10.03.2012

Help from the Spirit . . . along the way!


Hello Family! 
     So sorry for the hold up this week on my e-mail; with very short notice we were told that we had interviews with President Stucki on Monday and that our P-day would be pushed back to Wednesday.  So yeah that's why it's been a couple extra days.  It was actually our temple day earlier so we just have P-day the rest of the day.  It was so good to be in the temple today.  But yeah we had interviews on Monday, and it was really good to talk with President.  They always go by SO fast.  But I had a lot of situations to talk to him about investigators and their baptisms and such, so it was good to get some of them all figured out.  
     Dad, your question about marriages: yeah, you can have a bishop or stake president perform a marriage for free, but they have to get licensed. No one here in my area is certified yet to perform marriages.  I spent all three transfers in Palawan trying to get someone licensed, and now I'm doing the same thing here in Cavite.  Hopefully we can get that worked out before November because we have an investigator really progressing towards her goal date in November but has to get married.  
     Ryan asked if our 19 (now 20) dates were all solid, and not all of them are.  We just are really encouraged to be extending dates the sooner the better, and they have been encouraging us by the second lesson.  So not all are for sure, but we have a lot progressing so it's really exciting.  Our next baptisms will be Oct. 20, which will for sure be Mark and Maryanne Adigue who are 14 and 16 years old!  Hopefully Jhennalyn was going to join them for the baptism, but she has been out of town and didn't really say anything to anyone. We don't really know anything about it.  So yeah we're really praying for her!  
     Two weeks ago we actually found our new golden investigator, Analie.  She just moved in with her older brother's family who is actually a less active in our ward.  We went to visit that family, and they weren't home but sister was.  We asked if we could share with her, and she happily let us in.  She said just since she moved in, she saw the Book of Mormon and had read the testimony of Joseph Smith and was interested.  And we've now taught her only twice, but she is so prepared.  Everything she says you can just tell the gospel is just what she's looking for.  She wants direction in her life; she wants to know which church is the real church and stick with that one because she's switched from church to church a few times.  I can't remember it all, but we just had a really good lesson with her. She's come to church twice now and even got her husband to come this last week who she told us has problems with the Word of Wisdom and gambling.  So yeah, I’m SO excited for Analie and her family!



      I really have seen so much in the past few weeks just how much the Lord truly does prepare people here in our areas for us to find.  I've really gained a love for finding and just talking with everyone to find these people who are just waiting for our message.  I also had a neat experience this week: we went and talked with one of our less active sisters, Sister Almadovar. The last time we taught her two of her friends were walking by, and we invited them to join in on our lesson.  Well we taught them a little about the restoration and about families and then gave them a pamphlet and took their names and addresses because they don't live in our area. Later that night we forwarded their names on to our APs. Then to be honest, I almost just forgot about them because of course I know they don't live here, and I probably won't teach them again.  Well this last week we were talking to Sister Almadovar, and she told me how touched her one friend was and how she really felt the spirit and had never felt anything like that when we taught them.  She said that she's been waiting for the missionaries to go to her house and learn more.  It was just really neat to me because it just made me think how many people we have an opportunity to help and touch their lives, and we might never know that we did.  This friend right here might end up getting baptized, and I would have never even remembered we taught her.  You just never know how the small and simple things we do can largely affect others.  That's just one reason I love being a missionary and giving all my time to others, and I have so much help from the spirit to help me along the way!  It's so great!  
     So yeah those are just some little examples of things going on here in Novaleta.  Sister Richardson is loving her new area here, and she is such a good missionary.  I just love her!  She's really good at Tagalog.  And we both still get the 'Hey, Joes' and all that.  That didn't ever go away, Mom, and won't go away being white with blonde hair here in the Philippines:)  haha.  
     Oh, I have an assignment for all of you again to tell me what your favorite talk is in conference because as you know I have to wait a whole WEEK before I get to hear conference.  I didn't get to see the Relief Society broadcast.  We did have a funeral service last night that I was the pianist at.  Funerals are SO weird here in the Philippines!  Ah, I can't even describe.  I’m pretty sure I told you all about them when I went to my first one in Carmona.  Oh and, Dad, it gets a little cooler if it's really rainy these days but not really.  
     Well I think that's about all that I have for today.  I love you all so much!  Thanks for the e-mails and updates!  Take care always!:)

Mahal ko kau!
SIster Stromberg

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