Another Week in the "Pines"!

Well this has been a crazy week for us here. First off we had Transfers. Sadly, the other American in my apartment (Elder Hatch) was sent to a different area. He's such a funny and awesome kid, and hopefully we will both be able to hook up after the mish at Utah State! He's way tight. Anyways after he left, his comp became a trainer and is now training Elder Gutierrez. I am officially the only white guy in Gubat now...not counting the way fat, rich German guy we see riding on a scooter all the time. He's in the other Elder's area, and appartently he speaks terrible English and no Tagalog. I have no idea how he lives here haha. So last week we lost 5 investigators due to baptism, but we worked really hard this week and found 10 new investigators! It was way awesome. One of them was living in an Iglesia ni Cristo community and who was Catholic...the only Catholic in that area. All of the Iglesia ni Cristos pretty much hate us, appartently they are a break off of our church. We were really guided to her! It was awesome. In another part of our area the kids always ask me to do the "Rocketship". They hold their arms out and make me lift them up and make them fly for a second. It gets tiring after awhile haha. Then I give them all Knuckle Sandwhiches after haha, they all run around and try to give each other them now. Also this week I witnessed my first Cock Fight. Although they didn't have blades on them, it was still pretty hairy. Those Roosters can kick like 5 times every time they jump up in the air! Its crazy to watch. My comp loves to watch it, he always tells me he wishes he could raise one but his Mom won't let him haha. He's obsessed with it. And like 10 minutes after watching that, we were walking down the road and these two guys come out of the jungle. One was carrying a bloody itak (machete) and a "barked out" animal of some sort, and the other had its cape. Then I saw the last guy holding a bloody dog head in his other hand...it was pretty messed up. Made me think of Duke back at home haha and if me and some of my buddies might end up doing that. Haha lets hope not! Well thats about it for this week. I love you all and I'm grateful for all of you. And know that no matter the roadblocks in the way, the work continues to go on!

Elder Akins