Elder Joseph Espiritu: Parks and President

I always feel like the first week of a new cycle can be such a fast and slow experience at the same time. It feels pretty long since I've last emailed and a lot has gone down. But now here I am, having a blast with my new companion Elder Ivie and working hard. We haven't gotten any less busy, with visiting all the districts, meetings and parks and such, but we did have a once in a lifetime opportunity to work with our mission President, President Andrada.

So first, lemme tell about my new companion. His name is Elder Ivie, from Emery county Utah, 20 years old and a pretty rocking companion. I've said this before but we have known each other since we were both really new in the mission, so we basically know each other really well. We've been working hard and that's the plan for our whole time together. He's got a lot of good ideas, and the way we work is pretty similar so that's good.

Alright so here's what went down this week: Tuesday I picked Elder Ivie up and showed him around. Wednesday we worked hard, had someone work with us and such. Thursday we again went to 2 district meetings, one in Badoc and one in Paoay, which is the usual part of our ZL life. Everyones doing well so far.Friday we went and observed the weekly planning of the San Lorenzo Elders.

Here's the good part: While we were planning, we suddenly got a text from President Andrada, saying he wanted to work with us the following day. So that's something I never saw coming, since he is a really busy person, and there are 74 companionships in the mission. It was pretty slim to none that he would choose us. But here we are. After that we headed to San Nicolas and had a meeting with the STL's then we had our normal day.

So Saturday rolls around, and at 8 o'clock President Andrada shows up to our apartment. He attended our weekly planning, then around 10 o'clock he drove us to San Lorenzo for a baptismal interview. So I interviewed the candidate and passed them then President took us and the 2 San Lorenzo Elders out to eat. After we ate, we looked at a potential apartment for the San Lo elders and headed back to our area. Once we hit our area, basically almost our of our appointments fell through, but that's alright. We went to teach a member, and had a really good lesson.

President Andrada talked to a member about giving referrals, and we practiced with him how he could invite his friends to a family home evening and such. He had a lot of people in mind to refer to us and President really enjoyed doing that. Afterwards, we decided to utilize the areas that we have (which we have been doing this whole week) and we headed over to a park with a bunch of teenagers or just people waiting and that's where we went to find new people to teach.

So Elder Ivie and I split up (but still within sight and sound) and just talked to all the people we could for an hour. We've been doing that every day this week, and it proves effective so far. President talked to a couple of people too. He did have to leave around 5, but he told us he really enjoyed the day.

As Sunday rolled around, we were happy to see 5 of our progressing investigators come, and 4 new investigators that are classmates of Jared, a 14 year old in our area. 4 out of the 5 Ulits came this time and the Dad would've come, but he was driving a bus to Manila and back, so next time. Their baptism is approaching pretty quickly and if they can come to church as a family and have no problems, that date will approach faster. CJ is doing well too and as long as he keeps coming, there won't be any problem there. Batac ward is really progressing too, with a total of 211 attendance. It's a good life.

So in conclusion, the first week of this cycle was awesome. Elder Ivie and I get along really well, the zone is doing well, President Andrada had a good time working with us and said he was impressed, especially about using different ways to find, and our progressing investigators are continuing to progressing. This is going to continue to be a great cycle, and I'm excited. The future is looking bright, and I can't wait to see what happens!