Glistening Soldiers of Light

Dear Elders and Sisters,

I hope you are having a wonderful day and feeling the spirit still from our zone conference with Elder Nielson.  I want you to know that we are very very proud of our missionaries for your effort and for the spirit that you had with you in the zone conference.  Elder Nielson told you publicly, and told me several times privately that Cebu Mission is the most obedient mission in the Philippines.  We are also the most productive and having the greatest success of all 17 missions in the Rescue.  I hope you can see that those two things are tied together.  Just like our mission motto says, "Success Through Obedience".  I know there are still a few missionaries in our mission who have not learned this principle yet, but increasingly those missionaries are finding that they are alone in their choices.  Let us all love each other and encourage one another to become the Lord's missionaries.

As you know, it has been a very busy but very special 3 or 4 weeks as I have had the opportunity to visit with all of you and see you again at zone conferences.  I want to apologize to all of you for my inability to write letters during these weeks.  And I want to thank you all for the letters you have written me.  They are a blessing to me.  It is the high point of my week to read them and see the marvelous things you are doing with your lives and your missions.  I wish I could be like the prophet Elisha and pray to the Lord that you could see the eternal importance of your work here in the mission.  Elisha said "Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see.  And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."  (2 Kings 6:17).  So I would pray for you that you could open your eyes and see yourselfs as glistening soldiers of light in a darkened world, bringing salvation to the souls of men.  Do your work with the utmost assurance that God is watching, and so are his angels, and they stand ready to assist the righteous missionaries in their work.

I am writing letters to all of you this week.  But I am not yet done.  So when you open your email today, if you don't yet have a letter from me, I will give you permission to go back again tomorrow to access your imos account and retrieve your letter from me.

I'm looking forward to seeing you all at the conference with Elder Nelson.  Please prepared to learn from an apostle of the Lord.  There will be no requests granted for a special temple day that Wednesday.  So even if you come in from Bohol or Negros, please don't ask to be allowed to go to the temple.  We'll see you soon.

Love,

President Schmutz

Elder Nelson in Phillipines

Dear Elders and Sisters,

Sister Schmutz and I are sitting in the Tagbilaran chapel about ready to begin the Bohol zone conference with Elder and Sister Nielson.  Yesterday, we meet with the Mandaue, Lilo-an and Bogo zones. What a great experiences!  Tomorrow we will be meeting in Dumaguete with Dumaguete and Tanjay zones, and then on Friday we will meet with Toledo, City and Talisay zones.  So it is a busy week, especially when we just completed transfer week and zone interviews.  I hope we survive :)  But we have truly enjoyed the opportuniities to meet with you all and we can see up close how well you are doing.  We love you and we're proud of you.

Of course the bad thing about being away from home is I cannot respond to your letters.  But by next week we will be back to a better schedule.  As I read your letters, if there are any urgent needs I will contact you.  We are so grateful that our missionaries have become so willing to obey and be diligent.  We are looking forward to seeing all of you this week.

Love,

President Schmutz

Transferred to Medellin

Dear President Schmutz,

We have had great experiences here in Medellin.  Our Zone Leaders have been very helpful in moving us into our apartment and helping us in the area.  

Like all open areas we are going to have to do a lot of finding, but we have already four investigators commited for baptism.  They all seem to have some growing to do, but of course it will take sometime to see where they actually are at.  Brother Elmer was committed for baptism this last Saturday but it was moved because he had work and just recently got Sunday off.  We found out though that he has a Word of Wisdom problem we went to teach him and he had been drinking.  We will continue to teach the doctrine, and see where his desire is.  His family are all members and would really like to see their dad baptized soon.  We will keep you updated.  Then we have Renato Giducos which his family is also members, and he seems interested in listening we committed him for baptism this past Sunday.  Also Brother Michael Fernandez (21 Years) and his brother Ranil Fernandez (16Years) they also committed for baptism last Sunday.   

The Giducos family is less active so we also work with them to become strong before the baptism of the father.  We also plan to teach Sister Vima Giducos to read so she can grow by reading the book of mormon.  

The apartment is pretty bad, but we had help cleaning on Saturday as a CSP.  We still have a long way to go, but I was not at all shocked with the past experiences I have had with Elders apartments.  I dont think I will be shocked at anything after the experience of my last apartment in Lapu-lapu I am sure you remember the email I sent about that.  In all fairness though the house is amazing.  We love having a yard, and have had picnics outside for our breakfast.  

I feel this area will have miracles happen.  We had a meeting this Sunday and we made a goal with the members to making our branch a ward in three months.  It was inspired by the spirit.  We really have great faith that this can happen.  We are faithful that if we are obedient and faithful then this area will progress.  

I am so grateful for the extension I have had I have learned so much especially from Elder Neilson yesterday.  I feel that the Lord has used me and my knowledge of opening areas.  I feel it a great privalage to be companions with Sister Olofernes.  She is so excited for the area, and she is a great example to me in her positive attitude.  Thank you for this amazing opportunity President I love you.

Sister Bruno