Philippines Ilagan Mission

BY RICK BATES

Aparri. What a nice little ocean-side bayan. Good weather. Always a nice ocean breeze. Strong branch. And the people...the people. There's probably not a like people in all of Cagayan. They're interesting...to say the least.

Well, we (my companion, Elder Jason Glenn and I) were assigned in Aparri Branch 2, the area that stretched along the whole stretch of the beach. Probably the coolest area in all of the mission. In this area near the beach we had a nice pair of investigators listening to the gospel. They lived right next to the ocean, on the other-side of the sand hill. Of course, surrounded by their neighbors. Things were going nice, they had attended church, fulfilling all of their commitments. Accepted the invitation for baptism. Plans were being set, the branch was involved. It was going nice.

And then it happened. We were on our way to their house, we were meeting in one home for convience, just walking along excited to teach the next discussion, when we came within view of their house an alert cry was released. We turned the corner in just enough time to see our investigators jump up from cooking ang fly out of their house as if a missile was heading straight for it. Fast. My companion and I looked at each other sort of confused and said, "Okay, what was that?" We went up to their house and their neighbors came out to speak to us. We asked were our investigators were they responded, "They're not home. They went someplace won't be back until tomorrow." Again my companion and I looked at each other then looked dubiously at this little neighbor lady. We thanked her for her help and said we'd return in a day or two.

Still confused. We returned and the same thing happened. We turned in just enough time to see our investigators turn and flee as if we were armed with automatic machine guns. This time a moment after they had fled I told my companion to circle around behind their house, going through some neighbors homes. And I went the opposite way to cut off their escape. We chased them out to the beach, but they were a step ahead and we turned to the back in just enough time to see them dissappear between some other homes and vanish into hiding. My companion and I stood there on the beach wondering what to do.

We devised an attack plan. We went to one of our District Missionaries. Sis. Joy Casanova, a return missionary from Cagayan de Oro and asked for her help. She said she would. Meantime, each day we would purposely walk the same path to their house and just pass it by. And then we brought Sis. Joy with us. We went in a scatter pattern to confine them. But they still managed to get away. This time they hid under the house of their neighbor. We could see them hiding in the shadows.

We needed a new element...surprise. By now these poor investigators are probably always looking out for those two American Mormons. This whole time, my companion and I are wondering why they were hiding from us. It didn't make any sense. It was like a perfect dream shattered into oblivion. We were determined to find out why. So we came up with this attack plan. Since we were six foot plus Americans, not really capable of blending in with the people. We had to use decoys. So we sent Sis. Joy along our regular path, that they had watches on. No biggy. She was a filipina, blended right in. No one suspected anything. I sent my companion around the back of the beach behind the sand dune. And I came from the opposite end of their home. We were sneaking low to the ground, staying out of visual range. It was sort of goofy. Anyways we had a time schedule. Sis. Joy would reach a point at 30 sec. and then I would proceeed, followed by Elder Glenn five seconds after me. Everything went according to schedule.

And then we blitzkrieged on their house. It was funny, they busted out of their like madmen, it turned into a chase, but everywhere they turned we had covered. They ran into Sis. Joy and about faced, then Elder Glenn was there, so they turned into me. No where to run, they invited us into their house as if nothing had occured. As if we were there to teach like before. As we sat I said, "It's like we're children running around playing hide and go seek. Why were you guys running from us?" And they went on with this long story. To make a really long story short, they were faking us out. We testified about a zillion times. And left. Before I left I heard they still take cover when the GIANT WHITE AMERICAN MORMONS come walking by.