February 17, 2014

Hey everyone!
I absolutely love the Philippines!! This week was great. The man from Las Vegas that we have been teaching, Johnny, is super excited for  his baptism that is coming up this week on Feb 22! He was a little worried with his schedule last week and this week and was about ready to postpone the baptism but we had a lesson along with his 6'8" friend named "Tiny" where we just shared that is was the challenges that hit us when we are close to baptism. he recognized that and is going strong to be baptized this week. We had an awesome lesson where President Stucki taught with us. We just shared about baptismal covenants and how important it is when we promise to Heavenly Father that we will follow Christ. It was a great lesson and it helped him know that is is a great and important step for him, but only the beginning to a new life where we follow the commandments of God. I am super excited for Johnny to continue to follow the gospel of Jesus Christ. We had a couple of exchanges this week as well. I got to work with two zone leaders from the Pasay and Paranaque West zones. They are Elder Diamse and Elder Nielsen. They are both awesome missionaries. Elder Diamse is just so happy all the time and you can tell that he just really loves the work. Elder Nielsen just works super hard and is getting blessed a ton because of it. I was able to learn a lot form these two missionaries and it was a blessing to go on exchanges with them. We had a specialized training this past week for all the district and zone leaders throughout the mission. It was a great experience. President Stucki had us share some things that could help the whole mission rise up and he had me share about having faith and following the Spirit. It was great to study about it and share with the mission. It made me realize how important the Spirit is in this work. Without it, we cannot do this work. I am just super grateful for the Spirit and the blessing we have as missionaries to be guided by it every day. In the specialized training we also all read a talk about leadership. It was President Spencer W. Kimball's talk "Jesus: The Perfect Leader". I enjoyed it a lot and learned a ton from it. The most important thing as a leader is to work on those Christ-like attributes and help others know you love them and care. They best part was when we buried our weapons of rebellion. President Stucki had everyone write on little swords and he buried them in the ground over at the mission home to represent the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people in the Book of Mormon. It was great and we all had a good experience with that. I have been able to learn so much so far in the mission and I just feel tat with each week I just learn so much more. Last thing I would like to share is that we had a great experience with someone who will be getting baptized in March. His name is Christopher and he is super excited for baptism. His whole family are members of the church and he is just now getting really excited to see his family be blessed for the rest of their lives. We went to their place and shared about how families can be together forever. I think it really touched him and his family and they really have a desire to be together forever. They fed us dinner and it was crazy. We had turkey and mashed potatoes!! It felt like Thanksgiving all over again. I don't think I have ever felt so full in my mission. It was great and we were able to build a good relationship with the whole family and help brother Christopher know the importance of family. I am so grateful to be a missionary and to continue to do this work. I know it is the work of the Lord. I couldn't imagine not being a part of this work right now!

Elder Stephens