Prepared to Hear the Word of God

Malapit na ang Pasko!!

     Hello family! What a week it has been. So the big news for today is... we have a BAPTISM!! This Saturday Ben and Amelia are getting baptized, and President Stucki will also be attending the baptism. Yeah so it's going to be great. Ben and Amelia are just the cutest older couple and are already such an addition to our ward. Ben gave us a referral last week, Mario, and we went and taught him. Then Ben went to his house Sunday morning and brought him to church. He has just totally caught the vision of missionary work, and he's not even a member yet. He just told us that he's so impressed with the work that we do, and he wants to go around with us more, sharing our wonderful message. I'm so excited for them and to continue to see them grow in the church.      
     Yesterday we had such a good day at church. We actually set a record at church of the highest attendance! Yay! We had 212 at church. Sister Dyer said when she first got here, it was about 120ish. We had 20 investigators at church and 24 less active members attend. It was SO great! And what just made me smile the most is about five or ten minutes before sacrament meeting started it was almost all less actives and investigators sitting waiting for the meeting to begin, and all the active members were late. haha Kind of ironic. Then Brother Melvin gave a really neat lesson in our investigator class and bore such a POWERFUL testimony that there were investigators in tears feeling the spirit, and, man, it was just such a good Sunday!!

     Then Saturday it was temple tour! Yay, my first time back to the temple in 6 months! I got so excited as we were riding in the taxi, and the temple came into view. We were just in charge of teaching all of the investigators coming from the city areas. Our station was actually the first station which is kind of MCing. We would pick people to bear testimonies and sing songs and keep everyone entertained; pretty much that is what they told us to do. Then we would send out groups every five minutes. It was a lot of fun. And I finally saw Sister Afu since she left Palawan, and, man, I just love that girl. It was so fun catching up and telling her all about Maryjane and her family (which by the way her baptismal date is Sept. 15 I was told).

     Yeah and then this Wednesday is our temple day so we get to go do a session, and I'm just SO anxious! Oh and we also had zone conference this week on Thursday. Yeah I told you it was quite the week. Our conference was focused on the message of the restoration, and it was such a neat conference. We did some practices, and one of them was with the first vision which is one of the things I love to teach the most, Joseph Smith's first vision. Every time I tell the first vision or my companion does, I just feel the spirit so strong! It is SO powerful! And it's such a privilege to share this message with everyone. I'm so grateful for Joseph Smith and everything he did for this church. I'm always so amazed at the faith that he had at just age 14. He was truly called of God to restore Jesus Christ's church, and we are so blessed to enjoy Christ's church again in the Latter-days. I love in the Joseph Smith movie, at the end when it says "And shall we not go on in such great a cause..." or something like that, and I love that as a missionary I get to share this message with everyone here in Novaleta. Missionary work is just great:)

     Thanks for everything! Thanks so much for the milk and the pictures! I was so excited! Ry, you asked about my companion. I love Sister Dyer. She's great, and we get along just fine and have no problems. Hopefully we'll have more than one transfer together, but she only has two left after this so she might transfer to one more area... who knows. Oh and let me just throw in that her piano teacher is David Glenn Hatch... yeah no big deal.
     So yeah that's pretty much my week. We had a ton going on, but it was all just so awesome and spiritually uplifting and exhausting all at the same time. Oh and then, you asked about our apartment. Our apartment is really nice, and we just got a new toaster, rice cooker, shower head, electric fans this Friday, and we're getting a new fridge on Saturday! So yeah no complaints there! And there are a significantly less number of cockroaches and ants in this apartment so that's great too. I had to buy a couple of blouses last week because in Palawan ants decided it would be a good idea to eat some of my clothes. Yeah, that's life here in the Philippines:) haha. Well I hope you all have a great week! I can't believe it will be September this weekend! You know what that means... Christmas time! . . . well at least here in the Philippines. Any month with a "ber" at the end of it means it's Christmas time. So Happy Christmas! Love you all so much!

Mahal Ko Kau,

Sister Stromberg

P.S. Here is part of my letter to President that you might enjoy:

     This last week I was reading in Alma 32, and I realized how much this chapter relates to the   missionary work here in the Philippines. Alma starts to teach the people who are poor and in verse 6 it reads “for he beheld that their afflictions had truly humbled them, and that they were in a preparation to hear the word.” As I was reading this, I couldn’t help but think of these people who have so very little here in the Philippines and bear their afflictions so well. They are the most humble people that you’ll ever meet, and because of that, they are prepared to hear the word of God. That’s exactly the situation here. It's so neat!!