December 11, 2013

*One year mark 12-12-13*

Alright today we went to the temple so that's why I am emailing you right now on Wednesday. but there is a lot to cover from last week so we will get started from last week.

 Tuesday not much happened, we went and taught a guy who believes that it doesn't matter which church we go to as long as we worship God, he as frustrating at times, but we keep on trying.

Wednesday we went on exchanges, i went with one of the zone leaders and we taught a 52 year old truck driver from Arizona, who is marrying a 22 year old member here, its kind of weird... but if they are happy, i guess its ok. 

Thursday we ate at a place called boyongs, one of the best burger places i have ever eaten at! you can get a half pound burger for 90 pesos! its like 2 dollars! it was awesome.

Friday some crazy drunk guy talked to us on the road, he told us that he wanted us to come over and teach him, then he commanded some dude on the road to give us balut (the duck egg), then he told him to put it on the tab, and told the guy to start walking. it was kinda scary haha but we went to his house the next day and realized that we had tracted his house about a month ago and talked to his mom. his mom is super old, and she told us that she told God that she is ready to go. it was kinda sad, but we taught the drunk dude (who wasn't drunk anymore) and it was a great lesson, hopefully he follows through.

Last Saturday kinda a slow day, it was the day we taught the drunk dude (he wasn't drunk any more though).

last Sunday we taught a dude who read the entire restoration pamphlet (that happens once in a blue moon!)  and the lesson went really good, he asked us "did Joseph Smith really see God and Jesus Christ? we said "yep" and testified and such.

last Monday my comp was sick, and we watched some classic missionary movies such as "treasure in heaven, the john tanner story" "the lords errand" and "Joseph Smith, the prophet of the restoration." 

yesterday we had our mission Christmas party! i got a flash light, nice! it was fun, all the zones had to sing a song and do a skit. it was a day of laughter.

Today, we went to the temple! nice! 

Thank you for all the emails and pictures. I love you all..

-Elder Roy

December 1, 2013

 Everything is going awesome. we had Thanksgiving, went to a convention of psychologists, and did a lot of finding. i am so happy to see all the pictures from thanksgiving, we really have a guwapo family. cam and nick especially looked pogi. so i will start by telling all about the week, starting from last Tuesday.

Tuesday: not much happened. it was just a normal day, but we had a cool experience. we were walking home last week, and there was this really old dude on the same road, so we started talking to him, he said we could go to his house, and share with him. so we went back to his house on this day, and he ended up not being there, but his son who is like 64 was there, and he had read part of the pamphlet we gave them, and so we taught him. nice!

Wednesday: we went to one of our potential investigators, we talked to him on the street as well, it ended up that he had read the whole pamphlet and started reading the book of mormon. we shared about the restoration, and invited him to pray to know if what he had read was true. Nice!

Thursday:Thanksgiving! we didn't eat a lot, but we did go to one of our other investigators, and finished up teaching about the restoration, we invited her to baptism, but she needs to find out if everything we taught is true, so we invited her to search ponder and pray. Nice!

Friday: me and Elder Sabado were invited to go and attend a psychology convention being held at one of our chapels. while there, we sat at a table and talked with people interested in our church, and handed out referral cards. Nice!

Saturday: went on exchanged with Elder Delfin, it was fun, and we had a lot of finding success.

Sun: fast Sunday (only 12 more fast Sundays)  we walked to our area because the traffic was way to bad, we get there and we aren't able to cross the street because there is a marathon going on! so we waited about 1 hour until we could finally cross. we talked to this one guy, but we found out he is a bit crazy. but after that we talked to some people on the street playing badminton, the dad of the family is actually a less active member! nice!

today: we ate at Mang inasal! one of the best things since Mcdonalds. and now i am emailing. (Details of Mang inasal: one big piece of chicken, and unlimited rice!)

Love you all

-Elder Roy

November 24, 2013

     so quite a lot went down this week, so I will go day by day and tell about them all.

Tuesday- we got a text on Monday night that we would have a service project in the morning, so in the morning they told us to go to ABS-CBN, a T.V. station here. so we got there and it turns out we have a member that is famous and is on a tv show called "Show Time" his name is "The Eruption". anyway he was there, we lifted a lot of boxes and relief goods into a semi truck. that went on for about 4 hours, and was pretty fun, and we got on TV, nice! we were at the place where they filmed "Pinoy Big Brother". it was pretty cool.

Wednesday- we had zone conference! we heard talks from out mission president and his wife, the Assistants to the president our zone leaders, and the sister trainer leaders. it was super fun, and the food was good.

Thursday- was District Leader Training, it was fun, we heard more talks from the mission president, his wife, and the Assistants to the president. but i started getting sick! i got Bronchitis, AIN'T NO BODY GOT TIME FOR DAT!

Friday- I got some medicine and rested for most of the day.

Saturday- we got punted all day, not a single lesson! it was fun =)

Sunday- we went to church, and for the second time in the whole time i have been here in this area, we had a member work with us! yes! 

that leads up to today, before we came to email we went and ate, i had the first cinnamon roll i have ever had in forever.

oh yeah i like the new shirt from the package!

Love you all,  I am thankful for you all.

-Elder Roy

Everything is Going Good!

Everything is going good! The week is starting to mash together in my mind though, trying to think back on the days is hard. Most of the news for this week is that we got 4 missionaries in our house coming from the Tacloban Mission, their whole mission was shut down.

After that we had Stake Conference this week, and it was about every member being a missionary...it was so good.

The new missionaries speak different dialects in their area, so it was really fun asking them all about their different words. In their areas they speak Wari-Wari, and Bisaya/Cebuano, and one of the elders is Ilokano. It's fun to tract into people and ask them where they are from, then speak some of their dialect, they are usually pretty impressed.

Spiritual thought...seeing the Tacloban Elders here is pretty intense, they have told us some crazy stories about what happened, and what they saw. I am so thankful that I've been kept safe my whole mission so far.

Well that's pretty much all for now, my mind is blank!
-Elder Roy

all of us in our house

selfie

November 11, 2013 (after Typhoon Haiyan)

Hey! everything is alright, Maambon lang sa amin. but our new elder in our house who just got here a week ago is actually from Tacloban! he has probably been stressing out a little even though he isn't showing it. but this week has been pretty fun, the companionship was still pretty rough, but we are getting better.

Crazy story, we met this dude who we are pretty sure was into some black magic, and is a less active. we were walking to our appointment, and i saw some chips (nova's) that i wanted to buy (they are like cheddar sun chips). and the dude starts talking to us, and he says that he has a Book of Mormon, so he showed it to us, and it was from 1995. he didn't tell us that he was a member (we didn't ask either) but we just gave him a pamphlet and got a return appointment with him. but then he started the weird black magic stuff!  he put his hands together so it looked like a triangle, then turned it into the napoleon dynamite hand eagle, then back to the triangle and said "remember the triangle"  then he was looking at Elder Sabado, and said he had some kidney problem. its more in depth, but thats the just of the story. oh yeah then he gave us free food.

Alright so its getting close to thanksgiving! and Christmas! so we have been singing Christmas songs for every companionship study.

I hope that everything is going good over there, i love you all!

39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, ^aPeace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great ^bcalm

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!!

-Elder Roy

November 4, 2013

I have discovered as i have grown older that the part on Lloyd when he takes some lint out of his belly button is true... somehow the lint makes it in there... its like the lint catcher of a drying machine.

Anyway tomorrow is transfer day, but I am staying here with Elder Sabado.

Jaden looks excited with candy! I was thinking this last week, what would be the worst thing to show up at your door, on Halloween? Missionaries.

So here they celebrate all saints day which is on Nov 1 and 2, and everyone goes and stays at the graveyard for the entire day, they take tents, food, and all sorts of stuff. so last Friday our zone went to the graveyard and talked to as many people as possible, it was really fun.

well i am going to be hitting my year mark the week before the end of this transfer (Dec 12) transfer day is Dec 18. pretty crazy how time flies by but feels like forever at the same time!

I love you all. 

-Elder Roy.

October 30, 2013

It was like just yesterday i was at home for Halloween setting up the webcam outside to make a video of all the trick-or-treaters!

so P day is on Wednesday today because we got to go to the temple earlier today! super awesome, i think i would die if i didn't have a temple in the mission.

Everything is going pretty good here, we have been having a lot of finding success in our area, and I can see that the Lords time works at its own pace. also this next coming week is transfer week, but my feelings are telling me that I will be staying in this area with the same companion. I have gotten a lot of letters that came in this last week, and i would like to thank everyone that sent the letters. 

This week we went and were looking for people to teach, and we heard someone call out "Hey Joe" (they call Americans joe's) so we went up and asked if they needed something since they called for us, and they were surprised that I spoke Tagalog, but they quickly let us in, and there ended up being about 10 people in that house. pretty awesome experience.

Well i have more pictures to send. I love you all. 

-Elder Roy

October 20, 2013

I am fine, nothing has happened to us, or effected us from the earthquake. But this week has been pretty crazy! we have had to do a lot of finding in the area, and a lot of walking, we also got to return back to my old area to help the other elders find their way around, some of the farther away areas. they told me good news of investigators getting closer to baptism, and the good work they have been doing in that area.

Yesterday was pretty fun, Elder Sabado and i had been wondering how to get out less actives and investigators to church. we decided that we had to go and pick them up in the morning. normally i would be ok with this, but the difference here is that our church starts at 7:30 in the morning! so we woke up at 4 in the morning, got ready, and headed out around 5:50. the area is about 20 minutes away including the jeep ride, and walking. we made it to the less actives house about 6:30, and started to wake them up. one of our investigators is their niece. once everyone was awake, we left at 7 and got the the church about 7:25. thankfully church doesn't start on time normally, and they all made it for the sacrament. it was a good experience, and I know that we need to plan to do things, and feel that its what he wants, in order for the Lord to grant us a blessing.

Yesterday a cat broke into our house, and it took the other two elders about an hour and a half to get the cat out of the house! hopefully that keeps it out.

well i hope that everything is going well over there, I am doing fine here, and i love you all.

-Elder Roy

October 14, 2013

Well everything is getting better, i have learned a lot about finding new investigators. i forgot to tell you that last week i did receive the package! and i love the watch! bad news...i found out after i plugged the wall clock in that it only handles 120v, and the outlets here put out 220v... it will make a good paper weight however! i love the pictures! super awesome! the chapstick hasn't been of to much use, the humidity here pretty much does the trick. it sounds like everything is going good over there, i am thankful that Maddy informs me of all the things that wouldn't normally be told to me haha. oh and Maddy thanks for the picture you slipped into all the photo's that were send, i had a good laugh.

      General Conference was super good! this was the first general conference where i actually wrote something down from every talk, from the priesthood session until the pm session on Sunday! super good talks, and very inspirational. one of my goals that i gained is to memorize all of the articles of faith, i have 1-4 memorized so far.

       Our area is pretty small, the only bad thing is we have to take a jeep to get into and out of it every day. its getting a little expensive, but i think we will be ok. we have been doing a lot of finding in our area, and it takes a lot of persistence to get the solid investigators, but as it quotes in the preach my gospel "nothing is done in missionary work until you find someone to teach"

  

      Ahhhh i miss the snow! i have been through about 5 umbrellas in the crazy rain here!  i am on number 6 right now. 

 The ward is always busy and we don't have any solid ward missionaries, its a wealthy area, and everyone works 24/7. and its a bit difficult to get investigators to come to church, for some reason i have had to accept, the leaders were inspired to start church at 7 30 in the morning.

    i did talk to one of the new elders in my old area, he said one of our investigators is getting closer to baptism. me and Elder Sabado are going to go to my old area on Thursday to show them some more parts of the area.

  I will have a mourning for my car later.

For a Christmas present that i can think off... what we do here in our mission is buy USB flash drives and put church music on them, and then use them in our DVD players. it would be cool if you could buy a USB and put church music and Joseph and the technicolor dream coat music on it haha.

Alright i will stick some pictures on here.

this first one is of my cool new watch (thanks)

the second one is of me and Elder Kmetzsch (my mission father) with our new trainee's (mission kids)

this third one is of this awesome place for a public toilet (right outside of one of a church building) i have needed one of these on several occasions while going to appointments.

there isn't enough time in P day anymore! there use to be a law irrevocably decreed under heaven that whoever was training obtained a full day P Day, they have revoked that rule, and now even if training, we have to go back to work at 6. i think i'll make it...

That reminds me of a great letter that the old mission president sent, it was about which way we face as members of the church, if we face forward with the leaders of our church, and accept what they tell us, or if we turn our backs, and question the new things we are told to do. 

Anyway i love you all, and hope you are all doing well, today is my 10 month mark of the mission, only 14 more fast Sundays left haha. 

-Elder Roy

October 6, 2013

this is the official scripture for my plaque. 3 Nephi 5: 13 Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life.

so everything is going, I am getting more familiar with the new area, and we are finding most of the houses of the members. its pretty beautiful here, all the streets have names and such and the roads are neatly made. so its been a pretty long week being sick. but that is all right, its will just be a long transfer. 

For the spiritual experience for the week,  last night we had a family home evening with a less active family, and i was surprised at how many people from our ward actually showed up, and we got a ride home in a car! that almost never happens.

I hope that everything is going good over there for you all, and hopefully the baby is safe. i love you all!

pictures.

these are pictures that a kid from my last area drew for me, he was that one in that blue shirt that is 18 but looks like a little kid. i heard he also stalks my Facebook.

also dad with all my companions that spoke English we would always speak English to each other, but now that i am with a Filipino we always speak Tagalog.

-Elder Roy

September 29, 2013

What a week. i haven't gotten the package yet, hopefully tomorrow. but i did take out some money out of the account.

First item of business, my new companion is Elder Sabado, he is from ordineta, which is somewhere in the Philippines. he speaks Tagalog, and i miss being able to speak English with my old companions! he is a pretty cool guy, still has the fresh from the MTC attitude. 

our area is often called "Amerikina" because the houses here are so giant, and the roads are so clean. we live in a Giant house! and we have a real shower and a toilet that flushes and the shower head is on a tube, so it doubles as a bum washer! its like a dream come true! we live in a community called provident village, and there is a guard that rides around on a bike with a shotgun strapped to himself, its pretty awesome. the only downside is that there is hardly ever anyone outside! not even crazy little kids that want to talk to us and ask us for money, its a little depressing.

we don't have very many investigators, mostly just less  actives right now. we went tracting on Saturday, and it was raining pretty bad, and we tried so many houses and didn't even get into one! but we did have a first where a guy actually swore at us! i had never heard that before. and another guy said that he lives in Utah and is just visiting, but was to busy to let us in.

My birthday was pretty awesome, i bought pizza from pizza hut for lunch, then we went to chowking for dinner, and they bought me a cake after that! it was pretty awesome.

there is one downfall to the ward, we start church at 7:30 in the morning, and then they wonder why they have poor church attendance, i think i counted 30 people at sacrament meeting.

next awesome thing is that there are 2 malls in our area, and 1 right across the street from the boundaries! P days are going to be awesome. 

Marikina is known for their shoes, there is the Sapatos festival going on right now, I am going to see if i can find some awesome shoes.

well for the question concerning you guys coming here to pick me up, as awesome as a new car would be, it would be awesomer if you guys came here and visited to pick me up, i think later on you could coordinate with the mission president or someone about getting plane tickets to go home on the same plane as me and such. 

alright i will try to sent some pictures.

  our house mates are Elder Rakuro from Fiji, and Elder Jones from California. i am pretty glad that Elder Rakuro is from Fiji, Elder Cava transferred to another area as well.

this picture is of our awesome bathroom! its awesome. and the water isn't even close to as cold as it was in the last house.

Birthday Pizza!

my new comp and I

me eating cake

Birthday Cake!

September 23, 2013

Alright so transfers are tomorrow, and i am transferring! also Elder Cava is transferring as well! also another surprise i am training...again! also i am whitewashing Marikina 1st. I am excited, but also i am surprised at how attached you get to the people here. I will write more next week! i am partially depressed.

oh yeah here is a picture of half of the mission (i'm in the top left)

September 17, 2013

Alright so there is a lot to cover this week. first we will start with the different schedule.we are having zone conference this week, so we had temple day/P day today.next item of business, the temple was awesome! we killed a mouse. there have been hold ups by our house, and gun shots. there has been talk of big storms coming in. some crazy stuff happening down south in the Philippines. other then that, we got to give talks at a funeral. pretty fun stuff.

So first i will go into detail on the mouse issue. WARNING GRAPHIC PICTURES. so we found out we had a mouse about a month ago. we decided to let it be. but then it started eating elder cava's stuff! so we named him ralph noo-en, ralph for the mouse from run away ralph/mouse and the motorcycle, noo-en because he was eating Elder Cava's noodles and energen! so we decided to buy some rat traps! we paid a lot so we had to make his death a little more crazy. hence the pictures. we also caught some lizards on our board as well.

 

my next topic will be about death. as you know i have only been to one funeral in my life, so when we were invited to one here i didn't know what to expect. well when they invited elder cava and i to give talks it changed it! so i gave a talk and shared a scripture from Doctrine covenants and it was aboutthe kingdoms of glory. pretty good experience for us both.

we are getting closer and closer to baptisms and such! but i am a little sad because there is a high chance that i will be transferred next Wednesday. but we will see what happens. also P day is going to be on Tuesday next week because of transfers.

other than that i am loving almost every moment that i am here, there are hard times, but the good times work those out.

oh yeah i need to give a shout out to dad his birthday is on Sunday! i feel like we are all getting older and older! he will be 51 i believe and i am coming up on 20! this is mindblowing!

well i love you all, and i will try to send out some more pictures.

-Elder Roy

we ate on this at our district activity, pretty awesome!

September 9, 2013

Alright so i have been a little freaked out since it has already been a year since i opened my mission call! feels like it was yesterday... anyway i  need to give a shout out to mom and cam, because its their birthday's, and a shout out to 9/11. how is cam going to be? like 27? he is getting old...Still trying to calculate the loophole in which mom constantly has a 22nd birthday, her kids are getting older than her! sorry i couldn't write any handwritten things, for one it takes time and such, for the second reason, all my envelopes have been sealed closed by the humidity. to answer dads question, i have not yet had any health problems other than LBM's for as long as i can remember haha. its been raining a lot here, but you can still be sweating at the same time, its quite the phenomenon. the mission work is going pretty good, our ward clerk mentioned to us that he heard from one of our ward missionaries that we "walk hard... i mean work hard."  me and my comp are doing good, but i liked it better when it was just 2 of us in the ward, but i guess it will help the work with 4.

we just got back from our district activity for the transfer, it was nice just to go out and relax, things can get pretty stressful on a mission. i am also going to go get a haircut later tonight. also next item of business, our next transfer day will be on September 25, i will be a little sad if i get transferred out of the area right before my birthday! but we will see what happens.

i am going to be 20 years old...i am getting to old...

oh yeah Maddy we were walking down the street and saw the movie "house at the end of the street, made me think of when we went to see it haha.

aAHH, we are going to the temple on the 17th! i am super excited for that! you Should know Why. also just so you know we go to the temple once a transfer. 

alright ill start seeing if i can upload some pictures from earlier today. 

. the internet here is super slow so i will keep on writting.

so this past week my companion wanted to play volleyball, so on our way to one of our appointments we saw some people at a covered court playing. so i sat down and he went and played. but he now knows that for the most part, volleyball in the Philippines is closely associated with transvestites. good times...

well i am all storied out... hopefully i can send more pictures next time, the internet is too slow here.

 

oh yeah one last good story, we went shopping last week (Sept 2nd) and we heard our first christmas songs! it was a little off because the supermarket is usually playing un-edited rap songs, but it was a good change. I am going to miss the snow, thankfully i come home right in the winter!

-Elder Roy

first i added baby faces to my planner case

two here is one of me sweating.

September 1, 2013

Whewh what a week.so much has happened this week. and everything sounds like it is going good at home. cam confirmed for me that there is going to be an enders game movie, which could be the coolest thing ever. mom i am going to be honest i don't think i look like that dude haha.

one day during the week we worked with a member, and every house that we planned to go to had nobody home, so we figured it was a test of patience, and that the member is cursed....

I have so many awesome pictures to send home today!

Second picture is of me of course and the First  picture is of what i was looking at. we went all the way up into the mountain to look for a less active that ended up not being there, but the view was super awesome!

I am going to have to start another email to keep sending the pictures.

August 25, 2013

Well this weeks been quite the adventure! we were told to stay inside for 2 days due to the weather, and we heard that a missionary was electrocuted at the beginning of the week. the storms have been pretty crazy, and we have come home completely soaked! its quite the experience. we then got to dry all of our scriptures, shoes, and bags with the electric fan.

This week we have been starting to work in half of our area since we have 2 more elders in our area. so its a lot of tracting. but the referrals are coming in slowly, and the most effective investigators. we were teaching one this week who had been taught previously, so we thought we would just get a baptismal date for her. as we were teaching a date popped into my head, and when we asked them they were all pretty freaked out and told us that they had been talking about that date before, and she accepted. hopefully we can follow through with it! pretty cool experience for me and my companion.

Right now i am in a pretty difficult situation, the kid right next to me is playing league of legends, and the computer shop owner is playing some pretty awesome music! i mean Babylonian music...  

haha anyway i cant send any pictures because i had the camera on the highest setting, so the pictures are to big to send...

but we got to walk through a huge rice field the other day while it was raining, so we got soaking wet and muddy, we got some pictures of that experience.

anyway i love you all and hopefully i don't get leptospirosis or whatever it is, just pray for me!

-Elder Roy

August 19, 2013

Well we just ate at mang inasal, its unlimited rice, so ill just leave it at that. anyway everything is going well, we have new people in our house, Elder Onato, and he is training elder Pincock. Elder Onato is from the Philippines, and Elder Pincock is from Idaho. we have been showing them around their area all week and there is still more to show them. everything sounds like it is going good there, I love the picture of the Family! also mom you cant just say that you went to the doctor, and then not tell me what he said!

alright so for a spiritual thought from this week...its nice having the new elders in this area, and i can see the effect/potential that they have to help our investigators progress fully.

all of our investigators are doing alright, we have found our problem is just getting them to come to church... Elder Onato said that his last area had about 18 investigators coming to church regularly, i told him in our ward we are lucky if we get 1 to church. so hopefully he knows a secret to getting them to come to church.

it sounds like they are still working dad like crazy, its pretty inspirational.

well thanks for all the letters, hopefully they keep coming in, and hopefully more and more pictures. love you all!

-Elder Roy

August 12, 2013

I'll start with the good news, everything is going good. also i am not transferring! i am staying with elder cava for another transfer here in Bagong Nayon, and we are getting 2 more elders in our area!

spiritual though. Elder Mcdonald my old companion is leaving back to america tomorrow, so last week he came and did exchanges with me, it was super fun. it was also a good experience to see how close he has become to the people here. then i thought about what it would be like in 1 year and 4 months for me. haha.

i got an email from one of my friends saying that he gets to use FaceBook, hopefully that comes soon for us! what in the world is this!

Maddy got a new car?!?!?!!?!?!?! hahaha i thought it was funny when she said "don't get mad" 

i think i am going to try to avoid dinner appointments, and i should probably repent of gluttony! we eat quite a bit.

mom hopefully you get better! 

the planner case is going good, i'll definitely add the other faces if i get a chance. i'll keep you updated.

i have a lot of pictures to send, maybe that would spark up some conversation.

When Elder Mcdonald was here we went on a hike to an awesome waterfall place.

I am in favor of getting some of these things in America, i am a big fan!

-Elder Roy

August 5, 2013

Alright so it looks like everyone is having fun! there was even no one in the pool! how lucky is that! dad got to ride an airplane! i am dreading the plane ride in 1 year and 4 months! the ride here was brutal! and the little babies are so cute! thanks for all the pictures and such, i need more family pictures and what not! like thee whole family.

For this part i will just start by saying the work is going great! its been a little tough getting a solid investigator, but its going good. we went to one of our investigators who has had an accident back in the day, and now his right leg, or maybe its his left.... anyway one of his legs was crushed in the past by a car, now he has read the entire bible, and is halfway done with the Book of Mormon! anyway we were finishing up teaching him, and he says to me, "Elder Roy you should bring someone who is older, i like you guys coming, but you are so young" so the next day we think of who could take, it ends up our next door neighbor is about his age, so we took him! it turns out our neighbors province is also bicol, and it ended up going awesome! so we are hoping that he continues to accept our visits, and in turn we hope to help him come closer to Christ.

It sounds like Cam has been having fun obtaining my video games! i would say video games is one of the bigger things i struggle with, example i can see two other people in this computer shop playing video games! its torture! anyway he came across a picture in my email that he wanted me to explain. 

let me see if i have any other pictures.

so in this picture we were all just having fun at Seths house! that should pretty much sum it up.

here is one of me under the capt. 

That's pretty much all the news for the week, i love you all, and i hope everything is going good there. remember to send pictures always!

-Elder Roy

also i made a case for my planner so it doesn't get destroyed in a week, and i put a lot of work into it haha

July 28, 2013

Everything is going awesome here, its raining a lot! and i am just thinking of things to say! august 14th is coming up quick, that is the next transfer day. and it sounds like everything is going good at home! mom you should send me the pictures of me in the pink tie.

A spiritual thought for the week would have to be about patience! one day this past week we had planned to go visit a bunch of investigators, we had a ward missionary with us, and we were ready to go! but for some reason the entire list of people we had planned to go visit were all gone! so we ended up doing a lot of tracting. it was a good patient experience.

Earlier this week we went and visited a part of our area that we hadnt gone to see in about a month and a half (its like a 40 minute jeep ride) but we went out and visited a less active family, they live in a bamboo hut, its pretty cool. anyway the mom was telling us how they are to poor to pay for the ride to our chapel, and then started to tell us how her kids had become active at this other korean church. it was pretty interesting, i was just really sad that this lady is a RM, and her kids dont even know about the church. so we taught her kids how to pray, it was fun.

oh yeah another story. we had to go to a hospital at like 9 in the morning to give a baby a blessing. lets just say the hospitals here are interesting. that was a good spiritual experience though.

alright well i am sorry that i am to lazy to write anything else haha. I love you all!

-Elder Roy

July 23, 2013

Dear family & friends ,

      All the people we work here are their age (20 to 25). I am loving all the pictures and stuff that i am getting from you guys! you should take more pictures of the family and send them! like to whole family. i have noticed the more into the mission i am getting the more i miss you all! also today i went and pulled out 1000 pesos just so your not worried.

 So for a spiritual thought for the week, i would like to testify of the power of member referrals. we had a member take us to one of their relatives, and on the first visit we get a baptismal date! pretty awesome, he has been reading about the restoration, and the introduction to the book of Mormon! 

  Other than that everything is going pretty good here, my comp is having some issues with his leg, but other than that everything is going good. i haven't heard anything about when we will be using computers and such for the missionary work, right now its all old school tracting and finding. 

  To dads question the ward is active for the most part, but if it is raining our attendance goes down a bit. and as to the food, everything for the most part i like a lot, the only things i have found that i don't like is liver and squid. me and my comp live off of oatmeal, junk food, top romen, and anything we obtain from appointments haha. its the life.

its raining pretty hard right now, I heard from the people here that there was a typhoon or something that went by. 

But other than that its all going good here, its coming up to my 8 month mark as a missionary, and 6 in the field! it's a weird feeling

-Elder Roy

July 14, 2013

Thank you all for the letters and pictures, they are super awesome, and I encourage you to keep sending them. first item of business that i would like to cover is about the new missionary stuff, nothing has changed here in the Philippines Quezon city mission, none of the new stuff has taken place yet in our mission. we have just been told it will still be a while. we are still tracting and doing everything normal.

so first a spiritual experience from the week, well with Elder Cava being new, we in the first week suppose to go out and practice in finding situations, and inviting people to be baptized. so all over last week we ended up getting 5 new investigators, and 3 more people with bap dates! i was pretty amazed, and it just goes to show that the lord will provide.

sad story, our closest investigator to baptism is moving! crap!

alright so training as you can tell is going pretty awesome, i am learning a lot of things from my comp, and in turn i hope he can take a lot from me being his companion. 

food, the food here is awesome still... tell brother and sister Flores that i will probably live at her house after my mission, and they will become nanay/tatay Flores.

the ipod pictures are funny, you should keep on going with those!

it sounds like dad is working like usual, and i would say if it were not for his example we Roy boys wouldn't be as hardworking as we Appear to be haha.

anyway ill try to send some pictures now. 

so this week we had temple tour, and we rented a jeep to take everyone, it was pretty fun, just exhausting.

this was the exhausting part. this kid may not look like it, but he is 18. he is just one of the street kids that lives by us and we thought we would take him.

-Elder Roy

July 7, 2013

Well i am sitting here with no letters from anyone! anyway there is a lot of news now that i have an anak! i have given birth to a Fijian from Fiji! the first thing i asked him was if they drink "America" in fiji. heh. and now in our district we have 2 new sisters, Sister Hepworth and Sister Tivalu, and there companions are Sister Repollo and Sister Are.

anyway spiritual though for the week is this. 

Since Elder Cava my new comp is new, we have a training schedule thing, and part of the first week is asking someone to be baptized. so we are in a lesson with a part member lady, and we are sharing about the life of Jesus Christ, and towards i look at my companion, and give him the Q to do what we had practiced earlier. 

It's a good feeling to ask that question and get a positive response. its a feeling that just makes you feel happy, and as missionaries we kinda feel like we are accomplishing our purpose. gotta love it.

Anyway that's pretty much it, everything is going great! just losing a few hairs here and there =0

I bought a new SD card, so i will send some pics now! 

 -Elder Roy

pretty well developed duck.

when i got the glasses in the box, i just thought "sometimes you just know when your cool"

July 1, 2013

Alright how is it going??? I have some breaking news! im pregnant! i will be giving birth tomorrow at 7 30 in the morning. (ps if you thought i was really pregnant you are wrong) the term pregnant here means you are training a greenie! crap! i have to show a new guy the ropes!!!

Alright so a spiritual thought for the week i had to go solo to one of our chapels for the trainers meeting, and i was thinking about taking a jeep there. there ends    up being about 400 people waiting for a jeep! so i take a taxi. there is a man driving me there wearing a pink shirt. he starts talking to me asking about Mormons and what we believe. he wants to know why we believe that Jesus, and God are separate being when it says in the bible they are one. i explain to the best of my knowledge why, and leave him a pamphlet (ang pananumbalik ng ebanghelyo ni jesucristo). it was a good talk.the guy told me he was a born again christian, and that he used to be a catholic cross-dresser...interesting. he told me i should pray as well to know if the god head is all one person. 

great news, i got the package today! yes! thank you so much! except i see that it says 60 bucks to send! thats a bit pricey, i am sorry. 

It's rainy season here, but since we are up in the mountains we don't get flooded or anything like the other areas. 

Other than that everything is going awesome! being a district leader is fun! i will send pictures of my anak next week! keep on sending letters and pictures! i think also if anyone wants to the dear elders still make it to us, i have gotten a few from aunt Theresa

Also i am not sure how fast the new technology stuff will be implicated into our mission, i know it wont be to soon.

LOVE YOU ALL

-Elder Roy

June 23, 2013

 My old comp and I are going to all of his old areas. i can only email for 10 more minutes! i will send i longer email next week hopefully!
-Elder Roy

June 17, 2013

Alright so this is the family letter! so basically a whole bunch has happened this week! but first i have to throw a shout out to dad since it is fathers day! happy fathers day! i wish i could have been on the price is right and then do that...

A spiritual experience for this week... we have an investigator here that we have been teaching for a while, he is pretty interested, he just has had a problem with the fact that in the first vision Joseph smith was not to join any of the churches for none of them were true. so we invited him to pray, and the next day we go back and talk to him about his prayer. he said he had a dream that night and the end result was that he knew that Joseph was a chosen prophet. pretty crazy awesome! we haven't been back since then, but hopefully that builds a foundation for him.

Alright for a crazy story, last Monday night the sisters in our district text us that their door was open! so me and my comp had to go clear their house out for them! we go up the first stair and there was a fan that was turned on! pretty sketchy! but no one was there, yet... we go up the next floor and open all the closets and doors and such. nothing there! our adrenaline was pumping, and then they called down to us and said that the offices elders had come by earlier that day and checked their house to make sure it was clean... they just happened to leave the door open, and the fan on! pretty crazy experience.

i got the cards today with the pictures and such on them! it was pretty cool to see all the old pictures of dad, he is pretty young in the pictures! hahah but in all honesty with out dads example we Roy boys wouldn't be who we are! so i am really thankful for his example that he showed, and continues to show to us.

that is pretty much it. everything is going great here! i cant believe that it has been    6 months already! 1/4 of the way down?!?!?!?!

-Elder Roy

June 9, 2013

Alright here is the letter for the week, i don't have a lot of news, but i will give you  a summary of yesterday.

first a spiritual experience ... this week has been kinda slow, but we did get to go to an FHE with a less active family, and its nice to see the power of the FHE bring the family closer together. they invited us to another one, but we aren't sure with our schedule yet.

yesterday at church we were in sacrament, and a lady in our ward who served a mission in another part of the Philippines is dating a guy who served in the same mission... somebody didn't lock their heart! we have been told a billion times to lock our hearts, and that if we marry anyone we ever met on our missions we are basically failures. anyway... then in gospel principle classes this crazy lady started yelling at the teacher, and yelling at everyone! it was quite the experience. she wasn't a member. anyway so much crazy stuff happened just yesterday!

sorry my letter is so short! i love you all. also my camera is messed up, still the SD card i think, i'll try to email pictures sometime if it works.

-Elder Roy

June 3, 2013

Alright well we are at a mall right now and my camera isn't going to let me send  any pictures.

anyway this week has been pretty good, its a little trunky though having a companion that is going home at the end of this transfer! haha its important to not start talking about worldly things, or else i start thinking about computer games and that kind of stuff! i haven't really thought that my mission was going to be long until now. 

this week for a spiritual experience i will talk about Less Actives... its been a crazy week here. but we went to a lot of less actives this last week and would share spiritual thoughts with them, and a lot of times its hard to find out their concerns and their needs... but i think we visited about 13 less actives throughout the week, and it was a really cool turn out to see 7 come to church! i was wondering if we were even going to make some progress with any of them, and then our prayers were answered!

its sounds pretty crazy over there with dads new job! hopefully everything is going alright. i might pull out some money later (were at the mall) but i will try to hold off on souvenirs until the end of my mission! i love you all.

 -Elder Roy

May 27, 2013

Hello Family & Friends,


We've had an awesome week! It's good to slow down and write about the days. So much going on here I'm wondering where to start.

Had some troubles with one of our investigators. He is a bit depressed that Elder McDonald transferred out of the area. He is sad that we have to move his baptism date back... he was mad that we hadn't texted him back within 35 minutes of his last text (we were at a dinner appointment but I think that he thinks we revolve around him) Anyway, whenever we teach him its a really cool experience, he knows the Bible really well, and he is pretty accepting of our teachings. Its just he always gets mad at us for little things... its a tough life =)

Next I would like to give a shout out to my Koya (older brother, Nick) and wish him a happy birthday, he is 23!!! I can't believe how time works now. Its crazy!

Next- Maddy is going to be 16, driving and dating! THAT sounds like trouble.

So, last week was transfer week, Elder Granger from Montana is my new companion (this is his last transfer until he goes home.) We inherited another area into ours, so its a BIG area. Now I have just become the District Leader. It's pretty crazy, but Elder Granger is pretty experienced in the mission, and being a leader so he has been helping me a bunch.

Elder Kmetzsch my Tatay (dad) in the mission just became the assistant to the mission president. 

We will also be getting a new mission president next transfer! 

I am getting pretty "trunky" this transfer- having a companion that's going home. I haven't felt until now that its going to be a while until the end of my mission:)

I can't believe that I have been here over 3 months now. The language is getting there...now I'm trying to focus more on teaching good lessons.

They just made backpacks against the rules, basically if you have one you can use it, but I think they are trying to start to get rid of them.

We went to the mall earlier and I bought some new sandals.

I am not sure what's up with my camera,. I 'm going to try to send pictures right now.

Anyway the first picture is us on a jeep, the two elders on the right aren't in our area, they were just showing just around the area...

Cool picture of me

 Me and our street kids (they are like a year younger than me)

el chupa cabra

More news next week!!!! 

 -Elder Roy

May 21, 2013

Alright, we have a lot to cover- first I will start with a spiritual story from the week...

We were going to look for a LA the other week and decided to start some tracting. Of course we get the classic lines from people "Next time na lang" or "I'm busy" (busy texting or sitting on the stinkin' couch!:) So, once we get past all those people we see a garage type thing with some real breed dogs in there, which here are really expensive.  Elder McDonald says we should ask about their dogs to get into the house.  It works and they start showing us all these exotic animals that they sell, and we realize they are loaded... with money. The head of the house that was present is actually the brother to a government guy here, and there are about 4 families I think that live there! The crazy thing is that this guy when he was in high school went to church with one of his friends. Then he moved, but he is really interested, and I know this man was totally prepared for us by the Lord. This also helps me to know that the Lord guides us, and will prepare people for us, we just have to seek them out.

Big news for this week, Elder McDonald is transferring and the other two elders in the house next to us are out. So I hardly know this area, and I am a little bit stressed about knowing how to get to houses, but I will be alright.

Last week,  I let one of the Elders borrow my camera to take pictures,and when he brought it back all my pictures were gone! He said he didn't know what happened so I just accepted it. Thankfully halfway through last week all the pictures came back some how! It was a miracle.

I got to hear from Elder Fotheringham and Clement, and it sounds like our missions have a lot in common with a lot of differences.

I am trying to think of more things to write about now...

Oh yeah- and this guy cooked some turtles for us at his house, that was pretty cool.

I got my scriptures back with the new leather on it.

That was so awesome to Skype last week! Sorry if I was too quiet, it just a lot of people around, and some people were yelling really loud.

Well, this computer isn't letting me send any pictures. I am excited and nervous at the same time for tomorrow! I will let you know about it all next week.

I love you all!
-Elder Roy

Turkey Tom comes to Dinner

Hello Everyone! I don't have a lot of time today, we just got back from the temple, super awesome!  I will answer all these questions then try to send some pictures.

Letter from my dad:

The teaching over there.... How is the member activation? Are there several less-active?  How is the ward? How many members in the ward. Do you still get to attend the Temple.  These are question you can help us with each week. How are you holding up to the changes? I hope your well. Hope you handling everything okay. I worry about you and think often of you. How is the companionship going?

1. The teaching is pretty good, it tends to be pretty different some times as well. This one less active we were teaching had some serious memory loss! We would go there and he would forget about us the next day and he did not really remember that he was baptized. He claimed to be Catholic, and that he was 70 years old. We asked him when his birthday was, and he said a year that made him 87. He was really a nice guy. Other than that when we teach new investigators its pretty good, its just hard trying to find a way to apply the teachings to them. 

2. In the Philippines I believe that there are about 600,000 members and about 140,000 active. re-activation is a tough cookie here.

3. The ward is great! There are only fans to cool us, no air conditioner, no microphone for the sacrament...the members are so patient.

4.Attending the temple, yes.

5. Change is really difficult. I got use to one way of doing things, and then I get put into a whole different situation. Companions are still companions, and we have had some fights, but they have all been worked out. 

Tonight's dinner!!! Alive & Kicking'

Cultural crafts taught to me by an elder

Living off the land...a hunters dream

Some closing remarks for you all...

*Skyping on Mother's Day:D :D :D Yeah!!!

I can't believe how FAST the mission is going! It's almost been 5 full months! One thing I can say so far is...that-

Missions don't change a person. A mission gives a million opportunities to change, you just have to be willing to. 

-Elder Roy

"Because love is the great commandment, it ought to be at the center of all and everything we do in our own family, in our Church callings, and in our livelihood. Love is the healing balm that repairs rifts in personal and family relationships. It is the bond that unites families, communities, and nations. Love is the power that initiates friendship, tolerance, civility, and respect. It is the source that overcomes divisiveness and hate. Love is the fire that warms our lives with unparalleled joy and divine hope. Love should be our walk and our talk."
--President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "The Love of God", November 2009 Ensign

Beauty and Balut

Hello Everyone-

Thank you for writing! My new area is in Bagong Nayon, and we are in the Cogeo zone.



I am so excited to see Jaden's birthday. Maddy is almost 16?!



I was able to write Sister Flores today, and the whole letter was in Tagalog, which is getting easier. The understanding of it is coming a lot faster than the speaking part.


Since the new rule of emailing I have been emailing a lot of my friends, I cant believe that some of them are already out in the field. I have been emailing Cole as well, pretty awesome!

This first picture is of me and Elder McDonald from Payson, Utah

The second is of the house we are in now, its a bit of a downgrade from the last house

This third picture is of a member cutting my hair, the hair cutters here are like artists

 Bucket showers every day!!! Next thing about this new area is that it is huge!! We have to take Jeepnies everywhere! Its a little hard on the budget! But Elder McDonald has spent 10 months in this area so I think I will be okay.

This next picture is of this really old Book of Mormon that Elder McDonald gave to me. I think its like 1976 edition.

When we went up into the mountain a little further it becomes a jungle. Its beautiful here!

Balut is actually pretty good, but the after effects weren't -haha

A picture of me:D

 ... and a picture of my new frog wallet!

 So far our biggest focus in this area is retention of the members, but we do have some people that are really interested, and we will have a few soon with baptism dates. Looks like a jungle from the top, but once you start walking around its just a bunch of concrete houses. When we went up into the mountain a little further it becomes a jungle. Its beautiful here!

 *Mom- my favorite scriptures would either be: 1 Nephi 17:13

   "And I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led."

or... 2 Nephi 22:2 

 " Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also has become my salvation."


Love you all---more news next week!
 -Elder Roy