Week 30: Tuesday December 31, 2013

Family,

   HAPPY NEW YEAR! You all still have a few hours to go, but for me 2014 is officially underway! As we start this new year, I have taken some time to reflect on the many blessings that have been placed in my life over the past year. As I have done so, I have remembered many, many trials & hardships. However, I have considered these hardships, I have been able to see the blessings that they have been in my life. As I have served for these past 7 months (so crazy) I have come to really understand how Heavenly Father gives us trials not to tear us down, but to build us up, even if he must tear down initially. Besides the trials, I look back & am amazed at the many blessings that I have received. I often feel as though I am inadequate for many of the great blessings that have been placed in my life, but somehow they just keep coming! I know that I am not perfect & I falter far to often than I should, even as a missionary, yet the Lord understands that. I marvel at His patience & love as He continues to bless me despite of my inadequacies. When I get a few moments, perhaps tonight, I want to sit down & make some realistic goals for myself for this upcoming year. Goals that will stretch me, yet allow me to grow & become a better person. I would challenge you all to do the same!

   As I have stated in my last paragraph, I have been blessed with much love & many opportunities while serving as a missionary. And to start off the new year, I have received yet another great blessing as the Lord & my mission president have blessed me with the privilege of being a TRAINER! It seems like just last transfer I was walking off the airplane into this strange new world, wondering how I was going to survive. Now, I feel as though this is my home away from home, & I have the special opportunity to make some new missionary feel the same way. After e-mailing, I will travel over to Cebu where I will stay the night & pick up my "anak" (kid) in the morning. I am so excited! At the same time, I am sure this is another "stretching moment" that I am about to go through. Though I feel very comfortable with the language, it's still a little scary to think that if my companion is an American, I will be the only line between our work & the people. I have heard that there are 31 new missionaries coming in this transfer (which is crazy!) 25 of which are coming from Provo. If this turns out to be true, chances are that I will be with another American. Fun fact about my mission so far: I have not yet had a Filipino companion, nor have I stayed with a companion for longer than 1 transfer yet! Both of these things are extremely rare this far into a mission. I do not care if my companion is American, Filipino, European, or whatever. I will be grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve & train him. I am just a little bit disappointed however that I will not be with Elder Andus for another transfer. He has been my favorite companion so far & I have really enjoyed this transfer with him. But, I am needed elsewhere & so is he!

   I would also like to say how grateful I am for the chance that we had to speak last week. It was a great comfort to me & I could not have asked for a better Christmas present than the privilege that I had to see you all (even though it was pretty chaotic!). For New Years, we were able to go to the apartment of the senior couple who lives about an hour away. There, we enjoyed food, drinks, & each others company. We did a gift exchange & I received this awesome wooden necklace from another Elder in my zone. I will for sure be wearing it when I get off the plane to see you all again after my mission! We also were able to watch 2 movies! We watched Up & Monsters University. I love Up. The soundtrack is great & the movie is sad. I'm not sure why, but I like sad movies. They are touching. Monsters University was also enjoyable. It's a pretty funny show. 

   Well, I still have about an hour & then I will be off to Cebu to pick up my greenie! Wish me luck! I love & miss you all. Happy New Year!

Elder Staheli

12.23.13

12.23.13

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12.23.13

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12.27.13

12.27.13

 12.28.13

12.29.13

 12.29.13

Week 29: Tuesday December 24, 2013 (Christmas Eve)

This week we received an amazing Christmas present.

We had the opportunity to call and talk to Dylan.

It was so good to not only hear his voice, but to be able to see him. 

We are so proud of him, and his example. He has grown so much in such a short time, and is becoming such an amazing man. Dylan has picked up on the language so well and loves the area he is in. 

Dylan and his companion have scheduled the Jamito family for baptism on the 18th of January, and are very excited. He also mentioned the exchange rate and how much stronger the dollar is and was able to make some fun purchases for himself. He is doing great, and we miss him, but are very proud of him. 

He was excited to have Hunter and Chipper join in on the call as well :) 

Week 28: Tuesday December 17, 2013

Family,

I mentioned the Jamito family last week & they are great! However, it has been a crazy week with them this week. Originally, they were very receptive to the gospel. They still are & are still planning on being baptized, but the problem that we have had is that they have always been shy & hesitant to come to church. When we asked why, brother responded, "It's hot outside." We knew there had to be more to the story, & sure enough, we found out this last week. It turns out that brother Jamito was a drug addict in the past. We already knew this, but it turns out that his past has followed him. His wife's family doesn't like him because of his past addiction. In fact, they dislike him so much that they have been trying to kill him. This is why he can't go outside of his house. The other night, despite his death threats, they went out as a family to see the Christmas tree downtown. On their way home, they ran into her family. Her family jumped them & Alma's (his wife) nephew attempted to chop off her head with a sund-an (machete). Like a champ, she ducked & avoided death, somehow they escaped, & they made it home. They called the police, but they couldn't find them. This now presented a problem for us; it was not safe for us to be there at night. We gave them a blessing & told them to pray. We left, talked with our Branch President, & were advised not to return. However, being the great missionaries that we are, we went back. We talked to them about the problem & they told us that they agreed to speak together that evening - non violently. We received a text from Rolan (husband) later that evening saying that everything had been worked out. They expressed to us, with tears in their eyes, that it was only possible because we had brought the gospel into their lives. It has been an incredible journey with this family.

Love you guys!

Elder Staheli 

12.12.13

 12.12.13

 12.15.13

Clark-Nephi. He is the son of the Jamito family I was telling you about. He is so chubby and the cutest kid ever! 

Also the sunsets in the Philippines are way better than in America...

Week 27: Tuesday December 10, 2013

Family,

   I want to start this letter off by telling you all how much I want to cry. I can't believe that I am missing such blissful weather back home! The pictures you sent are incredible & I can't believe that the second I leave this happens. I hope you are all grateful that you have such nice weather & not such hot, humid weather like I am experiencing here! 

   I really enjoyed all of the pictures that everyone sent. From New York to Utah, they were all awesome! I loved the picture of Dax with his little hat on. Such a stud! I even enjoyed the picture of my car. I really miss it! I miss driving. How is it holding up? 

   Well, like times in the past, not much has happened this week. However, I will share with you a funny experience that happened a few days ago. But first, let me fill you in on our investigators. We have two families that we are really focusing on - The Andaya family & the Jamito family. The Andaya family consists of the husband & wife & their 4 children. We have been teaching them & they are great! However, they are not really progressing. As firm Catholics, they tell us my least favorite line of all time...We are the same. 

   It is so frustrating when people say that the Catholic church is the same as our church. The thing is, everyone says it! Almost everyone that we teach believes in our message. They all say that they believe the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, but they can't wrap their mind around the significance of it all. They all say as long as you believe in the Bible, or anything good for that matter, & believe in Christ, that's all that is needed. While these are great thoughts & partially true, they too often fail to understand the necessity to follow the things that we are teaching them. In all honesty, it's exhausting. We really stress to them the apostasy & the restoration of the church. I always tell them, "If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph was a true prophet. If he was a true Prophet, this is the true church of Jesus Christ." We always challenge them to read & pray about it, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but nothing really changes in them. Many of them also say that they believe in it but will not be baptized because they have always been Catholic & they feel like they have to stay faithful to it. Many people express to us that they don't even believe much of what the Catholic church teaches, but that's what their parents believed, so they cannot change. It makes me so sad. 

     The Jamito family consists of the husband, his wife, & their 1 year old son. Get this...the wife's name is Alma & their son's name is Clark-Nephi! They are already Mormons!  They are progressing better than the Andaya family. They came to church last week! I am still not extremely confident that they will be baptized, at least not while me & Elder Andus are here, but I am hoping that I am wrong! They have great potential but there are still things that may be keeping them from being baptized. I will keep you updated!

   Now for the funny story of the week. Warning: This may or may not be appropriate for little kids, if they even understand. 

   Me & Elder were out proselyting & we walked out to this bay-bay (a small group of homes out on the edge of the ocean) & we started talking to people. Since we are two Americans & the town is so small, pretty much the entire town came & gathered around to talk to us. After a getting to know each other & joking around for a little while, about 4 little boys, probably 8 years old, came running up in t-shirts that were too big for them (the t-shirts came down to about their feet, I hope you can all picture this). They came running up to me & I asked them their names, how old they were, etc. As I spoke to them I noticed that they were all pulling the shirt away from their body so that the shirt would not make contact with their skin. I didn't think much of it & just continued. I asked them how school went & they told me that they didn't go. I asked them why & I couldn't understand their response. I asked them to repeat what they said, & again I had no idea what they were talking about. I looked at their mom & asked them what they said & she said one word, in English. "Penis!" I was shocked & still didn't quite understand. I again turned to the children & seeing them holding the big shirts away from their bodies, it all clicked! They had just been circumcised! I turned to my companion & explain what they said in English & we just laughed our heads off! I asked the kids how they felt & they responded, "sakit!" which just means that they were in pain, & understandably so. That's my funny story of the week. I hope I didn't offend anybody. 

   Now, let's talk about more important matters...Christmas! Here is what is going to happen. We have been told that we are allowed to Skype on Christmas (google hangout will be fine as well, as long as I can get it to work), so that is what we will do! Because of the time difference, they told us that we can either do it on the 25th or the 26th according to the time here in Cebu, since you are all a day behind. I'm not sure what you would rather do? I personally was thinking that it might be better to do it on the 26th my time? That way it would be about 8 pm over there on the 25th for all of you. That is just my thoughts, please let me know what you think of if the other time is better for you all. I would like to do google hangout so that I can see everybody, so if you could let me know (Starr) what I need to do to try & figure that out that would be great! You mentioned just sending an invite? Maybe that would work best. 

   Again, let me just say how painful it is to look at the ideal weather back home, knowing that I am confined to this year-round heat! Enjoy it for me! I will try to answer some questions that were asked. Casey, yes we teach recent converts & family home evenings. Especially since the retention rate is so low here, we really focus & teaching recent converts after their baptism. We start all of the lessons over & teach them everything again. After we finish that, we keep going back weekly for up to 1 year after their baptism. When this is done correctly, the chances of them staying active & entering the temple are much greater. We are also able to do family home evening once in a while. We could do it every week if we wanted, it just depends on our schedule. We had one the other night & it was great! I love them because they usually feed us a wonderful meal & then we start. We will give them a fun lesson & then we play games. They have some great games that they play & it's always enjoyable! I also really enjoyed reading about your missionary efforts with that Chinese girl in your class. She sounds great! Keep working hard with her & others & I'm sure great things will come from it. Even if you don't see the result, something that has happened to me for my entire first 6 months, you are still helping them & planting the seed for them to progress. We have talked about it before. I remember you writing me a few months ago telling me that it is just as important to plant the seed as it is to "harvest". This is certainly true. 

   That's about it for this week. Me & Elder Andus bought a football last week (the only one I have ever seen in the Philippines) so we invited all of the American missionaries to come & play a game at the chapel. There is also a basketball court there so the Filipinos can play basketball. We always invite them to play football, but they always say no & they act scared when we tell them to try & catch it or throw it. It's pretty funny. They just love their basketball, & there's nothing wrong with that. 

   I love you all & pray for you always. Until next week!

-Elder Staheli

   

Week 26: Tuesday December 3, 2013

Family,

   Well, tomorrow marks the first 6 months of my mission! There have been many ups & downs, I have had much sadness & experienced great joy, I have felt lonely & I have felt the love of a people whom I do not even know. If you were to ask me if it has gone by fast or slow, I would say that it started off extremely slow but is progressively getting faster. As much as I am enjoying my mission, hopefully it will only continue to go by faster so that I can return to you all soon! 

   I hope everyone's Thanksgiving went well. Since there is no Thanksgiving here, we didn't celebrate. In fact, I forgot all about it & didn't realize it had past untilyesterday. But up next is Christmas! I have told you all before, but Christmas is an incredibly big holiday over here. It's pretty much what everyone lives for. You start hearing Christmas music around September & it goes until Christmas. In my area right now, there is a large field in the middle of town & they set up this HUGE tree in the middle. Last Friday, they had a huge ceremony that the entire town went to & they had entertainment & lit up the tree. It was quite the experience. 

   Not much has happened this week. We are still mostly tracting & trying to find more people to teach since we have a very small teaching pool at the moment. We are finding many new potential investigator's & hopefully they turn into baptisms. One thing about the people here is that they are so nice. They are the nicest people I have ever met. Me & Elder Andus, in an attempt to find more people to teach, wave at every single car, motor, or person that we see. Literally every single one. Since the town is small enough, we are gaining the reputation as "the happy, smiling Americans." Unbelievably, we are finding that so many more people are willing to listen to us because they can sense that we are friendly people. Every single person we wave to waves back, accompanied by a huge, sometimes toothless smile! It's the best. 

   That's about it for this week. Our Christmas party is coming up on the 16th of December. I'm so excited! I hear that for Christmas, we are allowed to watch 2 Disney movies as a Christmas gift! Man, I can't wait. 

   Well, keep going strong! I love you & miss you! 

-Elder Staheli

11.27.13

11.27.13

11.28.13

 12.3.13