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!

 

 

These Ants are Terrorists

 

Our Zone

 

 Me and Elder Matinas

 Me, Elder Matinas and Elder Iraolas

 My Ghetto Breakfast:  Corn flakes and Syrup

 Jeepnie

 Hoodrats

 My Spirit Cat

March 9: Mission Tour

Hey Dad and family!

Hows the fam?! Things are going great here in Dasma! sorry I dont really have any wild stories this week, it was a regular, normal, same ole, same ole week for a missionary here in the Philippines! Oh but I do need to ask you guys something. So on Wednesday, I recieived a package from Maddie (yay) which was sent on december 12 (ages ago) I only just got it because it was in customs for like a month, they opened it and everything because it was fairly large, luckily thy didnt take anything, but they did charge me 3444 pesos for the customs fee, which is about 80 dollars, and I have to pay it to the mission office on wednesday, so I was wondering, should I withdraw the money from my wells fargo bank card? or should I pay for it using mission funds? if I pay for it with mission funds, I get a docked support fund every support cycle for 3 support cycles, which means I will have less money to pay for food and transportation and other necessities. I was thinking taking it out of my bank card would be better, but what do you guys think?

 

anyways, besides that, its still really hot here, but it did rain on wednesday! maybe rainy season is comin early this year (hopefully)

I wrote some letters to Ben and Sam and I'll send them out on wednesday so tel them to expect them! yay!

 

Ben is just getting cooler and cooler  holy cow what an animal, playin lacrosse and showin fools up! thats my brother out there!

Sam is still doin his thang, ballin hard, how many girlfriends does he currently have? dang whata stud

the house looks awesome! I'd like to see a picture of the inside when its complete! I'm excited to come home to such a changed house ahaha. Niles sounds like same ole Niles, and I hope Jasmine and Kitty are doin their things too! I miss all the animals ahaha.

Oh my I almost forgot! ON wednesday we had this thing called mission tour, which is when an area president from the 70 comes and tours all the missions in the philippines! so Elder Neilson of the 70 and the Philippines area presidency came to the cavite mission and we had a huge devotional that lasted like 5 hours where we got to hear Elder Neilson speak about missoinary work and other things and also from President Tye and Sister Tye and Elder Neilsons wife! It was a great experience and very spiritual. it was with about half the mission too, so there was a lot of people there (he did two, one the next day for the other half of the mission).

that is about the only major happening this week.

I haven't tried any new foods lately, but I'm always open to new ones! I'll keep you guys posted.

that spider was about the size of my hand! and they get bigger!

ahaha 8:00 is usually a last-lesson appointment because curfew is 9:30 ahah, so its a convenient time for us missionaries. I do look very forward to Mother's day when I will be skyping (yes it most likely will be on mothers day!) I'm excited to see you guys again! 

Have a great week all of you, I love you guys and miss you! Stay golden Lasley family.

Now I'll send some pictures!

Love, your son,

Elder Lasley! :)

 

 Me and a Cow

 Sunset

 Always try to be Christ-like

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 :)

Family Home Evening

Elder Tinasas

My District

Selfie

Cool Photo

Giant Spider:  Big as My Hand