Tears of Joy!

6/26/16

Hello Family!

Things are going well here. Yes, president came this week and was able to visit with all of us. They went to thebaptism that   happened in the branch this Saturday. Elder Crowder and Elder Beltran were really happy that President was able to attend their baptism. It is interesting, I noticed this time how much differently people act in front of President. So many people wanted to take pictures with them... it was pretty funny. I told them they are like movie stars when they come out to visit in places like this. 

We have zone conference this week. We are going to be leaving today to go to puerto so that will be a good time. 

We are excited to be able to see the training and everything that is happening. It is going to be interesting to go to zone conference and not have to do the training. I am looking forward to it all! 

Having a senior couple here is such a great blessing they bring in a great spirit into the lessons. Here is an experience from this week.

We had a great experience this week with the Atkinson's. Elder and Sister went with us to a few appointments the other night, and we were able to teach this one family. The father is less active, his wife goes to church on and off, and they have a daughter that we are helping to get to baptism. Their daughter has been very close to being ready several times but has never had the support of her father. The Atkinson's had a good discussion with him, the problem was his work. At the end of the lesson, he said he would ask his boss for the day off because it was his birthday. At about 9:10 just before sacrament was about to start, we saw his wife and kids walking in and thought, oh no! He did not come. Just a few seconds later, we saw him walk in as well. I looked at the Atkinson's with a big smile, and they were filled with such great joy (they were both crying). I felt the spirit so strongly. This family has been prepared for the Atkinson's to really help them prepare to go to the temple. He used to never be willing to come out when the missionaries were there. Things are going really well with this family and we are hoping that this brother will be prepared soon to baptize his daughter. 

Heavenly Father prepares people in very interesting ways. He blesses us as we work together in love and unity. He is vitally concerned with the work of every single member of this church as we strive to accomplish the work of Salvation and Exaltation. 

The closer it gets to going home that weirder and weirder that I feel. It has gone by very fast. 

Love,

Elder Schroeder

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

Great Week!!

5/30/16 

Hello there!

Wow! That looks like quite the schedule for school. I will be happy with whatever schedule you get me. I prefer on campus classes over online just so you know. Taking religion online is fine though....

Thank you for all that you are doing for me with school!

Lots of emails to write this week so I'm short on time. 

This week was great! We had 7 investigators at church! We are being blessed in the work and enjoying our time of service. 

Oh and by the way, I am going to be training a new missionary this next transfer. So Elder Hernandez is going to be transferred out this week. 

Lastly, we caught a rat, mouse, spider, and tuko (gecko) this week. The rat is a good story. The power went off at like 1am so our fans stopped working. Of course this made us all wake up because it was so hot. Then we heard something moving in the kitchen. So we got up and were running around the house trying to catch a rat at 1 am. We got it! Then went back to bed.

Love,

Elder Schroeder

 

                 spider that I caught

Here is a very interesting flower that we      found walking through the jungle,

A pet bird (wild) of some filipinos that they let Elder Hernandez hold. 

                             Gecko

This is where we held a sacrament meeting in a place called Malatgao (a future group that we are working on)

Witness of the Widow's Mite

5/23/16 

Hello!

This week was really good. We have caught a total of 7 mice in our house this week. And one rather large rat. We have been killing them in various humane ways. We caught all of them live with either a broom or sticky pads or other odd traps and things. It has been pretty fun chasing the mice around the house. We still have a rat in the house somewhere but he has not shown himself recently. We are working on catching him still. 

I like the idea of the exploring and stuff in Alaska. That would be a lot of fun. 

The work is going well! We had 6 investigators at church this week and 6 less active members go to church as well. It is great when we are able to help others to start making choices that bring themselves closer to God. We have a lot of people we are teaching and I am really enjoying it more than ever!

Here is my spiritual experience for the week. Three weeks ago, an older man maybe in his late 60's came up to Elder Hernandez and I and asked us to help him with something. He then took us into the library in the church. Then he took out his tithing slip and ten pisos and asked us to help him fill it out becausehe doesn't know how to read or write. I have been to this man's house and I know that they have nothing.  For his whole life he worked doing copra which is taking the husks of coconuts. He would get paid 200 pisos for every 1000 coconuts that he would husk. (He also let us try husking them which was pretty cool). I have witnessed the widow's mite in real life and it is defintinely true. 

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Schroeder

1. Lechon baboy (roasted pig) at a birthday party. 

2. Look closely at the cat's back near the edge of the drum

3. This guy, former Elder Martinez, was companions with Taylor when he was still a new missionary.

Opportunities, Learning and Practice

5/15/16

Thank you for starting all of this for me, especially for the semester override. That is really good! It is a possibility to get into Med school but there are some challenges I'll have to work out- First, taking all of the classes to get a BS in Psychology while also fulfilling requirements to get into medical school would require me to take an extra 20+ credits on top of my degree. Second, yes BYU provo has better credentials. I would like to go to a really nice medical school, so that I have more options for residencies once out of medical school. If I were to stay at BYU idaho I would probably switch my major to chemistry. I don't think BYU Idaho has a biochemistry major. Maybe minors in Bio and Chemistry? 

It is a hard decision.... I am not sure but I need to decide soon right... If I were to stay at Idaho, I could have a full tuition scholarship next semester, I am pretty sure... 

I will think about it this week and let you know what I want to do.

I am excited for going to Alaska! That sounds like a ton of fun! You have no idea how excited I am for that. 

The work is going well in the area. Elder Hernandez is doing well and we are working hard. We were able to get some investigators to church this week! We had 4 at church and 2 seem really interested. One of them is for sure going to be baptized. The problem is that she lives pretty far away from the church and it is hard to be able to get out there and teach her, but I think it should work out. We are just going to have to spend a lot of time out there and it should be really great! We have been seeing good success in some areas of the work but been having a hard time with the other areas. I think the branch missionaries were afraid of me at first because the branch president told them that I was a former assistant and they thought I would have a rather rigid personality... so they were afraid to work with us.... But I think they are finally starting to realize that I am not like that, and we have a few ward missionaries that are really enjoying working with us now. 

Oh on another side note, This week at church I got to confirm a sister who was baptized this last week which was a really great experience. I was also able to be the last minute concluding speaker becuase the speaker didn't show up. Then I got to teach gospel principles. I really got to participate in the Sunday meetings well this week. That was a great learning opportunity. I can see how the Lord is teaching me teaching skills and allowing me all the practice that I need. 

I am excited for the trek too! It should be lots of fun. I remember when we did trek. Can you believe that was 4 years ago already! Is it going to be at the same place? 

It was a really good opportunity to be able to confirm someone a member of the church and to give them the opportunity to receive the holy ghost. I could feel the spirit guide me and help me in the blessings that were given to her. The priesthood is real and the power guides and directs the work of salvation and exaltation in this Church

Love you!

Elder Schroeder

Here are some pictures. Teaching Elder Hernandez how to safely pick up a jellyfish, a coconut orchard, and the bat we caught in our house this week