May 26, 2014

Hello:)
We had an amazing week!! We saw a ton of success this past week and I couldn't be more grateful that we were blessed so much. First off, we had a baptism!! Raymond aka Nino is now on the strait and narrow path. We had a dinner with him and a couple of his friends who were questioning his decision for baptism. They are member of another church. Long story short,  they were so happy they were able to talk with us and after they were super excited for Nino and not worried at all about his decision for baptism. One of his friends is even planning on coming to church this next week! Super stoked. Anyway, the baptism for Nino went super well and there was a ton of support for him. We were really happy about that because the members really showed a lot of love for him and he said himself that he felt it. He even invited another one of his friends to the baptismal service and she said that she loved it as well. Nino is already doing missionary work! I am so happy we got to start teaching Nino and see his progression all the way up to his baptism. He is so awesome and I love him a ton. We had another great lesson with the Austria family this past week about the Restoration. They still are not completely sure about baptism yet and they are struggling with having the time to come to church, however we really believe that they will be able to make the decision for baptism as they continue to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know the truth. I am super excited for them and I know they will come to feel the Spirit. We also had a really good time with some members in our ward. They took us bowling along with the sisters from our ward as well! It was fun and we were able to build more of a relationship with them. I really love the members here in the 3rd ward. Matthew is doing really well. He is loving the messages we share about Jesus Christ. We learned that he was actually atheist over in China before he came here, but when he came here he heard about Jesus Christ and wanted to know more. It is super interest teaching him and it helps me learn a ton about faith. I feel like it would be so hard to go about life without faith in Jesus Christ so I am so happy we get to teach Matthew and help him really gain that faith in the Savior. We also had the interesting opportunity tot each some people at the Baldwin home. The Baldwins are actually members int he international ward that we are assigned to and they invited us to teach some of the people over there. It was awesome, one because we had Mexican food, and two because we actually taught a really powerful lesson where I could really feel the Spirit strong. We went on Saturday, and the next day on Sunday one of the people that we taught actually come to church! Another one we taught is planning to come next week and bring a cousin along with her. After the lesson Elder Belnap and I were talking and came to the conclusion that the Spirit had everything to do with that lesson and we basically just showed up. I love feeling the Spirit in the lessons and I know that only the Spirit is the true teacher in this work.

Elder Stephens

May 19, 2014

Hey hey hey!!
Fires are crazy. I'm happy everyone was safe though! As for the Philippines, it is blistering hot. During the day it is around 100 and during the night it is around 90. It is so hot, that even the Filipino people are saying that this is way different than usual. It's alright though, we still get work done. This week was full of ton of zone conferences! They were sweet. First we went to Palawan, then we had our other zone conferences here in Makati. Overall the idea of the zone conference was to harness the power of the members. We had some great practices about working with the Bishop and also sharing lessons with members. The Bishop one was fun. Elder Belnap and I first showed how we are NOT supposed to do it. We were pathetic missionaries in that skit. Then we showed how to really do it and it was awesome. President Stucki shared a great message about obedience. He has always talked about the importance of being obedient and so for his last zone conference he hit it hard again. It was great. I liked it most because he talked about being obedient in order to help other missionaries and other members be successful in missionary work. One thing I learned form zone conference is the importance of being spiritually prepared. One of the conferences we had, some missionaries came in late and the missionaries just didn't seem ready to receive council. In turn, we had trouble getting them going and really getting excited to learn. I realized that it is super important that we get ready days in advance to receive counsel from our leaders. I got to share about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I wanted to share about how it should drive everything we do as missionaries but I also wanted to make it interesting. So I shared with all the missionaries in the mission, "Don't just preach the gospel, live it!" It was a change from just talking about the gospel all the time but really focusing on applying it in our lives as well. At the end of each zone conference, President Stucki shared about families. The area presidency here has asked the mission presidents to teach about family and getting married in the Temple. It was interesting! He kept saying, "I don't want you to think too much about this right now, but you have to think about it sometimes." It was super funny. The part I liked most about it was that they really want missionaries teaching about families and helping other getting married in the temple, and they also really want missionaries to do the same. This was my last zone conference so I gave a testimony and stuff and it was weird thinking that I won't have another zone conference as a full-time missionary. I learned so much from this zone conference and I am grateful for everything I learned. I love being a missionary and I love being able to become more Christ like through serving the Lord and though serving others. The Prophet Joseph Smith said, "After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel."

Elder Stephens

May 12, 2014

Hello everyone!!
First off, Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers out there! Especially to Raquel Stephens, the bestest mother in the whole wide world! I love you!! We had an awesome week! We got to go to Palawan for some exchanges with the zone leaders over there. We spent Monday thought Thursday over there in Palawan. it was cool because I got to go to my old area in Narra and work there again. I saw a few of the people I taught and ever one of the couples that I baptized over there! They are doing awesome and apparently they have even shared the gospel with others and more people have been baptized because of it! I was stoked to hear that.  They are so converted. While we were in Narra, I saw my teacher from the MTC!!! Her name is Sister Ward and she was in Palawan on a trip with her husband because they both served here in the Philippines. It was awesome seeing them and getting to catch up. She said I speak better Tagalog than she does now haha. I don't think it's true though, she is great. It was also a really cool experience to be able to work in Puerto. I have never really worked a full day there and I was able to work with one of the zone leaders over there and it was a ton of fun. Elder Belnap always talk about Puerto and how it is just an awesome place because he got to serve there as well. I got to see first hand that it really is a great place to do missionary work. It is not as secluded as Narra is because it is still a big tourist spot, but once you get into the places for proselyting, it is actually pretty much province. I loved going on exchanges on Palawan and being able to work in both Narra and Puerto. I absolutely just love missionary work and working over there was a testimony to me that missionary work is the same everywhere you go. No matter where we are, we are there to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel. I love it. The man we are teaching, Raymond, is doing super good! He is looking to get baptized on May 24! We had a great lesson with him last week. He apparently did something bad which had been almost haunting him for a few days and he said he even had sleepless nights. He really wanted us to come and teach him so last Saturday we went to his place and taught. We basically just focused on repentance and baptism and how he will receive forgiveness of that sin, as well as all his sins as he does those things. It was such a good lesson and after the lesson he said that he was so happy that we came, he will now be able to sleep and he is excited for baptism. He still isn't sure about May 24 because he is worried about what his family will think, but he knows for sure he will get baptized at some point. As we left, Elder Belnap and I were talking and realized that we really don't do a whole lot. All of what had just happened was Heavenly Father guiding us through the Spirit and the Spirit testifying those things to Raymond to help him feel comforted and know it is true. It was awesome and it just helped me know that his is the work of the Lord. I can never forget that experience and how Heavenly Father just has such a big part in helping His children com until Him.

Elder Stephens

May 5, 2014

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!
We don't even celebrate it here but I thought I should mention it. Elder Belnap and I had a wonderful week! We had another missionary leadership council. Elder Belnap and I counted and we figured out that this was the 11th one! And I will probably have more of them. I love missionary leadership councils and they really help out a ton. This one was a little bit different because President Stucki invited all of the district leaders to come to it as well. I thought it was alright but it just didn't feel the same as a regular MLC. However, we still were able to learn a lot so everyone was able to benefit from it. The main focus of our MLC was to increase out expectations as missionaries. We feel like the missionaries could be ding a lot better as long as we have faith in Jesus Christ and do everything we can to reach the vision our mission president has set. I feel like everyone was able to get a lot from the MLC and now all we have to do is apply the things that were learned. I can't wait to see the mission continue to grow and reach the potential that I know that it can. Our area is starting to get better, we still could use a lot more people to teach, but the people that we are teaching at the moment are really progressing. We had a lesson with Rommel again and he explained that him and his girlfriend now want to get married! That was one thing that was concerning us because you can't get baptized unless you are married first if you are living with someone. So that was great but I don't know how soon they can get married. I guess we'll see. It does comfort me however that they will one day get married and they have the desire to be together forever because they even said that they want to get married in the Temple! We taught Raymond again and he is just doing great. He is getting closer and closer to the decision to be baptized. I feel like he just needs to make the final decision and then he will get a blessed so much! He shared with us a really cool experience. He said that one night he had a dream that he was dressed in white and was baptized! One of this friends in church was the one who baptized him and Elder Belnap and I were both there as well. It was cool because he has been praying so much to find an answer on what he should do and then when he told us that I said, well there's the answer to your prayers! I hope he acts on the answer he got. We also go to work with the youth of the Makati 4th ward this last Saturday. It was cool because we don't get to work with youth a whole lot. They were awesome though and they are preparing for missions of their own. The youth are just getting better and better these days and they continue to surprise me by their faith and commitment to the gospel. They will be great missionaries in the future. I absolutely love this work. I couldn't do it without my Savior.

April 28, 2014

Hello there everyone!!

We had an awesome experience this last week!! Elder Belnap and I got to go to the Area Presidency's office to meet with them and the assistants and sister training leaders of two other missions! So we went with our sister training leaders and with the Quezon and Quezon North missions. We went to talk to the Philippines Area Presidency about missionary work here in the Philippines. They wanted to meet with us because they had a mission president seminar and they used the things we told them in the seminar to all the mission presidents here in the Philippines. Anyway, it was a great experience because they are just awesome people. President Nielson, Elder Ardern, and Elder Echo Hawk were all there and it was great to just feel the Spirit in the room there. They had a ton of questions for us and they told us to be completely open with them and basically just teach them. One of the main focuses was helping missionaries to raise their expectations here in the mission. For me it came down to just understanding the doctrine of Christ and internalizing your purpose as a missionary. If we as missionaries just loved the people so much that we couldn't help but want to share the gospel with them, their testimonies would grow and their desire to work harder would grow as well. Elder Arden wanted to know how missionaries could strengthen their testimony and we shared a ton about that. One of the things that stood our to me was President Nielson said that we as missionaries have to go through the tough times in order to see success. He called it a "refiners fire." It was a great concept because a lot of missionaries get so discouraged when they don't see success right away and a lot of it, however that is where your testimony really grows because when you do see that success down the road, it feels that much better. I loved meeting with the area presidency. They took a picture and said they will send it out to us sometime. I will definitely have to send that one to all of you. Last week was transfer week and it looks like Elder Belnap and I will be together for another transfer! That makes it the third for us together. We are basically the same person at this point. I am stoked for another transfer with him though. We have had a lot of success and I feel like we ill continue to have more. I just love this work and I love being able to serve my Heavenly Father. I have learned a lot about service while I have been here and I hope I can continue to serve hard throughout my entire life. I love this gospel and can't believe I get to continue to share it with everyone I meet.

Elder Stephens

April 21, 2014

Hey there all!

Happy Easter!! I know that my Redeemer lives! Jesus is the Christ, I have no doubt in my mind. I absolutely love Him! I love this time of the year because everyone really shows their love for Christ and just makes everything seem better. I love it! Last week was great. Elias was baptized on Saturday!! It was so nice and the baptismal service went great! We had a ton of people there and everyone was just supporting Elias along with another person baptized who the sisters in our ward are teaching. President and Sister Stucki came to the baptism as well and they said that it was a really good one! Elias also got confirmed the next day of course, AND THEN, he got the priesthood!! I was stoked. He is going to be an awesome member, I can already tell. We have seen some real progression with our investigator, Raymond. He had a bunch of questions and they were questions that only our bishop could answer, since they regarded some cultural things here in the Philippines. So anyway, he came to church and talked to Bishop Espi and when he was done talking to him, he came to us and was wayyyy happy! He said it was great talking to bishop and he learned so much and felt his love. Bishop Espi is the man. So Raymond is really starting to progress so much and we will continue to pray and fast that he will get baptized! Tomas, a less active member of 10 years, came to church for the first time this last Sunday! He was so happy to finally be back and he also talked to our bishop and they are going to work on getting his records back into the church because they were some how lost. I am super excited for him because I can feel that he really wants to repent and come back into the fold of God. I love it. We met this guy named Roy, he is from Alabama. Right after he said he was from Alabama, he said, "Roll Tide" in a low Alabama man accent. I t was sweet. I just thought I would let you all know about that. Last Thursday, April 17 was Elder Belnap's birthday!! He is finally 21. We got so much cool stuff for his birthday. We got a cake from the Stucki's, a cake and dinner at a Chinese place with some of our members, and we got a while bunch of food from the people we taught after we said it was his birthday. Super good day in my opinion. It is sweet having a companion because on their birthday, you get all the good food just like they do. I love this work! I again testify that our Savior lives. Through His atonement, we can be cleansed of our sins, and we can all live again in the presence of our Heavenly Father. I know this work is His work. I can't testify of Him enough! I know He loves us. I love my Savior!!

Elder Stephens