March 31, 2014

I got the news, cam is going to have a baby! adding to the roy klan! nice!

Well its starting to be super hot here, its getting to the time where even though the electric fan is on your bed naka 3 it just feel like hot humid air is blowing on you haha. but the plus side is that when its really hot the water heats up a little in the pipes outside, then when i take a shower i almost remember what its like to take a luke warm shower. then people say " its hot why do you want to take a hot shower?" when you grew up getting the "Cold Shower" as a punishment it doesnt bring back good memories... plus hot showers just make you feel more sanitary.

Monday after i emailed you we traveled on down to SM TayTay, and thats when all of us (The Elders in our zone) decided to get Purple Ties! we were thinking of how awesome it would be if we all wore the same color tie. then we saw a realy white lady and her real white son in the mall, i was so interested in them i went and talked to them, but they were busy trying on shoes. then that night we planned for our workshop for the next day.

Boom last tuesday we had our zone interviews! it was suppose to be iin cainta so we started heading on over there, but we got a text from the sisters saying that there was some cleaning going on at the chapel, and the aircon isnt working! oh shoot! so we called the AP's got off the jeep and started heading back to taytay. we had some complaints and we were all a little upset that we had to spend a few extra Pesos to get back, but everything started to work out. we got to the chapel and started arranging everything. then i went into the bathroom... it was gross, so i mopped it and got some toiletpaper for every toilet. then the AP's and President got there and everything was going good. everyone got their interviews and we got our workshops done, then they switched our phone sim cards to a different network! (wasnt a probelm back then but it becomes a problem.)

Wednesday was an awesome day, we went to our most progressing investigator that we have, and went over the baptismal questions with her, i was really surprised at her testimony. all of her brothers and sisters and mom and grandma are members, but back when she was 8 their family was less active. how she is 15 and has been taught for a long time. when we were about to finish i wanted to ask her who she wanted to baptize her, but i didnt say anything, right before we were going to end she asked who was going to baptize her, and we told her that its up to her. i was on the edge of the seat, it has been a year and 3 months and i haven't personally baptized anyone, so she said that she wanted me to baptize her, i felt like shouting! nice i am still pretty excited.

We will skip to sunday, we went to the church at 8 30, Elder T Our district leader is incharge of interviewing our investigators. so he interviewed her, she passed and the ward announced it in sacrament. nice! but when we were at church there was an unusual amout of people that had contentious feelings towards us, they were asking us "Elders why didnt you text back, we are mad at you" they didnt seem to care that oour mission changed out number, and that we had no clue that they text us. but i think they will get over it =)

March 23, 2014

Alright so i will just start with last Monday after emails. i went and got my hair cut, then we went home and planned for about 3 hours on our area, and our zone goals, and our zone training, so it was a long day.

Tuesday in the morning we had our zone training and that went until about 12 pm, then started the week off great with some awesome lessons, one of my favorites was this lady we have been teaching, her boyfriend is a less active, and they haven't gotten married yet, so its kind of a problem for her baptism right now, but we came back and she said she had started reading the book of Mormon, and praying about it. also last Sunday she came to church, so she is doing super awesome, its rare that you will get an investigator that actually reads, so i was super excited. the whole day felt like it was 2 separate days.

Wednesday we had another great teaching day, we went and shared with one of our investigators who is a bit... lets just say he is a fashion designer. and we taught him about prayer, and finally after like 5 appointments with this dude he prayed for us! it was a break through!

Thursday we had a decent day, we finished teaching one of our investigators all the lessons, and she is going to be having a baptismal interview next week with the district leader, nice!

 Friday we went and had a nother awesome teaching day, everything was feeling like the best week ever. we were walking our of one of the compounds going to lunch and these two ladies were walking in, i was a little thrown of when one of them was smiling at us, then after they walked by i was thinking "i feel like i know them" so i told my companion and we were deciding if we were going to chase after them. so the speed walk was on! they had already gotten past where we were going, so we were bookin it! as we were walking we were talking about if it was going to be awkward or not when we got to them, it was going to be awkward but i had to find out if i knew them! so my comp slowed down a little, and i walked up right next to them and greeted them, we stopped and talked and found out that about 5 weeks ago we shared to the girl that was smiling at her boyfriends house who is a less active, but they are broken up now. so we got a return appoint ment! nice!

saturday! the whole week was going smoothly! but we needed to be humbled or learn a lesson or something, so we only got 1 appointment all day. but the appointment is awesome, we went to a less active family that goes to another ward. we taught one of their sons and his girlfriend, the son is in active but said he wanted to serve a mission back in the day, but now him and his girlfriend have a baby. his girlfriend is really accepting of the message, the only problem is that she is only 16 and they arent going to be able to get married for another 2 years, so we are just going to plant the seed!

sunday, the day that the week depends on! we went to church and were in shock when we saw 7 investigators coming in! and 5 less actives! what a great week. but after  church our being humbled wasnt over, we didnt get into a single house until about 7 we decided to go visit a member, and they fed us! the week was complete!

that leads up to today, we did some hard core cleaning in our house, changed about 4 light bulbs, and washed my clothes! now we are emailing. we are planning to go to the mall (i am ppppprobably going to take out a little more money) then we are going to go home and start our planning for our zone interviews tomorrow. wish us luck!

Love you all. see you in 9 months!

March 16, 2014

this is going to be a quick message, i left my old planner at the house! so i will try my best to make this interesting.

furst off i would like to start by saying thanks to everyone.

next i would like to tell you about my new companion... His Name is Elder C, he was born on the other side of the lake in our area, but grew up in M. he is the fourth of a family of six boys, 20 years old, he will be turning 21 on June 24. he was an office elder for 6 months, has his license, and is an expert in computer stuff. one of our investigators who is a fashion designer said that he could be a model, and asked when he was going to finish his mission so that he could come back and be a model.. so yeah hes a pretty cool companion.

the week got crazy with transfer day, trying to find taxi's and stuff, we tried to find a taxi for about 2 and a half hours and ended up paying a lot more than was necessary. this was all back on Wednesday, and elder crisanto and i were in a tri-some companionship until Friday with elder robison.  elder Robison went to mindoro so he had to bring all of his luggage with him! it was a lot of stuff. 

the day after the transfers we went back to elder robisons last area, it became a sisters area so we had to show them all around the place. it also happened to be elder crisanto's first area back when he got here, so he got to see a bunch of members that he knew back in the day.

Friday we had Mission Leadership council, which was from 8 am until 5 pm, the problem we were facing was that there are no taxi's  that wait in Angono, so we were stressing a little on how we were going to get to the mission home. thankfully there was an investigator that owns a taxi, so we text him to see if he could come get us. he didnt text back until about 6 in the morning and by then i was worried we werent going to have a ride, but thankfully the Lord provided a way! after the long talks and discussions we had the task of trying to find a ride home... so Angono is kinda far away, and like i said the taxi drivers dont like to go clear out there. so after we had searched for about an hour, it was about to be 8 o clock we decided to text the dude who picked us up in the morning, he said he would come get us. that dude saved our lives and answered our prayers.

saturday we went back to Elder C's last area to see one of his investigators being baptized. that took up most of our day, but we did get some awesome burgers from the members, and his investigator was super excited to get baptized, you can ask about it after my mission, its easier to explain in person.

yesterday we went to church, then went to meet with the stake president and talk about how all the ward mission leaders are doing in the stake, and stuff like that, he is a nice stake president.

today we started the day playing some sports and doing laundry, and now emailing! nice!

-Love Elder Roy

March 10, 2014

So everything has been going pretty good this week, just a little crazy with all the stuff going on. so we will start from the last week after i emailed you guys

Monday after i emailed you guys we went and had a district activity, we went Bowling! nice! and it was Elder Cava's birthday, so we ate at burger king.

Tuesday i told you about the dude that we met that was from guam, it turns out he is a free mason! i got really interested and we asked him a bunch of questions about what they do and stuff. they have a symbol for their group and he says the thing on top is the compass, and the thing on the bottom is the square, and the G in the middle is for God. he told us how he is a master mason and stuff, and it reminded me that one time i heard that Joseph Smith was one or something. he told us that the masons started back in the time of Solomon. so if you have any more info about that stuff just email me about it.

Wednesday was good, i went on exchanges with Elder Tino who is from New Zealand, i am going to have to visit that place some day. 

Thursday we got some good teaching in, three lessons, but a big problem we have had here is that there is no divorce, so it complicates a lot of stuff for us. We had an Awesome visit from Elder Larry J. Echo, We got to hear some great stories about his conversion, and his life. our favorite was one he told about when he joined the Marines, and the Drill Instructed came in and started yelling at everyone, but when he got to Elder Echo Hawk, he picked up his Book Of Mormon and asked him in a normal voice "are you a mormon?" after the answer he asked "do you believe in this book?" after that he set the book down softly on his bed, and continued on yelling at the other guys. it was a pretty inspiring story.

Saturday we got punted from all of our appointments! no one was home. thankfully the other elders had a family home evening that we were invited to, the FHE was held at the house of a Convert of our mission president, when he was serving his mission back in the day, he baptized them. so that was really cool. After the FHE we returned home and decided to have a little fun since the day had been pretty tough. so we all took turns going outside, breaking open the door open, and screaming at everyone like a Drill Sargent would do, and Whoever started laughing first had to be the new Drill Sargent. easily the funniest moment of this transfer.

Sunday we had to leave church early and go do baptismal interviews, i interviewed a 9 year old girl that new just about everything. then my comp interviewed a lady who was super shy and could hardly keep eye contact for half a second. the good news is that they are both being baptized, the bad news is all the Elders from that ward are being transferred out tomorrow, and probably wont see their baptisms.

Yesterday was pretty good, we had an FHE with a less active family that is finally starting to make progress. i talked to a drunk dude that told me he wants to tell me about all of his dreams in english, i could smell the Alcohol on his breath as he whispered these things to my face hahaha. he told me he was from the province of Bicol and was pretty surprized when i asked him how his Aldo(Day) was. After all that we got the transfer announcements.

today we had some fun this morning calling the zone telling them the transfer announcements, its a pretty stressful week for everyone. and now we are here.

Q and A

Dad asks "how is the mission, investigators, the conference, and how is the food"

well the mission is great, a lot of changes. investigators are doing good, we just need our one investigator to come to church 2 more times and she will be baptized! as for the food, i LOVE the food and i will miss it so much, my favorites are Bicol Express, Ginataang Calabasa (its like squash cooked in coconut milk), bilo-bilo, palitaw, adobo, Mang inasal, and many more..and the conference was awesome.

March 2, 2014

I need to start off with birthdays taking place this month...

Clarissa Kathrine, happy birthday, i cant quite remember who you are but i know you have been a great cousin to me over the years.

Danielle, thanks for being a great sister in law, happy birthday, i just found out your only a year older than me.

Michael thanks for being a great uncle, happy birthday, keep on playing video games.

Adelina, thanks for being a great aunt, happy birthday.

Gary Willis, thanks for being a great uncle, happy birthday.

 So everything is going pretty good here, time just keeps on flying by! there is like a process of every transfer, it starts out pretty slow, but then when the days blur together and you can't remember if something happened the other day or earlier today, it flies by.

 Monday after i emailed we went and had our zone activity, we bought 12 boxes of pizza, and played rugby and basketball, it was super fun, i was just dead tired afterwards.

Tuesday we went to district meeting at taytay chapel, and we talked about how the gospel has blessed our families, and why we are here on our missions and what not, it was good stuff. after that we went and ate at Macdo. later that day we also worked with a dude in our ward thats a recent RM, i think its been like a month, and he says that he is still getting use to the non missionary life.

Wednesday i had a first in my mission, it was the first time i have ever went on splits with ward members, it felt kinda weird not have a full time missionary with me, but it was a good experience as well.

Thursday we went to the Elders in Tayuman ward and worked with them, i went with Elder Latu and Elder Quijencio went with Elder Amata and Elder De Paz. Elder Latu was in Quezon City 3rd ward back in my first area, so we had a good time talking about the area's that we had both been  to, and how fast time has flown by since last year.

Friday was new month eve and we celebrated it by going and pulling weeds at a less actives house, we started at about 9 and worked until 12 in the afternoon. it was nice because we went up into the mountains and it reminded me of being in Utah.

Saturday morning we woke up and it smelled really bad in our bottom floor, we figured out that all the gas from the gas stove had been leaking out! so we opened all the windows, and went for a jog. during personal study i was reading in the "True to the Faith" about the Kingdoms of glory, i kind of had an idea about them, but i found out more about the Terrestrial kingdom, that Jesus Christ will be there, but not "the fullness of the Father" it will include honorable people, members of the church who were not valiant in their testimony of Jesus, and the one i didn't know before was that people who rejected the gospel here, but accept it in the spirit world will also go to this glory. but i like the first paragraph about the celestial kingdom, The celestial kingdom is the highest of the three kingdoms of glory. Those in this kingdom will dwell forever in the presence of God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. This should be your goal: to inherit celestial glory and to help others receive that great blessing as well. Such a goal is not achieved in one attempt; it is the result of a lifetime of righteousness and constancy of purpose. for more info visit this link:  https://www.lds.org/topics/kingdoms-of-glory?lang=eng

Yesterday was Fast Sunday (only 9 more to go) we went on splits again, met a dude from Guam, and i was super tired.

Today we woke up, cleaned the house super good, and came to email.

some other good interesting reads included D&C 129 and the Three Grand Keys, Section 130 also had my imagination going crazy.

anyway thanks for all the pictures, and emails, keep them up. 

i would just like to leave you with my testimony that i know this Church is True, in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

love you all, hope everyone who is having a birthday has an awesome birthday, everyone having a bad day turns it into a good one, and thats pretty much it.

February 23, 2014

monday after i emailed you, we went on a hike up by our house, its a really cool area to see the laguna lake from high up on the hills by our house. just got a few scrapes and stuff from jumping down the dirt hills and stuff, i felt like i was on a boy scout trip!

Tuesday we went and visited one of the districts in our zone for district meeting, surprisingly it was being taught by my anak (trainee) in the mission, Elder Cava, so that went really well. after that we went and ate at Manginasal.

Wednesday was really long, we had zone conference, it started at 8 in the morning and went until 6 at night, but it was good i learned a lot. i laughed at my self when the mission president said "i am tired of getting 3 sentence emails from you guys saying that everything is going good" well...    that has been my email to him for the past year haha so i will have to try to step it up when i send him emails. one of my favorite scriptures used in the conference was D&C 38;27  27 Behold, this I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you, be aone; and if ye are not one ye are not mine. it applies to a lot of things in life, a lot to missionary work and companions, its vital that we are working in unity or the spirit will not be in the lessons.

 Thursday we had exchanges, elder Cava came and we worked in my area, it was really good to see how much he has progressed in the mission. nice. we went and taught a less active dudes wife. the dude told us about his job, he said he is a bounty hunter and used to live in california, but is trying to lay low here for a while. his wife is really nice and accepting of the message, she said she is willing to be baptized.

Friday we went and ate at a recent converts house, we ate so much i was literally about to throw up, but after a few cardiovascular breathing activities i was able to keep it all down, thankfully i have had experience in situations like that, (Blessing)... after that we went and got punted a bit, but finally got into a less actives house, a lady that we have never met was there and she said she wasn't a member, so she started asking us all these deep questions and trying to argue with us! so after about an hour of jumping from topic to topic she basically lets us know we were on MTV's hit series "punked" we were just waiting for  Ashton Kutcher to come out! haha she let us know she was a member and told us she actually served a mission at the same time that our mission president served! 

 Saturday the morning was a bit crazy one of the elders in our district sent himself home so his comp was put into a threesome with his house mate dudes, they had an appointment, and the one had a bap interview, so we went and had some emergency exchanges with them.

Yesterday was pretty good, normal ol sunday. had some good lessons, and a dinner appointment!

its kinda sad though because sunday is always the day we wait for, if our investigators and less actives are going to come or not! we always have to move bap dates and stuff since they arent coming to church! it gets stressful sometimes, but its all good.

Everything is going good, our house is full of awesome elders, one of them is from new zealand so we have been playing a lot of rugby with the free time we have.

February 16, 2014

it sounds like everything is going pretty good over there.

its been going pretty well here.

last monday after i emailed we went and got some shopping done, then went to our stake center to meet with the district leaders in our zone, and we set some zone goals, then went and ate at macdo.

Tuesday we had zone meeting, and we had to share with the whole zone! (there are 25 in our zone including us) so that was pretty fun, and a little scary. anyway later that night we went and talked with a member in our area, she told us about how she had a outer body experience when she almost died, and having read that book that i told mom to read, i was super interested. so she told us that she went to the spirit world and saw all these people (this was 10 years before she became a member) she said how when she came back to her body it hurt really bad (reminds me of what that dude wrote in that one book mom) then she said she had to go through a lot of therapy and stuff and no one could explain to her what she saw. so she said when the missionaries where teaching her it all just made sense. she still seems a little out of it, but its all believable. she asked me if at anytime Jesus Christ could come back, and i told her yes, and she started telling me she was wondering about it because of some song she hears in her head. so it was a pretty interesting, i was super interested and told her she should publish a book about her experience.

Wednesday we had MTC exchanges, some of the foreigners from the MTC here came and worked with us, our new comp for the day was Elder Mejia, he is Filipino, but he was born in Australia and doesn't speak Tagalog. so we went to one of our new investigators named Michael, he likes to go by Miko. Miko is a fashion designer, and we are not sure yet if he is interested in the message as much as he is interested in us. later that night we tried a pizza place in our area called " Pizza ng Ina mo" which comes out as Your mothers pizza. it was good.

 Thursday we had a service project at one of our investigators, we pulled weeds. after that we went to a farewell part for a ward member, it was pretty fun to see a missionary leaving and to think that i have only 10 more months to go!

speaking of 10 months to go, last Friday was valentines day! happy valentines day! it also marks the exact day that elder iosefa and i arrived here in the Philippines! so in order to celebrate of course we went and taught some people, then we bought 5 boxs of pizza from none other that Pizza ng ina mo.

last Saturday we got the baptismal font ready for some of the elders in our zone, the water pressure wasn't working out, so the elders had to end up kneeling to baptize. while we were filling up the font we happened to get some B-ball in. later that night we went to the priesthood session and Saturday session of stake conference!

Sunday we got some stake conference action! after that we went back to our house, and Elder Guillermo fell asleep on the couch, so i made it my responsibility to stack as much stuff on him until he woke up, little did i know that he is a heavy sleeper, so it wasn't until he had shaving cream on his had, and i tickled his nose that we woke up! its good enough to say that we was surprised when he woke up.

that brings us to today, earlier this morning we cleaned our house, watched some Mormon messages, then came here.

oh yeah i want to share one story of my personal study this week.

i was reading from the old testament in 1st kings chapter 3, so Solomon was took the place of his dad, and he is being pretty obedient, so the lord appears to him in a dream and says  "Ask what I shall give thee." so Solomon asks for an  "understanding heart" to be a good judge of the people. so the Lord is pleased he says 11 And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked ^ariches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine ^benemies; but hast asked for thyself ^cunderstanding to discern judgment;12 Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have ^agiventhee a ^bwise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. 13 And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both ^ariches, and honour: so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days. 14 And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my^acommandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days.

so the blessings were poured out on this dude. and just as a little test two harlots come to him with a problem, they have been staying in the same house and they both just gave birth. one of the harlots laid on her baby and killed it "overlaid it" as they would say it back in the day (they have a word for it like its a normal thing!), so she thought she would pull the one two dead baby switcharoo on the other harlot. 

i like the other harlots reaction,  21 And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear. she is probably freaking out by then, but actually takes the time to consider the situation.

so they came to Solomon to figure out what they are going to do with the living baby because they are both claiming its theirs. Thankfully Solomon was given some great wisdom, or so i thought, i read verses 24 and 25 with horror! he wants to chop the living baby in half and give one pieces to each harlot! this is madness! or so i thought, i continued on to the next verses 26 Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.

 27 Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.

this ended up being a good ending, and reflects the wisdom that we was given by the lord, All of Israel knew it as  well i would just like to say that we can apply this to our lives if we just humble ourselves and trust in the lord. as long as we are obedient to the lords commandments everything will be all right.

Love you all - Elder Roy