is working abroad in Saudi. But we taught the kids one of which has a husband and a kid as well. So they are the ones who came to church, she also brought her husband who isn't a member.
The other inactive that we visited is actually an RM. He is single and is just spending his time working. I was really surprised to see him come to church, cuz he didn't want us to teach him, just visit and talk.
On Tuesday was the first district meeting where I had to teach the workshop. It was good, just kind of set and collected the expectations and goals from everyone for the district then we did a little teaching demo to practice companion unity and listening.
It was great. Then on Thursday it was Zone Conference in Santa Cruz. It was a brownout so there was no electricity which means there was no air on which also means it was so hot. But other than that the conference was great.
When we went to work on friday, we ended up doin a service project. One of our investigators was fixing up her bamboo house (kubo) for the rain so it wont get all wet and muddy inside her house, so we helped her while wearing our shirt and ties. :)
Then Saturday morning for preparation for the awesome 50th Anniversary Jubilee Celebration we helped set up the chairs and stuff at the auditorium in Alaminos City. Then later that evening was the show. It was the 50th anniversary of the church in the Philippines and all the branches in Alaminos District came and sang and danced. It was so cool, especially that I could see all the people I have met in Bani and Bolinao who couldn't believe that i came back. It was so cool to see them all again.
Then on sunday I was called to give a talk. I introduced myself again, and talked about the importance of family prayer, family scripture study and family home evening. Because I have realized these 3 things are so important and a blessing for the family and alot of members are not doing them :).
The talk was alright, but towards the end i started to get a little nervous, i am still not great at speaking in front of a ton of people. :( Hopefully that will go away by the end of my mission.
So pretty much everything is awesome, my comp and my district are great. Oh also, the Filipina sister in my district got sick saturday and had trouble walking and they called me to give her a priesthood blessing. One more cool thing about being a district leader. And later that night she was fine and helped with the jubilee.
Thats all for this week. Totally sweet. I got to go. Love you all. Elder Pennock


These are all the pics from the jubilee... The first being Bani Branch doing their dance with the buckets :) Me and my comp with our Branch Mission Leader, who is awesome. Me with some of the young women in Bani, they can't believe I came back. My area before, Bani, with the cool green costumes and hats on the stage. My new area, Hundred Islands branch, with fancy dresses and green costumes on the stage. Then Bolinao Branch with the colorful, cool dresses and hats.