It Was a Glorious Sight to See

Feb 27, 2011
Well, this last week was pretty good. We got a good number of lessons, we (still) have great investigators (and some not as great ones). But the work is moving forward at a good pace, our plan is to speed it up though. Our area is doing a good job and keeping things consistent, but we haven't yet hit mission standard, but getting close. We hit mission standard a couple of weeks ago in all areas except the number of lessons, so we are just bumping that up.

So, yesterday was branch conference here in Ayungon. We had been working to get investigators (of course) and less-active members to come so that our attendance would be high, we would also have a boost from the visitors from the District (Stake) presidencies and auxiliaries. So all in all our attendance was 83! Which is freakin' high! The tiny building was packed with people! It was a glorious sight to see. We also counted the number of visitors from other units and the subtracted them from the total number, so it ended up being that we had 68 members of the Ayungon Branch attend! That was awesome, because the most I had ever seen it before that was 55, but normally it is in the high 30s and low 40s. But it has been steadily increasing. We also had five investigators attend, less than we had planned but it was still good. A couple of them we found out that they wouldn't be coming Friday and Saturday, still a disappointment but it was alright. There were four more that we excpected to come, but didn't, we found out later why two of them weren't there, we went to their house and they weren't home. The neighbors said that they went to Valladolid because it was the day before the fiesta there. But we are going back to them tomorrow.

That's really about it for the last week. Nothing really that interesting happened. Oh! one of the investigators at church was Papa Tilanas! We started teaching him this week and he came to church! We had our doubts that he would, but he did and we (plus the rest of the Tilanas family) were way happy!! We also started teaching Michael Francisco's mother. She has wanted to be taught for a while, and was taught before, but she is was busy. But she comes home from work on Saturdays and we are teaching her then. It's just going to be hard to have her progress with us teaching just once a week and her not being able to come to church. We are going to talk to her about talking to her boss and asking for Sunday's off. That works here, sometimes.

So the most exciting part (Aside from branch conference) of the week was transfer announcements. Normally we wouldn't find out until tuesday, but because we live with the zone leader and he gets the call Sunday night, we already know what is happening. We are getting what we wanted, Elder Riedhead and I are staying in Ayungon! I used the zone leader's phone to text Michael Tilanas after we found out to let him know. He is way excited too.

Well, I hope you all have a good week this coming week, I know we are going to!

Elder Phelps

PS. I think it is way cool that Katee has decided to go on a mission. I just hope she doesnt leave until after I get home! But since she is going that makes that the four oldest grandchildren will have gone, be on, or going to go on missions.

Also, tell Brandton "Happy Birthday" from me! If I had thought about it earlier, and they actually had good birthday cards here, I would have sent him one. Maybe I still will, I'll just make my own!
And still no package... :(

And I for got to get my sizes... next week na lang!