Enjoying the work!!

6/19/16

Hello Family!

Wow! Lots of news this week in the email. That is great that Joy and her family were able the ride for Julie.  If you didn't hear, one of the counselors of President Ostler had to go home early because he found out that he had prostate cancer, but when he got to the states, it has since spread. Apparently his operation is happening really soon. Anyways, I would really like to visit him when I get back. They live in Utah so maybe on my way up to school I could stop there or something if it is not to much of a hassle.

About food when coming home. Something mexican possibly. Or steak. Steak is good. With all that good stuff. BBQ'd corn. Mashed potatoes. Stuff like that, or mexican food.

I have been enjjoying the work here a lot. Unfortunately, I got really sick this week. It took us out of the work for a whole day. I was super sick, but I am all better now and full of baptizing energy. So things are going well again. 

President Ostler is actually coming to Quezon this weekend.  He probably wants to help out the branch here because we have a lot of YSA preparing to serve missions. They just need some extra strength right now and a little push to get them out on missions. I think this is going to be the extra push. It will work too. Our branch is very excited! We are going to spend all day today cleaning our apartment so that things will be in tip top shape if our house gets checked this week. 

Some good news as well with the work here is that we got the senior couple moved here. The Atkinsons are now here in Quezon 24/7. This is going to be a really big help and strengthen a lot of members out here. We had 5 investigators at sacrament again this week and our 2 baptismal candidates are still eligible so we are praying hard for them. We are encountering some other problems here but we can work through all of them. 

Have a great week!

Love you all!

Elder Schroeder

Blessed in Quezon District!

6/12/16

Hello Family!

Thank you for registering for my classes! The schedule looks like it works out pretty well. Thanks for putting all the effort into that. 

This week was really great! I think as a district we had the best work that quezon district has had in the past year or more. We have been blessed with some very hard working missionaries here. In our area, we are working with a few people very closely as they get ready for baptism. We have 2 investigators that can probably be baptized before I go home. There are lot of others but they have more complex problems that still need to be worked out and it will probably take a little more time in order to do so. But the work is exciting here and we are able to always teach a ton of lessons. 

My companion is from a place called Tarlac (I am not sure on the spelling). It is on Luzon and is Tagalog, Ilocano and several other languages but he only speaks Tagalog. Yeah that is too bad that I was not able to have dinner with the Haynie's... there really isn't too much time for things like that as a missionary. 

I wish I could be there to see the bike ride for cancer thing. Way to go with the preparation for trek! You were not sore the next day? Hiking around Daley Ranch is always fun. 

I cannot believe all I have left is a month. I am trying not to count down but it is really hard not to when it is so close. Anyways, I try not to think about it. It is funny actually... my companion actually talks about what his plans are when he goes home a lot more than I do. It amuses me since he is still in his first area. 

Excited for the Padres game! That will be a lot of fun. Who are they playing?

Kyle isn't going to be able to come down for my homecoming is he? He told me that he probably couldn't come and with school or something, that it proabably will not be able to work out. I think they have finals that week or something. 

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Schroeder

New companion and training

6/6/16 

Hello po family!

I am slowly turning more filipino. 

I speak tagalog 24/7. I am teaching my companion how to cook filipino food and stuff like that. It is fun to train a Filipino when I can actually understand the language and everything else. It is a good relief. My companion's name is Elder Santos. I sent a picture earlier with some other ones. 

It is weird because is seems like I am going to be home in no time at all basically. 

This week was really good. We spent a lot of time waiting for our companions to come from the mainland. So we got to go to Puerto and spend a whole day there. I got to go by and see all the members in Santa Monica which was super great!! The District President said that he would feed me before I went home. So maybe the night that I am in puerto before I fly into the mainland, they might be able to feed me one last time. 

It is really great to serve the Lord. Everyone keeps joking about how close I am to dieing and how long I have been in the mission. I just remembered actually, since last transfer, I am the only person in the mission that even has met president Stucki before. 

It has taken a long time to finish off what I started but it has been worth every moment. 

I am all out of time for email this week. Sorry president had a ton of questions for me this week so it took me a long time to answer all of them in my weekly report. 

I love you all!

Elder Schroeder

P.S. I am super excited for trek!! 

Here are some pictures. 

Elder Santos and I 

The truck we took to get home from district conference. 

All of us in the back of the truck 

Sunset from our house