Highlights of the Week

Monday, August 23, 2010

Hi Family,

The Baptism was good, isa lamang (one only).

The First presidency has said Preach My Gospel contains everything that is needed to be a successful missionary. It is indeed a super useful and powerful tool. Cool. Preach Christ's Gospel is awesome!

We have branch council, but unfortunately it doesn't exactly consist of a large council. It is all the priesthood basically. Elder Perry, ako (me) at President Lopez and President Buscar (1st Counselor).

Mom, I enjoy the cooking tips. Just don't worry about me. I work hard. I am very grateful for you and dad and you two deciding to give up everything to get married in the temple. Everything that is good in our lives has stemmed from that decision. Everything good in our lives has come from this gospel of JC. Mom I am patwenty(going 20). Don't worry about me so much. Trust me. Trust in God. Thank you for letting me have this opportunity (spiritually, financially and physically) to serve the lord.

This week I got this a very sudden fever very very fast. I still worked the rest of the day though. I was fine kinda. I had pain relievers and fever reducers in my pack. I drank tons of water that night and went to bed. Then in the morning I was still sick. I asked for a blessing. President Lopez came over and gave me a blessing. While he was giving me a blessing I seriously started sweating like crazy!!! It blew my mind! Then I was fine. Then I looked at my leg and I saw a mosquito bite that I had turned into a rash... ibig sabihin.... nakadenge. denge. (Denge fever-mosquito bite related). what a joke. Denge has got nothing on the priesthood.

That was a little leavitous but here is what really happened and why I was healed
1. Prayer
2. Did everything I could to get better-water, medicine, payong (umbrella)
3. Had trust that I could be healed
(the items listed above is called faith)
4. Blessing ni President

so yeah... Mormon 9:8.... Did I mention I finished the the missionary reference library (our heritage, Jesus the Christ, etc.) The Book of Mormon and the New Testament in this transfer? It helps when you wake up to have an extra hour of study each morning. Heavenly Father has blessed me with the ability to wake up in the morning it's great.

I gave a talk on the known god on Sunday. I use the story of Paul and he talks about the unknown god. Acts 17. I will tell you my talk next week. I have no more time

here are some pics.

captions not in order
-Little Nenes are the freaking cutest. This one's name is Liahona... not violating the white handbook.... mother gave permission and she is not on my lap
-This tree is haunted apparently. people were freaking out....
-missionary pic
-some bridge it was cool
-I bought some Ube icecream it was great....

Sige, mahal ko kayo, (Love you guys,)
Elder Roxas

Realization

Monday, August 16, 2010

Dear Family,

Today I realized I went around the world for a cause and that I am in the Philippines. It feels kind of like a dream. This week was cool. I dont remember what has happened at all. This Saturday we will being having a baptismal service for a bunch of mga bata and one of our investigators. Out of the 10 baptismal goal dates for this Saturday only one progressed to baptism on the goal date. Its okay though. In 2 weeks we should have mga 3 more baptisms or something. We will see what happens.

Of course I use my daily planner. I use at least every 30minutes, or so it seems. They are mahalgang mahalaga (important) to missionary work.

We had zone con again this week. The food was delicious and they introduced a lot of new things. All missions sa buong (whole) world are going to change. Halimbawa (For example), Zone con is going to be once a quarter. The first presidency is going to be focusing on some things in pmg for the missions. It's cool. It will be good. The APs are cool. Two of them are going home last saturday. meaning they went home and are probably in the states right now. Elder Byers and Elder Scow. Elder Byers is a really good wrestler. Elder Scow goes to BYU and is going to be playing frisbee... He brought a frisbee on his mission by the way.

So... work is good. yeah.

Anyways Ingat
Elder Roxas

Mga balita dito...

Hello po sa pamilya ko. (Hi, family.)

Ummm I forgot to ask him actually.... but I am sure its fine... but I will still ask him at zone con.

nagpaprogress ang mga investigators ko... pero ngayon, sa palagay ko, isang lang ay magpaprogress sa pagpabinyag sa August 21st. A 15 year old babae named mellary. Actually I shouldn't say that... I think there are some others that might, but people have visyuis. We will see what happens. We had like 5 investigators at church. (My investigators are progressing. We have a set baptism on Aug. 21, a 15-year old girl name Mellary.) There might be others, but a lot of people here have vices.

We found a family this week, that I want to help so bad. It was a very spiritual experience.

Zone Interviews was good. The workshops were on extending the baptismal commitment. It was good.

Today we linised (cleaned) and the apartment to make it all dalisayed (beautiful). The members here probably like me. I wonder why?

I am so glad that I get to have filipino Nenes.... Little flip girls are really cute. I hope my pamangkin is a babae. (I wish I have a niece.)

Ummm.... ano pa? Tagalog is fun. Mom I am happy and healthy because I work hard. You wouldn't think of me as someone to work hard...

Paalam pamilya,
Elder Roxas

Galing sa iyong tahanan...

Monday, August 2, 2010

Magandang hapon po sa inyo (Good afternoon),

There has not been any bagyos (typhoons). The weather has been really nice actually, very temperate. Those checkered shorts are what I found in the free box in the MTC. If you look at past emails I think I mentioned it.

Maroon po kaming 7 baptismal goal dates right now for the end of the month and we should have mga (about)10 by the end of this week. We have mga 30 lessons a week. We need to be better then that though.

Yes Tumanggap ako ng ibang package. Salamat po. Masarap ang gronola bars. The almond creamy ones are good.

Thanks for the frisbee din. We used it today for our zone activity and it broke already actually... pero it was fun. Yeah so for our zone activity, all the other missionaries came up to infanta and pumunta tayo sa beach (went to the beach). We ate food... adobo and kanin(rice). masarap..(good). we threw some fris. Threw some rocks. Masaya talaga. (It was fun.) Now I am emailing. Then we have 2 appointments.

Noong Sabado(Last Saturday), we did some service in the kabundukan. There was a school up there we helped clean and what not. I carried desks from different places. I decided to carry 5 desks one of the times. It was astig. haha. No one else even carried 3 desks. haha. It was funny, sa palagay ko. Filipinos are funny. Today during the beach they were all afraid to go out into the sun. It was weird. All the Americans were just running around and throwing the fris and what not.

I have given all my candy away already. I didnt really eat any of it. Elder Perry enjoyed it though. My favorites are sour patch kids, kahit ano. haha salty things are a delight. Halimbawa Munchies... ;)

This week I have zone interviews with my mission president. That is about the only time I really get to talk to him. He is a good short man. All about work siya.

Masaya ang missionary work. (Missionary work is joyful.) It feels good to work and accomplish things. Like today, I feel like it was a very unproductive P-day. Like we did all our laundry and then we cleaned the apartment and then all the missionaries came up and we had our activity. We don't have much time to internet really and mamalangke (food shopping) and do those other prep things we do for the week, so now we will have to consolidate it during the week during our lunch times. Anyways.

All is well
Ingat po kayo.
Elder Roxas

Photo with Elder Judd

A Picture Says 1,000 Words

Monday, July 26, 2010

Kumusta na po kayo,

Yes, I am excited to stay with my trainer. He is a good lad. He went to Red Mountain High School and was in the Salt River Stake. We get along good.

The week was good. We had 5 good investigators at church. I had a lot of fun teaching this week. The best is teaching mga tao ng Iglecia ni Cristo (church members of Iglesia ni Christo). It's the best! That kind of sounds like a pride thing but it's not. It is the best because everytime we teach Iglecia I feel very supported. I feel like truth is barfing out of my mouth uncontrollably and enlightening the room. It's great!

We got caught in the thunderstorm because we went to all our teaching appointments. The weather here in Infanta is very unpredictable as opposed to the rest of the Flip daw. Binili ko ang payong noong dalawang linggo na. (I bought an umbrella two weeks ago.) Ano ang landscape sa tagalog? (What is landscape in tagalog?) There was no baha(no flooding).

I will now send you pictures. Here are the captions:

I am very goofy. I did not take many pictures of my everyday work. In fact, I don't really take that many pictures.

So our investigators have been giving us things. We got these astig (cool) yellow polos.

This is after our first thunderstorm.

We played basketball with some investigators on p-day.

Maraming salamat po para sa package. The contents were a flavorful food delight. The pens were awesome. The little flashlight was very cool as well.

Special thanks to Sister Magleby and Ate.

Well...I bought a toy frisbee already... Mom I will ask my mission president's permission for the other frisbee I guess. I guarantee he will say yes... Sa palagay ko, It won't be a distraction... I feel very awkward that I have to ask for a frisbee again. I would not ask for things that would be detrimental to the work. Pero, I understand your concern, Ask Kuya. Kung hindi okay lang daw, I am fine with not having this frisbee.

I really don't know what to tell you about the work. There are no stories that I can go in intricate detail or anything pero let me just tell you, that there is a really really nice feeling when you find out your investigator keeps their commitments and feels like their prayer was answered. So... yeah that happened I guess with some investigators. I can't really elaborate on it. It just happened and it feels nice.

Anyways, Paalam my chinky fam and my white bayow (brother-in-law) and my alabaster hipag (sister-in-law) (probably shouldn't send chinky to anyone besides the fam)

Elder Roxas

Observing Light

Monday, July 19, 2010

Hi Family.

Oh Mr. Riley is too cute. Elder Holland told the missionaries "[we] don't have the right to let down the children that look up to [us]." When he said that I wrote down the names of Jaden and Riley.

This week was cool. I experienced my first Bagyo (storm), went with out electricity for 3 days and am currently living on emergency water. It's awesome. The landscape in some of my areas is completely different. Yesterday, I gave a talk in sacrament on the purpose of church/sacrament. It was good. The members said I was much better at tagalog.

Transfers were noong biyernes (last Friday). I did not got transfered and I am still with my trainer. After the bagyo I think we are going to get a cell phone up here in Infanta because we are very far away from everyone else.

Okay. This is what I wanted to share last week. So noong last last wednesday Alas mga 8:45 gabi (around 8:45pm) my companion and I were caught in a thunderstorm. It was really awesome. The lightning were streaks of bright green and bright purple caught in the sky. It was amazing. All the people that passed by were very worried we were going to get pasma. I always ask people if pasma is a bacterial disease or virus? It's great.

This week we had the most lessons we have ever had in a week.

Thanks for the cooking tips mother.

Ingat po, Mahal ko po kayo,
Elder Roxas