Monday, October 21, 2013

Week 4: My First Baptism



Sorry family! I just got back from an activity with my zone! We went to Tagaytay! It’s the city on the edge of Taal lake, a crater lake and it’s beautiful and awesome!

Anyways, this week was also pretty normal for a missionary in the Philippines! However, next Saturday, I have my first baptism! It’s a guy, yes a guy, named Ashly and I was asked to be his baptizer! That will be awesome. I'm doing all I can to prepare for it.

We also have a baptismal date set for this very receptive interested investigator named Kimberly. But there’s a problem with her because she’s due to give birth the day before her baptismal date, so we're gonna have to change it. Also, it is encouraged that she should be married if possible before her baptism, so it may take awhile to get her and her significant other married before she can get baptized. But she is very willing! She’s actually sad that she'll most likely have to wait for so long to be baptized. 

With regards to the earthquake, it was about 100 miles away from where I am and we didnt even feel it or anything, so everything's alright here!

Now to answer some questions! 
My companion is 22 years old, and has been in the field for abour 8 months. Hes Filipino and knows fluent Tagalog, Waray (another Filipino dialect) and English surprisingly well. He’s from an island called Leyte which is about 120 miles from where we are. He’s an extremely good missionary, always looking for teaching opportunities and he’s also very patient and caring with me! 

I have two other elders in our apartment, elder Velasco and elder Ripdos. Elder Ripdos is our zone leader! They’re awesome too. Both Filipino. Elder Ripdos speaks English fairly well, and Elder Velasco does not know much English haha.

We eat like kings! Just kidding, we eat like poor college students. Lots and lots of rice because its really cheap. We also eat a lot of cheap meats, like undesirable parts of the chicken, hot dogs, and this pork thing called tocino which is actually pretty good. I have oatmeal every breakfast, also because its cheap and I buy it in bulk hahaa. For dinner, we usually try to get fed by members or investigators, but sometimes we have to eat out which is pretty expensive so we try to avoid it. Or else we eat rice and cheap meat haha.

No we don't live in an apartment complex, its actually a house! So I don’t really know why I always call it an apartment. But whatever. It’s a small house and it’s not that bad at all!

The Tagalog is coming slow and painfully and is really quite a struggle for me. But it’s coming and I'm improving so everything’s fine. I'll get there!

Every morning have this workout routine I made for myself! Nobody else likes to exercise, so I'm usually alone ahha. But I do 50 push-ups (nose touching the ground on the way down) 100 crunches, 100 ab-rotate things, and a three minute plank. Sometimes I do some squats and calf raises and stuff. But I try and do that morning and night! I haven’t been able to play any basketball yet but I really want to! I think one of these days this week I'm going to convince everybody to wake up early one morning and go play some basketball because we have a concrete court right down the street from our house! 

As for Christmas presents, I though of something I was going to ask for earlier this week but I totally forgot! I have no idea still! But this week I'll think really hard and write what I think of down so I don’t forget it.

So far, I've heard from Harrison, Kyle, Maddie (obviously), Auntie Jen, Uncle Scott and Auntie CJ, and I've been meaning to ask for Uncle Terry's email address! He wrote me my last week in the MTC and I haven’t had time to write him back! Could you guys get that for me? Thanks! But no, I actually haven’t heard from Jeremy yet, or anyone else really. But that's okay! 

I love hearing from you guys! It makes my day! I'm sorry I don’t have time to respond to everything you write, but I love and miss you guys and I'm happy everything is going well at home! Tell Ben and Sam to remember to listen to you guys and always be positive too! That’s the key to life.

I love you guys a lot and I miss you! 
Love, Elder Lasley :)

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