Week #13

Happy New Year everyone! How are the New Year's Resolutions? I've never been able to keep them so I just gave up on making them and decided to make goals throughout the year and just work on those. Anyways, speaking of goals, I am praying that Rose and Jessica go through with their baptism on Saturday! They've been coming to church for the past few weeks, but yesterday they didn't show up and they never texted us back. But whenever we teach Rose and talk to her about her baptism, she gets really excited. She has a strong testimony and I hope she continues to have the desire to become a member and keep strengthening her faith!

We started teaching Medey a little while ago. She lives with a less active member and on our third visit with her this week, she kept asking questions about how she can prepare for baptism. We asked her to start by coming to church every week and partaking of the sacrament, having faith, and repenting. She came to church yesterday and she told me that she has been coming before. I only understood part of what she was saying (this is the part where I wish I was fluent in Tagalog-haha), but I understood that she enjoys coming.

This week was such a great week! I'm understanding people a little bit more and I'm really coming to love the people I work with. The investigators, less actives, and members. We have a huge teaching pool of less actives and I'm so glad that a lot of them have started coming to church! We've invited some of the less active members to become involved in missionary work by having them come teach lessons with us. I think it helps them realize that they have an influence and are needed and have a purpose in the ward and in the church. Jonnabelle is a young single adult who is a less active, but she's recently started coming back to church and is going to start working with us. She has helped her family start reading the Book of Mormon and now all of them are coming and bringing their neighbors! Her father is not a member so we asked Jonnabelle to be an example to him and we are starting to work with him. 

I was able to try a lot of new foods this week! Filipino food is so good! I'm working on learning how to cook some of the food I really like. Fish balls are now one of my favorite foods, as well as scramble. Scramble is like ice cream and then they just put marshmallows on the top! And soimai is my favorite thing I've eaten here. Too bad it's Chinese! Go figure. That's my favorite type of food. 

For New Years Eve, Sister Ganzagan and I got matching sunglasses. What else do you do for fun? Haha The Bishop invited us over for dinner and then we went home because curfew was at 7:00. Even though we went to bed on time, it was impossible to sleep because of all the fireworks. So we got up and just watched them on our front porch. I think they went off for 4 hours. I can sleep through about anything though. There could be a war going on and I would probably sleep through that. By the way, I started sleeping on the floor at the beginning of the week because our bunk bed is so squeaky and I wake myself and my companion up all the time. Believe it or not, I have slept wonderfully all week long.

Then Wednesday morning we had to wake up really early to travel to Naga for exchanges. Sister Abarabar is one of the new STL's (Sister Training Leaders) and she came to my area. I had the opportunity to take charge and completely lead in planning and showing her around and teaching. That was so strange as I'm still the trainee (aka greenie haha). I love being able to work with other missionaries. I learn new techniques for studying, planning, and teaching. I guess that's the point.

Transfers were this week and we have a great district! Elder Nebeker and Elder Snyder stayed and their new companions are Elder Merrill and Elder Togueran. I really like our district because we all of a sudden have this motivation to work really hard. Which means it's been a successful week! 

Yesterday was fast Sunday of course, and I love the fast and testimony meetings here so much. Everyone just lines up to bear their testimonies! And they weren't all the same people that bore their testimonies last month. It usually seems that the same people always get up, but not here. I absolutely love the ward here. As I've said before, they are so eager to be involved in missionary work and their testimonies are so strong.

I look forward to this year! The time is flying and I'm really starting to enjoy being here. I feel like I'm fulfilling my purpose of inviting others to come unto Christ. I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Stettler