Week of June 21st

This week we taught our alcoholic friend twice! Because he was sober!! We taught him about the Book of Mormon and then 3 Nephi 11. Way cool.
On Wed we had zone conference down in Santa Cruz. That was really cool as well. I saw Sister Dirlam there who I haven't seen since the MTC.
Friday morning we cleaned up the church with one of the counselors from the district, Pres. Balad. Just the 3 of us cleaned and mopped the church. Then later we went and opened up a new part of our area, a barangay called Ambabaay. We found a lot of investigators who let us teach to them.
On Saturday I went to Alaminos to get my eye checked on. He said I shouldn't be using Visine and he gave me 2 other types of eye drops that I should take. So, Hopefully my eyes will be better soon.
Our branch president got released because his wife is going to work abroad in Hong Kong. Pres. Balad became the branch president. Hopefully this will be good for our branch. We had a meeting after church to organize our branch and how to do our callings. Later that day we saw some of our sisters from our branch visiting teaching a less active! That was way cool to see.
This morning we had a big zone activity, in Alaminos, with the missionaries in the Alaminos zone and the Santa Cruz zone. We had a big water balloon (actually they were plastic bags) fight in the church parking lot. It was a ton of fun.
But that is all for this week.

2 baptisms

2 of our investigators, Glenda Taganap and Jhonalyn Castil got baptized.

It was totally awesome.

These girls are way cool.

Sweet bench press!

That's a sweet bench press with tin cans filled with concrete.

There's actually a ton of those around here.
This is a magandang view from behind a part menber family's house.

Elder Westwood

This is my new comp, my follow-up trainer, Elder Westwood in Bani.

And 4 young women in our branch who work with us sometimes.

It's a lot of fun.

Elder Westwood is from St. George, Utah.

Pics in Bani & Bus

Those are two pics from a part in my new area, Bani.
Sometimes we have to cross that field, the Bukid, to get some investigators.
I took those pictures when I was like in the middle.
I took the one, then I turned around and took the other.

That was a cool sign I saw on the bus and I had to take a picture of it.

I tried many times when the bus would stop, and I finally got a good picture.

Week of June 14th

On Tuesday we had district meeting in our own chapel in Bani so that was cool. And after that we went to the Prima Vista Restaurant for an Elder in our district's b-day, Elder Berueta. So that was way awesome. Oh our fridge broke so we didn't have a fridge for a few days. We gave our meat that had to be frozen to the couple missionaries and put the rest of the food in the freezer cuz the freezer was like a fridge. Oh and also one day we didn't have any water! Like a little bit from the outside faucets, so we kept filling buckets from that to use. It's great. But we got water now. That was only for like a day and a half.
We had a funeral service for a part member family who's mom had dies. I spoke at it, about families and what happens after this life. It was a lot of people, I was more nervous there than when I speak in church. Even though it was nearly the same amount. My tagalog is still bad. Then two days after that we had the burial, except it's not really a burial, cuz they don't bury it, they just put the casket in a cement box and close it up. But it's still above the ground. We walked behind the hearse from the catholic church to the cemetery (White Hills, cuz the hills are covered with white cement boxes).
My eyelid is swollen for some reason. It's not so bad now. But one night it was big and hurting, and I thought it would be better in the morning but it wasn't. So I texted the mission presidents wife, Sis. Aquino, and she told me to put cold compress on it and take ibuprofen. So yep. I am grateful for her and hopefully it goes away soon.
This Sunday 3 of our drinking investigators went to church, Billy, Batas, and Roel. It was awesome to see them. And after church 3 youth worked with us, Joshua, Jane, and Evalyn. That was fun. It was raining in the afternoon pretty good. Joshua is a knucklehead, really funny. So that was my week. Pretty crazy and exciting. E. Pennock

Thanks for a package

Dear Collins -
Thank you so much for the package. It was a great surprise to get that. All the good food and the foot insoles. And of course I shared it all with the 3 other elders in the house. One is from Australia and he couldn't understand why we eat birdseed (the sunflower seeds) but he had some and like them and we taught him how to eat them the right way. Also another one is Filipino and he really liked the riceKrispie treats. He ate it and was like WOW, this is what food is like in America. Then he had me take a picture of him holding one. =) They like the other food to like the poptarts and the pringles. Thank you so much. A few ants got into some of the stuff cuz they can eat through the cheap plastic that the food is in. So they told me to always make sure it's wrapped up and taped really good but I was lucky this time. Only a little bit of ants. It was good to have some American treats. I tried to ration it out so I can have some everyday. haha. Oh and I am very sorry this is so late. I thought p-days were supposed to be less busy than other days, and I was planning to write you a thank you. Pero maraming salamat ulit. I am doing great. The Philippines are totally sweet! I hope everything is great with you guys. And I hope you are checkin out my missionary blog. I miss hang out with all of you. It was a ton of fun at your house and all our trips and vacations, especially Lake Powell and the 2 road trips. People think that it's crazy to drive all that way when I tell them about it. haha It was so fun though. Thanks a ton, for the fun times and being great friends. Mahal ko kayong lahat. Ingat kayo. Elder Pennock