I so hope that your past week has been wonderful! Please know that I pray for you daily and wish you the very best in what you are doing. I miss getting to interact with each of you, but I am grateful to be here in the Philippines as well, and I am looking forward to being able to visit again in the future.
Unfortunately, I don't have much excitement to share about this past week, because it's been a little bit slow. After emailing last Monday, Elder Anderson and I had a lesson with one of the families we are teaching, and they insisted (despite our many protests) that we eat dinner with them. We tried our best to talk our way out of it, since they are quite poor and need the food they have, but I guess we failed. The following Tuesday morning, Elder Anderson woke up quite sick. He tried really hard to get ready to go out to work, but it just wasn't realistic. He could barely walk two steps before he had to stop, grimacing at the pain in his stomach. So, we gave him a blessing and decided to let him rest.
On Wednesday, his condition worsened, and we went to the local hospital in Agoo...which isn't really a hospital at all. Or at least not by American standards. They ran a couple of tests, and then came back and told Elder Anderson that he was definitely sick, but they had no idea why. Not the most useful hospital trip in history. :P The doctor there prescribed him some medication, but it didn't seem to have any effect. Thursday, we tried to go out to work again, but Elder Anderson was still just too sick to have a prayer of functioning normally.
Finally, we were scheduled on Friday to travel to San Fernando City (a larger city than Agoo) for a training meeting, and we decided to go to the larger, much better hospital there after the meeting. We were able to get Elder Anderson to the doctor, and they decided it was best to admit him into the hospital. Definitely not what we were planning on. So, while the doctors were putting an IV in my companion, I was trying to fill out Filipino paperwork based on instructions given to me in Tagalog...It was a bit messy.
Eventually, one of our AP's (Assistant to the mission President) arrived and became my temporary companion. He was familiar with my area in Agoo, having served in that area previously himself, so we drove back down to Agoo, and did normal missionary work for the first time during the entire week. Despite all the previous setbacks, I was so grateful to work with Elder Villapaz (the AP). He's a great missionary, and he had a couple very helpful suggestions on how to improve my teaching skills and our work in our area as a whole. So even though this week has been really weird and frustrating for me at times, good has certainly come of it.
During my many hours of no work this week, I sometimes started getting frustrated that we couldn't go out and do normal, good missionary things. The appointments we had almost all didn't happen (due to us this time :P) and it felt like our area was regressing instead of progressing. All this, despite Elder Anderson and I doing our best to fulfill our duties as missionaries. It almost felt like being the Prophet Joseph Smith, confined in Liberty Jail when his only crime was trying to do good. However, as I remembered the Lord's reassurance to Joseph Smith, "all these things shall be for thy good", I started praying for patience and spiritual endurance. I'm sure that the Lord had a purpose in mind for this situation. And I was able to see at least part of that purpose in the instruction and help that I received from Elder Villapaz.
All in all, the weeks here are never boring. After this month...either the rest of my mission is going to look positively boring, or things will get super crazy, only time will tell I guess. Hopefully next week will be a little more normal. Please take care, and I will look forward to writing again next week.
Ingat kayong lahat!
Love, Elder Dickison
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