Lotts of stuff going on

I saw this and couldn't resist taking a picture

Poor Alex is missing out on all the yard work

Adam is proud to take on the role of the oldest son at home.  He was so proud to help his dad.  I was very surprised he could lift it.

Ethan had fun racing leaves as I watered the newly planted corn seeds.

The boys proudly showing Mike their football card collections.

In April I went on a field trip with Adam to the planetarium in Salt Lake.  We rode the front runner from Roy.  We had a fun day together.  It's crazy I remember doing this same field trip with Jaime five years ago.  Where does the time go ??

At the pinewood derby Adam took first place for paint job.  Way to go bud !!! 

 I went on a field trip with Ethan to the Dinosaur Park in Ogden.  What an adventure it was !!!!

This is one of many reasons why fishing shouldn't be allowed indoors.  Ethan got the line stuck in our chandelier in our entry way.  Luckily it was an easy fix.  I cut the line and gravity kicked in.

Chillin with the boys. 

 

 To bad Ethan fell asleep before the movie even started.  He plays hard all day and can't stay awake once he sits still for a minute.

Adam was one of a few 3rd graders to participate in a multi-school competition.  He and his partner took 2nd place for an activity called pentominoes.  It's sort of like Tetris and it's a race.

May 11, 2015

 We went to the Payson Temple open house.  It was so beautiful.

May 12, 2015

We love and miss you so much Ryan.  I can't believe it has been three years.  It has gone by so quickly and yet seems like an eternity at the same time.  I know we continue to receive peace and comfort from above to continue on.  I know we will be with you again someday.  I am so thankful that families can be together forever.  I trust in my Heavenly Father's loving plan, even though it is not always easy.  He knows what's best for his children and I know he loves me and sent his son to carry my pains and sadness and to make it possible to return to be with him someday and with all those we love.  The Plan of Happiness is wonderful.  I am so thankful for my knowledge of the gospel.  I am thankful for the scriptures, temples, modern day prophets, my family and especially for my Savior.  I know that by following him I will be blessed and given the strength to endure all. 

We headed to Salt Lake for the day and ate at Tucano's.  The boys had so much fun stuffing their faces with endless meat.  It was pretty funny.  Boy can they pack it down.  Ethan was brave and tried a chicken heart.

After lunch we spent the day at the zoo.  We had a very nice day together.  Thank you for all those who remembered us on this difficult day.  It really means more than you will ever know.

I recently read this in the Ensign.  What a wonderful promise.  I am so thankful Ryan is still near us even though we can't see him.

Jaime's new glasses. 

 It was so funny to see her reaction when she could finally see things at a distance.   

  

Jaime and I had riding lessons together a few weeks ago.  It was a lot of fun and I have to admit I was happy my horse was listening to me and hers wasn't and so she wasn't able to show me up.

 My niece who is on a mission in NYC recently sent this in an email.  It was very inspiring and so I wanted to share.

Cute little Adam

He participated in a game at school where the kids do a relay race to dress up someone in all these silly clothes.  It was so funny and the boys had the best time of all.  I have a bunch of pictures of his friends to use as blackmail when they are teenagers.

After my riding lessons I led Ethan around the pasture.  He had so much fun.  He kept asking me what I did to make the horse go fast.  Of course, I didn't tell him as he would have done it and the horse would have taken him for a joy ride.  He also wanted me to make sure I took a video of him on the horse so Adam got to see the horse walking around with him.  He wanted Adam to see that he did more than just sit on it.  He cracks me up. 

This is the reason I have asked the kids not to ride their bikes down the stairs.  Thank goodness Ethan didn't get hurt.  I'm guessing he didn't learn his lesson and will attempt it again. 

a group selfie

 

Memorial Day Sunday

Remembering Ryan

 we played games and had treats

We have so much to be thankful for !!!!!

Lotts of emails from Elder Lott

4-20-15

 

Hello everyone!  This week is transfer week!  That cycle went by really fast.  And I am....not transferring.  Thank goodness.  I don't want to pack 3 cycles in a row.  That would really stink.  My companion is transferring though, Elder Sefita.  It is kind of a bummer because we were only together for one cycle.  Which is 6 weeks.  That is 3 companions in a row that I have only been with them for one cycle each.  I will get my new companion on wednseday.  We received a referral a couple of weeks ago but the investigator can only be taught on sundays.  He has been to church 3 weeks in a row and he went to like a session of conference.  We taught him yesterday after church for the first time.  He is a really solid investigator.  We will most likely extend a baptismal date for him the next time we teach him.  It is nice to finally have a good investigator.  Pretty much all of our investigators haven't even went to church.  That is a big problem for us.  Just getting our investigators to attend church.  We also have this investigator that is on the 3rd lesson and he won't even pray in our lessons.  So it is nice to get a solid investigator that wants to learn more about the gospel.  So last night me and elder sefita went to the hospital in our area to visit a member there.  I didn't get a picture of it because I didn't want to be rude, but I was pretty surprised.  So in one room they had 8 beds with patients and then if they had visitors or something, the room was just pretty full.  I am glad that when I was in the hospital I had my own room to myself.  Yesterday night me and elder sefita were walking back to our apartment in the middle of a storm.  It wasn't raining but it was cool looking at all the lightning and the wind felt way nice because it was so hot.  This morning our zone had a zone activity.  We went to some caves that are in our area.  My area is huge!!  The caves were really cool.  The was some small little holes we had to crawl through.  I really liked it.  I liked them much more than the caves that I already went to. Then we went to this little restaurant in someones area.  I got a piece of cheesecake.  Dang it was good.  I haven't had cheesecake in at least 9 months.  It was only 50 pesos to for a slice.  I ate that thing so fast...mmm good!  Well I love you all have a great week!  Enjoy the pics!!

Love Elder Lott

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4-27-15

 

Hello everyone.  This past week was transfer week.  My new companions name is Elder Williams.  He is from california.  I was really, really surprised when I found out who my new companion was.  He is obviously an american.  So I have had 3 american companions in a row.  I actually wanted a filipino companion so my tagalog can improve more and if you have a filipino comp it will help it a lot.  So all I have had 3 american companions and only 2 filipino companions during my mission.  And I am in the philippines!  Well it is the last cycle.  He was supposed to go home last week but he extended so he goes home in june.  So I will kill my first companion in the mission.  Which means I am his companion when he goes home.  Which means I will be in my area for another cycle after this cycle and have a new companion...again.  Then I will have only had 2 areas in a year.  Six months in both areas.  This past week of work went really good.  We got quite a few referrals from the members.  We have 2 new investigators and the way it is looking we should have like 3 baptisms this cycle.  I guess this past saturday was national service day.  So in the morning we went to an elementary school and like swept the pathways and pulled weeds.  Me and my companion went and then some members of the ward.  After we had some lunch.  Yesterday we went to teach a referral out in an area that I haven't even been to because before there were 4 elders and now there is just 2.  Our area is massive!  I think that every companionship should get a tricey, if your area is big enough.  Which ours is, that's why I want one.  So since I am in the philippines we obviously don't have an oven in our apartment.  So you have to get a little creative how you cook food.  So that picture is a potato inside a toaster oven.  I wondered if I could cook a baked potato in it.  It worked, I just had to turn the knob again after it finished.  It also helped because it wasn't a very big potato.  It was really good though.  It has been a long time since I have a had a baked potato.  I also made some corn to.  It was good, but their corn here isn't that good.  It is definitely not as good has home grown garden sweet corn!  This morning...got up at 5 so we could make it to basketball this morning.  We played a little ball and then afterwards we went to the gym.  It was really good to lift.  Hah I miss that a lot.  I also weighed myself.  I am at about 172 lbs.  I got 200 lbs on my bench today so I am pretty happy with that...benching 30 lbs over my weight.  Especially since I am not really able to lift that often.  I am really excited to be able to skype on mothers day.  That is a sunday for you guys and a p day for us.  So it is in 2 weeks.  I am really looking forward to it.  Till next week.  I love you guys!!

Love Elder Lott

 

 

5-4-15

 

Well me and my companion had one busy week.  Now we are one week closer to being able to skype.  I am really looking forward to it.  I can't believe that it has already been like  months since the last one.  I am not sure if my tagalog has gotten any better though.  I hope it has.  So there is this little place to eat in our area.  I ordered this chicken carbonara one day.  I wasn't sure what to expect because it was only 80 pesos.  It was actually really good.  We went back a couple days in a row and I got the same thing.  It was pretty much like fettuccine.  It is so crazy.  Our area is so big.  I wish that we had bikes.  We actually could get bikes but you have to buy your own, I don't really want to do that.  So we have 3 investigators with a baptismal date.  Two of them we will have to move back, but the other one with hopefully be on may 30th.  The kid in that picture is the one that will hopefully be on the 30th.  His name is samuel fransico.  I baptized his mom on march 7th.  He is a really smart kid.  He asked who will baptize him in our last lesson, we told him whoever he wants.  He said that he wants me to do it.  It may have something to do with me baptizing his mom.  I think it will be really cool though.  He is a really cool kid and I am glad that he is deciding follow Jesus Christ.  His mom is our recent convert and she is really good.  She comes to church every week and she brings her son with her and she has a son on a mission.  So I told you that our mission has a standards of excellence.  That is what missionaries try to reach every week in their work.  So the standards of excellence in one week for lessons is 35.  This week me and elder williams had a great week.  It was also a very tiring week...but we got 38 lessons.  Yeah.  That is the most that I have gotten in a week for my whole mission.  I think we got 9 on saturday!  It is pretty hard to reach, so I am pretty happy with how many we got this week.  So a couple of days ago...we had a brown out.  A brown out is when the power goes out.  That is what they call it here.  It went out at 1:30 in the morning.  As soon as my fans turned off I woke up.  We also didn't have any water so I couldn't get in the shower to cool off.  So I tried to sleep on my bed for like 20 minutes...that wasn't happening.  I was just sweating buckets.  So then I moved to my hammock.  No luck there.  So we are on the 2nd floor.  We hop across a little gap to the other roof to do our laundry.  It is flat and cement.  So I took my mattress and moved it outside on to that roof.  The bad thing was it was pretty much like a full moon so it was bright, it also didn't help that some dogs right next to our apartment were going crazy.  That is what woke my comp up.  Then he went out to go to the bathroom and he's like where's elder lott.  He looked in the other room and I wasn't there and then he looked outside and since it was so bright he saw me just layin out on the roof on my mattress.  He told me when he saw that it was pretty funny.  Me and him talked for a bit and then tried to fall asleep again.  Then the fans finally came back on at probably 4.  So I moved back into the apartment.  Then maybe 20-30 minutes later I fell asleep.  So that was a pretty bad night.  Maybe only like 4 or 5 hours of sleep.  Then this morning we had to get up at like 4:45 to get ready and catch a van to make it to santiago on time so we could play basketball.  We play basketball in santiago like every monday morning and they have started playing at like 6 because it has started getting so hot.  So that means that we just have to get up even earlier to get there on time.  Then after that we hit up the gym.  I got a hair cut so now I am just freaken guapo!!  By the way that is spanish.  Some of the words in the tagalog language are just spanish.  Got some pizza.  It was good    I am so stuffed.  I am really excited for next week though.  Trunky time...haha just kidding.  I love you all have a great week.  Can't wait to skype!!

Love Elder Lott

 

(look who's in the window watching.  funny)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Mother's Day !!

May 10, 2015

 

We had a wonderful time skyping with Alex.  We were so glad the weather didn't mess it up.  He had a cat 5 typhoon headed towards him.  Thank goodness it changed course.  We also found out in the following e-mail that all Internet service went down about an hour after we talked.  I am so thankful we were blessed to be able to skpye with him and for the tender mercies from above.  It was fun to see him.  He looked great.  He sounded great.  At one point we got him to bear his testimony in Tagalog.  It was wonderful.  He is so happy and it's such a wonderful blessing to have a missionary out.  We had family scripture study and family prayer together before we finished.  It was very special.  We are so proud of you Alex and the sacrifices you are making to serve our Heavenly Father by serving the people of the Philippines.  We can't believe you have almost been gone a year.

 

 

 

 

 

5-12-15

 

Wow I really enjoyed the skype.  I can't believe that it is over already.  It went by so fast.  You guys are all getting bigger and I am getting smaller.  I am pretty jealous of that pizza...mmm some chicken alfredo pizza!  Don't have that here.  Well me and my companion will go get some pizza for lunch.  It won't be as good as that stuff though.  But its good.  So our week of work went really good.  We had splits on tuesday with our district leader and his comp.  It was alright     the guy who I went with is pretty weird.  He bought me some rice.  It was called chop suey.  I wasn't going to eat but he bought it for me.  It was nasty.   Then about an hour later my eyes started to swell up.  It looked like a bee stung me.  I got some medicine and put some ice on it.  It didn't go down all the way but by that night or the next morning it was mostly gone.  I told you guys in the Skype that we were just walking to our next appointment and we saw a guy scraping the fur off a dog.  We thought he was just giving it a haircut but then we went closer and realized that it was already dead.  And they were preparing to cook it.  Anyone want adoboed dog?  I think i'll pass.  I also saw my first pineapple plant.  It is pretty cool.  I wish it would have been ripe because then I would have picked it.  So I said that we had 3 investigators with their baptismal date set for may 30th.  Well one of them went somewhere for a couple weeks so we weren't able to to him.  So we have to push his date back.  Then one hasn't been to church which is really weird because he is the only one who is not a member in his family and his older brother just got home from his mission and he is the assistant mission leader in our ward.  Then one is the son of our recent convert.  He has been going to church.  His lessons are doing good      he just decided to sleep in rather than to go to church with is mom.  Hopefully he comes next week so he doesn't have to start his 4 weeks over.  So now we have no baptisms this cycle, but I will have high hopes for next cycle.  So a couple of days ago I made some spaghetti.  It turned out pretty good.  It was good to finally be able to eat something that was not pancit canton.  Yesterday we went to a less actives house and taught and they have some pretty cool lizards.  They say that they were imported from the u.s.  I don't know if that is true, but I got to hold one.  It was pretty cool.  Both our fellow shippers were pretty freaked out, but its just a lizard.  So after the skype the internet went out in like the whole mission.  I don't know why.  I am glad that we got to finish skyping.  I also got sick yesterday.  It came out of no where.  I just started getting sick in the net shop.  I am feeling alright now, but it was just weird.  It came out of no where.  It was awesome to be able to skype. 2 down 2 to go!  Have a great week I love you all

Love Elder Lott

Ps- Happy mothers day mom!!

 

 

 lunch anyone ???

 

 

 

 

 

 

5-18-15

 

I really enjoyed skyping last week.  Happy mothers day mom.  So this past week we had splits with our zone leaders.  It went pretty good.  We went to their bishops house for dinner and he showed me some of his guns.  It reminded me of back home.  Like the trap shoots and stuff.  Then on saturday we had a one day mission with our ward.  We met at the church and we all split into groups.  Then we were assigned areas in our area and then we went out and taught less actives and like invited them to church and stuff.  We had a fhe at a members and then we went and worked after that. The one day mission started at 8 am and then we got back to our apartment at like 8 or 8 30. So it was a really long day.  This morning we played some ball.  It was really fun I got a little tan.  I am glad that you guys enjoyed the 12th.  I wish I could have been there with you to remember the 3 years.  I love and miss ryan, more than I can describe in words.  He was my best friend.  I am grateful for this gospel and the blessing of eternal families.  So I know we will be able to see him again.  I can wait to give him a huge hug.  Love and miss you ryan, you will always be my little brother. You will always be in our hearts!:)  I love you all have a great week.

Love Elder Lott

 

 

 

 

 

 

5-25-15

 

Well that week went by pretty fast.  Last week on wednseday we had a csp.  A service project.  It was pretty easy.  There wasn't a whole lot to do.  The next day on thursday though we had another one.  There is a widow in our ward and she is a school teacher so we helped her at her class room.  We moved some of her stuff to her new room and then we painted some of her desks for awhile.  It was like the paint was getting me high...haha just kidding.  On saturday we were out at work and it started pouring.  We got soaked.  I didn't have a dry place on my whole body.  It felt way nice though.  It has been so hot and the rain was just so awesome.  It happened at maybe 5 or 5 30 so it was a little uncomfortable to walk around with soggy feet for a couple hours.  It was nice to get the wet clothes off though when we got back to the apartment.  So a man in our ward passed away last sunday.  Yesterday we had a little funeral service at their house for him.  The main funeral service was this morning though.  Anyways last night they had this huge pig that they were going to kill for today.  So one guy was hitting it on the head with an ax.  The back end.  So it was pretty much just a hammer.  It wasn't doing anything to the pig.  As I was watching I was thinkin to myself.  Can't they kill it a little faster.  That is like the worst possible way.  So that wasn't working so they tied its feet together.  Then they stabbed it in the throat.  Man boy was there a lot of blood.  A guy caught all of the blood in a pan.  They were probably going to make a blood dish with it...ugh I'll pass.  So me and my companion were asked to each give a 10 minute talk at the funeral service this morning.  I was really mad when I found out because we only have 1 day a week to do what we want and it was going to make us miss basketball.  I was talking to my companion that we should just ask if someone else can do it, then he told me that bishop told him that the family personally asked for us to be the ones to speak.  So I didn't really want to do it, but since they requested it I was like alright.  The funeral service was at 7 am this morning.  It started at 7 30.  Nothing starts on time here..haha.  Anyways our topics was obviously the plan of salvation.  So my companion covered where we came from, what our purpose is here on earth and he hit a little on the atonement.  Then I hit a little on the atonement and where we go after this life.  I shared a very short experience of what happened with ryan and that I know I will be able to see him again.  I thought I did pretty good.  I took like 12-15 minutes and it was mostly in tagalog.  I was proud of myself after!  I am so grateful for this gospel and the comfort that we be able to see ryan again and grandpa stan and other family members and be able to live with them forever.  I love you all.  Have a fun time in Cali.

Elder Lott

 

 baby water buffalo

 

 

 cooling off in the rain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We love you Alex!!!!  We are so proud of you !!!