My Week in La Castellana

In response to your question about missionaries being home sick in this mission. In the Bacolod mission I don't think that home sickness is that much of an epidemic. Sure there are times when you want to go home because it is hard or because you are stressed but the number of people that actually have a real desire to go home is pretty minimal. I think in our mission there is no time to think about home. We are so, so, so busy, organizing, planning and working to get weekly baptisms. I think the fact that we agreed to learn the language gives us the motivation to stay. 

to answer you, if I had to choose between the country or the city I would choose the country for the people, but the city for the amenities. in the country it is hard to live, but the people are so willing to listen, and in the city no one wants to really listen. 

I'm senior companion, my companion, Elder Ratuiste has only been in the field for 3 months and I'm getting close to my 15 month mark. He actually might be transferring in December, so I'll be getting a new companion soon.

There are 4 total missionaries in our district, we are in the La Carlota Zone and actually have zone conference this Wednesday. 

My week was pretty crazy a lot of interesting things have happened. The hardest thing would have to be this one debate we had. This guy was arguing with us about families being together forever. He was saying how do you know that you will actually be a family forever. It was such a ridiculous thing to argue. But by the end of his debating, he had admitted defeat and agreed with us. My patience was tried so bad! But the crazy part was what he said after we invited him to church. After we made the invitation to him he said "may contracta pa siya kay satanas" or in English he said he still has a contact with Satan. He is probably Crazy but he wants to learn more.

But The best part was this one lesson we had. It was our second lesson with this family. we taught about prophets, and I could really feel the spirit. I asked them that if they knew there was a living prophet on the earth today would they follow him? They said of course. Then I told them that there in luck because there is one. We then give them a baptismal date for December 19. They accepted. My questions and teachings have really improved. I guess you can say there is always room for improvement.

Another highlight to this week was our baptism we had this week! That makes 3 weeks in a row.

I'll send pictures later because there is no time right now!

I Love you all!!

Elder Rivera