Hello Family! This week has been great! I am enjoying the work like always and having fun in my area and my stewardship.
So are you all getting ready for wedding plans? There is only a few more months then you will only have one left that's not married.
Santa was really nice to you all this year! I found a filipino nativity here and some other cool things that I will probably be getting for the each family.
I don't really feel like I have much to say because I just talked to you all just a few days ago.
We don't really have time to go to the temple here. We are supposed to have a temple day tomorrow but I don't think it is going to work out. I think we are just going to have district meeting.
I'm glad you are staying busy with everything in the temple. That sure is a lot of marriages to handle in one day. It is probably fun to be able to help out so many brides.
It is still weird go me thinking that Kyle is going to be getting married.
This week Elder Burgos and I got rejected a ton. It was hard in the moment for the few hours. It seemed like it was just back to back. I have never experienced Filipinos being so rude before. I had to hold my tongue a few times... But later that day we were blessed greatly because of the trials and persecution that we faced. We found two part member families that we didn't even know about and were not on our cmis. So we have some great potential with those two families. We also have one child from different part member family. We have to be really careful with baptizing kids here because a lot go less active if they don't have really strong member support.
I am looking forward to new years and the crazy firework here. I just hope it isn't too loud so that I can still get some sleep that night. But we will be going home an extra 2 hours early that night so I should be able to catch up on some other assignments that we have as well as my journal writing. I am planning to teach Elder Burgos how to make baked mac and cheese, and ham as well. So he will enjoy that. He told me this week that when I made the bread pudding that it was the first time that he has ever seen anyone use and oven in his whole life.
oh and I ate shark fin this week. Just to let you know, it tasted like shark. Also talked to a guy this week that kept trying to tell us that Jesus' real name was Patrick. He was nuts-o
also I heard that Philippines won Miss universe and that there was some kind of huge mistake or something.
Well for my spiritual insight I would like to share a story from James Rasband BYU
The Analogy of the Forgiving Landlord
To help explain the two sides of the Atonement, let me try a rather homely analogy. Like most analogies and metaphors, it is not perfect in all respects. I hope, though, that it can aid understanding. Suppose I find myself in a home built for me by a very generous landlord. It is a nice home. He encourages me to maintain and improve the home and gives me a number of instructions for making the home a nice place to live.
Over the years I sometimes improve the home, but other times, through my negligence, I make it worse. One time I flood the home when I fail to set the faucets to drip during a freeze. Another time my kitchen catches fire because I fail to turn off a burner on the stove. A couple of times I lose my temper and put my fist through a wall. In each instance the landlord forgives me and encourages me to pay a little closer attention to my home and to his instructions for making the home a joyful place to live. He does not charge me for the damage caused by my mistakes. Instead, sometimes he is patient while I figure out how to fix things on my own; sometimes he sends someone over to fix the problem; and sometimes I wake up and things are fixed in ways I don’t quite understand.
This same landlord happens to have a son who is quite wayward. The son is always up to no good, and I don’t particularly like or respect him. One night the landlord’s son, as a prank, sets fire to the shed attached to the back of my house. The fire gets out of control, and the entire house burns down. I lose the home. I lose all of my possessions, including some particularly valuable possessions that I can’t replace, such as photos and heirlooms. I’m angry and distraught. I want the no-good son to pay. I want him to fix things and to make me whole. A part of me knows he can’t really make it better. He may not have the resources to rebuild the house, and, even if he could rebuild the house, he can’t retrieve the photos and heirlooms. And that makes me even angrier. As I sit in anger, the landlord comes to visit me. He reminds me that he has promised to take care of me. He promises me that he is willing to rebuild my house. In fact, he says that he will do more than that: he will replace my house with a castle and then give me all that he himself has. He says that this might take a while, but he promises it will happen.
“What’s the catch?” I say.
“Here are the conditions,” he says. “First, you need to put your faith in me and trust that I really will build you that castle and restore all that you have lost. Second, you need to continue to work on implementing the instructions I gave you about keeping up your house. Finally, you need to forgive my arsonist son, just as I have forgiven you all these many years.”
We are commanded to forgive all men, without condition. And as we do that we will be forgiven and receive a greater gift than we ever deserve. We need generously forgive all those who have wronged us and be willing to move on. With the new year, let us forgive anyone and everyone that has wronged us, move on, and receive the blessings of forgiveness in our own lives.
I love you all and I hope you have a great new year!
Hoping it rains,
Elder Schroeder
1. Bread Pudding
2. Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce
