3-22-11

Hi Family & Friends,
 I loveyou all, being on a mission has made me appreciate the importance of family and mine in particular. To have my whole family members, baptized and raised in the gospel is a pretty huge blessing, something you don't see as often as you'd wish. Just like how its an American ward in establishment the work is like an American ward. nobody wants to listen and its really hard to find investigators. like on wednesday we spent the first 4 hours of the day tracting, one person let us in and they weren't too interested. it really sucks. not to mention its summer now and like way hot and I've
been getting headaches from the sun and heat and stuff. it's really true what Elder Anderson talked about the poor and to seek them out. they really are more receptive. like we got new investigators but all from the poor areas of our area. funny how that works. so true how having little , makes you want more in your life, even if its not how they think (temporal) but in spiritual things. their hearts are humbled and they can feel the Spirit so much better than others. anyways enough of my ramblings ill talk a little about my week. we had zone conference on tues it was way good. we had workshops
about the fundamentals of preach my gospel lessons that will be started to be used in the MTC in April. one of them is titled Teach People Not Lessons, focusing on how to focus on individual people and
their individual needs and using the Spirit to teach. man it's a lot more challenging than just running thru the doctrine. its when you listen to the Spirit and make sure to take the time to make sure
everything you say is from the Spirit which is when you teach effective, good, spiritual lessons. but its a lot harder oh man. that's something I've been struggling with and trying to learn this week. but the other zone we were with was Kalookan so I got to see Elder Peterson and Elder Quinney and Elder Izatt. it was a lot of fun and took pretty much all day. but on Saturday we had temple tour which was a lot of fun but long. we took sister Ibanez and her friend who's a member. shes getting baptized on the 2nd and she's way ready I'm excited for her. she's definitely our most prepared investigator. she's the one who's read half the book of Mormon already. she goes to church and loved the temple tour talking about how happy it was there, even if it was way hot haha. other than that not a lot to write about. we did have 6 investigators at church which was a blessing but its just hard. we spend so  much time at each appt, every house so you leave thinking you've really helped them and built good relationships with them, but still sometimes they don't do what they need to.anyways on to more happier subjects: i like that theme of holiness. its once you serve a mission that you realize the work that has to be done throughout the world and when you think about that big picture its kinda stressing. but the comforting thing is that God is in control. and that's the beauty of it. everything that needs to
happen will. and people have their agency and all you can do as missionaries (and members) is be their "guides". that's something febbo always says that i like. that we are there to be their guides to find the truth and in turn be happy. truly happy. to choose good over evil.
"as he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free"

Love
Elder Stover

3-14-11

About the tsunami we heard about the earthquake Friday night and we heard it was going to hit 19 provinces in the Philippines. I don't think it hit that many and the ones it did I know were all on the east side so nothing happened here it didn't even rain. Kinda scary for a few minutes but nothing to be worried about, the good thing about it is people recognize it as a "sign of the times" and its kinda opened people's minds and hearts to the gospel. We even got into a house talking about that how our message can help them feel safe and happy with everything that's going around. One scripture I've shared about it too is 1Nephi 1:20 about tender mercies of God and how he wont give us anything we can't handle and will always give us that little bit of comfort and the comfort that comes from knowing that if we're faithful, whatever is supposed to happen is going to happen and God's in control. Amazing how stuff like this makes people remember God.

Ya and my companion Elder Febbo is pretty awesome. The first half of the week I felt kinda distant from him but we had a good weekly planning on Friday and since we've gotten a lot closer and have tried to really become friends not just companions, cuz that's how I felt with my first two and everything is happier, funner and easier if you're friends with your companion and you guys can relate and talk to each other as you work.  I'm definitely learning a lot from him. he's really good at talking to people and getting in the door when we tract. Me on the other hand, I suck, I'm either too quick to let them say no or I'm too like out there. I don't know how to explain it but I guess I'm not practiced cuz last transfer we didn't tract once. He's also a good teacher, really tries to pause and listen. That's always been my problem is listening even in English haha but especially in Tagalog. He also isn't afraid to give me advice/criticism which at first I didn't like  but he knows more than me, has been out longer than me, is a lot older than me and has more experiences than me. While we don't agree on everything I already see the reasons why we are together at this point in our missions.

The work has been pretty good. We went on splits again on Wednesday with Ian (his name's christian but still that's astig) and Jelica. They're really cool, 19 and 20 and we went tracting and found a couple potential investigators. It was pretty fun I like going on splits I learn a lot more Tagalog cuz its my only chance to have a filipino companion since I haven't had one since I've been on my mission yet. It's funny this week since I told you about last Sunday and everyone said I was good at Tagalog I've felt like I've kinda struggled this week at it. My pronounciation isn't the best, I've gotten corrected by investigators and I don't know I think I was getting comfortable with where I was, pretty confident and the Lord has definitely brought me a little low. Even Febbo brought stuff to my attention to fix, like I need it but its still hard to be corrected even when we need it. Then there was yesterday. oh man. we split I went with John Rey an RM who was in the same mission with Bro Itri my MTC teacher. He's really cool and also these two relief society sisters came with us too, both RM's as well, and man was that tough. One of them is from Quezon province where they speak pure Tagalog so the entire time I taught she would correct me and worse than that laugh whenever I pronounced something wrong. I mean I'm still learning vocab and everything, pronounciation and not sounding like an American is pretty much at the back of my mind. It was pretty bad in one lesson when 3 other ward members happened to be there at the families house so it was like 12 filipinos correcting me as I taught. I was getting really frustrated but I kept it in pretty good and tried to not let it show, the thing is filipinos are really nice and don't want to correct you, but when one of them starts to its like the flood gates open and everyone takes their shot. It's been a fun week tho, we even did service with our Zone Leader's that we live with on Saturday. It's a part member family, the wife's parents aren't members but they're really nice and also very well off, in a 4 story house. The work is going pretty well other than we only got 2 investigators at church. that was way disappointing but we felt we didn't stress it enough this week so we'll try to do better at that this week. Sister Tessie one of our investigators has stopped smoking and is really close with quitting coffee too, she's really funny I like her. and sister Ibanez is still awesome, like she told us she has a lot of friends at church which is way awesome. Anyways the area is coming slowly but surely. I'm starting to get the hang of it and hopefully by the end of the transfer I'll have it and wont get transferred again. I don't want to be one of those elders who goes to every transfer meeting (has never had a companion for more than one transfer) like my last Zone Leader, Elder Izatt. Hope everything is going great over there and thank you for all the support and prayers. you all are in my prayers every day. amazing how fast a mission goes, gotta savor every minute before it's gone.A good scripture this week was Ezra 7:10. talks about Ezra preparing his heart. That's what we all have to do to accept what God is trying to teach us and help us with and recognize the blessings that come from that.

 but love you all

Elder Stover

3-7-11

Hi Family and Friends,

 I didn't get transferred to province, still in the city. In the Novaliches zone, place called San Bartolome. Navotas is a very unique city, extremely small land wise and very packed, no open space really at all.  Here there is some but its still city, things are farther so do more walking than Navotas, cuz there you could take a jeepney pretty much anywhere you needed. But it's cool I like it out here. My companion is Elder Febbo, he's batch with Elder Calder. He's very masipag and really obedient and happy, always joking around with ward members and investigators. He's a cool guy. The ward is really strong, at least to me.  We have a lot of work to do here, like in Navotas we had a lot of investigators and had good numbers. That's not Febbo's focus tho he's really focused on people and quality which is really good just different for me. I'm gonna learn a lot from him that's for sure. He likes teaching longer lessons and bonds with the investigators more than my other companions. He's all about love that's what he always talks about. So it's been a different few days but it's giving me a different point of view that I know I need in my work as a missionary. Lots of lessons to be learned that's for sure. So that's my goal for this transfer, humility, cuz every time I think I know things, I usually don't haha. But we have some good investigators, really fun people who know the
church is true, its cool. Oh and we totally split on Sunday, my first Sunday here and I split. haha kinda scary since I'd been in that part of the area once before but oh well. I split with this guy joey, he got baptized in January, he's 20, a former youth pastor who wants to serve a mission this next January. He's way awesome, so smart for being a member for less than 2 months. We got lost a lot (we had two young women with us too) and it rain/poured on us for about an hour but we did teach a couple pretty good lessons and taught his friend/cousin who's really smart and really magaling. (that means talented technically but it means like
they're smart. Can also say it means like gifted. and speaking of magaling we taught this lady on Thursday about the Book of Mormon, gave her one and when we came back on Satueday she had gotten to Mosiah! Is that crazy or what? But ya its been fun. Got a good full week of work ahead of me and I'm
excited. I got a lot to learn in this area cuz I feel pretty lost right now. I can't wait til I know it well like I didn't Navotas. A lot less stressful like that haha.  But not much else been a fun week, lots of changes I feel new in  the mission again ahah. Oh and I bore my testimony in church and when people asked me after how long I'd been here and I said 3 months they were shocked and said my Tagalog is very good. So maybe I'm alright at it idk, depends on the day to me haha.
But I love you all hope everything is going well. You all are in my
prayers every night.
Thanks for your love and prayers as well.

Love
Elder Stover

3-2-11

Hi Family & Friends,

  I've been feeling all transfer that I was getting transferred.  I've known id be leaving like most of this transfer!

 

So this week has been way good. We had a district goal for this past week to get mission standard as a district   We combined for over 100 lessons between 4 companionships. Oh man I'm gonna miss Navotas. The work here is so good seriously. We've found some really good investigators the past week or so, just thru their friends and them coming to church. It's so amazing that this whole transfer me and Petey haven't tracted once. Not once! that's how it should be it really should, just feed off of referrals. It works really well here, teaching the less actives and recent converts and they almost always have friends who want to listen too. Like just yesterday we got one just like that. Oh man I love it. I'm definitely gonna miss it here tho. Its dirty, gross, loud, magulo (scruffy) and everything, pretty ugly area but oh man is the work just a moving. I hope my next area can be at least a little like this.

 

Oh and I also went on splits last Wednsday, over in Panghulo. They have a big area and parts of it are kinda provincy. I went there once on splits last transfer too it was way fun, with Elder Corpuz a Filipino. He did a 6 month mini mission before his actual mission so he's way legit, really magaling (good), and best of all we spoke almost all tagalog or at least a lot of taglish and i understood most of all that he said. Now that is a blessing for sure.

 

 

Ya not a lot here really, other than I'm transferring and I wont know where til tomorrow at transfer meeting. So on Monday you will all know! I'm really hoping for some province and rice fields but I'm not holding my breath too much.

 

I love you all and hope everything is well!

 

 

Love

Elder Stover