First Transfer

Me and all my worldly
possessions on transfer day.

I've been transferred to the Alicia Zone, the town of Jones is my area. Way up north from Aritao. But Jones itself is pretty far from Alicia, and closer to Santiago, so we are emailing from Santiago. My new Companion is Elder Elgan.  He is my third companion in my 3 cycles here. Elders Proctor, Nielsen, and James are all on their second companion now, but remained in their first areas. I’m just the special child.  The Jones branch is interesting because there is about a 20 women to 1 man ratio.  Not much priesthood around there.

My old zone, all together.

On Wednesday I took everything I owned and left it with the Bambang elders while we travelled up to Cauayan to hear Elder Liens farewell and say goodbye.  We hung out with him and hopped on the bus headed to Manila and talked to him for a few hours.  We hopped off the bus in Bambang at 11pm, got up the next morning at five to ride back up to Cauayan with all my stuff.  Then I ended up in Jones.  It was all pretty entertaining.  Elder Huffstutler is now my Zone Leader here in Alicia and my companion, Elder Elgan, is the District Leader.

and that was my week…

...until next time. good night, and good luck.

Elders and sisters singing in church. 

Mahal kita,

Elder Allen

Zone Conference

The week was slow as usual until Thursday when we had zone conference up in Santiago Zone (about two hours north). It was weird to be in a big city.  And I thought Solano was one of the biggest cities we had. Turns out that Elder James, my companion in the MTC, is in Santiago Zone. We talked for a long time and caught up. It was good to see him. He told me of life in Santiago and I drooled on myself. It’s so interesting how different each experience can be for each missionary in the same mission. 

Heavy rains flooded the road.  The view out our front
gate into the flooded road.

Well, Aritao is the last stop in our mission on the  way to Manilla. There’s actually a bus station here that is sort of the half way point for buses going between Manilla and Cauayan (of course, its only 4 hours to Cauayan from here and about 6-7 to Manila).   So on Friday night at about 10 o’clock, Elders Abitona and Galang showed up at our door. Elder Galang was about to head to Manila by himself and he was dropping Elder Abitona off with us. So we have been a Tri-panionship since then and possibly till next transfer (this Thursday). Elder Galang had an xray of his chest about a week ago, and apparently he was dangerously close to having Tuberculosis.  Sister Carlos told him to hop on the next bus to Manila.  

I’ve been kind of sick too this week, but I refuse to go to the hospital in Manila. 

Me on my way to see the Great I Am.

Like I mentioned before, transfers are this week, it will be interesting to see if James, Nielsen or Proctor are training. 

I will let you know next week if I have been moved or beaten or enlightened. 

I love you all.

-Elder Allen

A Lot of Fellowshippers

Kumusta!

It's me.

We went on splits yesterday and had 11 fellowshippers to split between the two of us. Those are the nice church members who want to go out and help the missionaries.  I got 8 and Elder Averion had 4. And I still got more lessons than him!  ha ha.  I don’t like having more than 2 fellowshippers because if you have more, you can’t fit in as many places and you have to keep track of them so everyone always knows where you are headed. Anyway, that’s the only interesting thing that happened this week. Elder Averion was a little sick all week.  But he survived.  Not much at all happened this week.  We are slowly gaining back investigators. Hopefully something interesting will happen this week that I can tell you about next p-day.  I love you all.

Mahal kita,

Elder Allen