Welcome to Siniloan!

pictures:

*Sister Stewart from Laguna, CA in Laguna, PH

*Sunflower fields with her new companion, Sister Buenaflor

*Carol, one of the members, that is Syd's Sinilaon bestie already!

*Alberto family! Some of her favorites she hated saying goodbye to in Taguig

*The Cruz family...another hard goodbye

*Omni, the driver's son, fell asleep on the drive home from Laguna (can you imagine driving like that?!?)

After about 4 hours of the most beautiful travel in my life, I am on the complete other end of the mission in Siniloan. It is so beautiful here! There's a lake, trees, fields, mountains, everything you could imagine in paradise! Except of course my family, but there are such wonderful people here to make up for it.

Here are some highlights from the week:

-We are teaching a deaf boy and a member owns the school he goes to so we're able to teach him there. Some of his classmates linger to watch while their teacher signs to translate. I really wish I knew sign language. I learned how to sign his name so that's good! I'll try to work on it. Even though I can't really communicate that well with him, I love him so much already. It's very easy to see what type of person he is even though he's never spoken to me. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to teach him!

-We had a "Branch Home Evening" which is where the members help us put on this activity that is mostly to focus on the people that we are teaching as missionaries. Sister Wilson (one of the other missionaries in the ward) and I explained about Joseph Smith in front of everyone. She just finished her training, so it was kind of like I was the senior companion for a second. Kind of scary, but we said what we wanted to say and it was probably all over the place, but I think they understood! Tagalog is still so hard but it is so fun. I of course had to bare my testimony in Sacrament meeting the next day and it was filled with all sorts of grammar mistakes, but the Lord has helped me so much. It's quite "grabe" how much I have to rely on the Spirit. I am understanding almost everything now, it's just very difficult to speak with the correct conjugations and focuses. There are so many variations and it's hard to get it just right! But I am so so grateful that I have made it this far. Miracles do happen!

-It rained on us inside someone's house the other day. I guess that's not a highlight... but we were at least able to help Nanay get buckets to catch the water!

-We were supposed to have a baptism this past week, but the girl's little brother is in the hospital with really bad pneumonia. We were able to help them though by going and grabbing all their dirty laundry and washing it for them so that the mother didn't have to do it all by hand when she got home. It took about two days, but I know she will be so grateful! I am so grateful that missionary work gives me so many opportunities to serve. 

-Here is the very exciting news... my companion, Sister Buenaflor, is so hardworking and POWER so that, with the help of the members, we had 10 people come to church! That's incredible! Such a happy day:)

-The members here are so involved in missionary work! It's crazy the difference when members help us. No wonder the baptismal numbers are so high here!! Members- help your local missionaries!!!! Whether it's referrals or going out to work with them or even feeding them... it makes the work progress insanely fast!

-We went to a sunflower farm this morning (Monday). It was so beautiful and fun! Our feet got so muddy.

I love you all! Please be safe and be happy.

Mahal ko po kayong lahat,

Sister Stewart

Camera Troubles

These are some pictures from Sydney's companion's camera. 

Hi everybody! I am so sad, I have amazing pictures to send but I cannot get it to work :( I'll try again next week. 

I am running out of time. Please know how much I love you all and how grateful I am for all of your support and prayers. 

I am surrounded by amazing people. The missionaries in my district are such good examples to me, and the people we are teaching are so happy despite the incredibly hard things they are going through. Nanay Norma is someone we really focused on this week. Her house is falling apart due to termites and she has ran out of money almost completely. Truly her challenge day by day is trying to get food for her family to eat and trying to pile up some wood pieces to make walls for her house... can you imagine? Yet she is the sweetest lady ever and one of our best friends. Her faith in the Savior is so strong and truly inspirational. My companion and I have done everything we can to help her. Sister Gaspar told me the other day, "I wish we could help her more, but what can we do? We're just missionaries." I realized then and there that we can help her more than anyone else could. Even if she had a standing house and food for her family to eat, she would not find true happiness without the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The knowledge that we missionaries and members hold is far more valuable than anything in this world. It is priceless. I love to think about Nanay Norma and how every tear she sheds and every drop of sweat from her brow will account for more and more blessings in heaven as she keeps enduring it well.

Our trials and troubles are blessings. No matter what. Even if its hard to see the blessings right now, keep going. Endure it well. How blessed you will be. If you can't see it in this life, imagine how in awe you will be at the size of your mansion above. Your tears of sadness in this life will turn into tears of love and gratitude to your Father in Heaven. I can now say that I am grateful for every single trial I have gone through in my life. Why does God let bad things happen to good people? Because He loves us. He wants us to grow and to find joy. I believe this with my whole heart. You can do it. God knows much more about yourself than you do. You are strong with Him by your side. I know this to be true.

I love you all and I am grateful for the examples you are to me.

Ingat po,

Sister Stewart 

Taguig- Unang Linggo!!

Hello hello!! First of all, dang I am sooooo happy and I hope you all are too! I feel like the most blessed person in the whole wide world to be here and to serve people that I love so much! There are so many things to tell MY GOODNESS!!!

So my first area is called Taguig. It's very densely populated and not really what others would call pretty... but I think the people make it the prettiest place in the world! There are kids all over!! I love it here so far.

Little background about my situation: We live in a small apartment with two kabahays, or roommates. Sister Gaspar is my adorable Filipino companion/trainer from Laoag, Sister Baptista is the other newby like me except she can speak the language HAHA. She is from Laoag too and actually from the same stake as my companion so they totally know each other! Sister Baptista's trainer is Sister Nagareda from Hawaii and her Tagalog is amazing, whether she thinks so or not ;)

I have some truly hilarious things that happened this week...

So my first night here, my kasama told me in Tagalog that she had to wake up at five to go to a meeting. I thought she meant district council that we had the next day, so I was like dang ok. So in the morning, I naturally woke up at 5:45 and was like OH NO we're gonna be late!! And so I wake up Sister Gaspar like darn it the alarm didn't go off let's get ready fast. She was like ummm we don't get up yet honey what are you doing...so yeah. Apparently she was saying that the morning before she had to get up at 5, not that day. Talk about embarrassing!! I felt so bad haha but she just laughed. She's so patient with me hahha

Ok, you know missionary language, lots of weird stuff that I still need to learn... So my kasama was like "I had a friend, Sister something, she died just last week" My heart sunk! I was like oh my gosh I am so sorry that's so sad! My kasama just started laughing because it meant that her mission ended, not that she actually died... blonde ako.

There's more... in our apartment, i was standing right next to Sister Baptista but she apparently didn't know I was there. When she saw me, she SCREAMED bloody murder and held it out until she hid behind her kasama. Oh my goodness, it was so funny. I died laughing for like a half hour.

That same day, we visited the Fajardo family. They are members, so for our spiritual thought, I just shared my favorite scripture with them and a discussion followed. I wanted to add some awesome comment and so I started with: "Para sa akin, hindi ko alam kung paano magtagalog. Pero, nagtutulong ko ang Diyos" which means. " For me, I don't know how to speak Tagalog. But, God is helping me". I was so proud because it was all correct tagalog so on the inside I was like WOOO!! But then, I said "at... JOKE LANG" which is "and... JUST KIDDING" because I didn't know what else to say!! It was so funny. I turned bright red and we all had a good laugh.

Now on a more serious note...

We had an amazing experience with one of the people we are teaching. His name is Ric and he has the cutest family ever. He is so ready to be baptized and you can tell that he already has a strong relationship with Heavenly Father. The only problem is, him and his asawa are living together but are not married. My kasama said that they have been focusing their visits on the importance of family, but I really felt impressed that we should read Mosiah 18 and talk about baptism to hopefully grow his desire more for that. As we were teaching, the Spirit was really strong. We started talking about the Holy Ghost as well and I was told by the Spirit to ask if he had any experiences where he has felt the Holy Ghost and to share it with us. We ended up being able to see how strong his desire was for baptism and how eager he was for it. He understood that he needed to be married as soon as possible and that they are trying! It's made us so happy. Pray for them!

There are so many individuals that I really need your prayers for, but the one that needs the most I think is an 18 year old named Lovely. She is ready to be baptized and is old enough that she doesn't need a parent's permission, but her father does not approve and he is very abusive. If she goes to church, we are scared that she could get hurt. Please pray for her father's heart to soften and for her family to be able to attend church so that she can be baptized. My heart is aching for her. 

Book of Mormon: Helaman 5:12

WOW sorry this email was so long. I love you all!!

Mahal kita,

Sister Stewart

WOO

We received this email from Sydney last night, which means she has officially been in the field serving for 2 days now (they are 16 hours ahead of us).  We cannot wait to hear more.  We also just received a letter from her mission president saying how much they love Sydney already.  They included some pictures, as well.  

*Sister Stewart & Sister Gaspar (her new companion)

*Sister Stewart with the mission president and his wife, Brother & Sister Koster

*Her March 6th Group

Her release date will be 22 July 2020.

Her email is still sydney.stewart@missionary.org

Her mission mailing address is:

Sister Sydney Rae Stewart

Philippines Quezon City Mission

Aurora Blvd. Corner J.P. Rizal St.

Project 4 Cubao, Quezon City

1109 Metro Manila

Philippines

Hello po! I'm in the mission home right now, WOOOOOO!! I am safe and happy and I'm about to find out who my trainer is. The mission president and his wife, the Kosters, are SO amazing. YAY! I love you all and I am so happy to be here.

Love,

Sister Stewart

Unang Linggo sa Pilipinas!!!!!!

 *Sydney with her Provo MTC Companion

 *On the way to the airport in SLC she ran into Amanda and Sophie!!!

 *She has arrived!  The Philippines flag flying

 *Her new Manila MTC companion (who was with her same group in Provo).  

She's from California, too.

*Their new classroom for the week

Sobrang excited po ako dahil sa akin sa Pilipinas!!!!!!! The MTC is awesome here! 

The coolest thing: we get to go outside into the real world! On pday (it got changed to today by the way), we get to go to some stores down the road YAY!! And to the temple which is even more beautiful in person. We get to go on splits tomorrow which means we get to go out with REAL missionaries in the REAL world and talk to REAL people! I'm so excited. 

The best thing: Filipinos everywhere that I get to try to talk to! They're all so friendly. This MTC is super small compared to Provo, so we were very popular when we arrived. There's only a handful of missionaries that were already here that are native English speakers. Most of them (meaning like 3 haha) are Australian. Some others are from China, a couple from Kirabati. I love it!

Other best thing: FOOD!!! MMMmmmmmm I love Filipino food so much. They pile up our food like crazy and so we're all gonna gain so much weight just in this week YAY. There's even a snack time at this MTC!

The funniest thing: We taught a lesson to someone who works here pretending to be a non-member. They are brilliant actors which means... tough, tough lessons! Haha it was the most awkward lesson of my life. We just taught him about prayer and how to pray, so at the end, I invited him to say the closing prayer. He said ok and started to pray. Sister Tapusoa, my new kasama, said that when he started struggling to pray, she opened her eyes slightly and saw him staring straight at her! Talk about awkward oh my goodness! It was seriously like we were teaching a wall, it was tough and sobrang kawiliwili hahah!

The MTC here is very different. For example, there's a wake up announcement in the mornings and we're not allowed to do personal study or anything outside of the classroom. The president is very involved and we see him everywhere. If there's a group of missionaries talking, he'll come up to them and say "Ok where are you headed to next?" Haha it's definitely different than us being self-governed in Provo.

This place is like a resort, holy cow! We have bathrooms in our rooms, including showers! And the courtyard is so gorgeous. You can see the Angel Moroni on the temple from everywhere.

Don't forget that I love you all and I pray for you often. I can't wait until I have more exciting things to tell! Please remember that Heavenly Father is there for you and He loves you more than you could imagine. You can never be unworthy of His love. I think sometimes we forget that. Don't be too hard on yourselves. Know that it's never too late to be the kind of parent or friend you want to be, quit a bad habit, focus more on others than yourself, whatever it is. Jesus Christ's Atonement is a gift. For you. No one is an exception. God is anxiously awaiting for you to come unto Him, to come closer. Even if you think your relationship with Him is good, it can always be better. Pray to Him, tell Him that you love Him. I know that He will hear and that you can feel of His love right back.

Mahal Kita,

Sister Stewart

Week Lima! WOW

Sister Stewart has a new email address: 

sydney.stewart@missionary.org

Matching skirts with Sister Delarosa

KAMUSTA! MAGANDANG HAPON! MAHAL KITAAAAA!
It’s Sister Stewart here and GUESS WHAT!? We got our flight plans
today! We leave for the Philippines on February 25. Nope nope no I
couldn’t be any more excited!! I’ve been so pumped for this since the
day I got my mission call.
Funny story for y’all. So you know how weird things happen to me
fairly frequently, like being deported from India for example? Well...
on Sunday, we come home. I go to the bathroom (TMI-tell more
information? ok) and I hear this alarm. It sounded distant so I was
like oh it’s probably just the building next to us. But then my
kasama, Sis. Vaiaoga runs in and says “kasama! It’s going off in the
rooms!” Imagine the loudest sound you’ve ever heard multiplied by 30.
So I was like alright you guys let’s be smart and evacuate like normal
people would. So we walk outside (it’s snowing) and are immediately
confused because no one else evacuates!! So we waited for a little bit
and then decided to go back in. It turns out it was ONLY IN OUR
ROOM!!!!!! Of course! 😂 So then we call the front desk and tell them
and they had US knock on everyone’s doors and tell them to evacuate to
the floor below. I got to be that annoying person who went into the
bathroom where people were showering and be like “umm get out ASAP and
leave” so that was fun. So here we all are, gathered in the hallways
of the second floor all because of our room. After about an hour, they
cleared it and so everyone was able to go back upstairs BUT it took
yet another hour for them to figure out how to turn the faulty alarm
off. So we got to bed PAST 10:30 😭 sad day hahhaha but quite funny.
We got to hear from another general authority this week, Elder
Soares!! It was awesome. All the devotional really put into
perspective for me just how important missionary work is. I am so
blessed to be here. He told us about how we are constantly prayed for
by the prophet and by the 12 and something that he said struck me. He
said “not only do we love you, but we trust you.” Hmmmm.... it’s
strange that we’re all a bunch of 18,19,20 year olds and yet we’re
trusted by prophets and apostles to do the most important work that
can be done. Pretty crazy, but I’ve realized that maybe it’s because
we are actually the best for the job. I have seen the strongest of
testimonies from these young people and have witnessed so much power
and Spirit in the words that they speak. This really is the chance of
a lifetime to be surrounded by the Spirit day by day and be edified
and have my testimony strengthened every day.
Tagalog is AWESOME. I love the language. It is HARD though, don’t get
me wrong. Really hard. I can’t even say anything that isn’t Gospel
related haha. But it’s beautiful and it’s super cool!! It is nothing
like Spanish, y’all are liars;) Haha just kidding. There are some
borrowed words from Spanish but that’s about it. It’s definitely not
Latin based, the structure is soooo different! Very unique. I
absolutely love it.
Hmm what else... I love you all! I pray for you everyday. Thank you
soooo much for those of you that sent me cute Valentines and packages!
I am the most spoiled missionary EVER.
Mahal Kita,
Sister Stewart

Linggo Apat!

Hello po everybody!! It’s Sister Stewart here.

This week, I promise to keep my email short! Sorry they’ve been soooo
long lately haha just exciting things to tell!
So I got to see Elder John Hellewell yesterday so that was AWESOME!!!!!
He’s one of my best buds from high school and my previous ASB
president:) I also saw my cousin and cousin in law who work here
YAYYYYYY!!!!!!! It’s so exciting to see people I know!
Tagalog is hard. There’s so many types of verbs and depending on the
type you use, it changes the sequence of words in the sentence. Urgh.
We had to do this oral assessment thing on the computer and I was
literally just laughing at myself the whole time because I didn’t know
how to say ANY of it! Oh well... I know I’ll get there someday!
New people came to our branch YAYYYY!! By the way, I don’t know if
I’ve  told you this, but our zone owns the volleyball court;) It’s
mandatory for everyone in branch 16 to play. It’s so much fun, it’s
one of my favorite things we do here!
Hmmm what else... Our district is singing on Sunday. We’re singing
“Come Follow Me” half Tagalog/half English and everyone literally
whispers it when we practice so I feel like I’m singing a solo.
Please, any advice to get them to sing louder would be greatly
appreciated!
We had an AMAZING devotional by Sister Joy D. Jones, the primary
general president. It was seriously one of my favorites so far. Her
husband spoke too and he told his conversion story. In high school, he
started attending seminary just because he was curious. His parents
were chain smokers and so he always smelled like smoke. He later found
out that no one ever talked to him in that seminary class because they
thought he was a smoker. Please please PLEASE don’t judge! Who cares
if someone smokes or doesn’t. The choices they make don’t define their
worth. Another thing that I loved was when Sister Jones spoke about
the children all over the world that she’s responsible for. They are
being bombarded with things in this world that people that young never
had been before. She told us to help her by sharing our testimonies
more with our siblings and showing them what it’s like to be a
missionary for Jesus Christ.
I’ve started realizing more and more how important my role as a
missionary is. This is the most important work on the earth, and I get
to be a part of it. I know that God loves us. I know that families can
be together forever. I cannot wait to tell the world that amazing
news! That the literal church that Jesus Christ established is back on
the earth. God’s plan of happiness is beautiful. The message I carry
in those small blue books is priceless.
I love you all. Don’t forget that power comes with prayer. Any
question you have, anything you’re struggling with, talk to Heavenly
Father in prayer. He’s waiting to hear from you, I know it.
Mahal Kita,
Sister Stewart

Week Tatlo!

 The Zone!! We're known for being the most obedient :)

 When the kind people sent pictures to our mothers and gave us cookies

 Me trying to memorize the First Vision in a language I don't know wooo

This is what our schedule looks like.  This is the schedule for next week.

Mga kaibigan at pamilya!!

I love you all and I pray for you! I hope all is well. Thank you for
all of you who have emailed me. I’m able to read them throughout the
week and each one is soooo exciting and very appreciated!!
For anyone who doesn’t know what some of the weird words I say and
stuff like gift of tongues or Spirit or something haha go to
Mormon.org and you can just search anything on there!:)

This past Sunday, I was able to give a talk in Tagalog in sacrament
meeting and teach a lesson in our district council. The talk I gave
was on baptism and I had a very strong feeling I was going to speak so
when he said my name over the pulpit, I was not surprised. Although I
was mostly concentrating on the language, people told me after that
they were able to feel the Spirit. The Gift of Tongues is real!

My lesson was actually a really awesome experience. We talked about
seeing ourselves as God sees us and the Holy Ghost filled the whole
room. The coolest part was when I was testifying, the words I was
saying were not my own! I didn’t even think about what I was saying,
it just came. I know it was what they needed to hear and what I needed
to hear. My companion did the same thing. Her testimony is so strong.
She is such a good example to me. Oh and by the way... this lesson was
in mostly English!

My favorite scripture in the Book of Mormon is Alma 26:12 which says
“Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore
I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his
strength I can do all things”. In His strength, I do everything. This
week, the thing I pondered about most was how much I rely on Heavenly
Father and my Savior. We would be nothing without Them. We would
always be sorrowful... never finding relief from our challenges. We
would not be able to be cleansed of our sins. We would gradually and
quickly get farther and farther away from ever finding joy. But with a
Savior and with our Heavenly Father, we are loved beyond measure. We
can find rest. Their arms are always opened wide for us, all we need
to do is fall into them.

I got to teach our first TRC lesson on Monday! These people are
typically returned missionaries who speak Tagalog. No English is
allowed of course, and you just get to know them and share a message.
We talk about how families can be together for eternity, and it was
really neat! One of the women we taught had a baby with her 😍

Tagalog is crayyyyzzzayyyy right now. We have to memorize 72 words a
day, 15 phrases a day, and the First Vision by Sunday. I’m almost done
with the first vision but I have to say it so so slowly and think
about every word hahah! As for the other goals....well, I just try my
best! It’s so much work haha. But I’m definitely getting help from
above and can see it in every lesson I teach! It still blows my mind
when I can understand what people say to me hahah.

The weeks are speeding up! Yayyy!! I can’t wait to be in the
Philippines but I do love it here. We got to hear from Elder Holland

which was amazing!! He gave us missionaries a much needed pep talk and

also discussed the importance of obedience. The devotionals here are
sooooo awesome I love it!

I love you! Please pray and thank Heavenly Father for all that He has
given you. Magandang hapon!
Ingat,
Sister Stewart