Mapandan is not an area for wimpy missionaries.  I think I may have earned the hiking merit badge this week, or at least the walking merit badge. After the end of each day it feels like all we did was walk from place to place, but then as we review the day it's like 'oh we also taught 6 lessons today.'  We get a lot of lessons in but we sure do walk a lot.  There has been more than one occasion where we walked for an hour.  It's a fun area though.  It is really good, you just walk a lot.

    We had a baptism last Saturday as well, that was an adventure.  We went to the branch president's house on Friday to talk with him and when we got there he told us that the pump for the font was broken which meant we couldn't fill the font.  We asked him what we could do and he suggested we go to Manaoag.  So I texted the Manaoag sisters hoping they would be able to help us and just in time.  They were at the church talking to their branch president when I texted.  They later told me that their branch president is pretty hard to get a hold of.  They got the key filled up the font and unlocked the church for us.  Saturday morning we met at our chapel in Mapandan, then we all got into tricycles and rode to Manaoag for our baptism.  It went smoothly after that.   It was kind of fun.  Manaoag has an enormous catholic church as well and tons of people go to see "Our Lady of Manaoag" shrine.
    I don't have much time right now, but thanks for the 2x4 plan.  We found one awesome investigator this week.  He recently married a member and moved in with the family.  He was entered a lot of different churches in his life and started asking us some really good questions.  We have only taught him once so far but that was the most spiritual lesson I've had so far in this area.  I am excited.
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Have a good week, keep your head up, and smile.
                                                                          Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill