Yesterday I was at zone leaders council. We have it in week one and week five of every transfer. It was great. The president introduced the new transfer focus. It had been "Sanctify Yourselves" but now it's "Avoid All Appearance of Evil".
We had sweet food that Sister O prepared for us and we also got to go to the beach and played cricket and rugby. I am not a huge fan of playing rugby with two really competitive and big Samoans but it was a good change of pace. The beach was beautiful. Weird that usually I am on the east coast of the Philippines and on Monday I was on the west. It's right in Laoag.
Sister O asked if we had been drinking enough water. We are told to drink around 3 or 4 litres a day which sucks when even your filtered water still doesn't taste very good.
Last Monday we cleaned the apartment and did our usual p-day chores. Tuesday we had an exchange with the Lasam elders. I was with Elder. L (who I exchanged with in Piddig while I was in Vintar) and we stayed in my area, Camalaniugan 1. We got punted all day though.
On Wednesday we waxed the floor after getting our district reports from Aparri. The floor looked great and sister O was very impressed with it.
We were walking back that night from an appointment and some drunk guys threw a beer bottle at us from across the street. It landed at my feet and shattered. We stopped and then they started shouting some pretty profane english words at us. One guy even shouted "I'm gonna kill you Joe!". And then this big guy in a Rolling Stones shirt started running over to us. Turns out he was running over to see if we were okay. Then he asked us to wait and went over to the drunk guys and then he came back and said, "Oh that's just Chubbs. He's kind of drunk". Well, I guess if it's just Chubbs it's okay...
We learned that our cool fellowshipper might not serve a mission anymore. It was his biggest dream and he would sometimes even take our name tags to wear to look like a missionary. He says he might join the army instead. He said it's a hard decision. I thought about that and realized it's not at all.
Anyone who understands the doctrine of Christ and His Church knows the answer to, "Should I serve a mission or should I -blank-?"
It's just overcoming pride and acting on that knowledge. He'll have to figure that out for himself - just like I did. We fasted for him.
We had interviews with the president on Friday during district meeting. My interview with the president was awesome! It always is. It was nearly an hour long. Those interviews do amazing things for the missionaries here. He's a great man.
On Friday we had a correlation meeting with the District Presidency and we needed to be there. It was a little frightening as it was my first time and I am fairly new. It was a huge growing experience for me. I also had to make the reports for the meeting and then present them and it was way tough, but I trusted that I would be helped and the Lord absolutely helped me. That's what a mission does- stretches you, gives you new experiences and shows you how the Lord can help.
There was also a new guy at church who had been hanging around outside and the members saw him and invited him in. He went to all three hours.
The ride to Laoag was way too long as usual. The worst was that they played four Stephen Segal movies in a row! It was terrible. I even hated those back home.
I am still absolutely loving my mission. No doubts there. I am eternally grateful I came. Thanks for your help.
I love you all soooo much. Take care of yourselves and each other.
-Elder Dustan
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