Elder Joseph Espiritu: The Adjusting Life

Walking, talking and lot of new people met. That's basically what the lifestyle is due to opening an area. So, it's a little more slow of a week, but good nonetheless.

For those of you who don't know, all 3 of us are new to this area, which is called opening an area. It takes awhile to adjust to the area and memorize everything. I did this when I was in Laoag which wasn't any easier.

So this week was going to all of our areas and getting a feel of our way around. Every day we went to a different area, and searched for the names that the last Sister missionaries here left behind. A lot of the times we tried to find them they weren't home, so we walked around talking to people we might be able to teach. We ended up meeting a lot of nice people and hopefully next week we'll be able to teach a lot more. When you have no set appointments and just pure finding people to teach, the time passes by a lot slower. It's just a process at the moment, and hopefully things will speed up!

But here's a fun fact. This week was the first time I have ever used a doorbell. A lot of the houses in our area are actually pretty nice and bigger, and a lot of them have gates. To be honest I'm a little intimidated by the bigger houses and gates. Luckily my companion is from Manila, and is used to houses like those. Most of the houses didn't answer, but at least we tried. We still have plenty of houses we can knock on. We have found a couple of interesting people to teach, which I enjoy. A couple of them have a lot of questions about the church and the gospel in general, which we are happy to answer.

We didn't have any investigators come to church this last Sunday, but a lot more people came to church vs last week. The weather was nice so it was great to see a lot more people show up. Even though it's still a small branch, the people are really friendly here. When we got there we were assigned to teach Priesthood, and then right after teach the gospel principles classes. This will probably be an every week thing, which I will just take as an opportunity to improve my teaching skills.

During gospel principles I noticed that a couple of girls weren't really listening and just on their phones. The class was still good, but I was just kind of laughing on the inside, because I knew it was karma for how I was always using my phone during church. Teaching has made me appreciate the teachers a bit more.

We are still in the adjusting period of our area which is okay. I know the mission has slower and faster times. It has its ups and downs. But that's just a part of life, and it's all going well.

Our companionship is going from 3 now to 2, since Elder Lewis is going back to Lehi, so our apartment will be going down to just 2. It can be lonely, but it's good for studying and just better getting to know my companion!

The mission is still amazing and I know there's still plenty in store for the future! Love you all. Hope you all have a fantastic week!

Elder Espiritu

*you can email Elder Espiritu at joseph.espiritu@myldsmail.net