Malipayong Pasko

Hello Everyone! MERRY CHRISTMAS! Or Malipayong Pasko in Visaya, my favorite language!

I'm so excited for Christmas! I'm excited about working hard and learning more about Christ and especially about His atonement and sacrifice. I was reading the other day about the condescension of Christ, and that "condescension" means to voluntarily step down from Diety. If you look in 1 Ne 11 it says it over and over again. I always thought about Jesus's sacrifice by the means of what He did for us, but it added a new dimension; it's also about what He gave up. He voluntarily gave up all the power and glory that he had to come to earth in the humblest of circumstances. He came as an infant who had to rely completely upon His mother and father. And after that, He received of the fullness grace by grace, so that we could follow His example and do the same, like it says in D&C 93. My Mission President is being really strict about Christmas. He wants us to work the whole time and only take half an hour to forty minutes to skype my family, but I'm glad because this is my last cycle, and I was worried that it would be wasted by too many Christmas celebrations. I'm excited to experience a Christmas without all the bright lights and shiny things so that I can get down to the heart of it all. 

We have three baptismal interviews that will take place tomorrow. (That's going to be hard because we'll be on exchanges, but it has to be done.) They are the Peregrino kids. There is one who is 15, one who's 13, and one who's 9. They are so cute and so excited for their baptism. Their parents were inactive as in, but the sisters before us reactivated them. We finished the lessons with them yesterday, and they seem like they're doing great!! The youngest one, Leann, is SO cute. She just goes to the back of their beauty parlor and reads and memorizes the steps of repentance and our baptismal covenant. We've talked to the dad about baptizing his kids, and the mom about giving a talk at their baptism! We're so excited! There's also one more sister who is getting interviewed tomorrow. Her name is Rae, and she's AWESOME! She's actually been going to church for around 4 years, (she's 22) but she never took the lessons because she was afraid of the missionaries. She is SO smart and she knows everything. She's getting interviewed tomorrow but wants to get baptized on the 3rd of January because it's a special date for her. 

Sorry sorry family, that's all I can write about right now, I LOVE YOU ALL! 

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

Love, Sister Sprouse

I love Ormoc !!!!

Date	Sun 20:22

 

First of all, my ate' is engaged!! I'm so excited I can barely type!! 

So forgive me if I don't answer all the questions as usual. I will try to be more thorough but I am so excited that my brain is anything but clear. 

This week has been great!! I forgot to tell you all why Ormoc is a dream come true. There are very many reasons. 1. I was assigned here! Albuerra and Baybay are both part of Ormoc Zone. 2. (the main reason) They speak CEBUANO here! No more Waray Waray. I am so so so happy about that. I switched back to Cebuano with no difficulty at all because of my love of it and my loathing of Waray x2 (: 3. It's just magical (:

I know that some Elders got reassigned in my old area, but I don't know who. I think that they won't have power there until after Christmas, so I feel kind of bad for them. But at least the damage isn't bad enough that no missionaries could be assigned there. My anak is in Sogud which is sooo good (; and also Cebuano.  As for the area and the work, I will just give you what I gave President. Haha. 

Hello President! 

How are you this week? Things are great in Ormoc! 

So far, I have loved being here in Ormoc.  We are planning on doing a Sister's Devotional tonight for the sisters that we're over. We called them all last night, and they all seem to be doing great!! But we will keep following up and trying to help with any problems  that might appear. We scheduled exchanges with the Polompon Sisters and also Ormoc 1, so we will be writing you about that next week. 

So last night was the showing of the Christmas Devotional. We had planned to have an investigator there so that we could stay and watch the devotional ourselves, but she was having a health concern and couldn't come. We were already there, and I won't lie, I wanted to stay reaaally badly. But I thought about being an example, and also just about the importance of being obedient, so Sister Flores and I left and taught two lessons. I was so glad that we had done it. The feeling I got while walking home was better than I would have gotten from staying at the devotional. It was a feeling from the Holy Ghost telling me that Heavenly Father was proud of me for being obedient. There will be plenty of opportunities to go to more Christmas Devotionals in my life, but no other opportunity to be an obedient missionary and endure to the end. 

The area seems to be really good! There are a lot of part member families. There is one in particular that is really cool. They're called the Peregrino family. The husband and wife were both inactive a couple months ago, but they're officially returned now and there three kids have a baptismal date for the 27th. We just finished L3 with them, so we still have to cover L4 and L5 with them before they can get baptised, which means that we're going to have to visit really often. But it should be good. As of now, we're trying to get their Dad to baptize them. He says he doesn't feel worthy since he was inactive, but we told him to pray about it. 

That's what I've got this week. Thank you for everything President! I am so happy to be here. 

Love, Sister Sprouse

I love you all! Have a good week! Love Sister Sprouse

Message 11 of 230

Hello Everyone !

Date	Today 03:44

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Hello Everyone! It's been kind of a crazy week, so I'm sorry that I can't write everyone back who sent me an email. We got permission to write our families on a day that's not pday because we couldn't email on Pday. 

What happened started last week on Friday. We got a call in the morning that Sister Asug and I were transferring. The Zone Leaders said we should leave at a time that was best for us, and so I decided we should leave as soon as possible. We packed within one hour and left really early. That was really good because about half way through, we received a message that transfers were cancelled because of the storm. There were a lot of Elders and Sisters who couldn't find any rides, so if we hadn't left early we wouldn't have been able to either for a long time. When we got to Tacloban, we just went and bought lots of canned food and rice so that we would have food if the bagyo was really bad again. We waited inside of the sister's apartment for a day and a half before the storm hit. We started the fast on Saturday night. That's really cool that all of you fasted too. I didn't know that. But I do know that it made miracles happen. 

When Ruby was out in the ocean, it had gusts of winds stronger than Yolanda. If it had continued to hit land at that rate, it would have been devastating. Many people were worried that Ruby slowed down, because usually when storms slow down, they have more time to build up more power. But this storm slowed down from a category 5 to just a 4 before it hit land. It was still strong, and my area got the eye of the storm (I still don't know how my area is; there's no cell service there.) but all the missionaries were really far from danger. I thought the roof was going to come off the apartment in Tacloban a few times, and there were floods everywhere, (only about an inch in our apartment though(:) But the storm that they thought was going to devastate the whole mission tilted off into a different direction completely away from the Philippines. I know it's a miracle and I am so blessed that I get to continue my mission for the next month and a half ? (I don't remember how long it exactly is) I was really scared that I was going to have to go home early for awhile there. Thank you to everyone who fasted for our cause. I know that miracles happened because of it. 

In other news, I am back in Ormoc, which is a dream come true. I'm in the same zone as Elder Simmons! He's training a cute little Pinoy elder. Sister Adasme gets to be my companion for 4 days before she goes home! (She stayed a little longer so that she could go home with her sister.) She's going to show Sister Flores and me (Sister Flores is our other cute companion.) around the area so we can figure it out. We're going to be doing a lot of work with the other sisters in the zone, and I'm really excited to give it my all. 

I have to go. I love you all!! Talk to you on Monday. 

Love, Sister Sprouse

Hello Everyone!

This week has been a fun one!! A lot has been happening. Because Sister Smith went home, Sister Asug and I have a new companion for the week, Sister Chu! She is SUPER cute, and it's been a lot of fun so far. She is from Taiwan. We are going to mostly be working in their area this week, because they have a lot of progressing investigators and IBD's in their area.

This Thursday we did Thanksgiving! Sister Smith was still here. There's no turkey in the Pines, unless it's really expensive, so we bought a roasted chicken instead. (; Sister Smith made mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables, and I made a pumpkin pie! It was really good! (: This next part I'm just copying from my letter to President, because I'm too lazy to write it again haha. 

One cool thing is that this family that we've been working on for a really long time came to church. Not the whole family, but a huge chunk. They have 10 kids, and they brought 6 of them. This is a really big feat, because they live in Dolores, so their pamasahe was 70 pesos just to get to the church, and 70 on the way back too. The wife normally only comes with two of the kids, but after we did a family home evening with them (it was at 4 because of the curfew, so I guess it was really a family home afternoon haha) and after that so many of them came. I was so happy to see them there. The husband didn't come yet; that's been a really hard part of the Less Actives in this area. The wifes are usually pretty willing to come back, but the husbands just won't do it. But the oldest brother came, and he hasn't come to church once since I've been in the area. So I was very happy about that. 

Oh yeah, last week, I lost about 440 photos again.. Sister Asug used my card to print photos, and the computer there had a virus so it got onto my card.. It's a bummer! But I have just kind of come to accept things like that now. I'll just keep my card tucked safely in my camera until I go home. At least I sent some cool pictures to you all before they got deleted. (; 

Okay, that's what I've got for you this week! The church is true! We just need to remember to be true to the church by not compromising our standards for anything! I know that we will be so blessed by doing so. We will have peace in our hearts and we will know that our Heavenly Father is pleased with us. 

I love you all! Have a good week! (: 

Sister Sprouse

Hello Everyone :)

So this week has been fun! Here's part of my email to president.

"Hello President! 

How are you this week? 

To be honest, this week has been the HARDEST week for me to endure to the end. This area is just a killer for me. We had a lot of people drop us, including one of our IBD's, and I have to be honest and say that there was one day that I was very close to just not going on to work and rolling up in a ball on the ground and staying there all day. 

Luckily, one of my friends had sent me a copy of the 4th missionary, that really awesome talk that teaches us not only how to serve but how to serve with the right heart. So I just got up and went out to work. Usually getting out of the house on a bad day is the only hard part and then the day gets better, but this day didn't get any better. We just got punted a ton like usual, and I still had the thought of just going home crossing my mind. But I wanted to stick it out, because I wanted to learn what Heavenly Father wants me to learn. That night, after we studied and planned, I just laid on my bed exhausted, but I pulled out my journal and wrote, "I made it through this day. I did it. I DID IT!" I had such a big feeling of relief that even though things were disappointed, I wasn't disappointed in myself. 

The next day was Sunday. I prayed REALLY hard just for at least one investigator to come to church. To be honest, I didn't even really care who. I had a few in mind that I thought might come, but I just wanted to know that Heavenly Father could help us with this small thing (if it was His will of course.) 

The next day at church, we had two ladies who we thought were less active but they actually hadn't been baptized. They are kind of old to be honest, and a little bit bonkers, but they brought their awesome friend with them who is actually quite good! We had taught her once with them but she had just sat in the back and we hadn't really noticed her. But she came! And she actually has quite a few members who are her friends and told her how nice she looked and fellowshipped her. \

At this point, I can't say if I think she'll be baptised or anything like that, but I can say that I know that Heavenly Father showed his love to one struggling missionary through her. "

Sorry I can't write anything else, but I just want to say that salvation isn't cheap. If it was, our work as missionaries would be really easy. But it's not, and that's why we have to work hard for it. But Heavenly Father helps us along the way if we trust Him. I know that's true. We can all trust Him a little bit more and look for the tiny miracles in our lives. 

I LOVE YOU ALL! I hope you have a wonderful week!

Sister Sprouse

Hello :)

Hello my dear loved ones!  I am finally attaching some photos. Of me and my anak! And mom, you can see that the kids love the stickers you sent me! (; Sorry it's been so long! 

This week was not too shabby! (: We had one rescue baptism, (his mom was less active and she returned and he was baptized) So that was fun! It was combined with Sister Smith and Chu's baptism, and President and Sister Maurer actually came! So that was awesome! Alfie is our baptism's name; he is a sweetheart. He's 13 years old, and he bore his testimony and cried. It reminded me of girl's camp. Haha. 

Thanks for praying that we will find people to teach! We've been able to teach a few new investigators who are professional; we'll see if they have promise. If not, our job as missionaries is to invite, and TRUST THE LORD. We can't make anyone say yes, and we shouldn't either. I've come to realize that certain areas are hard so that you'll come to know Him better. I feel like I should definitely use the opportunity to do so. 

The English classes were fun! Mostly kids came, but we're working on it. If anything, I've realized that I DEFINITELY want to do something with kids for a career. 

Also, Mom, I finally had the chance to look at my one memory card that wasn't stolen. I had thought it had like 400 pictures on it or something.. It actually had almost double that! My whole time back in Allen (the second time) and almost my whole time in Naval was on it. So I'll actually come out of my mission with some 1000 plus pictures! No problem!! (: Also, I've written a weekly letter every week of my mission, so I can hopefully go back and make a journal out of it for what was lost. I'm super grateful for that!! (: 

Okay, I'm sorry this has been really random. I love you! I hope everything's great back home. Keep your heads up, and trust in Him. Everything will work out (: 

Love, Sister Sprouse

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Hello Everyone!

This week was very sad as far as work in our area goes. We were only able to work for one day! We went to Calbayog with the STL’s, which was a good exchange; it’s just that the travel takes like a full day! But it’s okay, we will hopefully get to stay in our area this week and make some progress there. Elder Santiago had the district do one hour finding in our area last Tuesday so we have a lot of referrals to contact, which is exciting. (:

I had a really cool experience yesterday with bearing my testimony. Normally I don’t like to go up and bear my testimony because I get to bear my testimony every day and so I let the members have the time. But this week, I just had a burning desire to go up! So I got up and bore my testimony about establishing the church through our personal conversion. They talked about establishing it through missionary work and turning branches into wards and then wards into stakes, so it was very fitting. I talked about how the gospel is like a recipe for our happiness. We don’t get to pick and choose which parts of a recipe we will use, and we can’t pick which parts of the gospel that we will live. If we do, of course our recipe isn’t going to taste good, and we’re not going to want to share it with our friends.  We can’t gain that desire if we haven’t received a witness and a testimony that the gospel is true. And we can’t gain that witness if we don’t live it exactly. I talked about how it’s not enough to read the scriptures every day and go to church every week if we don’t apply it. And as soon as we do so, it will be easy to establish the church because we will have that desire. I felt the words flowing out of me from the Holy Ghost. For the first time since I left Cebuano I felt like I didn’t have to worry about the language, and I know that wasn’t from me. As I was speaking, I saw all the members nodding in agreement and I know the Spirit touched their hearts. One lady came and thanked me for my testimony. Most importantly, the Spirit touched MY heart. I love the Spirit, and I have learned just how vital it is. Also, I have gained a lot of optimism about trusting Heavenly Father that if I do my part in my personal conversion, the rest doesn’t matter because I’ve done my part.

I LOVE YOU ALL! 

Sister Sprouse