Elder Lasley - Cavite Philippines: 5 Weeks

September 14, 2013

Hey family I just got the package on Thursday and it was awesome! You guys have some awesome taste in ties, I love all of them! My favorite was the greenish one with flowers on it, but I really liked the Liberty of London one and the "specially made by mother" one too ahaha, that one made me laugh. But I loved them all! Thanks for the stamps and candy and especially the pictures also, I loved them. I thought it was funny that Mom saw Maddie at Saver's! wWhat a coincidence. Have you guys been talking or staying in touch with her at all? I hope you guys are. We've been writing and emailing and from what I can tell, she's doing great. She gets discouraged sometimes but its bound to happen! I don't worry about her because I can't let her drive my attention away from the work, but she obviously crosses my mind pretty often. We're hopeful everything will work out! If you saw her buying ties also, I have a feeling I'm going to get another package of ties from her now ahaha. I have so many ties! I think I'm up to about 30-33 somewhere in there, but I'm only going to be able to bring about 7 to the Philippines because I cant bring silk ties to somewhere so humid because they bleed onto white shirts in the humidity. I have about 7 polyester or some other material besides silk that I will be able to bring but I'll have to send most of the rest of them home.

All of My Ties

I love hearing about home life! Even if you think it seems boring, I miss all of it. I'm glad Ben is actually having fun in cross country! He sounds and looks like he's doing awesome. I miss him! and Sam too! How's Sam doing in school? ahah its funny to hear about his NJB jersey ahaha. I cant believe he would even agree to see Insidious Chapter 2! Holy cow, I could barely sleep the night after I saw Insidious 1! Those are some scary scary movies. Crazy Sam.

How are you and Mom doing? Your hair cut looks good! Very modern, ahaha. I'm glad Niles is doing as good as he can be and Kitty too. How's Jasmine? I miss all the animals!

I'm doing just fine here. I gave my first priesthood blessing on Thursday night to Sister Andersen, a sister in my district, who was sick. It was an awesome and spiritual experience.

Nothing extremely new is happening here at the MTC though! Last Wednesday (3 days ago) we got 8 new elders who are heading to the Philippines, and 8 new sisters too. None to Cavite unfortunately. It's crazy to think that I used to be one of those new overwhelmed and nervous missionaries and now I'm one of the most experienced ones here! One of the new missionaries went to the ER the first night because he got sick and was having an anxiety attack or something, poor kid. He'll get used to it though. Yeah I've seen Kyle a couple times too! I actually just saw him today! He leaves this Tuesday at 2:30 in the morning. He got here 3 weeks after me and is leaving a week before me ahaha. That's what I get for having to learn a language! Which is going well by the way. I definitely don't feel ready to go out into the field, but my teachers Brother Mansfield and Sister Briggs say that we're on the right track and we're obviously not expected to be fluent in a six week time period.

Elder Kyle Abbott and Elder Adam Lasley

Yesterday we got our flight plans! it was an awesome day, pretty much only because of that. I'll send you guys a picture of my flight plans a little later when I'm able too, but I leave the MTC on Monday the 23rd at 4:30 in the morning! Woohoo! We won't be sleeping that night. I'll send you guys some other pictures too! I don't have much this week because it was just a fairly routine week, nothing much new. but expect some pictures shortly!

Showing our Flight Plans to the Philippines!

My Flight Plans

I love to hear about your missionary experiences, its awesome that your agreeing to go out with them and experience what I'm going to be doing for the next two years! Lucky you get to do it in English though ;)

About the raincoat, I've been told that a raincoat is just about useless because I'm bound to get soaking wet pretty much no matter what, but I'm sure a raincoat would be nice. But if you're spending a large amount of money on it, don't worry about it.

I have heard that packages will take one to two months to get there, and regular mail will take about 2 weeks, so I'm guessing for writing I'm going to rely pretty heavily on emailing most likely. Here at the MTC, I'm allowed to email anyone, I'm not sure if that will change in the field though.

If you guys don't mind, I would be nice if I had a pair of brown shoes, maybe a Christmas present ahah. Black are nice, but brown's a nice change!

I love that my blog is a hit! ahah! I'll try to keep my emails and letters interesting so it stays that way! And I will definitely be sending pictures, more in the Philippines though when I actually get there because pictures here aren't all that interesting.

I love and miss you guys a lot and I'm really happy that I have such a loving and supportive family who are willing to do anything for me to be a successful missionary! Well I have to go now, but keep writing and I'll keep writing back! Love you guys, mahal kita, salamat po!

Love,

Elder Lasley