March 2 2014: Basketball and Service Day

Family! Hows it going?!

This week was honestly a pretty wild week. mostly just like 1 and a half days but it was still crazy. the craziest day was by far tuesday. but I'll start with monday because its the first day of the actual week.

so after I emailed you guys last week, we went to a big mall called SM Pala Pala and bought me a new camera! I got this super nice Sony Cyber-Shot. dang its nice. its very nice and everyone i show it to is pretty jealous. after that, we went to a nice restaurant called Shakeys because it was Elder Matinas birthday last Friday! we each spent like 300 pesos on some bomb food. then we bought a basketball so we could start playing basketball everyday! then we went home and whatever yeah okay so TUESDAY. So we woke up about 30 minutes early to go play some ball! so we played, you know just shot around for a while, then I decided i wanted to try and dunk, so just to warm up I jumped up and grabbed the rim and SNAP the rim broke. the welding literally broke. so the rim was just hanging there in the backboard. so we got the owner of the court guy and we had to take the rim down and go find a place to get it welded. this took like 45 minutes. we finally found a place to get it welded, where it was free, and while we were waiting there for the welder, we started talking to the people around and actually found a less active member! too bad it wasnt in our area though ahah. anyways, that all ended t around 9, and we went back to the court and screwed the newly welded rim back into place, then went home to get ready for the day ahaha. so later that day, while we were proselyting, we were just walking and all of the sudden, this old guy just stops us and starts yelling at us in broken english/tagalog. he starts like chastizing us and telling us that missionaries should go into every house they see and preach the word of God to every single person "no matter if theyre poor or rich" and we just nodded our heads in agreement the whole time this guy was just yelling at us. then finally when he was finished, we gave him a pamphlet and said we would come back the next day ahahah it was pretty weird. alright so next, a little bit later, we were on our way to another appointment, this like 20 year old guy who we had met a few days earlier called us over to him. he and a couple of his friends were just chillin, eating lugaw (rice soup kinda thing) so they gave us some and then invited us to their house. so we walked with them to their house and they let us sit down in there front yard. then they walked away and came back a moment later with this lady wearing full on muslim atire, and a man wearing a muslim type thing. they sat in front of us, asked us our religion, and then IMMEDIATELY started bashing us with weird doctrine and were just hatin on every Christian everywhere, we just happened to be their target. it lasted for about 30 minutes, and every time we tried to say something, they interrupted us and started talking about some other "false" belief of ours. after around 30 minutes, Elder Matina tactfully ended the conversation and said "this is more of a one sided arguement/debate then a sharing, so were going to leave. but thank you for your time." so we got up and left. while we were leaving they said "bukas ulit!" which means "tomorrow, again!" and we just shook our heads and walked away in shame. but not actual shame because I mean, God was on our side because we didnt do anything to bash any other churches, we simply attempted to state our beliefs. That's why LDS missionaries are so much different than other churches missionaries! I'm proud to be a member of a church that doesn't bad mouth other religions, and never has.

Then on wednesday, it was mission service day! so the whole Dasmarinas zone, about 35 missionaries, all went to a city super close to Tagaytay called Alfonso and cleaned a dragonfruit field! we used little like scythe things, kind of like a sickle, and just hacked away at tons of weeds for about 2 hours. dragonfruit is super weird! it wasn't ripe yet, so we just got to see the plants, but they're cactuses! dragonfruit grows on a cactus! hah weird.

the rest of the day was totally normal.

oh also, on wednesday morning, I DUNKED. I legitimately slam dunked! I have it on video, so i'll try to send it to you!

anwyays, thats about all of my week.

thats awesome that Harrison's going to Germany for his mission! I bet he flipped! Germany is like his favorite place on the face of the Earth ahaha. hes already been taking German now for like 3 years too! that should be awesome. I'm gonna write him one of these days!

Ben and Sam are still being awesome! I wrote Ben and Sam each a letter, they should get there in a week or two!

I would still like those pants, but no rush, let mom do her sale thing ahaha.

Flag High second place in state? holy cow! I wish I could've been at that game oh my gosh. how wild! too bad the next Mike Bibby had to steal the championship from them. dang, since 1975 still.

I'm gonna write Grammy an actual letter and mail it to her! I really hope she starts improving.

that's awesome that you guys went to the temple dedication broadcast! I'm jealous!

Yes we do have jeepnies here! I dont really like them ahaha. we mostly just walk though, lots and lots of walking. but I havent lost or gained any weight, weird. aahaha.

anyways, that's all for now! I'll send some pictures now. I love and miss you guys!

Love,

Elder Lasley :)