Week 12: Mission Christmas Party

Family! Hey there! I'm here!

It really is the Christmas season! I miss that familiar hustle and bustle around the house at this time. Nothing's changed here! Although, yesterday,we did have a Mission Christmas party! Every missionary in the whole Cavite Mission! It was tons of fun. We had a small gift exchange (I gave an R&B Christmas Hits album, and received a dispicable me mug and double a batteries ahaha), played games, had a zone talent show, had a devtional and a picture slideshow which Sister Tye said she was going to put on the Cavite Mission facebook page, so look out for that. I am featured in it multiple times. :) Anyways, that's why I couldn't email you yesterday! Our P-day was switched to today (Tuesday), just for this week.

Again, just remember that I did read the whole email you guys sent me but I cannot reply to everything! Just know that I did read it and I miss you guys! 

This week is about to be very busy! Tomorrow, we have a transfer meeting, and Elder Zacarias is getting transferred! Actually, he's training a new missionary again! Crazy. Which means I will be staying in Bacoor, but will be getting a new companion! I guess his name is Elder Acosta, I haven't met him yet, but I've heard good things about him. I will be the junior companion still, but I'll be leading the area! I'm really nervous. Hopefully I've listened and understood enough of the Tagalog I've heard from our investigators to know whats going on around here. ahahah. We have at least two investigators who are really progressing and on their way to baptism right now. One is a 54 year old man named Allen and the other is a 9 year old boy named John! John's mom and dad and older brother are actually members, but after his older brother was baptized, they fell into inactivity so John was never baptized. But they have started coming to church again and he is really looking forward to his baptism! If he is baptized, it will be a completed family and a less active family brought back into activity! It's really great. But now since Elder Zacarias is leaving, it's up to me to finish up his teaching and get him baptized! That's what's making me nervous, I'm getting a whole lot more responsibility, which is great! But it'll be tough. but I'm up for it, I think I can do this! With Heavenly Father's help obviously haha.

Anyways, I'll send some pictures now! Not a whole lot to say this week.

Oh, first! So about skyping on Christmas! So there is one internet shop where I would be able to skype, but its not private, it would be very weird. But I'd be okay with it! So we can definitely skype. It would probably be around 10 o'clock here, which would be Christmas eve around 7 o'clock in Flag. If it's better, I could actually skype you guys on the 26th, which would make it Christmas night there? Tell me what the better date is for me to skype on. I would also really love to talk with Maddie, so maybe you guys could have her over at the house for just like an hour on Christmas eve?  I guess I'll have to make a skype account next week though. no worries, everything should work out fine. It would be great if you guys could contact Maddie and make sure if it's okay for her to come over for an hour or two on Christmas eve though!

I love and miss you guys!

Love

Elder Lasley :)

 Elder Fernando! He's from Sri Lanka and goes home tomorrow. Yay!

 I haven't seen any giant spiders here yet (I've heard they can be as big as my hand) but I did see this massive grasshopper bigger than my thumb that could probably kill me if it wanted to ahahaha

Elders of Bacoor District

 My lunch (ArmyNavy burger and burrito)

 Some dope graffiti

Week 11: 10 Kilos of Spagehetti

Family!

First of all, I'm so sorry about last week! We had a Zone Activity in Tagaytay City again, so we had to email from 9 until 10 in the morning and i hadn't received any emails from you guys, so I didn't want to write you guys unless I had something to reply to, so I asked the zone leaders if I would be allowed to finish my emailing after the activity, at around 8pm and they said that would be fine. so after the zone activity, I guess without me knowing, elder zacarias planned a lesson that we had to go to. We actually aren't suppossed to work on p-days where we have zone activities, so when he told me we had an appointment, I was pretty unhappy. so I said "alright lets go, we need to make it quick so I can finish my emails" but nope it wasn't quick, it didn't end until 10pm, so I didn't get a chance to email you guys! I was not happy. I love hearing from you guys! 

anyways, about the zone activity, it was a blast! I love hanging out with the other missionaries in our zone. we went to tagaytay city again, but this time we went to a different area of the city and it was absolutely beautiful! about half way through, a cloud blew into the park we were at and it got totally foggy. we couldn't see about 50 feet in front of us, it was wild. and the wind picked up and it started raining, it was crazy! I'll send some pics a little bit later.

Thanksgiving sounded like a blast! what a crazy couple days. I would've loved to have been there with all you guys! Thanksgiving here was just a normal day. we didn't even eat well haha. that friday though the bishop took us out to dinner at yellowcab! its a pizza place and I'm pretty sure they have them in the US? anyways, it was pretty awesome. A funny story about church on Sunday now! So in elders quorum, of what I could understand, we were discussing a ward Christmas lunch that was to be had after church the next week (yesterday) and everyone was yelling out foods that should be brought. I guess, everyone was yelling out foods they were going to bring, which I didn't understand, I just thought they were yelling out foods that should be brought by someone, so I raised my hand and yelled "10 kilos of spaghetti!" because everyone was yelling 10 kilos of the different foods. so the elders quorum president said "okay elder missionaries will bring 10 kilos of spaghetti!" and I was very shocked because I was not expecting that I would bring the spaghetti so I said "oh what no on I cant do that!" so he said "alright, not 10 kilos, but you're bringing spaghetti." and I kind of shrunk down in my seat like "oh my what did I just get myself into" and the other 3 missionaries told me they weren't gonna help me, so I was even more sad ahahah.

anyways, that week was very normal. the next story I will tell you about happened yesterday actually, it was an awesome day!

So, on Saturday night, Elder Zacarias and I went to the grocery store so I could buy my materials needed to make spaghetti. so I bought two kilos of noodles, two kilos of sauce, and a kilo of ground pork! it cost a good chunk of my support money so i wanted it to be awesome.

so the next day, we had church at 8:30am! and I was told I would be able to cook the spaghetti at the church because the lunch was at 11:30am, so I brought the 5 kilos of ingredients to church! oh and before church we picked up an investigator and walked probably about 2 miles with a 10 pound backpack ahaha not fun. anyways, apparently, whoever was supposed to bring the stove so we could cook our spaghetti, forgot to. so we were frantically running around trying to find a place where we could cook my dang spaghetti! but to no avail :( we ended up not even cooking it for the lunch, so all my preparation had gone to waste. it was literally heartbreaking. 

so i ate the Christmas lunch in shame. without spaghetti. anyways, after the lunch, we had ward coordination meeting with all of the ward missionaries! so we talked about stuff and it was great and then, since elder zacarias had to go to another zone to do some baptismal interviews, we split! I went with 4 ward missionaries and he went with one. Me and the 4 went to two investigators houses and had two great lessons! it was a huge huge HUGE help having the ward missionaries there, mostly because they could speak fluent tagalog and I still sound like a 5 year old child ahaha. we went to one investigator who we've been teaching for like 3 months now and should've been baptized 2 months ago but we've had to delay and delay because she recently gave birth, and now she cant be baptized until shes married to the baby daddy! and it isn't looking good. apparently she is a Malaysian citizen and has overstayed her welcome in the philippines so if they try to go to the city and get the marriage paperwork done and stuff, they will find out shes an illegal alien and she may be deported or have to serve jail time. its a HUUUUUGE deal and we just have no idea what to do. we're just gonna let it simmer for a while.

anyways, after that appointment, we went to another appointment at this area where a whole bunch of children (and their families, but we only teach the children) live and we teach them all pretty often,. so we taught them and it went great and in the middle of the lesson two kids found a frog and were poking it with a stick and throwing it and stuff so i saved a frogs life and told them to put in back in the water ahahaha it was funny. i was like steve irwin. after both those lessons, we went to the house of a member and COOKED MY SPAGHETTI finally! it wasn't to waste! it was awesome. us 4 missionaries and 8 ward missionaries ate 2 kilos of spaghetti and just had fun and talked and laughed and it was a blast!

the rest of the work has been quite normal, always spiritual, but no specific stories to tell. I'll especially look for one this week though and I'll send a story next week! Transfer day is in a week and 2 days! I may be transferred to a different area! holy cow it's scary! and we have a mission Christmas party on the 16, that'll be a blast too. these next few weeks should be awesome!

I love to hear about family matters! I miss you guys a lot. everyone looks great! even "Adam" ;) ahahah thanks for including me! 

anyways, that's all for this week, I'll send some pictures and answer some questions from dads email now. I love you guys! 

Love, Elder Lasley

Week 9: Exchanges and Balut

Mom! Dad! Family! Hey!

Greetings from the big P. I. yeaaaaahhhh boiiiiiii ahahah anyways...

This week has been great! 

First before I forget, the package got here on November 16! But I wasn't able to open it until yesterday ahahah. because, they kept it at the mission office for almost a week because they thought it was for Christmas! So a missionary told me there was a package for me at the mission office so I asked them to pick it up for me which they did! And then I opened it last night and we had some fun ahahha. Thank you guys so much! Some American snacks, well French I guess, were great. I already finished a box of the petite ecolier ahaha and the peach gunmmies! Don't worry, I shared. I gave my housemates and Elder Zacarias each a Santa hat and signed them each "from Elder Lasley" ahaha and put up the Christmas stickers and lights in our study room! its very festive.

I went to a funeral on Saturday night, a very strange experience. there was an open casket and everything! It was for the 38 year old son of a member. He passed away from heart complications due to a heart condition and pneumonia. I told Elder Zacarias I had had pneumonia before and he said "and you didn't die? oh wow!" ahaha I don't know if he knows it's not like a deadly fatal illness. Anwyays, funerals here are very strange! There's obviously mourning and consolation and all, but afterwards, everyone stay up all night and gambles, talks, joke and laughs and play cards and stuff ahaha it's so weird. I told Elder Zacarias what funerals are like in America and he was shocked ahaha.

I'll tell you one story about one of our investigators! So his name is Peter and we've been teaching him for a while actually. Just a few weeks ago, we started hearing rumors from his friends that we would see occasionally that he was involved in a homosexual relationship, that's why he was traveling to Manila so often, so we got a little bit worried. Anyways, last Monday, right before we were about to go and teach him, he texted us and said he didn't want to hear from us anymore! We were both shocked and sad and didn't know what to think! So three times this week we tried to contact him, but he wouldn't answer our calls, reply to our texts, and every time we visited, he wasn't home! So we just used our patience aahaha. and then the fourth time we went to his house, he was home! And he agreed to sit down and talk with us. During this time he explained that he was in Manila so often because he was in the process of applying and being interviewed for a job there! its a pretty good gig for him so we really hope he gets it. anyways, he explained that he said he didn't want to hear from us anymore because he was afraid getting this job would make him just too busy for any time to hear from us or read scriptures or pray. so we explained to him that if he gets the job, as long as he sincerely tries to read his scriptures and pray even just a little bit sometime during his hectic day, Heavenly father would provide a way for him to hear from us occasionally. he really loves our message and the gospel and we really hope he continues to try hard to choose the right and read the scriptures and we look forward to times when we can hear from him!

oh! also! i had the opportunity to go on two companion exchanges recently! one with our zone leader, Elder Grant, who's from Valencia California! we made great friends and we talk whenever we can haha, we have a lot of the same interests. it was a lot of fun! and the other was with a Filipino named Elder Hora who did not speak very good English at all. he spoke 4 other filipino dialects, but english just did not come easily. so it was a bit of a challenge, but it really improved my understanding skills. I walked by faith a lot that day ahahaha because I just couldn't understand him a lot ahaha but it was a great experience.

sounds like life at home is awesome! I miss you all and just the usual home life ahaha. but its great here still!

I would've loved to help coach Sam's team ahaha that sounds like a blast. I found a Versace shirt at a thrift store here! I'm not sure if its real or not, but I bought it just in case.and that highschool NJB sounds awseome too. Ben and Kyle and Brad are gonna have a blast!

Thanksgiving in Palm Springs sounds like its gonna be great! I'm jealous! I would love to be in Palm Desert with the family, they don.t celebrate thanksgiving here abviously, but maybe I'll convince everyone to help me buy a chicken or something for dinner ahaha.

yeah I do remember meeting her! congratualtions Austin! that's awesome! oh the Johnson family is gonna be crazy this year ahahah.

oh what that's so cool! I miss Jeffrey and his antics ahaha. i hope to see him when I get home! you should tell him to write me a letter! it takes about three weeks to get here, but that's okay ahahah.

anyways, I miss you guys a lot! I love you all! eat an extra plate for me on Thanksgiving! you know how much i like food haha.

Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Lasley :)

 

And heres your's truly :) 

and a two year old daughter of a recent convert named Princess! We were playing some Barbies. I don't know why but any of her barbies have clothes.

 

This is a very weird food I ate here this week! It's called Balut and it's a fertilized duck egg and you just eat everything in the egg.

 

 Here is the baby duck that I ate!