Hey again family!!

So I cant believe that I'm sitting here E-mailing you all again. It feels like it was just yesterday that we had our P-Day its so crazy how time is flying by. So there are computer shops all over the place here since hardly anyone owns their own computer so we have to pay 12 pisos an how for internet each week. It usually costs about 20 to 25 pisos for each of us. We are very far from the MTC and also the mission home. This week we had to go to the mission home for our interviews with the president. Some of the Elder in our district along with us rode the LRT. Its just a train that takes you long distances in a very short period of time. It is also very cheap. 10 pisos per ride but it is also very very crowded. There were tons of people just all smashed together in the trains we couldn't even move there were so many people. My talk yesterday went great I spoke on missionary work. It was very short only a 7-10 minute talk. My companion and me work really well together. And out shower has 3 buckets a big one with all the water then a small bucket with a handle which we use to scoop and pour the water. Then another bucket we use to fill the large bucket. And yes my showers are always very cold but I've gotten use to it and its actually nice since we sweat all day long plus our apartment doesn't have air conditioning. 

We have had several really good lessons this week along with our two baptisms. We had a few really slow days though where we just didn't get to teach. Pam is the girl who was baptized this week. Here grandfather baptized her and I baptized Johnlery Rosario Regadio who is the one in the picture. We have several investigators right now who we feel will get baptized within the next few months. Hopefully they will be baptized but its really hard to meet with people here since everyone is always so busy. But we do our best and we always have good numbers at the end of each week.We had family home evening with Brother Jared and Sister Exyl this week. Brother Jared's brother, who is inactive came, and Sister Exyl invited a friend. It was an amazing experience especially since we could see the joy that family home evening brought to all of them. Several of the less active members here who we have been visiting were at church yesterday which was great. 

So there are trikes and Jeepnys everywhere. Its basically how everyone gets around. The trikes are so fun to ride in and the jeepny is usually very crowded. We don't ride in them a lot just because we usually walk everywhere in our area.

Well there is so much I still want to say but don't have time for especially since I have to do some assessment or something today while we are on the computers.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

- Elder Jones

Hello Family

So this week has been great we are so busy everyday. I cant believe that its already P-day again it doesn't feel like its been that long since the last P-day. So my companions name is Elder Villan he is from the Philippines. Hes really helping me with the language and he gives me plenty of opportunities to teach in the lessons. My tagalog is getting better very fast. So I hand washed my clothes for the first time today. It took a while but after a while ill get better at it. We have two baptisms on Saturday. Brother John Larry is an investigator we have been working with for a couple months and Pam is a teenager whose older sister and younger brother were baptized already. Brother Jared is a less active that we go and see every other day. His girlfriend Sister Exyl is one of our new progressing investigators. They came to church yesterday it was great. We were concerned about her getting baptized since they live together and aren't married but we asked her to be baptized and she said yes and we also found out that they are getting married in January so shes going to work to be baptized right after that. Finding out that they were getting married so soon was an answer to our prayers. We are going to Brother Jared and Sister Exyl home tonight for Family Home Evening with them and their kids. We taught another new investigator this week who seems very interested his name is JR. I invited him to be baptized and he said he would if he comes to find that the church is true. We gave him a book of mormon and hopefully hes been reading. Yesterday after church we had an amazing lesson. We went to a family whose less active and only part member. One of the sisters who is not active is married to a non member and her parents were there too. Her parents are active. We taught her husband the restoration and shared a 20 minute video with them about the restoration. Her husband brother Edward, who is not a member, was very interested. We asked him to be baptized at the end of next month and he said he would work towards it and be baptized. His wife also said she has really been wanting to return to church but just hasn't. After the lesson her dad came up to us with a tear in his and and said "Thank You" We are also teaching a lot of other people right now. 

We haven't had any dinner appointments yet but our first one is on Wednesday.  I'm also giving a talk this Sunday in our ward and I just shared my testimony yesterday in the ward. Ill get the mailing address to you next week I don't have it memorized. But its the Mission home that you send it to. 

I LOVE YOU ALL 

Its so fun here in the Philippines I'm glad this is were I get to serve. Good Job Taylor I cant wait to see it when I get home. I love you all and I'm so happy to hear from you. Get well soon Caden Basketball season is here! HAHA! Tell Marc and Teri hi for me along with the rest of their Family. Have a great week!

Hello Guys

So being out of the MTC is amazing so far. My companion is great he is from the Philippines and speaks 7 languages. English, Tagalog, and 5 other dialects here in the philippines. Its really hard being a missionary here when its so hard to communicate. My Tagalog is improving everyday but they say it takes about 6 months to get it down. One of the hardest things is the sentence structure. Is reversed from English you say the verb first and then you just say the main words that are connected with a linker. Its hard to explain but after a while is actually easy to get the hang of. We have several investigators an some with baptismal dates but right now the numbers in our area are down because the missionary here before me just went home and since he only had a few weeks left he slacked off and was disobedient. My companion and I are working very hard to get the numbers up. We met a family the other day who is going to let us come teach them this week and when we went to go see them yesterday we met the people who live right by them who also has allowed us to go teach them. So we have two potential investigators which are both families. We mainly teach a lot of less active members because we are short on investigators. 

The city is crazy I have never walked so close to moving cars before. There are homeless people everywhere and when we are proselyting at night we see homeless people sleeping on cardboard boxes in the streets. The neighborhoods are crazy. The homes here are super small and most are old. We teach one family who is active except one of them who we are trying to get to come back to church who lives in a home the size of my bedroom. When out on the streets we walk in small ally ways that lead to neighborhoods that are like giant apartment complexes made of falling apart concrete, rotten wood, rusted metal slats, and some even have portions constructed out of blankets. Of course there are some here who live in nicer conditions but nothing like at home. Our apartment is super nice though. Our shower doesn't work so we shower with a bucket of cold water but our apartment is large and clean without any cockroaches ( mga ipis) We eat rice and oatmeal everyday and rarely get dinner appointments. 

We saw General conference yesterday it was great I took notes on every talk and learned a lot. A bunch of the members from this stake and all the missionaries met at the church to watch conference all day. Some of the sisters made us all food and yes it was rice. So my new p day is Monday so I wont be emailing on Fridays anymore and the days are going by so fast its crazy. I feel like we are back in bed 4 or 5 hours after we woke up. 

The other day someone called me Jo that's what us american are referred to here and some one yelled out "Welcome to the Philippines" as I walked by. Also little kids will chase us and say "look americano americano!" 

Things are great here right now Im working hard to learn the language but still of course have a long way to go. I LOVE YOU ALL AND CANT WAIT TO HEAR FROM YOU AGAIN!!!!!! GOOD JOB on your castle Rylee and on your cake Devon!!! I cant wait to try it save some for when I get home!! 

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Kumusta Pamilya!

How are things going back at home!?

 

Thingsare great here! we leave the MTC here in the next couple days and go out into the field. Im really excited especially after going proselyting in Manila the other day. My companion and me went proselyting with another Elder named Elder Belnap  who leaves to go home the day we leave the MTC. It was sooo fun! We left a church building in Manila and walked for about 20 minutes over to an area where him and his companion are teaching! Let me tell you there is a very distinct smell in Manila every 10 to 20 feet its crazy and usually its not a pleasant smell! There are also people all over the place and traffic is crazy. We just walk in between moving traffic to get across the street so cars literally pass us just a foot away or so. They honk to let you know they are coming but it is so busy. There is also trash every where. There was a corner where a building was knocked over and there were still three walls but the entire things was  filled with trash. Im pretty sure thats where a bunch of people just take their trash each week! Our first lesson was with a family whose parents are members but arent active. The dad is a drug addict and the mother supports the family. When we got there the dad was sleeping and the two little boys had just gotten home from school. The mother has been going to church with the boys but the father doesnt go. The two boys, one is 9 and the other is 10, are getting baptized this weekend so we taugh them about reading the Aklat Ni Mormon ( Book of Mormon) and Panalangin (prayer). We went to two lessons after that who werent home but our last lesson was with a recent convert and we taught her about reading the Aklat Ni Mormon, Ang Plano Ng Kaligtasan (The Plan of Salvation) and Ikapu (Tithing). We just reviewed the  Aklat Ni Mormon, Ang Plano Ng Kaligtasan but actually taught her about Ikapu. It was a really goo lesson! Im soooo excited to enter the field this next week Manila is such an amazing place. During our sveral hours of proselyting we also ran into about 7 new converts. In the past several months there has been over 12 new converts just in one area from these two Elders! Its soo cool to see how the church is growing here. The people in Manila also love the elders one person yelled Gwapo from a jeepme which means handsome while he was pointing at us elders.

 

After Proselyting we all jumped in the cars and left to the MTC and it took us 4 hours to get back because of the rain. It started raining and within 20 minutes there was about 2 feet of water in some areas so even though we were 45 minutes away from the MTC it took us 4 hours to get home. And ya motorcycles in the rain the philippines has a solution!! A PONCHO!! HAHA! People still ride their motorcycles here in the rain they just put a poncho on. Same with riding a bike.

 

This week has been great Ive been learning a lot and we are starting to get ready to leave the MTC. We finished a bunch of our classes so now we just have hours of study time everyday and our lessons have gotten really good! We teach almost 100% of our lessons in taglish not quite tagalog but we are getting there! All of our investigators have been coming to church and Adam has a baptismal date! Remember this is all just practice not yet the real thing!

 

Our district is awesome all of us are really close and we joke around and tease eachother as well! Dont worry we always get our work done! We have two sisters from Australia, and a couple from Samoa Tonga, and one from Hawaii. Most of the Elders are from the states but one is from Samoa and one is from Tonga its so cool we are all really good friends. Our teachers are also really cool. Our teachers are Brother Alcibor and Sister Baraquiel. Both of them are from the Philippines of course and they are so funny they make class so enjoyable even thoug its the same thing over and over and over again! Thers so much that happens in a week that I dont even know waht all to say.

 

So the sentence structure here in the philippines is V A O L. Verb Actor ObjectLocation. So the verb is the first thing in each sentence and depending on whether you are focusing on the Actor Object or Location the sentence structure changes which also means you have to use different conjugations. So there is the root word and to make it past present or future there are diffierent conjugations but there are differnet conjugationsfor each sentence structure and they can only be used on certain verb roots. I hope thats makes sense.

 

So sorry for all the misspellings but this language is really messing with my spelling since some words have about 5 a's in them even though there are only 8 letters total.

 

Im having so much fun here and cant wait to enter the field we got to go to the temple again today which was awesome. I have so many experiences and oh ya we drove by a Lomborghini dealership where there was also a Porsche, Bently, Masarrati, BMW and Audi dealership right by it! It was so cool! We also saw a Mcclaren the other day on the road it was the one we saw at the race track.

 

I will talk to you all again next week!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!! BYE!!

HELLO FAMILY!

 

So we are now the senior batch here in the MTC which means in less then 2 weeks we will be leaving and entering the Manila Philippines Mission!!! Im so excited to get out into the field especially after proselyting the other day! We traveled out into the Quezon City mission and met up with some elders that had been in the field for a while and went out with the in their areas! I went with Elder Anderson who is from Canada and we rode in a jeepme! My first time riding in one and it was sooo fun! HAHA! They are extremely hot though and the weather was crazy that day! It was reaining when we left the church building and then stopped raining about 20 minutes into the proselyting! It got super hot. Then later it started raining again and then stopped and got super hot again! The weather changes so much here and so fast. Anyway we went into an area where people live in homes the size of Cadens and Devons room that has a uneven concrete floor with dirt and the foundation is built out of woot that is now rotten and held together with rusty nails and screws! Then they will put metal slats on the outside of the home for walls! No carpet, hardly any lights, a floor that is falling apart, and walls that are made of rotten wood! It really makes you understand how lucky we are for what we have. I cant believe some of the living conditions here. OHH and lots and lots of cats! I saw about 30 to 40 cats in that one area that were all just skin and bones! Thats like the really poor area of the philippines but still just a humbling experience! Elder Anderson and I had the opportunity to actually teach a lesson to a women and her granchildren! He taught most of the lesson but I said the opening prayer and shared a little bit with her in tagalog!

 

Learning the language is actually getting much easier! Im able to learn words, memorize commintments and learn the sentence structures a lot faster than before. Yesterday I memorized "Susudin mo po ang mga bawat ng diyos?" which is "Will you follow the laws of God?" and "Luluhod ka po at mananalangin araw-araw nang mag-isa at kasama ang pamilya?" which is " will you kneel and pray with your companion and family everyday?" It only took me 5 minutes to memorize both of those! Then I used them in our lesson with Adam which went great! He has commited to a baptismal date and our lessons have really gotten better. Our first lesson stunk and now we are confident and are really able to teach well and in taglish. Which is tagalog and english mixed! My companion has improved a lot this week. He uses his time more wisely and has really improved in his tagalog! Its really nice because I see a difference in our lessons now that he is just as focused as Iam! We are both learning a lot and Im glad that we are MTC companions.

 

Im not one of the shortest ones here! IT just depends the missionaries from all over the world are usually the same height as me. some a little taller and some are shorter. But the Philippino Elders are all really short! When we went proselyting I felt so tall beacuse everyone was only like 5 feet tall and some were like 5 foot 6 inches but most of them are shorter then me! And when we went proselyting we just cross roads as we wish. There are no stop signs or cross walks so you just cross and everyone who is driving just stops. So we were walking in between moving cars that were inches away from us its crazy! HAHA! But its also really fun to be out in the city!

 

There are some historical sights here a couple weeks ago we went to a cemetery for American soldiers from World War 2! There was 17,097 soldiers buried there and a wall of rememberance that had 36,286 names of soldiers who went missing in action! It was crazy! It was called the Manila American Cemetery and Mermorail.  It was really cool to get to go there.

 

Oh so we all feel like were are in the CIA here! We have security cards to get into the buildings and basically all the doors have a scanner that requires a security card in order to get past. Plus we walk around in ties and collared shirts all day and we use our security card as gun since it hangs from our belt on a string that retracts. Its so fun here at the MTC. Im learning so much and I love every minute of it. We have a lot of fun and a lot of good conversations. I love my district which I sent a picture of us all right after our temple session today. Our teachers are also way awesome! There are both super funny and are really good at helping us understand the language!

 

The old senior batch just left on Wednesday which stinks because we really got to know all those Elders and had good friendships with them all! Mof them also played basketball so now we are down to about 12 people that play instead of 25. But the new batch just came in today and hopefully some of them play ball. But this new batch was actually really small which was very surprising! So the night before the new batch left some of the seniors had a testimony meeting in their room! It was amazing and definitely one of my most spiritual experieences this week. Over 20 Elders crammed themsleves in this tiny room and we started with a song and pray then some of the Elders from the senior and middle batch shared their testimony. Its amazing to hear what some of these guys have gone through and to hear their testimony just strenghtened mine! It was a great time and a memory that I will never forget. After the testimony meeting there is something here called the brotherhood that a senior batch started 8 batches ago. Basically your initiation is a hand shake and once a member of the brotherhood always a member. And the brotherhood is basically we are all brothers and no matter what you are going through at any moment in your life you always have your brothers to back you up even though we here at this MTC are from all over the world! Its way cool!

 

I baught a book of mormon today thats in tagalog it also came with the doctrine and covenants and pearl of great price. It cost me 21.00 pisos which is about 48 cents. Its so cool how I was able to get it for so cheap along with everything else here. I spent 81 pisos today at rustans super market which is about $2. Its so wierd to look at skittles and see a 38.00 on the price. It seems like its so expensive but when you do the math its only like 90 cents. Its crazy!

 

Well we have dinner now so I have to go! I still have a bunch to tell you all but I write in my Journal daily so you can read it when I get home! I will write you all again next week! I LOVE YOU ALL AND PRAY FOR YOU EACH AND EVERYDAY!! Good job on everything you are doing! I wish I could see your new trick Rylee! I LOVE YOU CADEN, DEVON, RYLEE, TAYLOR AND MOM AND DAD!!! I MISS YOU ALL A LOT!!!

Hello Family

 

I hope you guys got the pictures I sent to you!

 

This week was really good we had a ton of fun and learned a bunch! The days are getting really repetitive just because our schedule is the exact same everyday! But we make the best of it and we have so much time to study each day its great! Im learning so much and my testimony is strenghtening so much and Im only in the MTC. Honestly I cant wait to get out into the field. After feeling the spirit the way I have this week Im so excited to share this gospel with the people of the Philippines! We are the middle batch right now and next week the senior batch leaves which means we will be the senior batch and will only have about two weeks left here in the MTC! I know that Im going to learn so much more out in the field and its going to be so amazing!

 

So we learned this week that here in Manila it rains sooooo much! Its been raining for over 12 hours now and its still raining! I heard that theres a possible typhoon coming into this area but I dont think it we really affect us here at the MTC if there really is a typhoon! So we just got back from the temple and we had to run over there in the rain and back so we were all soaked but were pretty much dry now! I love this weather!

 

Everyday we play basketball in the gym and its so fun! The only thing is the humidity! And Ive also been doing pushups crunches and some other work outs everynight before I go to bed. Its cool now all the Elders in my room expect for a couple work out everynight its fun! HAHA! We all also write in our journals everynight! I havent missed a single day of writing in my journal since Ive been here which is great! Its really becoming a habit!

 

Im starting to get a hang of teaching progressing investigators. Its getting easier and I feel my comfortable doing it. Because of some of the experiences Ive had doing it I am now really looking forward to entering the field and teaching real investigators. My companion is a good Elder but because the MTC is acutall a really hard place to focus he messes around a lot. Im not trying to be mean but our lessons have suffer a couple times because of it! I try my best to use my time wisely and Ive been trying to get him to do the same! Hes been getting better but theres still some work to be done! Im actually really thankhful for it because it making me a stronger missionary, teacher, and person. 

 

Again this week we had some more opportunities to gibve preisthood blessings! Some of the sisters in our district got sick and we were able to give them blessings it was a great experience. 

 

My tagalog is getting better and Im learning a lot of new words but again I feel like I will learn so much fatser in the field because I will be communicating in tagalog. Here at the MTC there is still a lot of english because everyone here can speak it. Im looking forward to learning this language and I cant wait to be able to speak it!

 

Time is still going bu extremely fast here! It feels like I was just on the plane a couples days ago on my way here and now we are about to be the sneior batch! 

 

I hope everything is going great at home!! I MISS you all and love being able to email you guys! I love being a missionary and am looking forward for the next two years. Alam Ko po na (I know that) This Simbahan (church) is the totoo (true) Simbahan on the Diagdig (earth) today. Make sure you guys are praying and reading your scriptures each night because it truely doesn make a huge difference! I have had the spirit with me so much this week and feel the spirit often! LOVE YOU ALL!!! 

KUMUSTA PAMILYA!! (Hello Family)

 

So this week at the MTC went by so fast it was crazy!! I woke up the other day and thought it was wednesday but it wasnt!! It was thursday!! I cant believe how fats time is going here at the MTC! Everyday Is super busy with Ebanghelyo (Gospel) studay and language study!! We have way more langauage study then gospel study just because we are here for 6 weeks! The langauge isnt to hard to learn. Some of the words can be difficult but the sentence structure is super simple! We just need to practice a lot more.The sntence structure is backwards so learning this language is messing with our english! We all speak english backwards now its funny! So all the regualr training missionaries as well as the senior batch of the Language training missionaries just left the other day and for dalawa (two) days there were only about 4 districts in the MTC it was so nice! But today a new batch came in. The biggest batch to enter this MTC with about 120 missionaries! Here we get missionaries from all other the place! There are tons of philippino missionaries and some from Australia, Tonga, Samoa, New Zealand, Fiji and today we got some from Pakistan and India. Now there are a bunch of missionaries here at the MTC. So my kasama (Companion) and I are already teaching tatlo (three) investigators and its difficult to teach because they just speak in tagalog! But we are always reminded that when we are teaching the is only one langauge and it is the language of the spirirt. One of our progressing investigaors is named Adam. This is all acting and pretending so its not real. But we had an awesome lesson the other day with Adam! We taught him about the plan of salvation. At theend I bore my testimony on the plan of asvlation and my kasama started to cry and our investigator Adam almost cried! The spirit was sooo strong it was crazy! Adam is totally going to get baptized! I invited him to get baptized and he said he would. By the way I already have the baptismal invitaion memorized in tagalog. I dont know if I told you guys that last time. Also read 2 Nephi kabanata (Chapter) 31. We invited adam to read it and I think that it was a great chapter to have him read! Its just a great chapter in general. 

 

Things are great here right outside our window is the city of Manila so our room basially over looks the city! Its a big and heavily crowded city! There are a bunch of skycrapers probably just as many cranes in the air as there are skyscrapers just cause they are building sooo much stuff here!! Oh and we asked what the minimum wage is here and its 10 pesos a day which is about $10 a day. Gas is also about a $1 a gallon and we can get candy bars for 8 pesos so about 20 to 30 cents. Its nice. Some of the other missionaries spend so much money here on p day. My campanion spend over 1000 pesos on our p day which is crazy! I dont spend nearly that amaount.

 

I havent been able so sent pictures cause there is no WIFI here at the MTC and the computers will only send isa (one) picture at a time and it takes forever! Im trying to send some right now! The rules here are really strict which it completely understandable. We arent allowed to chew GUM!! Which stinks because I use to crew gum ALL the time. So im going through withdrawls right now! HAHA!

 

We get an hour of gym everday and we always play basketball its so fun except the humidity makes us all sweat like crazy!

 

We also got to go to the Manila temple again this week! We go every P-day so we will get to go about 4 or 5 times while we are here in the MTC. Its really cool.

 

I read those letter you all wrote for me!! Salamat po (Thank you with respect) They were awesome to read I leave them in my bag in the envelope and they will stay there!

 

So today on our way to rustans the store thats right by the MTC I bought a ring that says Philippines Manila Mission and inside it says Elder Jones. I actually ordered it today it will be here next week! It will cost me 400 pesos or like $8. So it was worth it. There are these ladys that stand on the sidewalk everyday and sell CTR rings and mission rings. Its crazy how busy they are all the time!

 

There is so much thats happens in a week here so Im not sure if I wrote everything I wanted to.

LOVE YOU ALL!!! I cant wait to here from you next week!!!