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

February 9, 2014

It feels like it was just yesterday that i emailed since it was just back on Wednesday. but a lot has happened since then. first i want to start by doing a shout out for the people with a birthday in February. Morgan happy birthday, you have been a good cousin. Jon happy birthday, you have been a good uncle. jenny happy birthday, you have been a good sister-in-law. Norine happy birthday, you have been a good aunt. Laura Lisa happy birthday, you have been a good cousin. 

so i will just start with the week starting from last thursday- we had Mission Leadership Council, which was from 8 in the morning until 5 in the evening, and it went pretty good. we talked about a lot of the mission rules, things that could improve, and fun stuff like that. then at the end we got all the mail for our zones, and my box from you guys was there! i got the shoes and all the stuff that was in there!

Friday we had the normal old weekly planning day, got in a couple of lessons (just one), then talked to a in active member, i forgot the dudes name but he told us how he is now a part of a different religion now, and that his new life is a lot happier now then it used to be. he let us know that the president of his new religion testified that the book of Mormon isn't true, so we asked him if he has read it and found out if its true (he said he hasn't) so we told him it was true, but he didn't really care, then he invited us to one of their meeting sessions, and that was pretty much it.

Saturday we had a pretty good teaching day. we went out and met this really awesome investigator family that has family that are members, they are super nice, and seem to be pretty interested. after that we went and ate at mang-inasal. then we went to a few more appointments after that, it was kinda depressing we had an investigator that was hiding in the bathroom and wouldn't come out!

Sunday i woke up super sick, my nose is super runny, my throat hurts, and my ears hurt, and my head hurts. but we went to church, then i went home and slept.

today, still the same but not as bad.

being a zone leader is pretty fun, there are a lot more things to do, i just got some information that mom wrote dad daily when he was on his mission! mom wheres my daily email?!?!?

February 5, 2014

 first off, today we went to the temple so thats why its been until now that i have email you.

so everything is going pretty well here in Angono, its not even close to as city-ish as my last area, and there is a lake! the Laguna lake i think it is called. 

 so my new comp is Elder Quijencio and he has been in the mission for a few transfers longer than i have, so its been nice to have a sr companion (its been 5 transfers since i had one) 

i forgot my last planner so i feel like i wont be able to write as well of an email.

we have had a pretty great first week here, a lot of investigators! good ones! so we are expecting a few baptisms for next month, and find a lot of new investigators that are just awesome.

our new house is super awesome, it has a WASHINGMACHINE! i enjoyed doing laundry!!!! 

the other elders in our house are really cool as well, elder tino is from new zealand, and elder guilliermo is from here and they are both super cool.

there are already a lot more problems to deal with being a zone leader, but its still pretty fun, we have a meeting tomorrow from 8am to 5pm, i hope i dont die!

alright i will be more organized in my email next week,

on the left is me and elder Quiencio and on the right are the other two.

Love Elder Roy!!!

January 27, 2014

I guess i will start by answering your questions. week was good, not much happening, i thought i sent that picture to you all that had my head highlighted, i met that sister from cedar city, but she was a grade older than me, so i never met her before the mission, but we talked about all the people from cedar city. investigators are pretty tough here, its mostly trying to get them to find out if this is the true church, they always say "whatever church we go to is ok, as long as Jesus is in our hearts.

Last Tuesday went pretty good, we went to district meeting in the morning, tried the waffle corner afterwards, but they were out of waffles...shoot. we got 3 lessons in (really good day).

on Wednesday we taught one of the maids at one of our members house, and then we ate so much food i wanted to die! i am going to miss that house.

Thursday we went and taught a part member dude named Romeo, he is from here, but currently living in California, he is just on vacation here. anyway his whole family is members except for him, and he likes to argue. so all we did was invite him to read and pray to know if its true. he is going back to California in February.

Friday was a bit more interesting, we went to a less active member to see how he is doing, we had been to him before and found out that he has been offended by some members. well he likes to talk A lot! so we went and started listening, and he started to ask questions, he said "what is the true Sabbath day", i told him in the law of Moses it was on Saturday, when Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, they changed it to Sunday.http://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/sabbath-day nailed it! he told me i was wrong however... he said they changed it back in some council back in 360 b.c.  He then asked me "which way was God facing when he created the world? i said "brother in my opinion what is the importance of that question?"  he then got mad and told me when he was 20 he knew all the answers! so we closed our meeting and left.

Saturday we went to a baptism of the sisters,  it went really well. then we came back to our area and went to a "Birthday bash" for all the men in our ward with birthdays in january, it was pretty fun.

Sunday was the same as a normal sunday.

monday we had district meeting again, and the waffle corner had waffles!

 well the big news is that i am transferring, our area is going to become a sisters area, and i am going to be a zone leader in Angono TayTay. i will email more about that next week.

January 19, 2014

The pictures of the all you can eat buffet will explain it =) you will notice in the pictures that the restaurant is named vikings, I was a little disappointing that the table we were given didn't have sufficient room for all my stinking plates! and as you can tell from picture 2 that i didnt have enough fingers on my hands to count how many things i was gunna eat. mom note the sushi on the left of the picture, there was unlimited sushi. anyway that was pretty much all of p day. we did get to see some of the other elders at the mall and one of them told me that a girl in my last area, that i started teaching, was baptized! nice.

Tuesday was pretty slow, still feeling the brick inside my stomach from the night before. we got some training from the zone leaders, our mission is starting to crack down on us! it gets a tad bit irritating, but ill get over it. later that night we were walking through a small alley way and a lady starts yell to us, so we went over and started talking to her. she was missing all her teeth and eating some sort of fruit, and speaking perfect english (other than the terrible lisp), My comp busted up laughing when she was yelling at us, and i was trying pretty hard not to laugh as this woman was screaming "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?" so we gave her a pamphlet, and asked her for her name, she had to repeat "Belinda Bright" 8 times before i could finally make it out.

Wednesday was an awesome day, we got two referrals from members last week and were able to contact them both today with the members there. super nice to teach investigators when there friends are there. the first lady we taught is half American, and has been taught a long time ago by sisters, but she doesnt remember anything. thankfully she is super nice. she said he dad lives in texas and she has never met him, but she is planning on moving there. where was it in texas that we lived????

Friday, not much happened out of the norm on Friday, but me and Elder Phelps

started jogging, its been over a year since i have done any sort of physical activity such and jogging, but to my surprise jogging at sea level feels so good.

Saturday was pretty good, i went and interviewed an investigator for the sisters, little was checked off for baptism. after that we went and payed our electric bill, ate at Chic-boy, then went to an area broadcast. it was a good day.

Sunday was pretty crazy, we got bombarded with food, and dinner appointments! one of our members brought us a pan of funeral potatoes, we were invited to lunch and dinner, and got invited to more dinner appointments that had to be turned down seeing that we already had dinner appointments set up! i feel so loved. we attended a Ward correlation meeting and discussed with the ward the less actives that we should focus on. it was a pretty great day.

Monday is now, if anything happens later tonight i will let you know next week. also next week is transfer week and we have been hearing rumors from the zone leaders that our area might be made into a sisters area again! shoot!

I love you all and have more pictures to send! 
-Elder Roy

Buffet

The table isn't big enough!

I've decided to start my own art work.. what do you think?

This made me think of Uncle Micah

January 12, 2014

Happy 1 year and 1 month mark! well this week has been pretty crazy! so we will get started with the days of the week.

Last Tuesday not a lot happened, we taught a part member less active family, and they were super nice, but there little 5 year old daughter is like a little firecracker! and the mom is 5 months pregnant and said she didnt find out until last week! crazy!

Wednesday- we had promised this old lady that we would go visit her later that day. I'll let you know why. sometime last last week we told her we would go over on a friday, something came up and we weren't able to make it, so some time last week we were walking around that area and she saw us and started yelling at us! she said the last friday she had cooked some food for us, and was waiting for us to come over! i felt pretty bad so i told her we would come over on wednesday (this day) so we went over, took her some food, and listen to her talk about her life story for the fourth time. she told me to tell you guys hi as well. (i think she is like 75 years old) anyway that was just a good learning experience that if i make an appointment i should make it, or find out if i can reschedule it. After all of that we got a text from Elder Rakuro that him and his companion would be sleeping over at our house (they came off mindoro for their zone leader training) so we talked forever and it was fun (he use to live in the house here back in my first transfer here)

Friday was Zone interviews! super awesome! took all day though and they didnt feed us much haha.

Saturday was a pretty normal day, we taught a young man that was baptized about 6 months ago and is now less active (tends to happen a lot here) and he was really nice. him and his mom are both members, but the youngest brother wasnt baptized, so they said it would be ok if we started teaching them, hopefully we can re activate them as well.

Sunday had a pretty good church day.

cool news, my comp taught me how to read notes in the hymn book! nice! so i have been practicing a little bit, and i got the right hand part down to nearer my God to thee. NICE!

 i love you all. -Elder Roy.

old picture I found in the scriptures you sent!

our house