My dearest and most amazing family,
Before I forget, say hello to the Hanson family for Sister Brooklyn Grant! haha! Apparently she goes on the lake with them. She knows Chris. Weird...the world is so small I swear. Ok, so yesterday was one of those days where you just love being a missionary. Where you realize how sweet the fruits of your labors can be! We had 12 of our investigators at church yesterday and Brother Gino Paras bore his testimony in testimony meeting! It was so beautiful! We had to drop Sister MaryGold Dulaca. I was pretty upset about that. Her husband started a business and she gets up every morning at 2 am to help him with it and doesn't get home until 7:30 or 8 at night and then has to get everything ready for the next day to do it all over again. So...she wants to be baptized, but has said that she isn't going to make these sacred covenants and then turn around and not be able to keep them and to go to church, so she said we needed to drop her for a few months. AH! I wanted to walk in to her husband and sit him down and say, do you realize the blessings you are asking your family to miss out on???? COME WITH HER! But...she has her agency.
We finally found Brother Jessie this last week...he has been working out in Busay and we haven't been able to find him. Well, he said he would come to church, and he didn't. So we found him last night and we taught him about Faith and about having it bring hope into our lives and to be an anchor. We were wrapping up the lesson and Sister Flores was testifying and I had the feeling...we're hitting a wall here. He isn't getting that this is real, this isn't just a fantasy that happens in storybooks...faith is real and it is powerful. So she looked at me to close and ask for prayer and instead..I followed the spirit. I said, " Brother Jessie, Pwede ko ihatag ang challenge sa imo?" Followed by the greatest smile I could give. haha...oh..meaning...sorry...i forget you don't know Ilanggo sometimes. OK..I asked if I could give him a challenge. He started to laugh and said, "Pwede!" Meaning, yes you may! I love Brother Jessie, He wants to be baptized, he just has to work on Sundays. For him, it isn't a matter of wanting to work, but if he doesn't work he doesn't have food for his wife and his baby boy, JeroBoy. So I testified of Christ and of His love for his family and for him. I testified about faith and about how I have witnessed miracles in my life by exercising my faith. I testified that like the scriptures say, if God provides for the lillies of the field he will surely provide for his sweet family. Then I extended the challenge for him to pray like he has never prayed before and to act in faith this week and work his hardest and commit now to come to church and actually follow through with it. Then, I testified and extended a promise that if he did all he could, that Heavenly Father would provide for his family. I told him, (sa Ilanggo..) "Brother Jessie, I don't hope this will happen, I don't think it may happen, I know it. I know will all of my heart that it will happen. Brother, Sister Flores and I pray for you and your family every night and morning. We fasted for you and your family today as well. God will provide for you, but you have to show him that you have faith in Him and in our Savior, Jesus Christ. Will you do this?" He paused for a moment and then committed to it!! He said it was hard to go to church when his whole family didn't go with him, and BAM!!!!! ENTER OUR AWESOME WARD MISSIONARY, Brother Reymon!!! DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!!! (powerful music that always happens in movies when the hero shows up to save the day) Brother Reymon, who is usually super quiet and doesn't say much comes out of nowhere with a powerful and simple testimony about how it is wonderful to worship as families, but he is the only member of his family and how he still goes every Sunday and has seen the blessings come to his family as he has done so! I wanted to jump up and down and shout hooray. BEAUTIFUL! This work is absolutely beautiful! Brother Reymon is getting his papers ready for his mission right now and has been able to work with us throughout the last few weeks. He has grown by leaps and bounds and his teaching is becoming so strong and filled with the spirit. I love it! It's like watching a boy become a man right before my very eyes. So he committed himself to come to church on Sunday. LOVE IT. He closed the lesson with prayer and gave a beautiful prayer. I'm so excited to see what happens. So Family, here is my HUGE plea to you. Please pray for Brother Jessie. Mom, Ask your seminary students to pray for him as well if they are willing to. Let us all exercise our faith to bless this little family. His wife if the one in the photo I sent you where we're outside of their home and she's holding their son. Jessie isn't actually in that photo..they are young, but they are righteous and they are starting their cute family together. The Lord will bless them, I know it.
This whole week has been filled with moments like that, where we've been able to work through the spirit and really help solve people's concerns and teach truth. Our investigators are so honest with us and I love it! I have been told that the Philippino people don't want to disappoint you, so often they will say they read when they didn't just so we won't feel bad or upset because of them. Well...our select set of investigators are strong and noble individuals who tell us straight out if they didn't read, or if they didn't understand or if they haven't prayed yet. And then BOOM...they turn around and commit themselves to doing it and then they actually follow through with it. It is beautiful. Mom, as for fellowshippers, we have amazing ones in ward 2. Ward 1...that's a whole different story. Those poor people. I could write a bunch of negative things about ward council yesterday and about how the RS president feels it is a burden to find visiting teachers for new members....and how she tried to delegate that to us....but I won't. Pray for ward 1. Until they catch the vision of the way the Savior has organized His church and why he has organized it that way, they won't get it and they won't act. It kills me. But....the work is so good. I love being here. All of the little annoyances just fade into the background when you are blessed to participate in this great work.
As for a few things before I close: Mom, the canned meat and food I get is all FDA approved because they ship it to the US as well. :) So no worries there. 2nd, I have a package in the office :) I will pick it up today and I'm 99% sure it is yours! HOORAY!!! 2 months later...IT"S HERE and in One piece!!! 3rd....curses on your seminary students for calling me sickly. haha...and I'm pretty sure I know what pictures they were looking at. I'm sick sweaty in my first sets and super pale too...so of course I look sick. I was sweating my life away here and trying to have my digestive system adjust. But now..I'm dang good looking and even more important...I'm a Sister! WOOHOO! 4th, my insect repellent is OFF with deet. I'm actually going to buy more today because I just ran out. I killed a giant spider this week, screaming the whole time. My comp came out and said, "that is a tiny one" AH! I'm not afraid of spiders...I kill them without any problems..but this sucker was hairy and I would see it's little eyes and pincher thingies....yucks. ha! Um....Oh! Mom...that was a total lie that missionaries from the US don't get paired with other US missionaries. It happens here, and often actually. Transfers are on the 19th of this month. I'm not excited. I feel like I'll be transferred and we have 4 baptisms scheduled on the 20th! They are my warriors too! AH! But it is ok because they are doing what is most important, whether I'm here to witness it or not. OK...BIG NEWS...I can't remember if I told you this in my last email, President Edwards is coming here for their stake conference in a few weeks and he is announcing...dun dun dun!!!!!! The Philippines Bacolod Mission is splitting into 2 missions in the next few months! Yeah! Crazy I know!!! So we have 2 islands that make up our mission, I'm on Negros Occidental and the other is Panay. So Panay will either be called the Philippines Panay Mission, or the Philippines Ilo-Ilo Mission. But...half of us will stay here and half of us will go over there. We don't know where we will go. SO....I may actually serve my mission in 2 different missions. haha. It is crazy ..and I may have a completely different mission president. But..they say it probably won't happen until July because that is when they call new mission presidents. Anyway....hooray for change and for growth and I will serve wherever I am called. I will miss missionaries I have met here if I am sent over there, but they do have the signing program over there which would be awesome, and it is a little cooler in areas over there near the mountains, plus they are near the beach, but the work is way harder because the people are less willing to listen to us. I'm up for the challenge though. The language is coming. It is slow, but it IS coming. I love you all so much and you have the job to take pictures for me when you're all in Utah. I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU and I am head over heals in love with the thought that I will be with you all throughout all of eternity, IF we do all we can now.
All of my love,
Sister Stadler