Package Received!!!

The Adonis family in Kalikid sends Elder Royal their love (and their request for chocolates from his big box from home)

The Royal Box Finally Made It!

Water logged

            I thought I would just answer Mom's question right away.  haha.  Yes I received it, but of course with my luck with packages....not in one piece.  It was fine when I saw it at the mission home and then they took it to the Zone Leader's house.  We went to Sta. Ignacia for DDM, so I was excited to finally get my long awaited package.  It had been raining really hard early during the week, so it got pretty flooded this week.  Well, when we went to the ZL's house, the front of their house got a bit flooded, but it wasn't much water, so I didn't think it could've entered in the house.  Wrong.  It did.  And of course, the box had to be on the floor right next to the door, so the bottom of the box got all wet.  Which is too bad, because I was going to use that box to send some stuff home.  Oh well.  Another thing: that box weighed a ton!  (I suppose getting soaked with water contributed to that.)  It's a good thing that I had good 'ol Tongan boxer Elder Tumassi lift the box for me by himself without any troubles at all.  It was still heavy for two people to carry that thing!  I guess that was the bad news of the box, but the good news is that because some of the boxed up things inside of the box got all wet, it was very easy to open them.  The contents inside all of the wet boxes didn't get wet, so that's good.  I guess I just don’t have great luck with packages.  (Oh, I forgot to mention that the jerky was all moldy.  Haha.  I had no idea that could actually happen.)  There's always three times a charm, di ba? ;) haha.  (In other words, don’t get discouraged.  Keep sending them.  The odds of a good delivery keep going up with volume.)

Most of the good stuff was intact

            This was another up and down week in Mamonit.  We did have some success this week.  I worked with our Zone Leader, Elder Greenwell, to get the baptismal interview done for Jarome (finally).  It's always fun to work with a foreigner (non-Filipino), because I can understand him.  He's been out for 20 months, so his Tagalog is already pretty good.  Yes!  Mamonit's finally going to have a baptism next week!  Woo!  Jarome's an awesome kid, so the members are pretty excited to have him as a member of the ward.  We did language study together, in which I learned something:  I don't know enough Tagalog.  That's okay though, because I'm still learning, right?  I read Chapter 7 of Preach My Gospel which is all about how to study the language.  We decided to just read one chapter from the Book of Mormon together in Tagalog, just because.  I realized that my Tagalog reading skills aren't the greatest in the world.  I have not been reading the scriptures in Tagalog that much, because I always just have others read the verses during lessons while I listen.  Preach My Gospel says to read the Book of Mormon in the mission language, which Elder Greenwell said helped him out a lot.  Based on his good Tagalog skills right now, I decided to listen to that council.  I would read the Book of Mormon in Tagalog sometimes back in the day, but I wouldn't really read it out loud, so my pronunciation was lagging.  I've decided to just do it.  And since I'm training, it's a good opportunity to learn from my companion.   Elder Dela Paz and I also speak English during our last hour of companionship study and language study.  His English is actually a lot better than he gives himself credit, so he should be proud of that. 

Mmmmmm  Moldy Jerky

            We had an OYM (Open Your Mouth . . . to share the gospel) go well pretty well this week.  We OYM’d a young 20ish year old girl at a tindihan, and she seemed really interested in what we had to say.  She was impressed that my Tagalog was good for only have been studying it for nine months.  I gave her a card of the Articles of Faith and told her why my Tagalog has improved over the past nine months (Articles of Faith #7, Right?).  We gave her a Restoration pamphlet and also a Plan of Salvation Pamphlet, because she had a brother who had recently passed away.  When we came back a couple of days later to teach her, she was busy and said that she gave her pamphlet to her dad (I think) who was interested in it.  Awesome.  We gave her another one and are supposed to start teaching her tomorrow.  Weird.  I always thought about going over there before just to buy some snacks or something, but never did until now.  The Lord works in very mysterious ways (like telling me to buy some delicious snacks for one piso at this tindihan).  We're hoping that this goes well.

            I think I mentioned last week that the Ward members finally want to help us out now, which has been a big boost in the work.  We went with our ward missionary leader and a couple of other ward missionaries to some new less actives' houses to invite them to come back to church.  This is what we did in Kalikid with success, so I think that this will have a positive impact here as well.

            Well, I think that's about it for me this week.  Hope y'all had an awesome Fourth of July!  Steven Jex, enjoy the MTC.  The time may seem to go by slow, but the MTC is awesome!  Enjoy it!  You'll be wanting to leave for Germany after a week of being there.  Not because you won't like it, but that's what the MTC does.  It just makes you so excited to leave for the mission field and go to work!

            Thank you all for your letters, prayers, and support.  Mahal ko kayo.  Keep the Faith.

            Elder Jordan "craving snacks and more boxes” Royal

            P.S.  David, Brad, and Dad: I ordered some awesome gifts for you guys that you'll probably get (hopefully) by Christmas.  I have to get them first and then send them home along with some other stuff that I want to send home.