Abala na Abala Talaga!

Or in other words, busy! Crazy! Totally an insane week.

I don't think I have had a more busy week in my entire life. It was great, I learned a lot, but it was really hard.

This Wednesday was TRANSFER day so that means that we had missionaries from all over Palawan coming to our home to stay the night. Most of them didn't know their way around so we needed to help them. On Thursday, missionaries from the mainland flew in so we repeated the whole process. Plus we had several meetings to train all of the new trainers and all of the new leaders. 

Our zone has been planning a big open house for a month or so to provide a way for many new people to come to the church and see what it's all about. Basically what we did was invite everybody we could and then had them take a tour of the Malvar Chapel. After the tour we had tons of food for them to enjoy while "Meet the Mormons" was showing in the cultural hall. It was a really cool experience but a TON of work. We had countless planning meetings, service projects to get the church clean and decorated, and lots of errands to run. This was the big week to get everything ready and we had the open house Saturday night. Despite all of the hard work, the open house was a huge success. We had close to 50 investigators come including a pastor and a baragay captain with lots of questions. Several people told us that they could "Feel Jesus" and wanted to learn more. We are very grateful for the hard work of the other missionaries and the members who sacrificed so much. We saw many tender mercies as we tried our best to make it work. One thing that we were blessed with was rice. Yep rice. We didn't have any budget to buy rice so we had all of the missionaries cook some at home and bring it. Turns out what we planned for wasn't nearly enough.  Right when we were about to run out of rice, one of the members from our branch randomly showed up with like 8kg of cooked rice. Just what we needed to feed the rest of the people. God really provided for us on this one.

In the midst of all of this, we got a call from some missionaries last week informing us that a member had signed us all up to sing at the 100th anniversary of Barangay San Miguel. Here in the Philippines they separate the different parts of the city with what they call barangays. Anyway, we managed to squeeze some time in to get all of the missionaries to the church to practice an arrangement of "I'm trying to be like Jesus" with "Sweet Hour of Prayer" and also "Called to Serve" mixed with "tinawag maglingkod" (Called to Serve in Tagalog). We got some good practice in to the point that it sounded pretty good. We performed on Wednesday night but when we arrived there is was not exactly what we expected. The first thing I noticed was laser lights and massive speakers. We sat down and the pastor who was leading the celebration welcomed us all there. He then introduced the first group who got up on the stage and started slamming symbols and screaming praises to the heavens.  They were followed by another group who had the same style. It was cool to see other people's faith but I had no idea that we would be attending Christian battle of the bands!!!! We followed them up with our choir songs so all in all I think it was a pretty sucessful evening but very, very, confusing.

My good buddy Elder Panugao was transfered to the mainland last week.  It was really sad to say goodbye to him since we have become really good friends. He doesn't even know much English and I don't even know that much Tagalog but we always had great conversations. But on the bright side, there is a new elder in our apartment named Elder Ravudra from Fiji!! How cool is that?! This is going to be a great transfer. 

In the midst of all of the things to do, we had a few small opportunities to stop and laugh. We OYM'd a guy in a small store and when we asked him how he was doing, he told us that he was old and didn't have any teeth left but he was still smiling. Love it. There is always something to smile about. Elders Quorum yesterday was also fairly comical. Our teacher brought in a conference talk that he had printed off. He then took about 15 minutes and read the entire thing, explained for about 3 minutes and then went back and read about half of it again. After all of that, Elders Quorum was still not over so he handed the talk out and had different people read sections of it (for the third time) and had them explain until the bell rang. If you have ever been to Elder's Quorum before, hopefully you can see the humor in this because I thought it was pretty funny.

That's my report for the week. I'll try and get some pictures out when I email next Monday. Sorry if I have any crazy typos in here because I don't have time to proof read it right now. I hope you all have a great week. Stay busy, work hard, and look for the fun in all of it!! Remeber this:  For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand. (Doctrine and Covenants 58:4)

Ingat po kayo!!! 

Love, Elder Kent Richard Thompson

Pictures

Just a few pictures from where we live.

Just a few pictures from where we live.

We had the chance to go out to Roxas a few times the last couple weeks for exchanges and Zone meeting.  Roxas is actually pronounced like row-hoss.  Super nice place.  Many people live in huts right on the beach.  This is actually the poor part of town, despite how nice it looks.

Roxas has great sunsets.

We got a ride home with the Wolcotts.  They showed us this nice overlook spot right as the sun was about to finish setting.

Sister Rowena from the sisters area was baptized at 7:00 this morning.  She was married just before the baptism.

Zone Meeting

We had a great week. There were many baptisms across the zone. Everybody is doing a really good job. We had zone meeting in Puerto Princesa last week and will be having another zone meeting in Roxas tomorrow. It's about 3 hours travel for the elders in Roxas and 4.5 hours travel for the elders in Taytay so we're doing a meeting just for them so save all of their travel time.

Don't have a ton of time to elaborate but thank you all for your emails and letters. I am really grateful for the support that so many people send to me each week.

Love, Elder Thompson

A picture from zone meeting courtesy of Elder Wolcott

Zone Activity

If you have cool zone leaders, they will organize a zone activity each transfer. For our activity this time, we purchased four live chickens took them to the mango farm where Brother Benjie lives, killed them and each district took made it into delicious dishes. I even had the chance to kill one of the chickens! It was a good and fun time.

Chopping the chicken

The victims

Cool Experiences

Hello!

We had some some cool experiences this week. 

First, we were riding in a really full jeepney when one of us dropped our phone without noticing. To be a missionary and especially one in a leadership position, that's a pretty pretty devastating thing to happen. We were so worried so we prayed together as a companionship that we could find our phone. About 20 minutes after our prayer, we got a call to the other elders in out apartment's phone. It was a really nice lady who had found our phone and wanted to return it. BOOM! She found our phone and then answered a call from some of the other sisters in our zone who needed to get a hold of us. Those sisters then directed her to our kabahay's phone and we were able to speak with her and meet her the next morning. I'm so grateful that our prayers are answered and that there are a lot of honest people in the world.

Second, my companion and I have been trying a new method of getting around called Hitchhiking!! We figure it's a fun way to get a free ride and have an easy situation to share the gospel. We were so happy the other day when somebody actually stopped for us. When we opened the door, we discovered that it was our next door neighbor. It was cool to get a free ride right to our house, but I don't know if it actually counts as a successful hitchhike since we already knew the person. We'll keep working on that one!

There were many great things that happened this week but unfortunately my time is far spent. Thanks for all of your love and great support. That is one thing that has helped me to be so happy to be on my mission. 

Until next time...

Elder Thompson

PS. The elders in my apartment are great cooks. Elder Sorronda and I are usually in charge of going to the market to buy food on Mondays. Here's an example of what the meat market looks like:

We buy this pork and make lots of delicious Filipino dishes.  It's basically a huge pile of warm meat slapped onto a table.  Flies and all!!  I've never gotten sick or anything so I suppose it is good to eat.

I actually have no idea what this is....looks a little scary.

We had a really fun district activity today at the home of our BML Benjie.  He cooked some delicious food of rice and grilled meat including chicken, fish, squid, and tahong (oysters).

Our district!! (L-R) Elder Thompson, Elder Sorronda, Sister Baul, Elder Binhaon, Sister Narag, Sister Holzworth, Sister Akeripa, Sister Martinez and Elder Panugao. Sister Ta'ala is behind.