so this week was pretty unexciting. a lot of the things that i have been doing seem more or less like working in a business or in some government organization. for instance, elder woodford and i have been acting as teaching aides for an English class run by one of our members. this has helped us to find investigators (it's one of the finding ideas inside of preach my gospel) but it has also given us the opportunity to do a community service project where we graded a bunch of English teachers on their pronunciation of the language. it was an interview style of examination and many of the teachers were REALLY nervous, probably because they thought that their job was on the line. we were just grading them though and then the administrator would make his decisions from those grades. it was so weird to be on the other side of the interview table, seeing people come in shaking and scared really made me feel like i was more of a business man for a while.
it's funny how we can be completely professional in a nice air conditioned building in a nice comfortable chair and then go out and walk in mud and on bamboo bridges. immediately after finishing with all that business stuff we went to banago to a member's house. there, they have a lot of ducks and a mama duck. the kids are scared of the mama duck because it attacks them (to protect it's kids). but the duck knows not to mess with us. we picked her up and scared the kids with the duck. ducks don't bite hard, they kinda tickle. i'm sure that duck will be eaten sometime soon because the kids were trying to fight back. it's taken me a while and it's sad, but i've kinda become ok with seeing animals die here. i've seen so many things die that i kinda just don't care anymore. and besides, it's what we eat.
i've also had a business type difficulty. one of the new tasks that we have been appointed (all missionaries in negros) is to update the ward records. so we've been going to a lot of houses and finding names and people who have moved and then going back to the church to update the records. we did that for a while until the stake or bishopric disallowed us from going on the computer. i understand the reasoning, they need to have the computers secured and access limited, to avoid viruses and unauthorized access. but who is more trustworthy than the people who wear the church's name tag on their chest everyday?
not only that, but the ward hasn't updated their records for years, which gave me and elder woodford a lot of work to do. our recent baptisms have been put in by the mission office, but the ward baptisms still haven't been updated from months ago and maybe never will. not only that, but when asking for records from the ward clerk, he didn't even know how to use the program properly to find what i needed. i had to get on the computer myself to show him how to do it. we had ward council about it and have worked out a "solution" but it would be much easier and efficient if missionaries were allowed access to the records and the chapel. in order for us to help them, they need to help us.
last week, it rained pretty hard and it was flooded so i walked though a bunch of dirty water. i really wish i had some water proof shoes. mold is growing on my shoes... literally. this isn't a movie quote or anything, i literally have mold growing in my shoes and it's not like i can just go to the store and buy a new size 13-14 shoe. i'm on an island here where 99% of native people have shoe sizes smaller than 11.
my mind has been going back towards home for the past few days. i have great confidence in america's security systems but attacks could come from anywhere. and today (for America September 11, 2011) marks the ten year anniversary of the day that thousands of innocent American citizens died in an unprovoked attack by a bunch of psychopaths who hijacked four planes and flew two of them into the world trade center. i only hope that today is a peaceful day in America, and that no one will be harmed by any acts of terrorism on American soil, and that there will be no repeated attacks on America by cowards too afraid to show their faces.
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