TRAINING Round 2

So this last week has been pretty crazy haha let me tell ya about it...

So first off the week was going as usual, and on Wednesday when we went to our District Meeting which was actually at the chapel this time haha one of the other Elders told me I needed to call President immediately, because he is waiting for my call. Any missionary will know what the feeling you get when you hear those words obedient or disobedient haha. We still don't have a phone so President wasn't able to contact us. I called President and he extended an assignment to me to Train a new missionary coming from the MTC! Whooo! I was so excited this is totally what I have been praying and wanting for the last couple months! I think Training will help me so much! Its the greatest responsibility you can be given in a mission, because the way this missionaries mission will go will depend on how you train him. Do you remember when I trained Elder Strobelt!? phew.. that was a stressful couple of months! But he turned out really good, and has all ready trained once, and is actually a District Leader in Mindoro! So, I am super stoked for this week, I will pick up my new trainee on Thursday.

So the real story is when we were traveling to San Pablo where the mission home is located and is an unfortunate 6 hour bus ride away. Oh! Also Elder Nielson is also training, he is my District Leader so we were pretty excited so we traveled together, also with the Zone Leaders because they had a meeting as well in San Pablo. So after traveling for 4 hours we stopped in Lucena which is one of my old areas and we went to the mall to take care of a few things, get some stuff, and eat. We ended up spending a lot of time over there and it was getting pretty late, and we still needed to travel another 2-3 hours to San Pablo. We left on Wednesday afternoon and slept over at another missionaries apartment, and the meeting was on Thursday. As we took a tricycle to the bus station, one of the Elder's left his bag on the Tricycle! and he took off and we didn't realize until right before we got on the bus! It has been a good 20 mins before we realized, and that tricycle was long gone, and it was dark. So we spent maybe an hour trying to hunt down this tricycle driver and where he lives. Here in the Philippines most the of the tricycle drivers know each other in an area, and are all buddies, so if some dummy missionaries left entire suit case of stuff on his tricycle he scored! and his buddies wouldn't rat him out, but we finally found a nice man who actually took as directly to his house haha, he was pretty surprised, and then when 3 big Americans get out of the tricycle he had no problem giving back the luggage hahahaha its was pretty funny. Another funny thing is in the commotion of all of it I accidentally left my bag on a tricycle too, and he took off! but he was nice enough to turn around and give it back, the Filipino people are seriously a ridiculously nice people.

For the actual meeting it was really nice. President Mangum just stressed very seriously the importance of this assignment, he expressed it as we are changing peoples lives with the way we act with these new missionaries. Everything they do is their idea of what the most obedient missionaries do, and say. So the pressure is on, and I got about a thousand things running through my mind how I want to approach every little aspect of this, but its hard to know until I get to know who I am working with it. I actually really hope I get an American companion, but I am willing to work with anyone I am put with because I know it is all by revelation.

Thats the story.. haha.. thats all I got for this week, I am really looking forward for General Conference, and training. I think these next couple of months are going to be a great point in my mission, and also it just came to me... when I am done training this missionary... I will only have 5 months left... what... that is so crazy!! haha I love you all, and I miss you! I will try to send some more pictures!