Transfer Week

This week has been a crazy one. The week started off great with a wonderful P-day. Tuesday we had a great district meeting and had an uplifting testimony experience. I also got the package you sent!!!! Wooo! I was needing all that stuff so much! Thanks a million :) We had some great lessons on Tuesday, then mid-lesson the dreaded phone call came. We were not planning on it happening, but it did. So Elder Wilstead and I's run ended. The dream team was being split up. We didn't know where he was going but just were told to go to Transfer meeting Wednesday at 10 am. Wednesday was transfer day which was for sure a weird thing. Everyone kind of hangs out waiting for their new companion and its really awkward. ahah. I met my new companion, Elder Baradi, he is great! He is a Filipino from Montalban Rizal. Which is near Manila! He actually goes home next transfer, so I kill him!! woohoo! I have already learned a lot from him and continue to everyday. He has a huge amount of experience and it has been great teaching, finding, and planning with him. He has been able to give me great tips and tricks with the language. 

I have for sure been stretched this past week. Since I know the area well I have been leading. It is sort of intimidating but I actually know the area a lot better than I thought I did. I have led planning sessions including weekly planning this past Friday. I have been stretched but already have learned a ton! I am grateful for this transfer and the opportunity I have had to progress this past week. I am excited for the zone conference this week, I am excited to experience that for the first time!

So a crazy week for sure.. but things just keep progressing like always. The language gets better, you know the area better, know how to plan better, etc. etc. etc. Another thing about scripture study i learned... when we "liken" the scriptures.. we are creating a mental bridge between understanding & living the doctrine we learn. Remember that. A few other spiritual notes here. Mosiah 16:5... when we disobey God's commandments, we literally are denying ourselves gifts and blessings that he wants to give us. Alma 20:17. Our souls cannot be saved in anger... remember any form of anger is a sin. , but on the same not.. alma 19:36.. the arms of God are ALWAYS extended to those who are willing to come unto him through repentance. Repentance truly is the key to a happy and healthy life. I promise you... will every fiber of my being that I possess... that humble repentance will change you in ways you never thought possible. Another thought.. Matthew 12:30.. we are either with, or against Christ. There is NO  3rd option... let that help you analyze your decisions daily. Another thing that i cant stress enough.. is the BOM and why we need it. Its vital for our every day lives. 2 Nephi 4:15.... why does nephi love the scriptures? why does he study them? why does he ponder them? his response... for the learning and the profit of his Children! not Himself. K final rant here.... Alma 17:2. when the day comes that i step off that airplane in st george.. OBVIOUSLY i will be excited to see you. BUT i will be even more excited if i know you are "still brethren in the Lord" and how does that happen? through "diligent scripture study". Just do it everyday. It WILL help you. I promise. And pray.. pour your heart out to the Lord. Do the things you know you should be doing and your life will be blessed! I love you all. I really do! 

Palangga,

Elder Stagg

God Be With You, Till We Meet Again!

thats the 1000 peso bill, its awesome

the package!!! 

just a funny picture

Elder Baradi and I! 

the pen.. (this is for brennen and jay) i knew the vivint pens were good for something :P ps.. im using it to hold open a window on a bus cuz it was broken and obviously a million degrees on the bus.

Add on!

Family and Friends,

I have to tell you about this! so here in the philippines... cock fighting is 100% legal. And FYI, its the coolest thing ever. one of our less actives has cocks that will spar in his house during our lessons. its great! sparring means they dont have knives on their claws.. so they dont kill each other. but yeah that real deal is a bloody mess. we arent allowed to see them as missionaries but i have heard its nuts! sweet huh? 

palangga,

elder stagg

Fast Week!

Family and Friends,

This week flew by! I guess that is what happens when you work hard everyday and try to utilize every minute. I really enjoyed our new missionary follow up training that we had.. It was cool to see all my batch mates from the MTC! President Lopez's training really helped me and gave me some good insight on how to improve myself and stay positive at all times in this "wilderness". Blessings have just been arriving in Elder Wilstead's and I's area! We have been blessed with so many new referrals and investigators, some literally just showing up at church. Bishop has seen our hard work and we can truly see that he is trusting us more and more each week. Because of that, he has given us tons of referrals and really just has a helpful "do anything for you" kind of attitude. Hard work pays off in the most interesting of ways. He is hilarious. He is one of those bishops who just throws it down, and tells you how it is. I love it... well what i understand of it :P haha! 

My language skills have been improving greatly this past week. I only speak Ilonggo during proselyting hours and it just helps my knowledge of this language increase drastically. I have had much more effective language studies as well. I am trying hard to memorize new words and phrases and it has helped so much. Elder Wilstead has been very helpful in correcting my language skills and giving me tips and tricks to improve. We do practice teaching during companionship study which helps me so much. It's still difficult.. but awesome to see progress, i love it!

Of course hard times arrive, but you just pray harder and work harder and it all works out. I truly have felt that my prayers have improved leaps and bounds this week. Honestly that is so important... you really need to conversate with your Father in Heaven. He wants to talk. He wants to hear and feel our sorrows, joys, and accomplishments through our prayers. We saw the fruits of our labors this week on Sunday at church. We had so many investigators come to church for the first time. Sister Antonano (her husband was baptized a few weeks ago) came to church for the first time! She has an amputated leg and because of that she was really nervous about church. She came in her wheelchair. Our church building has the chapel upstairs which created quite the dilemma. Elder Wilstead and I and her husband carried her up that stairs in her wheelchair. That was such a great thing to be able to do. She really enjoyed church. I spoke in church this sunday again (in ilonggo) about Christ and our trials. If we put our trust in him... all our trials will end up benefiting us. 

We really focused on the Savior this week in our teachings and it showed with how much our investigators improved and wanted to keep commitments. I am loving this experience. It has its ups and downs.. but! its great. I truly love how this is helping me establish great habits. 

We killed 3 rats this week. We bought this hardcore trap that worked wonders.. ill send pics! We are turning into some skilled rat murderers. The power came back on Tuesday night... best moment of my life! haha. Oh wanna know something great? people love basketball here... so i know everything that happens in the NBA finals! hahaha. sometimes you see little snippets of it while you walk past houses. Awesomely enough the internet cafe i am emailing at is listening to the game on the radio! GO spurs! Its weird.. P-day comes and i forget everything that has happened the past week. hahah. oh ps.. transfer day is wednesday.. but since i am training that shouldnt affect me!

Now for the spiritual stuff! So my studies this week have been amazing unreal! and guess what... if you can't say the same.. .you need to change something! So i had some great studies about Lehi's dream! 1 Nefi 8! Go read it.. these are a few things i realized that are helpful.. notice that they grabbed hold of the "end of the rod" not the middle or finish. the end! we all start our spiritual journey somewhere. remember that. Notice also that the people going towards the tree of life were holdingfast.. while the people heading to the great and spacious building were "feeling their way" Ie- no direction. So if you feel that you have no direction, its a lack of holdingfast! The tree of life is the love of God. It is something we can obtain and have at every moment. It is a foretaste to eternal life. The iron rod.. is the word of God. I know we have all sung that song, but have we really likened that to our lives? We hold fast through our study of the scriptures. There is a reason Elder Wilstead and I hound our investigators everytime to see if they are reading! that is how they progress! that is how WE progress! without the word of God in our daily lives.. we will "feel our way" to a place we wont want to be. 

K so this one just bear with me.. and dont think all of the sudden that i liken everything i read to marriage, BUT.. Apostles have said that, "the most important work you will do in this world, will be within the walls of your own home". So i think i found the formula for perfection in a marriage. And yes this is when what i talk about is done with exactness.. so obviously its work and takes repentance. But! here we go! For myself i have decided this... true love (which every one has their opinion on) is this... (and you can quote me on this) True love hinges off the desire to help people truly come unto Christ by living the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. All the marriage help books, seminars, counselors, etc etc.. dont have one thing. The pure love of Christ centered at their teachings. This gospel does. Another note.. true love requires BOTH people to be truly striving to be more like Christ. If it's just one.. heartbreak, sorrow, confusion, and pain will continue. Decide now (whereever you are in your marriage) you wont be the 1 who isn't trying. That's my little rant to you. And it may not mean much because A. im not married B. im only 20 years old and C. i dont have tons of wisdom BUT.. im positive this can' t and will not hurt a marriage. i testify of that. 

Lastly, remember. Christ is the vine, and we are the branches. How strong is your connection? This is the eternal gospel people.. we are so in trouble in so many ways without it! Love you all so so so much! you are all wonderful people. keep on keeping on.

Palangga,

Elder Stagg

our "laundry room".. ps handwashing clothes is just.......... thebest! positivity right?

we enjoy ourselves! man i am so sweaty in all the pictures.. thats the Philippines for ya!

just getting my rat murder on.... yeah i look evil in this picture, but i had to do it. hahah. yeah that trap is legit! plus you just get to stare the little devils in the eye and know that you won! i love it! oh the bucket part.. .yeah thats the execution block!

beautiful cloud... study materials.. and yes, backpacks are bawal (illegal) in our mission now! side bag swag! oh sweet heavens...

One of those weeks you love/hate

Dear Family and Friends,

Elder Wilstead and I had another great week. It was laced with trials and hardship, but we prayed hard and continued through the tough times. Sometimes Satan throws all that he can at you, but we realized that and continued through it. This past week I learned and progressed a lot. I had the chance to lead my area twice, (which basically means.. I find the appointments, I lead out the lessons, etc etc.) once with Elder May and once with Elder Fernando. I really do enjoy leading my area, it helps me to see my progress thus far in the mission and it also helps me to progress in ways I can't when I am a junior companion. We taught 6 lessons each day and obtained a couple referrals. I always enjoy exchanges because it helps me (like I have said before) to learn tons of new things. My language skills and teaching skills progress every week, and I know the Lord helps me daily. 

The progress in our investigators this week has been substantial. We had the baptism of Sister Jinky this last Saturday which was great to see. Her parents (who we have been teaching) both came to the baptism and both came to church as well. Brother Bernal has been able to overcome some word of wisdom issues which is amazing. Prayers and fasting really do help people, it was a big testimony builder to me. They both really enjoyed church. We have been so blessed it is amazing, we literally have had new investigators almost fall into our path. What a blessing that has been. Elder Wilstead and I work hard every single day. Our closeness and friendship really has helped us to push each other to work hard and be exactly obedient always. What a blessing it has been to be trained by one of my best friends. 

Some of the ridiculous things this week.. SO. Friday night rigfht after one of our last appointments.. its started pouring. Not raining, but POURING. I have never been so soaked in my entire life. That was quite an experience. All the Filipinos already stare at us because we are white, but it was a million times worse in the rain. haha. Oh i haven't told you about that yet, everyday you hear, "Hey Kano" (for americano) or more usual is, "hey joe" everyday. usaully about 30 times. without fail. you literally feel like a monkey in a zoo here. hahaha. its unreal. and people will try to speak to you in english to be funny so you speak back in english really fast and they get all nervous and stop talking. haha. So Saturday was one of the days where you basically get kicked in the crotch (metaphorically) over and over. I dont remember exactly specifics but we just got wrecked all day. The one amazing part was we had the baptism of Sister Jinky, i will send pictures of course! she is 15 but just super into learning about the church, its great. OH ya one of the crotch kickings was this older guy named Samson. We have taught them a couple times... i cant explain how those lessons are. basically at one point he asked us who we believe more in? Moroni or Mormon? Its hard to explain the weirdness of these lessons.. all you need to know is this 81 year old filipino man called me sensitive. hahahahaha. i need to work on my patience with this guy. haha. cause he would start kind of bashing our religion and i would just testify my little heart out. haah. Also another one of the crotch kickings was in the AM before our baptism we went out to one of our areas that is right next to the ocean to teach our RC/ his investigator wife. Take the 45 minute walk, then get there... HIgh Tide!! it was 2 feet of water to there house.. not an option. #puntedagain! Then that night as we are saying our nightly personal prayers... boooom! Brown out! Brown outs occur regularly in our area, basically its just where the power goes out and you have no fan, no fridge, sometimes no water, and life is somewhat miserable haha. Yeah that was Saturday and its now.. Monday morning, no power still. (i am writing this email in bacolod city in a mall and its about an hour from our area so they have power, fyi!) Yeah yesterday was a battle... church with no air con. death. I was just sweating all day long. haha. Then we had to go all over our zone to do baptismal interviews because elder wilstead is a ZL. long story short we didnt have any proselyting time at all! Oh and at church one of the Sisters told us this brownout will last at least until tuesday.. but more than likely until wednesday or thurday. Sleeping is the biggest battle because you have no electric fans. goodnight its hot. You just wallow in your own filth and sweat all night long. haha. OH! and yesterday we had our studies by candle light! wow! we are just living the missionary life. pero... padayon giapon. (but... continue the same). Oh and ps-- the rats are mating in our house i think. sometimes i fear for my life in this apartment. haha. 

So here's a few things i learned spiritually/ temporally this week. From all the crotch kickings i learned this... Satan will throw all kinds of things at you. Lots of which will be out of your control. (rats, rain, high tide) But! you must stand firm to what you know to be true, and continue on being an example of the believers, no matter how hard it is. Now just a few ideas/ ideas i jotted in my study journal. Love trumps all.. first our love for God and Jesus Christ, and then our love for our brothers and sisters. IF you truly, TRULY love like Christ, you will never have problems. Obviously that is the challenge of a lifetime, but just something to think about. And now a quote from my mission president President Lopez, "Faith that doesn't lead to repentance, isn't true faith". I will let you ponder that one out on your own. Again with love.. the highest, strongest, noblest form of love is Charity. Moroni 7 and Herbews 11 can teach you tons about that. So an assingment for you this week, go read Mosiah chapter 4. Focus on verse 19. Are we not all beggars in this world? This verse has helped me to question myself as to why at times we see ourselves above others. Whether homeless or a millionare, a drunk or a bishop. We all rely on the same God. We are all beggars to him. Impart of your substance to others, cause whenever you do... you help people see the light of Christ. On that same note, who are we to doubt people's ability to change? If you ever question someone's ability to change let me be a testimony to you that change is real. And true, lasting change comes only through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. My last point is about murmuring.. obviously on a mission we get new rules that sometimes seem so stupid and pointless. But from the first couple chapters of 1 Nephi we learn this; When we murmur, we lose favor in the sight of God. And murmuring comes from a lack of faith and knowledge of God. Think about that. I know for myself, for example when i was in high school and would murmur about the commandments.. it was because of a lack of faith in God. Also a lack of knowledge. Elder Wilstead and I have discussed this a lot this past week... that truly truly we all need to study, pray and repent every day. This is our time to obtain knowledge and prepare to meet God. I love you all and praise your efforts to be better everyday. Never get stuck in the rut of sin, and remember that repentance is the opposite of being damned by the power of Satan. I love you all greatly.. always have gratitude. Even for things I KNOW you take for granted (because up until now i did too.. hehe.) ie.. air con, carpet, running water, electricity etc etc. haha! i love you all. The work is great, dont forget that you should be a part of missionary work in your ward. They need your help. Trust me.

Palangga,

Elder Stagg

its officially rainy season.. these pictures do no justice to how wet i was. haha. and our stuff got soaked in our backpacks. 

sister jinky's baptism! her parents are hopefully going to be baptized on july 6!

plus our candlelight companionship study. that was funny. haha

cool camera effects? haha!

Time Keeps Moving

This week has been great! Elder Wilstead and I have been blessed abundantly in EB Magalona. We have seen some great progression in our investigators and in ourselves as well. The Lord really has blessed us for our desires to be exactly obedient and to work hard everyday. I had splits this week with Elder Fernando in Manta-Angan. It was a great experience. He was able to help me a lot with the language. We had some great lessons and he helped a ton in getting me involved in the lessons. He has a very positive and hardworking attitude, and is always trying to serve others. Splits are great because you get to learn other tricks and techniques with teaching, speaking, finding, etc. We had the baptism of Brother Antonano this week which was awesome. He is a total stud.. has a huge testimony already and his faith is unreal. He is also like my height but is just a tank. He is built like a linebacker haha! He wasn't able to be confirmed this sunday because of his work. He is a fisherman and all the other men he worked with scheduled to process their new shipment of bamboo on sunday. He will be confirmed next week in church along with another Sister who will be baptized this coming Sunday. The language is coming along better for me.. still hard though. I pray for help with it everyday. That's the challenge of life, and especially missionary work, is relying on the Lord. But i am very grateful for the experiences i have everyday that help me learn and grow. Elder Wilstead and I will be concentrating a lot this week on finding referrals to try and enlarge our teaching pool. 

Time on a mission is so strange.. and maybe its like this in real life too aha. but one second your waking up then the next you are going to bed. life moves fast and its important to realize how important our eternal progression is everyday.The little things will keep you going, reading praying and going to church. thats the golden ticket really. a couple reading assignments. First is Moroni 7:40-43... we must obtain hope to obtain faith.. and we must have faith to do anything in this world. Also read the bible dictionary passages about prayer. Always remember that quality prayers come from the knowledge that you are Heavenly Father's sons.. if your prayers are lacking, its because of a forgetfulness of that relationship. I learn more and more how much we need to focus and have meaningful prayers. I love you all and pray for you. I hope you all have the desire to be involved in the missionary work in your area... the missionaries need your help SO much. so always try to give them referrals, help at lessons, food (haha) etc. I know Christ is our Savior and that through him we can overcome any trials or sins in our life. I know the Book of Mormon has power within it.. and the only way to obtain that power is through studying and applying its principles. Draw near unto God and He will draw near unto you. Love you all again.

Palangga,

Elder Stagg 

just the most rickety old sketchy bamboo bridge ever. no big deal

brother antonano's baptism. he is a stud. he is a fisherman and is just built like a tank. spiritual giant as well.

studying too hard i guess? haha, yeah if you have any ideas of how to fix this.. please tell me.

 thats me waking up halfway through a fast in the humid philippines. haha. 

thats a giant poop in the road.

sweet sunset

sometimes you are so tired you just lay in the road. haha

the rats never cease.. yeah it hit the trap and there was blood and it literally pooped itself. haha

love the ocean !