This week was one of those beautiful weeks when something little happens and you think to yourself..."Is that totally weird that I find that completely acceptable? Where am I? OH!!! I'm serving in the Philippines!?" haha! That happened a couple times for me this week. Like when I found myself walking across a bride suspended in the air with a little Filipina following right behind me. Beautiful! I love this work and I grow to love it more with each day. My companion and I have passed the awkward adjustment zone with incredible speed and continue to grow to love each other! Not speaking English has been the hugest blessing to me and the teachings are going well. We are continuing to find new people each day through OYMs. Mom, OYM means Open Your Mouth or Offer Your Message. Basically an OYM is when you approach a person on the street and just start talking with them about the gospel and invite them to church and to listen to your message. It's street contacting. :) Sorry...I keep meaning to define it. My sweet companion is starting to catch the vision and I'm excited where it can go. I'm really trying to just exercise my faith and believe and press forward. we have some solid investigators right now. One man, Mark, read his reading assignment, then on his own started from the title page and is now past 1Nephi 16. I wanted to jump up and down and hug him. Here's the greatest part...the Ilonggo version is very deep and is hard for most people here to understand, but Mark just started going off explaining about what he had read and all about Lehi and his family. I'm excited to see where that goes. right now he has work on Sundays, but this last Sunday was his last day he said he was going to work on Sundays so he's excited to go to church. He has 2 little babies and a beautiful wife. Not sure where the wife stands, but she is very kind. hopefully his influence will help. As for the ward, there are tons of in actives and this Sunday was one where I just craved to be home for a solid Sunday with the spirit strong. We witnessed on Saturday and baptism of a girl in the ward, not a convert, but get this....we get to the baptism and bishop goes to start and i realize there are only 2 priesthood in the room. So I asked him if there was another witness and the 1st counselor, Brother Wycoco (who's daughter was being baptized) said "We don't have any other priesthood so I'll just witness and baptize." No one around me said anything and thought it was perfectly fine..including the other 3 sisters. haha!!! AH! So I quietly said, "Bishop, we need another witness." Bishop looked a little embarrassed and then remembered there was a man outside, the gardener, who was active and worthy but in the other ward. So he ran outside to get him. Meanwhile Brother Wycoco started to get a little heated and say the man was wearing shorts. "Sister Stadler, here in the Victorias ward we are requires to wear pants to a baptism, shorts are not allowed. So if he's wearing shorts, he can't come in and witness. This is just the way we do things here." I am definitely learning patience on my mission! ha! I took a deep breath, walked over to the organ (which by the way..organ here means cruddy little keyboard...yeah...so much for that) and started playing prelude. Then said to Brother Wycoco, "Brother, it is more important that he holds the priesthood and that he witnesses than the fact that we is wearing shorts instead of pants. It would be better if he were in pants, yes, but it is more important that we have a witness." To which he said, jokeingly.."He's a teacher (pointing to a boy in the back of the room) so he can witness, and my son is here too! (who is 5 years old)" Yeah.....REALLY????? So I said, quietly, "Brother, these are not my rules, these aren't the mission rules, these are the Lord's rules." He shut up after that and the man came in with....wait for it....baptismal pants on! WHAT? haha! At least we had a witness! ah...the Philippines! I wanted to say.."Your woman aren't even in skirts and you men are all in jeans!!! What kind of respect is that showing this sacred ordinance????? But instead, I kept myself level headed and testified of truth. Always more affective. Well, I love you all, life is good. sorry! my next email will be in greater detail. You're great! All my love and prayers are will you!
God speed!
Sister Stadler

Well, it happened! I've been transferred officially, the good news is, I'm not a senior yet! HOORAY! I am officially a junior now and I'm excited to see where this transfer goes. I am currently in Victorias City, still on Negros Occidental and I am in the 2nd ward. The population of Victorias is roughly 85,000 with only 15,000 households! That's averaging around 5.5 people per household. Holy cow no??? It's beautiful here, still a city for sure, but there is 85% of the land here used for agriculture. My new companion is Sister Cortes. She is a Filipina and she doesn't speak much English. WHICH...has been wonderful for me and hard at the same time! We only speak Ilonggo to each other because that's the only medium for us to communicate. Keep praying! Hahaha! I've realized though that I knew way more than I thought I did, now that I'm being forced to use it. I didn't think leaving Bago would be a huge deal to me, I had been there for so long, but I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest. I wonder about our investigators there and our recent converts all the time! I guess our righteous warriors and the ward members there all grabbed Sister Flores on Sunday and said, "Where is Sister Stadler????? I miss her so much!" Made me feel good...and made me want to cry at the same time. I finally realized last night while praying that the possibility of me ever coming back here is very small. It is so incredibly expensive, I lost it. haha! I adore these people! I'm talking, I'm head over heals in love with the people of the Philippines. In Bago the people are a lot more laid back than they are here in Victorias. Our ward is so small here! Both of our wards in Bago averaged 100-115 reach week for attendance, while our ward here, on a good week, has 50. PLUS...I counted yesterday and of those 50 there, we only had 23 adults/teens. The rest were children. I am officially the ward pianist there and I guess they have....get ready for this....an organ locked up somewhere!!!!!!! WHAT??????? I couldn't believe it! So on Tuesday I'm gonna check it out and see where my skills are. Who would have thought,I when was learning how to play the organ at 12 years old, that one day I would be playing a RANDOM organ in the middle of the Philippines!? It's crazy! Our ward is small, but I adore them already. Bishop Villegas is so solid! I'm excited to continue to work with him. Our relief society had a giant attendance of 5. Yeah...we're pretty much huge. From October 2009-May2010 there has been one baptism in the ward. While I was sitting on the stand on Sunday looking over the ward I had this huge feeling of love overwhelm me. I had the thought that I may be here for quite awhile. I know we can accomplish a lot here! I think missionaries get set in this rote way of teaching and finding, and I'm breaking us out of the box. I'm letting the spirit guide and giving it my all. In the last 3 days we have done more work than they did in the full last week with the last companions. We cover the outskirts of the city, so it takes about 30 minutes to walk to our next appointment, sometimes longer. Our investigators are in the middle of nowhere and we have to return to the apartment by 6:30 at the latest usually because our areas are not very safe at night. The other ward (we have 4 sisters in our apartment) covers the city area and their ward is huge! Our ward is made up of a lot more wealthy people. GET THIS....one of the highest paying careers here is....drum roll please.... A TEACHER!!!!! WHAT? I'm talking...Medical and education are almost even. Isn't that insanity!? Anyway...found that interesting. I love this gospel and I can't wait to see what this city has to hold. I'll tell you what though, there is a huge advantage to being an American here. You get so much attention! It's beautiful for OYMing. My companion keeps referring to me as her advantage now. haha! I'm her first American companion. She is incredibly sweet and oh so patient with me! I love her already! My health is great, life is good, I love this gospel! How is everyone's missionary work going? Well, gotta take off. Being strictly obedient. I pray for you often and I consistently feel great peace when I pray for each of you. I Love you all so much. Keep pressing forward, stay strong in the faith and share the gospel! Till next week, God speed! Halong kamo ah?
All my love,
Sister Stadler
P.S. Britt, I got your phatty letter!!! DANG...I was so excited! thanks! Thanks to Ian and Ariel and Tara for emails permy too! : )

Good grief...time is flying. I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's day! This is going to be super short today. Life is good. The work was really hard this week, tends to be a pattern now in the mission, but that's okay. Our baptism canceled on us 10 minutes because it was scheduled to take place. It's okay though. He's 9, his mom just decided she wanted to wait for her husband to get home to baptize him. here's the hitch, they don't know when they will be able to afford to have him return home. We're praying it is next week. Transfer announcements are tomorrow. I'm freaking out. Rumor has it I'm going senior. I hear I may be going to an area called Victoria's. It's still on Negros. I'm pretty much positive that I'll be staying on this island when they split the mission. Time will tell! Next transfer will be the final blow. Pray for me..I don't feel ready in the least to go senior, especially since I'll be jumping from follow up trainee to senior. But...I'll go where HE wants me to go, no? We started teaching the Yusala family. The dad is a member, less active and they have a huge amount of children. They didn't follow through with their commitment to go to church, but I feel they will. The mother just eats up the lessons and the children are all super well behaved and sing their songs about Jesus Christ that they learned in their other church's Sunday school. We one upped them with a good old rendition of "The Wise Man Built his House Upon the Rock"...with actions. booya! haha! They liked it. I'm feeling popcorn popping next time followed with I am a Child of God. haha. I can't believe this is my last week in this area. It's 6 months now that I have been in Bago, a super super super long time. I'm definitely ready to move on, a little scared though. I think I already started putting roots down here. Ayos lang! Sister Flores keeps saying that I need to stretch and grow, and president seems to have big plans for me too. Keep praying for my language skills. ah! Every time I feel like I'm doing pretty good I'm immediately humbled. :) It's great. I love this work. I have great hopes for the future. I've been impressed with my study of faith lately. I was telling mom about this, the Savior mentions over and over again that we need to Ask and we will receive, but we must ask in faith. SO...I'm asking...and I'm working and we'll see what the next few days hold. I love you all and you're all in my prayers. Stay strong, do what you know is right and share the gospel! Until next week, GOD SPEED!!!!
All my love,
Sister Stadler

oh yeah...this was an intense week! Happy 23rd birthday to me! First of all, mom, your package got here the day before my birthday!!! PERFECT! :) Thank you so much! I am addicted to twizzler strawberry licorice...not sure why. I hated it before my mission and now I crave it! And I love the peanuts, which I hated before the mission too....but I crave things like that now. So thank you! The cards were awesome and of course I have looked at the pictures a thousand times by now! Sister Flores thoroughly enjoyed the photos of when I was young. She was dying and then said..."You look just like Kaitlin!" yeah....good times. Secondly, Sean, I totally thought about you like crazy this last week. The elders were going off about how they were all protective of their little sisters and told stories and I was dying laughing and then crying. I can't remember if I already emailed that. BUT...anyway. I have been thinking about you a lot lately! How are things? You better be at mom's house when I call.
As for my subject for this email, let me explain. This week was INSANE!!! BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!!!!!!! We were busy and we reached all of our goals, and we're seeing the work pick up again since we've been working hard with OYMs. We could be working harder though and definitely exercising our faith more. Funny that a few of you wrote about that and (mom...your articles you sent were amazing!!!! You're always so in tune!) I have been focusing my study lately on Faith and working to build my faith. I just finished the Book of Mormon again and I'm addicted to that beautiful book. Anyway, we both felt we needed to OYM a new area and Boom...here we have new investigators tucked into this little cranny that we didn't even know existed! It's beautiful really. So we were in an appointment and I hear what sounds like thunder, but I look up and the sky is blue...so I think..I must be hearing things. So...about 2 minutes later I hear it again and Dayleen says, "We need to get inside." and so she runs for the house and I'm thinking...why are you running??? Then...30 seconds later it's like a wall of water is just falling from the sky! It was the best storm ever! So we're walking to another appointment in the rain, and we get to a place where it's pretty slippery from the mud and I turn to Sister Flores and say, "Watch out, it's slippery here...AH!!!!!" And the next thing I know I'm on the ground, with mud all over me. Yeah...it was pretty funny. AND...we still went and taught the next appointment. :) I washed up at their spicket outside of their house. Then...walking home Sister Flores and I saw 4 random fireworks and she made me her Chicken Adobo...holy...it was a beautiful birthday!
Oh, we also had an earthquake here that we felt. It was pretty funny. Sister Flores thought I was just shaking her bed to freak her out. haha! It was just 2 big tremors...but it was really cool! That's about it for this week. I love you tons and I hope to hear from you all soon again! I love getting your emails and letters. I live for it. The church is true my lovely family! It is remarkable! Don't given into to Satan and his ridiculous temptations! Life is too fragile to give into him. We have more power than he does...we have bodies. He never will. Love you all! Stay strong! Do one thing to bring you a little closer to your Heavenly Father and Savior this week. Until next week, (and president told me I'm definitely transferring..) GOD SPEED ! :)
All my love and prayers,
Sister Stadler
P.S. Tara, thanks for the package! holy I love you! Ariel...loved your email! Sister Ball (not my mtc comp, another awesome one...totally wants to room with us after. totally pwede!) Jared and Lauren and Brother and Sister Oldham, congrats on the marriage! :) Hope it all went smoothly! Amanda and Joshua, happy late anniversary!

Dearest family of mine!
My goodness time is flying! What is going on? This week I hit my 7 month mark on the mission and I am turning 23!!!!!!!! AH! The whole birthday thing isn't that big of a deal..just another year of experiences and happiness. Everyone is magically finding out about my birthday..and I'm not really ok with that. Luckily, it lands on a Wednesday and so we will we working full day with appointments! hooray! Also..I'm pretty sure I have my first wrinkle! hahahahahaha! We were riding in a trik a few days ago and some of the triks have these little mirrors in them, well I was looking in the mirror and I just started laughing and Sister Flores asked me why I was laughing...to which I pointed to my eyes and said.."Is that a wrinkle????? I'm falling apart in the Philippines!" It was quite funny. Well..I'm passing up milestones in life like there is no tomorrow. haha! Two weeks left of this transfer and we're determined to make the most of it! This week we were blessed to witness Sister Irene Valdevieso enter the waters of baptism! She was one of those golden/prepared individuals who just ate up everything we taught her and asked for more. Love it! We had a little mini miracle happen for the baptism though. Turns out basically every worthy male priesthood holder flaked on us and couldn't make it to the baptism. So we had one man, President DelosSantos, who was conducting and speaking, and our 2nd counselor of the bishopric was presiding, but we didn't have anyone to baptize her. Her father in law was suppose to do it, but he was called in to work last minute. So we called everyone we knew, and no one could make it. We even called our DL and ZL...they both had their own baptisms. But they said if we could not find anyone else, they could come later and do it..but that would mean they would have to cancel their other appointments for the day. So I said a prayer and kept praying. We contacted a few other people, still no one was able to help. Sister Flores turned to me and said, "What are we going to do?" To which my response was, "Satan, I know you just don't want her to get baptized today. That would make you soooo happy! But look, she's worthy and excited to be baptized, and it is going to happen! So Thanks for playing!" She just laughed. But I felt I needed to make that clear to the devil himself...he wasn't gonna slip this one past us. So I prayed again and we prayed together and we took off to our other appointments, acting in faith that Heavenly Father would provide someone to baptize or at least another witness so President DelosSantos could baptize too. Well we walk in and prepare for the baptism a few hours later, still not knowing how our prayers would be answered, but having confidence that they would be, and of course Heavenly Father pulled through, like He ALWAYS does! 2 minutes before the baptism started, in walks the hero of the day, JAPHET VILLARTE!!! (Our righteous warrior...who had been ordained a priest only 2 weeks before). I am constantly impressed with this young man. So I looked at Sister Flores, and she looked at me and we both knew we were thinking the same thing. So I grabbed him and whispered, "Brother Japhet, pwede ikaw magbunyad ukon magsaksi sang pagbunyad ni Sister Irene subong?" Meaning..."could you either baptize or witness the baptism of Sister Irene right now?" He just stared at me like a deer in headlights and said.."Sis??" Like..."um...what?" haha! So I smiled and said again, "Would you be able to do this for us today?" I will never forget his response.. now when I asked the question I meant, would he be willing to do it...his response was.."Sister Stadler, I am worthy." I immediately got the chills. I love that he interpreted the question as "Brother Japhet, are you worthy to perform this sacred ordinance right now?" AH! I love what the Atonement does for these powerful young men of our Heavenly Father! SO ..Sister Flores grabbed her missionary handbook and we went with him into the hallway to demonstrate how it was done and to let him read in the handbook what he would need to say. (Everything they do here is in English, so it's hard for him of course because it's not in his native language.) So he studied it out for about 3 minutes and then changed into the beautiful whites! LOVE IT! The spirit was so strong and he was just glowing when he was done with the baptism. It was a beautiful service. There was the smallest turnout I have ever seen for a baptism, but there were the EXACT amount of people to perform what needed to be done. Absolutely amazing! We truly have miracles in our lives daily IF we do our part and act in faith. I sang a song and played the guitar..it turned out pretty good! I combined "Jesus the Very Thought of Thee" and "Jesus Once of Humble Birth" (which is very quickly becoming my favorite hymn). Life is good. I am so ridiculously happy. The gospel is so true! Our Heavenly Father answers prayers and He is Ever mindful of us. He never gives up on us. Never! He never forgets us. He loves us so much, I know it is true! I have felt the power of His love for His children and have been moved to testify of His love for them as individuals on numerous occasions. Even to the most vile of sinners, He has unconditional love and wants then to turn and come to Him. And they can!!!! That's the beauty of the Atonement! They can be made clean. Right now, I can feel the spirit as I type these words, and I'm surrounded by a bunch of gamers in a computer cafe with sounds of gun shots and random music playing and yet...I can feel the spirit! haha! The gospel is true, point blank. I will never deny it. I could never deny it because I, like many before me, have received a witness from the Holy Spirit, through prayer, directly to my heart. Life is good! I love you all and I can't wait to see what other people I have the blessing of meeting these next 8 transfers or so. You're all in my prayers, each one of you. Stay strong, Love the Lord and know that He is watching over you. Until next week, God Speed!
All my love,
Sister Stadler

P.S. Sister Flores and I are teaching this 9 year old boy, Reuel, he's a genius! He is so darn smart it amazes me. Well, we were teaching the plan of salvation and we got to the part about the resurrection and she was teaching. HAHA...I guess there is a cartoon here called "Volt In" where right before they change forms into their super hero selves they say.."Let's Volt In!!!!!!!!" So she's talking about how the body and the spirit reunite and she says, "Lets....Volt....IN!!!!!" hahahahaha! I was so confused, but the little boy just started laughing! Then she explained that it didn't really happen like that, and brought in the spiritual aspect of it. I was dying..Our ward missionary was laughing way hard too. It's now our companionship motto! Along with our Zone Motto...which I love: "See it, Own it, Solve It, Do it!" See the problem, own it as your own and take responsibility for it, find a solution to the problem and put the solution to action! It as worked wonders. I have a whole new testimony of faith by action. Faith IS Action. So here is my challenge this week. Act in Faith and witness the miracles and tender mercies of the Lord!