Attending the Temple

Thursday, August 5, 2004

Well I didn’t write yesterday because the whole day I didn’t get a chance to write to A. and I hadn’t written for a long time and I thought it was about time. So, a brief recap. I went to the temple yesterday. It was good. It’s only one floor so that was interesting. In the temple you wear a barong. It is a loose fitting shirt that you don’t tuck in and don’t wear a tie with. It was really comfortable. We did a session and some baptisms. For the baptisms we didn’t wear white at first because the worker said we didn’t need to just to witness and record. When we were about half done, one of the temple presidency came and in and fixed things. I really learned a  good lesson about order.

Philippines Manila Temple

Philippines Manila Temple

Last night we made a few visits. We made a goal this week to leave a message for every appointment. The Elders here don’t do that at all. They just visit and talk and leave with no spiritual message or anything. I’m going to try to fix that problem in all of my companionships.

This morning we went to MIR for follow-ups and zone meeting. It was good and we made some good goals. Elder Alongo is our Zone Leader and he does a really good job. I found out today that this mission is the lowest baptizing mission in the Philippines. I think that that is due to the over relaxed attitude of the Elders. I would like to be able to change that but I’m not sure what to do. Missionaries here are a lot different from how we were trained. Even though we’re supposed to use personal outlines to teach, most of the Elders still just use the discussions. I don’t understand it. Today I am on exchange with Elder Matthews and Catubag so I’ve gotten to see the way they work. They hardly OYM at all and seem to waste a lot of time. Elder Matthews feels bad about it and wants to change but he doesn’t have much power as a junior companion. He also still has language troubles, not much, but the people still laugh at him when he messes up and then he feels bad. I hope I can help him somehow.

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