Oh my goodness family, how I have missed you! I realized this week that I am at my halfway point in the mtc and i'm starting to freak outa little bit. Life is really good though.
Thanks to all of you who have been writing. Once again..you have no idea how important letters are to missionaries until you have letters! Unfortunately I get very little time to write back and family is my priority, SO...if you have written faithfully and I haven't written back yet..I'm sorry..your time will come! :) ok..let me see. Mom, I won't be castrating any sheep on Sister Ball's farm. Her dad does all of that. lol! I'm pretty excited though. I am so happy she is my companion and I thank God daily for it. I wouldn't have it any other way. Mom..I'll answer your other questions in a huge-fatty letter I'm sending off today! :) Get excited!
Okay, random fact about the Philippines... on June 25th, John the Baptists birthday, they apparently run around the city pouring HUGE buckets of water on people to "baptize" them. funny huh??? Sister Rather said wear something not shear that day. haha! Also, this is random, Sweet sister rather can't always get our names right, so she has gotten in this fix of calling me Sister Stradler...which is a common mistake...but then she also calls my companion Sister Balls...lol! We had to finally correct her and let her know it wasn't good to pair those two together. So..I gave my first talk in Tagalog this week. It was simply and short, but I could feel the spirit. To be honest, I'm really struggling with the language. I got a blessing yesterday and I am more at peace with it, but it was SO SO SO HARD! Before I got my call the 2nd time I felt like I might learn ASL for my mission. But then..lo and behold it was Tagalog. Which I was also excited about. Well a sister from here just left 2 weeks ago and emailed me today. Guess what? She was reassigned when she got there to not speak Tagalog, but 2 other dialects and....ASL!!!!!!! Are you kidding me??? I guess they use it often! So..I may still have the opportunity. Who knows? It is up to the Lord and His will for me. But that would be amazing. I kept having that thought come to me last week, but I thought it was just craziness. Time will tell. So..there is an amazing quote in Preach my Gospel that I wanted to share this week. It is on page 151. "The attitude you have toward your mission experience is a reflection of your love toward your Heavenly Father and His Son and your respect for the priesthood." AMAZING!! Attitude is so important! I have learned a lot about myself while I have been out and the Lord has opened my eyes to my imperfections, which has been hard, humbling, and so good for me! I have realized that though I may have thought I was ready for marriage in the past...I have so many things I want to work on before I get married. I think that quote can be applied to any calling we have in the church though, including Visiting Teaching and Home teaching! The attitude we have towards God's work reflects how we feel about God, His Son, and the priesthood! Powerful!
Mom, you know that quote from The Guardian that you love? We had a speaker who shared a thought during a devotional that made me think of it, along with the story President Gunnell shared about Janice. He just talked about how on the Titanic many safety boats moved away from the ship as it was sinking so they wouldn't be pulled under. He said, then after the ship went under and people were still alive floating in the water, they went back to get the survivors because they wanted to help save them and they had more room in their safety boats. He said that survivors noted that sometimes people going into the early stages of hypothermia would swim away from the boats when others were trying so hard to save them. But there was nothing they could do about it. No matter how hard they tried, they would swim away, to their death. He talked about how missionary work is a lot like this. He said, a missionary with a vision can row a lifeboat 3 times faster because of spiritual adrenaline. He said, "you will be able to save many of them, but if spiritual hypothermia has already set in, they will swim away from you. Don't let that get you down. Save as many as you can!" This made me think of the Guardian, quote, "I swim as fast and I can, as hard as I can, for as long as I can, and the sea takes the rest." Sister Ball and I can't wait to be in the field, but a part of us will stay with the MTC. We have loved every moment of our experience here so far. The real work starts here and intensifies in the field. I have been missing family a lot this week. Sister Hawkes, a teacher here, shared some experiences from her mission with us this week. She said, "You're going to sweat like you've never sweat before. It will be all down your shirt and you will feel disgusting, but then it rains and no one knows if it is sweat or rain..and quite honestly, no one cares! Cause they are all sweating too! :)" haha..But she also said, "The Philippine people will teach you more than you could ever teach them. Where you are assigned has a lot to do with how the Lord needs to shape you for your life. It's about learning how to be happy when you have absolutely nothing! And being content when you have what you need. If you get down and miss your family, think of it this way. Yes, you are sacrificing 18 months or 2 years from your family, but you're doing it so the people you teach can be with their families forever!" I loved the way she put that. It put everything into perspective for me. Sometimes our focus gets a little tweaked and then we start a little pitty party. But, as President Hinckley's father said, "Forget yourself and get to work!" Or as Sister Ball and I have adopted the phrase from the Hansons... "Suck it up princess!" :) hahaha! We use that often, although I usually say it to myself. We had a really cool experience this week teaching in a TE. I have 2 minutes to write about it, but I want to share it. We went to teach a guy, Brother Miskell, and he decided he was going to play himself from 5 years ago, before he was baptized. We were teaching the 2nd lesson about the Plan of Salvation. So we start going through the lesson plan like normal and then Sister Ball goes off on agency..in depth and the ability to choose and I ended up going in depth about the Atonement, with much deeper scriptures than we would ever use! But..we get done with our time and he said, "I don't want to stop learning. I hate to have to stop you, but I have the next appointment. But can I ask if you taught differently than you normally would have?" We started to think about it and said, yes, we definitely did. We shared what we both felt impressed to share. I originally had another scripture, but turned to D&C 19. Well...come to find out, those are the exact scriptures the missinoaries shared the first time and he had been praying about things recently that he needed answers to and we were able to help him with it. AMAZING!! POWERFUL! The spirit is real! God knows us! He loves us! He is so willing to bless us..but the promptings are so quiet and still. Act on them! Allow quiet time in your life so you can be more in tune! Draw close to Christ and never pull away from HIM! Christ lives! Truth is restored! I love you all!
~Sister Stadler