Monday, December 28, 2015

Picture from Member


Dinner with the Elders

Hello again!

Hello,

Well,it's been a lot time, unfortunately not much has happened since the last time I saw you.

I did however end up eating some disgusting things, and some other things that weren't to bad, I have pictures of a couple. But I will say that raw salmon, is a no. And I am getting sick of red bean. The Asians treat it as a dessert but it isn't.

So Saturday, We ran like chickens with our heads cut off. Then Sunday  my poor companion lost his wallet.... Poor guy. So we are trying to work that out. Other than that, nothing really to new.

Love all of you!

Elder Rollins

Chicken Feet

Don't try the pistachio ice cream.  It has turned!

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Merry Christmas!

So yeah

This week was good! but super busy mission wise we had a zone conference and the mission Christmas party twas fun. I shall send a video. Otherwise I don't have much to write about because I want to give you plenty of ammunition for Friday!

Mission Christmas Party
So the church is true! Yep yep.


Anyway I will tell you that I had some guy call me a pretty boy the other day. It was the first time in my life. Is it offensive? I didn't know what to do so I told him merry Christmas.... Anyway. I do have a video to send but that is going to take a while, so I shall send it. It's from the Christmas party. Boo yah.

Elder Rollins


Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Yo!

Yo!

Did Adam and Eve ever have a date? The answer is no.... It was an apple. Hehehe

I know I'm sad but I don't care.

This week is what I have learned to call, a mirisaster, which basically means. The whole week is a miracle, but the individual days are a disaster. They are my favorite days. You know the days, where you start out showering in cold water, then you lose a shoe and a sock, after that you're late. Then you are running all over the place. And everything goes wrong. That just means that God loves you enough to let the tests keep coming!! So let em' come! It'll be fun I promise! Well, as long as you make it that way.

We had a good lesson with Saul, he is a great guy. Look forward to his progress! He is getting closer and closer, especially since he came to church. Ya know.... I have decided that church is a good place to be on Sunday. It just makes the week go better, no matter what the days bring!

The week was mostly service, just doing odd jobs, met some random kids who wanted to play dodgeball. So we played. They stopped making fun of us after that. Punks. A ball to the face apparently is rather humbling. Just kidding, I was gentle. We just caught their throws. They want to play again. Which means more talking to them. They have big families in their home, so hopefully we get somewhere with them.

Mike is doing well. He is looking forward to getting the priesthood!

Well we have a story as usual.
There is this elder. Who wanted to do a food challenge, this challenge is a super temperature hot soup, and spicy hot soup. And the bowl is huge. Well of course I tried. But this soup let alone was it super hot both ways, the broth was one of the most disgusting things on the mission. So gross. I didn't finish, I almost puked many times. But the
other elder, the food challenge guy. He was getting close, he had nine tenths of the soup down, and a little bit came back up, but this trooper just stirred it back in... But then he suddenly said "nope" and the bowl went from 9/10 gone to 3/4 full..... Pretty funny. And disgusting. The dumb things that entertain us are pitiful. But I have
accepted my fate of being weird for the rest of my life. Just rollins with it.

Well love you all! The church is true!

Moroni 8
3 I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end.

Be good! Don't forget Jesus during His birthday season!

Elder Rollins

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Hombre Murcielago

Yo soy hombre murciélago!
I said this to a member from El Salvador, she thought it was funny.  It means "I'm Batman"
Also along the lines of Spanish I've begun calling Elder Low "osito" which is little bear, or teddy bear. He doesn't think it's funny, so naturally I do it a lot. I tell him getting teased builds character, he's the oldest in his family so I assumed responsibility of older brother. I know that job well.

Anyway to the important things. Saul and Mike are both doing well, Efrain is back from El Salvador safely so that is good, we had a great lesson with Saul on the BOM, he said after the lesson, "I'm not sure if this is true but I really hope it is." Music to my ears! He wasn't able to go to church because of business and Mike was sick so that wasn't cool, but that's ok they are doing well and we have high hopes for Saul.

Well this week was full of service, we got to go to a Christmas parade in Covina (we were crowd control), and have put up a lot of Christmas decorations. T

Best curry I have ever tasted cooked by Brother Ali, Pakistani Muslim from Fiji who was converted about 30 years ago and is now a professional chef in CA. 
hat has been fun. It has been quite an adventure I will tell you that. FYI The decoration where presents are stacked on each other is weird and not worth putting up. Something that is nice about this area is some of the houses are so low that I have been able to reach the roof from the ground so I can put the lights up that way. Actually moves pretty fast.
Me eating Tripa (intestine) Tacos.

Well enough of that, so being on a mission has taught me many things, but the most annoying/great thing about it is that I never stop learning, everyday it's something new.You know the same thing should apply everyday and not just on a mission, sometimes I'm just to hard headed to let it in. Recently as I'm sure you have heard, there was a bombing in San Bernardino, and now everybody is on high alert, and for some reason, we have become the people to ask what to do. I almost want to tell them that I am 19 years old and have no idea what to do, but then Josh finally shuts up and Elder Rollins realizes that he does have an idea, but I can't claim it as mine. The idea comes from doctrine and covenants 10:5.  Keep in mind, that we are ALL children of God, and they deserve our prayers just as much as the missionaries. They are loved by the same Heavenly Father that we are, the difference is is that they don't know it, and we do. Arguing will get us nowhere. Pray, and be strong and of a good courage, be not afraid neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee with withsoever thou goest. 



love all of you a whole bunch! Help me change the world!

Make it a merry Christmas!


Elder Rollins

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Mufasa

que pasa mufasa?

To describe this week, I would use the words of a hymn, We Are All Enlisted. Last verse. You can look them up!

Fighting for a kingdom, and the world is our foe;
Happy are we! Happy are we!
Glad to join the army, we will sing as we go;
We shall gain the vict'ry by and by.
Dangers may gather--why should we fear?
Jesus, our Leader, ever is near.
He will protect us, comfort, and cheer.
We're joyfully, joyfully marching to our home.

This was a week of thanks! we started out alright, Saul is doing well! We had a good time this week.  Thanksgiving was good! We had a lot of food so that was nice, got nice and fat, twas enjoyable. but the members that we were eating with had their family over as well and that wouldn't be all bad if they didn't all keep telling me that I have no time left and that i shouldn't get trunky especially on thanksgiving and then proceed to ask what it is that we do back home on thanksgiving. darn members, six months ago they told me i had a long way to go. make up there minds. so that is that. We tried knocking some doors on thanksgiving, nobody likes being disturbed on holidays especially by "Jesus people" got mistaken for Jehovahs Witnesses a lot.

Also we realized that this transfer was going to bring us into 2016, whew that was not slow.   Here is a tracting story, we knocked on the door and it gave what i have dubbed the Chinese Echo, because apparently Chinese people don't like carpet, sure enough this figure steps up to the window and yells something in Chinese, through the door as usual.   If sin came and knocked on the door I must say California would be a very righteous place. Anyway we just try to communicate, then the lady starts knocking on the window, now I'm pretty confused,
I begin to wonder if she knows morse code, but i don't know that any more than I know Chinese so we stay where we are already having exhausted our Chinese "Knee how" multiple times, finally she says in pretty good english, "not interested" I almost started laughing on the porch. the lengths that people go through to turn down salvation astounds me.

Also a chihuahua tried to attack me again, but i fended it off with my shoe, and them to add insult to injury i meowed at it as it ran away. then told it to tell all its friends about us. then i realized it probably doesn't know english so i tried Spanish. i don't know the Spanish words for that though so it was more like "yo, heffe, tell juan two and three the mormons are coming okay holmes?" then it dawned on me, i am pretty weird. but thats ok. Jesus loves me.

So this week we got in contact with a gentleman. We just call him brother V. His last name is different. He's from some place that starts with a t, he's kinda hard to understand sometimes, Anyway he is a good guy but has a sad story, he was as nephi would say born to goodly parent, it was just his mom, but he was raised well and was
strong with the spirit, while he was still young he made the hard choice to go away to a school, she was in a tough situation so she gave her permission for him to go, anyway years go by, and he gets the chance to go see his mom, but when he gets home he finds out she had passed away, communication was hard with the situation. Anyway he was pretty hurt, he loved his mother as all boys should but he made some wrong choices and got himself in trouble a few times. He found himself a good wife and he was very happy. But soon the little bad things started to add up, and soon he wasn't a very nice guy, He even ended up hurting his wife. and worst of all is he just wanted to help in the beginning, but he gave to temptation. Hopefully it goes somewhere with him. Poor guy. i have a few pictures with him that i will send to you!
Brother "V" 


Know that the church is true and Thomas s Monson is a prophet of God! and that no matter what God will always be there even when we turn our backs on him, so just avoid that and don't turn around!! i know its harder than it sounds, but it is worth it! as gordon b  says;

 "In this world so filled with problems, so constantly threatened by dark and evil challenges, you can and must rise above the mediocrity, above indifference. you can become involved and speak with a strong voice for that which is right!"

Be good, be strong, be courageous! Love you all with all my heart!
enjoy the season!

Elder Rollins

Did you like bro v? You are a big Star Wars nerd.
Yeah that was funny.   Dude.  You think everything is funny.  Even your Dad.  Your judgement cannot always be trusted. 
Whatever, dad probably thinks it was funny. Dad just got home and he said you are not funny.
Liar, he probably laughed and said "nut".  Could be true.  Could be false.  You will never know.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Thanksgiving Dinner with Elder Low at the Dow family home.


Elder Rollins and Elder Low having Thanksgiving dinner with the Low family from the Creekside Ward in Hacienda Heights.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Happy Thanksgiving!

twas a week!

Transfers this week, nothing happened with us, but the zone got all changed so that's all that happened, but in other news, the sisters that were in the MTC with me are in their last transfer. So that's pretty weird. But in other news, Saul finally made it to church and said he liked it! So we were super excited for him, in other news, we tried knocking doors this week, pretty boring, especially when they don't speak English and I don't speak Chinese, yep. That about sums it up.  

We went on exchanges as well and the Elder I was with apparently didn't do language study because he kept misusing words, it was pretty funny, like we watched these two dogs get in a fight and there was one of the owners walking our way and we said hello and they said no.  We started walking then the other elder said "hope your dog gets....safe"  We laughed too hard and scared one of the poor joggers into a sprint, good for him though. 

Also during one of the nights, I might have forgotten to mention, everything is a blur but we have seven elders in
our pad.  It is so crowded I'm getting claustrophobic, but nobody cares because they are too. During the night though we were talking about video games and football just a bunch of randomness and then one elder who had fallen asleep for about fifteen minutes and woke up talking about the conversation we had fallen asleep to, we at the time were talking about favorite players and then randomly and rather loudly we heard "I would probably send a bomb right up the middle and just BOOM, there it goes" we sat confused for a half minute then decided to end
on that note after a good laugh of course. 

In other news Mike is doing really well! Looking forward to getting the priesthood. So that's how he is doing. But I can't believe it is Thanksgiving, so this week I thought of things I am thankful for, they go as follows, not necessarily in order


Family
Pancakes
Waffles
Hamburgers
Basically any food that isn't top ramen or cup of noodles
Well kept bikes
People who sing hymns who aren't motab
The Atonement for repenting because I need it
Sports
Prophets cause no confusion
Health
Shoes
Ironing boards
This country
Scriptures
Prayer
Scouts
Deodorant
Showers
Chairs
Comfy pillows
Music
People who smiles
Bed

There are other things of course but that's just a small list! I hope all of you have a happy thanksgiving! Because there is a lot to be thankful for, especially Jesus Christ! As you will be hearing a lot in the upcoming months He is the Reason for the Season! So don't forget about him amongst the turkey and the potatoes!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING🌽🍽🍗🍞🍪🏈

Elder Rollins

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Mike!

Hello!

Mike Got baptized! Yesssssssss! Finally! It was faaaantastic! He was so happy it was great. He had his brother who is a minister for another church come, and he totally sang "Praise to the Man". oh yeah. It was good though Mike bore a great testimony, and Saul has a baptism scheduled for the 12th!

The work moves on!

So we had a good week! We had changes in the ward so Sunday was hectic but life is good! Not much else exciting happened, the adversary was out in force this week, lots of attacking, whether bashers or just weird dogs. Like this guy who tried to convince us that the 9th commandment is thou shalt not covet thy neighbors wife and the tenth is thou shalt not covet thy neighbors goods. We were pretty confused. So that happened, but then a member gave us some steak, so that was pretty cool. Otherwise we just tried to get to the baptism unscathed. Successful, well they say pictures are worth a thousand words, so this will look short but the pictures will make up for it!


This church is true! Mike stuck around after being told he couldn't get baptized yet 3 times! Somethings got to be right! Love you all! This church is so true! Read the Book of Mormon and say your prayers!
Elder Rollins


How was your week? Twas great!
Did Mike get baptized? Yes he did
How are your new investigators feeling?  Don't know don't speak their language
How did Heavenly Father guide you this week?  He just made sure we made it!
Did you witness any miracles this week?  Yes Mike got baptized

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Hola!

hello!

So this week was a good week! we have three new investigators named Ellen Tiffany and Odin, they are all recently moved from China, and speak hardly any english, and I speak no Chinese, but they want to
learn in English, so I have been Laughing at that, Google Translate doesnt do the trick, but whatever we will figure it out.

Anyway, so Mike. He is set for baptism on this Saturday and so help me this is going to happen or i am going to just start dragging people to the baptismal font. but i have faith it will so it will, there is no way God doesnt want him to make this Covenant so I will wait patiently.

So I was talking to this really cool Less Active family, and we were chatting and talking, inviting to church and there was a birthday of one of the older kids who isn't a member and he is turning 21 so naturally all of his older friends brought plenty of alcohol, and the rest of the family who are all members were so embarrassed. because
they were the ones letting this happen, so embarrassed in fact that they had us go stand outside, the mom wouldn't even talk to us, it was so sad to see. if you dont feel like you can have the missionaries in your home, then you know something needs to change, and what better way than leaving the good influence there? why get rid of something good, just to make room for those things that are bad? this is what is talked about when we say fear Man more than God. because they feared our judgment more than that of losing their souls, it sounds drastic
but that is what is at stake. and so few people are willing to understand that, even in the church, so please, make more room for the good. 
comet thingy

Be happy, thats all that the Lord really asks of us, be happy. He gives us a list of things we have to do, it is no secret, president monson tells us over and over as well. be obedient. do it. this is the key to Joy.

anyway so a funny story, i dont know if you heard but there was a ufo thingy or something i never got to hear what it was. but I was waiting with this same family before mentioned on the same not after they kicked us out.

THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!!!! no doubt in my mind! there have been before, but we were told to doubt the doubts before we doubt our faith! find joy in the Journey, read scriptures. you all know what needs to be done so lets get it done!

Love you all!!

Elder Rollins

Have you received any flack about the new church handbook regarding children of married same gender parents?  Not really any flack but lots of questions. 


Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Merry Christmas?!

Why is Christmas stuff out in the stores? 

This week was good!
We had a little mishap though but I will let you know in a second first things first.

So Mike, we are almost there hopefully not after transfers but we are close! Pretty excited for that, he is a good guy.

Anyway back to the mishap, so I am sitting in ward council yesterday and just all day everything was going wrong, and I was fasting so my fuse was already shortened drastically and already at seven in the morning, so I was thinking well it can't get any worse, and of course our loving God with His perfect sense of humor decided to stretch my patience again, so of course my zipper on my pants broke, and the barn door was wide wide open. But I was determined, oh no I would not freak out.  Nope I was going to roll with it, I went in with the attitude like
"that's right Heavenly Father! I'm not going to get mad! Hahaha" and then I got a response, it was"Good" He always wins.

So that was my grand experience. So Halloween, we had to go in early to avoid the psychos, that was boring. But we played the ukulele and that was cool! But the day was mostly uneventful.

Well that's about all exciting that happened funny experience, so daylight saving, and wonderful greenie Eder Low, wakes up and yells Elders! It's 7:20 get up! We just laughed. He didn't get it until after he showered. Those ten minutes were great!

Well love you all!

Elder Rollins

How is your health? I'm healthy as ever
How is Mike doing? Doing great
How is your personal scripture study going? It's fun still!
How is your journal writing? Depends on the day
How is your testimony?  Stronger than ever
3 people in a 2 person Porsche.  Not comfortable.


My first legitimate bullseye in my life.

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