Alright, this week has been amazing. I adore my sweet companion. I have perhaps never worked as hard as I have this week. We're working on finding new investigators and we found 6 this week, all men. I'm amazed how the Lord provides people when we get stood up for appointments. If we will just do our part, open our mouths and teach whenever we can He will provide. I'll give an experience. With each companionship you have your strengths, well I can honestly say that when teaching with Sister Christofferson our strength is the spirit. I have never felt the spirit so strongly while teaching with any other companion.

Well, one night we were going to visit a less active, Sister Yu, and she didn't really have time when we got there, but I told her it would only take 15 minutes. She is so kind and invited us in. Well we get in her living room to teach her and there is a young man sitting at her table working on a project. He immediately started collecting his things to leave and I felt, he needs to stay, invite him to stay. So I introduced myself and asked a few questions and told him we were going to share a short Christmas message and would love for him to stay. He did. He made it very clear ahead of time that he was Baptist, that he didn't celebrate Christmas personally because it didn't say in the Bible when the actual date of Christ's birth was. Interesting no? So I explained we celebrate Christmas, not as an actual date of the Savior's birth, his literal Birthday, but because we are so grateful for his life and all He did for each of us. He started to soften. Sister Christofferson shared the scripture and the spirit was there. We had shared that specific scripture many many times before and she took it in a different way that we'd ever taken it before. She started teaching about prophets. I immediately started thinking about how I was going to direct what she was teaching in a way to relate to what I was hoping to teach, Christ's earthly ministry. WELL....I immediately caught myself..."STADLER! What are you doing??? Stop planning ahead and pray for him to feel the spirit of what she's saying!.."

So I listened to her teach and prayed that he would feel the truth of the message, that his heart would be opened. I then had a question come to mind that I felt I should ask him. For a moment I pushed it from my mind...(you think I would learn by now...haha)...the question came to my mind again. I almost didn't ask it because of its simplicity. BUT...I did. As Sister Christofferson turned to me for me to testify and teach I asked him, "Alvin, how would you feel if you knew there was a living prophet today on the earth?" This is a classic practice question while doing MTC practices, yet I have never felt so powerfully that it was an inspired question. He was at a loss for words and his face looked puzzled as he pulled away from us physically sitting back into his seat. He was silent for a minute, brow wrinkled and then finally said, "Well, I guess if that was true, we wouldn't need a Bible right? Because there would still be a man who spoke directly to God." His entire demeanor changed. I testified that we did have a living prophet today. The spirit was so strong. I asked him if we could set up a time to return to tell him about how this prophet and how we have one now and without a moments hesitation he responded, "Yes! When?" So we will be visiting him on Wednesday. AH!!!! I love this gospel!!!! It is so true!

One last funny experience. Ok, so this Sunday we had the opportunity to speak. After our talks our branch president spoke and he said something that made me think he had finally lost his marbles! hahaha! He stands up and says they just received a letter from the first presidency and they said that the members of the church were encouraged to get their affairs in order because in the year 2011 our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ would come again. I looked at my companion and said, "...what?! ..this can't be right. everything inside of me is saying this isn't right.." she said, "I feel the same.." I'm thinking...OH MAN....how do we handle this? Everyone in the congregation became absolutely silent and their mouths were open and you could see worry on some of their faces...then our Branch President said, "By the look on your faces I can tell you're not ready.. we don't know when He will come, but we must be prepared now!" Boy was I relieved to have him admit that was a attention getter only. Incredibly effective though! You're all in my prayers. Until next week, look for missionary opportunities, work with faith and WORK on it...WORK is the key! God Speed! (And Merry Christmas!)
all my love,
Sister Stadler