Elder Lasley - Cavite Philippines: April 2014

March 30: Service Project

Mom! hey hey hey its Elder Lasley!

so its probably like 8 pm right now? yeah I think so! anyways,

A little bit about my week!

It was good.

thats all.

just kidding ahaha

it actually was good. but I will go into some detail. mostly it was a regular week though. But! on Wednesday, we finally had a member work with us! In my whole 2 months here in Dasmarinas we just had a member work with us for the first time! its legendary! everything is so much easier when you have a member with you, its crazy! I mean most wards have members work with the missionaries several times a week, but our ward is a little bit...neglectful? yeah they just dont really pay as much attention as they should to helping the missionaries. but theyre abviously getting better because we actually had a member work with us! So I'm not sure if you know the rule about elder missionaries not being able to teach a lesson to females if there isnt another male over 16 present, but that is a rule. and its usually a rule that Elder Matina and I have a lot of trouble with! not as in we break the rule, just as in we are so dang obedient, we never enter a house unless theres another male present, so quite often we cant have lessons at certain places. like this one place! the daughter is a recent convert, but hasnt been visited by missoianaries in over 4 MONTHS because the missoinaires before us just plain didnt visit her, and every time we tried there was no male present! but finally on wednesday, we were able to teach her a lesson! her first lesson in 4 MONTHS. way too long. anyways, that was a good experience because she really wants to be involved in church, but she doesnt know where to start! Shes 13, and her and her mom are the only members in the family because her 2 older sisters have live-in spouses and need to get married first before they can be baptized. so its a difficult situation really. BUT perhaps that visit was the start of something golden. hopefully.

anyways, the rest of the week was pretty normal! We are obviously still visiting Vincent still because he is awesome and wants to be baptized more than anything, so his scheduled baptismal date is still April 19! woo hoo!

we dont really have any other golden investigators right now. we obviously have others but every single one of them has a problem they need to resolve first before they can be baptized, whether it be marriage, a word of wisdom problem, a job on sunday, etc.

OH we also had a member work with us yesterday actually! so twice this week. its historic. revolutionary.

oh and one other thing we did this week! We had a service project and a family home evening in the sisters area again! it was at an investigator of theirs, and they were pretty wealthy ahaha. when we got there, the wife said like oh dont worry about cleaning anything, the yard is already clean! and we were all like what I thought this was a service project, so apparently there wasnt very good communication ahaha but thats okay! we cleaned her yard anyways, and then had dinner and got to know tha fam! so the wife is filipina and has one filipino child who is 27, and the husband is British! but he lives in africa right now because he is some kind of engineer doing work over there right now. and apparently theyre looking in to moving to taiwan because the husband doesnt like the heat in the philippines. so next week theyre going to taiwan to look for houses. its pretty weird.

anwyays, after dinner, we had a family home eveving! which was just a short lesson, and then an initiation into a filipino secret society called Booga-Booga. hopefully I can send you guys the video of my initiation. all it really is, is a prank ahaha.

but that was about our week! I'll send some pictures.

things sound great in flagstaff! hows the weather right now? is it spring yet? its the middle of the hottest season here right now, and it is just extremely unfathomably hot every single day from 12pm-5pm, constant sweating. tomorrow is supposed to be the hottest day of the year too, yay! 40 degrees celcius which is about 105, and just you know, normal humidity of around 80%! should be a great day. and! I think I may need some new socks, in the next package you happen to send, could you include some dress socks? preferably no super high socks either. I mean obviously high enough to be dress socks, but not like knee high or anything. oh oh and also since you havent bought the chinos from pac sun yet, could you actually make the size on those 33 length and 31 waist? 32 waist would be fine too if thats all they have. but 33 is a better length. thanks mom! :)

anyways, I love you guys! I'll send some pictures now!

Love,

Elder Lasley :)

Me Drinking Buko Juice from Fresh Buko

Buko (Kind-of like a coconut

Basketball hoop

Chicken Dinnah

emailing on P-Day

Failed District Picture

Successful District Picture

Me and Elder Matinas

Me and Hosh

Me and Chihuahua

Service Project

Elders

Sketchy Bridge

Small Jackfruit

March 23: FHE

Hey family! So I havent recieved an email from you guys yet, but its totally okay because I understand! you guys are probably driving home from california as I type! So really its fine if I dont get an email from you guys today, just make sure next weeks is super awesome! I have a whole lot of emails this week anyways so I gotta reply to them! SO I'll just give you guys a brief overview of my week!

Monday: duh P-day. but after p-day, we were invited to a family home evening in the sisters area, which was a ton of fun! it was at this old couples house, whos kids no longer live with them so theyre like super lonely and we just brightened their day! yay! I'll send some pictures of that latah.

Tuesday: district meeting (just like every tuesday) and regular missoinary work. nothing big. We did teach Vincent, probably our most progressing investigator about the law of chastity which is always fun! yay law of chastity! dont worry he didnt have any problems with it.

Wednesday: our work today was terrible ahaha. we got punted from every single plan we had to go to! punted is missionary vocab for every single place we went to was like "I'm busy right now" or "maybe another day" or just had some lame excuse ahaha. but its okay, no effort is wasted! I know the people we opened our mouths to, or stopped by at, we're positively effected by knowing that we care about them!

Thursday: we went to our other area today, the one we dont go to a whole lot. again, we didnt have many planned places to visit so we did a lot of finding! we kind of even went actual tracting! and out of that came 3 new investigators! a single family invited us inside to share a message, so again, no effort is wasted! it was a good day over all. OH! also, we were walking around and we saw a white guy! and he called to us and was like "hows Salt Lake City?" because I guess he knew we were mormons, so we took the chance to talk to him! it turns out he is from Germany, working in the Philippines because hes over retirement age in Germany so he couldnt get any work there, and he says he likes to work, he doesnt want to just wait until he dies ahaha. hes a porfessional photographer! anwyays, we talked to him for a few minutes. then he invited us back on sunday, and said he would buy a "shwarzvelder" or something like that, which means black forest cake for us when we come back!

Friday: was a lot like wednesday, we were punted an awful lot, but we did have ne lesson. yay!

Saturday: another punty day. it was just a punty week I guess! we only had two lessons, but they were both awesome so its cool.

Sunday!: was super cool! We went to our other area again and again we were punted a lot, but its okay! we visited a lot of the people that we foud on thursday but they were either not home or had some excuse ahah. then we returned to Udo! oh eah thats the German guys name. and he was actually expecting us! we didnt know if maybe he was just inviting us back to be nice and wasnt expecting us t actually come back. anyways, he invited us upstairs and we all three sat on his balcony deck thing and ate black forest cake! and talked about some of his religious beliefs, and then talked about ours and we had like a friendly religious exchange. it was super cool. He didnt exactly have our same beliefs, he believed a lot about like science haha like a scientologist or soemthing, but it was still very cool and a great experience! not to mention interesting. and he invited us back and said he'd take some pictures of us in his professional studio! which is in his house by the way ahah. but how cool would that be!

Monday: woke up, played basketball, studied, emailed (currently) not much ahahaha.

Well that was my week! again, you guys better send me a super nice email next week yeah? ya hear? :)

I'll send some pictures now! I love you guys, Stay Golden Lasley Family!

Love,

Elder Lasley!

Keep Hanging On

Family Home evening with the Sisters

Our District (with Elder Zacharias, my teacher).

Family Home Evening with the Sisters

Just Me

March 16: Spoke at Baptism and ANTS!

Holy cow! Now thats the kind of letter I'm talking about Lasley family! and guests.

"Edna Mode. and guest." is that what it says? I havent seen The Incredibles in like a year.

Anyways, WHOOOOAAAA SPRING BREAK 2014! I wish I was there, it sounds like a freakin blast! I've never even been to Magic Mountain! dang. Its like the whole family except for me ahaha. Hopefully Kyle and Spencer make up for my absence.

You guys look great! I love the hat picture! Mom looks like a super star! ahahaha does she know about that picture? I dont think she would be okay with you sending it if she knew what she looked like in that picture. :) My second favorite person in that picture is Sam. He looks like one of those American Girl dolls. ahaha. and Kyle and Ben naka-bro tanks, steezin and breezin. "naka-" is tagalog for like "wearing" lol quick tagalog lesson. and Dad in case you didnt know, "steezin" is swag language for like "handsome" ahahahahahaha. in tagalog its "pogi" pronounced like "pogey" hard g. like it rhymes with bogey. like one above par. in golf.

ANYWAYS, this week was pretty average in my Filipino life! Wednesday was transfer day! AND

I wasnt transferred. neither was Elder Matina. so no changes there. ahaha. BUT one of the elders in our house was transferred! remember the little filipino, Elder Tinasas? he was our district leader, but he got called to transfer and become a Zone leader! so Elder Haufano's new companion is Elder Mauvesi, straight outta Fiji! He's super cool. And Elder Matina was called to be our new district leader! So now our house has all foreigners, no filipinos, a Canadian (me) an American-Samoan (Elder Matina) a New Zealander (Elder Haufano) and Fijian! Its like an islander party plus me because I'm from good old Canada! and now our district, which consists of us 4 and 4 sister missionaries, is almost totally foreign also! only one filipina. theres 2 Samoan sisters (one from australia) an American and a Filipina. its like a foreigner party! MISTER WORLDWIDE

just kidding thats Pitbull and hes the worst rapper ever created.

speaking of rappers, Danny Brown fixed his teeth?! thats like illegal! Ben Kyle you guys know Crooked Smile by J. Cole? that song is all about J. Cole not fixing his teeth! Dangit Danny.

ANYWAYS, another cool thing about his week is that the sister missionaries in our district so lovingly invited us to their baptism on Saturday. When me and Elder Matina showed up, they handed us the program and well would you look at that! Elder Matina and I were just coincidentally assigned to speak at the baptism ahaha. So we had about 0 minutes preparation, Elder Matina spoke on baptism and the holy ghost, and I spoke on enduring to the end. in complete tagalog because we're tagalog bosses now. Elder Matina is still better than me, but I think I'm closing the gap! I'm getting much better, noticeably better.

Also tell Ben and Sam I mailed them each a letter this week! I also mailed Grammy and Pops a letter, and you guys (Mom and Dad) too! I'm sorry for everyone who is there that I didnt mail a letter to, if you want one, I would be happy to send one! Especially you, Spencer Larson. and you Kyle Pilcher. and you Brayden and Payton Orwat. and everyone else too yay!

I miss all you guys a whole lot! Everyone there! Mom and Dad and Ben and Sam and Dylan and Nana and Auntie Jen and Uncle Ron and Auntie Mia and Uncle Robert and Mama Orwat and Brayden and Payton and especially Grammy and Pops oh and Spencer Larson!