Happy Thanksgiving!!!!
What a great week it has been and what a great week we have ahead of us!:) I'm
happy to tell you that, yes, Khaycie and Jhen passed their interviews yesterday,
and we will be having two sessions of baptisms on Saturday:) haha Yep, not just
TWO baptisms but two sessions. haha Khaycie is in Young Women, and they have
this big activity for the YW anniversary so she has to have her baptism in the
morning before the activities start. Then Jhen just got this new job which is
absurd the number of hours she is working! She is required to work overtime
which is from 6:00 in the morning to 12:00 at night, yeah 18 hours! Jobs here
in the Philippines are so ridiculous, how much time they put in, and yet they
don't get paid what they deserve. It's no wonder there are so many Filipinos
working abroad. But anywho that means she won't get home until night time so we
will have her baptism around 5:00 p.m. hopefully. So yeah I'm super excited for
Saturday!
But as for this last week, I feel like I just barely wrote
to y'all because I wrote you Wednesday night and told you all about temple day
and such. Well on Saturday it was our Temple Tour. We brought Bro and Sis
Sumilang to the temple tour. They have a baptismal date coming up the end of
December, but they aren't progressing the way they need to be. They are part of
Couples for Christ. They say they want to be baptized and know the Book of
Mormon is true, but they love the members from their community at Couples for Christ
and can't leave them. So they're trying to do both right now which makes it
hard because sometimes we'll come to teach them, and they'll be at a meeting
for CFC and such. So yeah they really enjoyed the temple and said it answered
some questions for them, and they really want to be able to enter the temple
some day. But then yesterday they weren't at church. So yeah we have to figure
this whole thing out with them.
Then this week one of our members invited us to come and
teach their new nanny which immediately I thought about Tina. Do you remember
her? She was the nanny of a member in Carmona that we taught, and she was going
to get baptized but the week before she moved back to her province. So yeah
we'll try again. haha Her name is Tessie, and she is so sweet. She is my age;
she's married, but they’re separated. She has a child that is currently living
with her mom in Davao. We had a really good first lesson with her, and she
really opened up. One thing she said that just hit me really hard... we asked
her if there was a time in her life where she felt God's love for her; she said
sometimes it's really hard for her, and sometimes she feels that He's forgotten
her especially when everything's happened with her husband. Ah it was so hard
to hear that, but then it made me SO happy that we have this opportunity now to
help her feel that love that Heavenly Father has for her and help her see the
hope that the gospel can bring to her life. I don't know I'm just really
excited about her because I feel a special connection with her and a special
bond with her! We'll have to wait to see what Heavenly Father has in store for
her:) So yeah that's my exciting experience for the week.
Then last night we had a fireside with the stake for newly
baptized members and also investigators were invited, and Brother Ben got to be
one of the speakers to share his conversion story. It was so neat. He's just
growing so much. Last week he was talking with us, and he was saying how he
just realized how great the priesthood is and how much of a privileged it is
that he was called to be one of the Lord's servants to receive his holy
priesthood. It was neat seeing him get so excited about it. A lot of other
wards after the fireside were telling us how much they enjoyed his testimony
and how they felt the spirit so strong when he was talking. It was a really
neat fireside!
So yeah missionary work is great! It's so fun hearing all
the friends back home that are receiving their calls right now! It makes me so
happy to think of the missionary force getting stronger! There was a time here
in the mission where we had to close a lot of areas because the number of
missionaries sent out had decreased a lot. Even in Carmona there used to be four
missionaries and now are only two. So it makes me so happy to know we'll have
more missionaries to help this work go forth stronger and bolder!:) I hope I'm
still here in the mission when you start to see a difference in the number of
missionaries here in Manila!
Oh and I did receive some letters this week for the 10th,
11th, and 12th Days of Christmas! Yaay:) I'm so excited to read them! But I was
a little confused because I thought it was supposed to start with the First Day
of Christmas...? and on the 12th day it didn't have written "don't open
until the 25th," so does that mean I can open that one?:) I
think that's only fair! SO yeah I think that was your only question.
Well I hope you all have a great week! This Wednesday is our mission
tour, and we get to hear from Elder and Sister Nielson from the 70! I'm really
excited about that! I'm so THANKFUL for every single one of you and couldn't be
more blessed to have you a part of my life!!!!! Love you lots!
Mahal na mahal ko kayo,
Sister Stromberg
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