Blessed!!!

9/6/15

Hello Family!

I am having a great time here! Transfers are this week, and both Elder Burgos and I are staying here. There are a lot of changes though here in the zone. It is going to be a fun transfer. We have a lot of Elders and Sisters training. And over half of the whole mission is transfering this Wednesday. I really love Elder Burgos! He is one of my favorite companions that I have ever had! All of my companions have been great, but Elder Burgos is on the ball. He is a really talented missionary and does a great job with just about anything. So it is really great to have a companion that is this motivated.

Yeah, I know everything with Kyle will work out just fine. Great council from President W! 

Oh before I forget. If you send me a package for christmas or whenever, please put the Patience Loader Rozsa book in there. I got permission from president to read it. So I would like to be able to read that. 

Another thing. I met a person this last week on exchanges in puerto named Joseph Ople(pronounces oplay) He served in the same mission as Taylor and says he knew him.

MLC was a super great experience. It is a TON different than the MLC's with President Stucki. Both were great! I like them both. President Stucki and President Ostler just have a whole different spirit they bring into meetings. It was a lot of fun though. And It was interesting being able to travel all the way to Manila  for the meeting. So that was a really great experience and I am excited for the next one. 

One really cool thing here is that there are a ton of people here in the area that have been baptized since i left. Three people that I personally taught have been baptized since I left, and a lot of people reactivated. The branch has grown to the point where it could be split. So now we are assigned in santa monica branch 1 with 2 other companionships. In the other branch there are two more companionships. So the work is going to keep going forward really quick here. 

Sorry my thoughts are all over the place right now. I don't have much more time to email. So here is my spiritual insight for the week.

Repentance is the only way we can make permanent changes in our lives. It is only through using the Atonement that the changes we make in our lives will become permanent. If we accept the teachings of Jesus Christ and put forth and honest diligent effort to follow them, then we can utilize the atonement and become a more Chirst-like person from day to day. It is using the atonement every day to fix things, like not wanting to do the dishes or being angry at one of our family members, and become better people. We need to focus on the small and simple things. And as we change the small things every day, great changes will eventually come in our lives. I invite all of you to find one thing that you are not perfect at, and focus on fixing it every single day. I can promise you, that if you put all of your heart into it and pray for strength, that you will be strengthened and be able to fix that one thing, no matter how small, large, simple, complex, easy or difficult it may be.

Thank you all for your Love and prayers. 

Elder Schroeder

Pictures from

Mission Leadership Council 

9/13/15 

Hello Family!

This week has been super good!

As for the package, beef jerky. ummm, anything else, I am not sure, maybe spitz sunflower seeds, cracked pepper. And then watermelon sour patch is always a favorite of mine. Maybe a necktie that I could give my companion (somewhat skinny). And anything else that you want to send me. 

Elder Burgos is from a place called ilocos norte in a place called batac. HE speaks ilocano so is Taylor wants to tell him anything in ilocano, he can.

Speaking of singing, do you remember that choir that the philippines manila mission put on last year? They are doing it again. They had try outs for it last zone conference and Elder Dodini convinced me to try out. So I tried out and made it in the choir! I just found out today that I made it. So that is super cool! I am not sure how it is going to work out since I am in Palawan. But I should have the chance maybe to sing on tv. 

Good idea about bringing over treats to your new neighbors. Is it a family?

I am excited to hear about the volkswagen. I can drive it first thing when I get back in the states. 

Our teaching pool is getting bigger and bigger. We had 12 new investigators this week and 58 good quality oyms. So we are doing a decent job I guess you could say. We just changed the boundaries of our area so we have a lot more to work with now. It was really small before, so that is a great belsssing. 

As for our good investigators. We have a family and a ysa aged sister that are preparing for baptism in a few weeks. We also have a member getting ready to be fully active and temple prepared. (that is how our mission vision works). We are supposed to have a "conversion indicator" every week. These conversion indicators are baptism, full activity in the church, temple preparation, and temple ordinances. This is a super great plan and I love it a ton!

As for my spiritual thought. Elder Burgos and I were able to help the Hiatts to move 5 missionary companionships this week. We were also able to give training and leadership council on transfer day. Because of this, we missed two full days of proselyting. As we served with singleness of heart to those in our stewardship, not worrying about the lack of work in our area, we were blessed tremendously. We were able to teach 8 lessons on Thursday, and 7 on Saturday. We worked for 3 and a half days total of proselyting, and accomplished all of our goals except one. I know that as we serve others in our calling, we will be blessed greater than we can imagine. I invite you all to serve others in your calling. Don't get so caught up in the logistics of your calling that you forget the true importance of why you were called to that position-to serve others with love. 

Love you all!

Elder Schroeder