You know what's awesome? Anything BUT hot, sweaty summers in the Philippines...

            I know I talk about the heat every week, but come on, it has to be brought up. I absolutely LOVE the Philippines . . . the people, Church members, the missionary work, the great food, and yes I even love Tagalog now. In fact, I feel like my Tagalog has soared since I've been in Cabanatuan. I just hate the sizzling, sauna/steam room like summer heat. Take away the heat (and . . . well. . . the upcoming rainy season), and the Philippines is the Promise Land. Alright, time for the report.  (Now that I think about it . . . I hate the oven like summer heat in Las Vegas, too. But, it’s so humid here and we do not have all the air conditioning we have in Vegas. So yeah, I’d rather be not hot.)



Jordan with Elders Despain & Park working with youth in the Stake Mini-Mission

            Our lessons were really down this week (only 29), because we were punted from a lot of our appointments. (Punted means no call/no shows.) We spent a lot time this week finding new investigators and we were able to find a lot of potential progressing investigators. In fact, we found nine new investigators. The one that I think has the most potential is Esther. And by Esther, I mean a guy. Weird, right? Hmmm. Maybe it’s actually Lester. He’s really quiet, and I could have missed it, but I'm pretty sure he said Esther. He's 22 years old, and we found him while I was on exchanges with Elder Park. We saw him sitting outside his house, so we decided to talk with him. We taught him the Restoration, and he seemed pretty interested. He's got another 19 year-old brother and a 17 year-old sister, so hopefully we'll be able to teach them, too. His parents are in Saudi Arabia for work, so they live with their grandparents. We are pretty excited about teaching him again this week. We didn't teach Tony again this week, because he's still in Manila. I don't know if we'll ever get to teach him again for awhile. We're also going to teach a new investigator from a part-member family tomorrow, so that should be awesome. The husband's the only member in the family and wants his family to be taught. Of course, we are very excited about that.

            We had interviews with President Martino on Tuesday, which is always an awesome experience. President Martino is such an inspiring and loving man. I really enjoyed my interview with him. Elder Biggs worked with Elder Revillo and me after interviews, and I love that. It was the first time I have ever taught with Elder Biggs. It was so awesome to work with him. Our MTC district has changed so much since the MTC. Just lots of growth. Missions are absolutely wonderful for the soul.

The missionaries and youth working together in the Stake Mini-Mission



Jonathan & Vincent learn more about missionary work

            Saturday was a really cool day. We attended the stake's mini-MTC activity. All of the youth and YSA attended, and even got their own missionary name tags. The stake's RMs were the teachers and it's pretty much like the MTC. All of the missionaries in the city areas attended and the youth and YSA worked with us, but they were the ones in charge of street contacts and lessons. Elder Revillo and I split up with our groups and took them to our appointments. My group was punted from our first two appointments, so I just told my group to talk to everyone they saw. No one did anything, so I had to do the first two just to show them, and then I let them loose. We then went back to the chapel for devotional, testimony, and dinner. The zone had really great success from the activity. They found a lot of new investigators and referrals. Why don't we have mini-MTCs back at home? It's very effective mission preparation. Let’s get that going! It is so cool.

            Well, I think that's it for this week. Thanks for all of your love and support (especially when it comes in the form of packages). Finally . . . HAPPY 30^th ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!!!! YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!! Ingat kayo dyan. Peace out.

            Elder Jordan "Struck Gold" Royal