It was a dark and stormy night...

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry to hear about your daylight savings dilemma. You should just come to the Philippines and forget about the whole thing. That's the real reason I came on a mission, was in hopes to escape that nasty nonsense. :) I'm glad to here Mylo got a nice doggy door. Now he doesn't have to wake up the whole neighborhood when he can't decide to come inside or out in the middle of the night. :) I definitely am awaiting that batch of cookies when I get home, but first, I want to stop by SUBWAY and eat a real sandwich. SUBWAY just isn't the same here. There's no Italian herbs and cheese bread, and no banana peppers, and only American cheese. 

I know I said I would take a picture of my journal about the 2nd most crazy experience on my mission, but I forgot. hahaha (Being a missionary doesn't change everything about a person.) Don't worry though. I will take the time to put your curiosity at ease and relay the story through type. 

It was a dark and stormy night, around 6:30, except it actually wasn't stormy. It was really dark though, and we were on our way to an appointment when there was this guy sitting on a bench and he said, "Hey, do you want to sit down?" My mind thought, "Sweet, an OYM," and my mouth said, "yeah, sure." I sat down and he asked me my name. "Elder Fawson" I replied. He then was like, "I'm Jell-O. (I don't know if that's the real spelling, but it's the same pronunciation, so whatever. haha) Can I just call you Fawson?" 

"Okay, sure." I said.

"Fawson, can I talk to you? Put religion and politics aside. Can I talk to you? just person to person. Just Jell-o to Fawson."

At this point I'm feeling a little uncomfortable, but I said, "Yeah, I've got a few minutes."

Now he started interrogating me. What's your name? How old are you? What sports do you like? stuff like that. I was doing my best to be happy and upbeat, because he certainly wasn't. He was super serious the whole time, and didn't smile or have an interesting tone of voice our entire conversation. After I told him I played some basketball, he seemed to find what he was looking for and invited me to play with him. I asked when and he said, "How about Sunday." then he pulled out his phone and entered it into his calendar. I was like, "Jell-O, actually we can't play on Sunday, because that's the sabbath." and he said, "Okay, so Monday." and he changed it to Monday on his Calendar. At this point, Elder Belayro jumped in and said, "Elder Fawson, we can't do that. We have to... uh.. e-maill president Ostler that day." just looking for an excuse not to go. I could sense that my companion didn't have good feelings about Jell-O and I played along. "Oh, that's right. Sorry Jell-O, we are really busy on Mondays." Then he looked at me for a few seconds and was like, "So you want me to delete this reminder?" in a really annoyed voice.

"Yeah. Sorry!"

He then was even less pleasant than before, and I was like, "Well, we've got to go to our appointment now, but we'd like to talk to you again sometime, and share our message with you. Is that okay?"

"Yeah sure whatever. Just go."

So we stood up. shook hands and we went and had a good lesson with Brother Julius. This however isn't the last time we saw brother Jell-O. I have to more times. The next was just passing by and he said, "Fawson, let the north star guide you!" in an obnoxiously loud voice completely different from our previous meeting, the last was just last Saturday. We were walking and he was on his front porch and called me over to sit with him again and he started asking me all these deep gospel questions and then telling me about how he's schizophrenic. We did get to share our message with him this time, but he only gave us 3 minutes to share. He pulled out his phone and timed us for 3 minutes and cut me off just as I invited him to read the Book of Mormon. It actually worked out quite nicely. Then he gave us some juice to drink. :) The first meeting was by far the most awkward because he was so serious the whole time and actually got mad at me for speaking to him in Tagalog. He said, "I'm speaking English to you. You respond in English!"

So that's my super crazy experience with Brother Jell-O. Crazy huh? Hopefully that's enough detail for you to appreciate it. I'll let you read my Journal about it next year when I come home. :)

This week was super awesome though. We had interviews with president Ostler, and he shared me in on some of his bounteous wisdom on how I can help my district and improve myself too. He's so cool. I have a lot of respect for him!

I've not had any problems with investigators not knowing who Jesus is. Almost al of the Philippines is catholic. There are some others too, like Iglesia ni Cristo, Saksi ni Jehovah, and some Muslims too. I saw more Muslims in Palawan than here on the main land though. Everyone has at least a basic knowledge of the Bible though.

For teaching an investigator, for them to really progress, we teach them about 3 times a week. 2 is a minimum. Any less than that and it's really hard for them to keep commitments and stuff. That's how it is here. I don't know about in the states. Our lessons too should be about 30 minutes long. Rarely should a lesson ever be over 45 minutes. That's how President Ostler instructed us.

I'm really curious about how the elections are going to go. I haven't had any problems arise against me with Duterte's dislike for Obama, but I do know that a lot of people are not happy with what Duterte's been doing. One of Elder Zesiger's investigator's brother was killed by Duterte for being a drug addict, so that's crazy! I'm thinking if things don't straighten up soon, there's lots of craziness ahead in the next few years. 

So yeah. My toe still is red and stuff, so there's really not much to report on that. It hasn't gotten worse though, so that's nice! 

I've got not a whole lot more to say. I hope you all have a nice week! Mahal ko kayo!!!

Elder Fawson