May 5, 2014

Heyo ya'll,

How are you all doing? Nope I didn't have to have my appendix removed thank goodness. I ended up going to a urologist because the medicine wasn't working at all. He just said that my intestines are really inflamed so I am taking the same medication and I am going to be taking another too if it ever gets to the pharmacy. I still feel a little sore at times but I am starting to feel quite a lot better so hopefully that is the end of that. Okay I will be ready to Skype at 6 my time 5 your time. Maybe get on a few minutes early too just in case. I'm soooo beyond excited to talk to you all!!!!!!! Oh and yeah the package got here last Monday night. Thanks so much!!! It had some really great stuff. I really like the ties!!!! Especially the checkered one.

Well this last week was a bit crazy. It was definitely a test of patience. We ended up moving to our new house on Tuesday which is actually really nice by the way. After we moved in we had to buy all of our dishes etc. and we got lost going to the house where we all ate lunch so we didn't get to teach any lessons, basically the same thing happened the next day because we were at the doctor like all day, and then this weekend like everyone was gone. Friday we looked and looked for people to teach all day: in-actives, less actives, actives, street contacts, etc. We walked all day and didn't teach one single lesson. It was crazy no one was home. Saturday was basically the same. However, on Saturday night we had our first lesson with a new investigator that we received as a reference from a member. His name is Angel. He has a lot of changes to make but he has come to church twice and he seems to really like it. I think that with time he will end up getting baptized. He was kind of the bright spot of our whole week. However, despite all of the challenges we have stayed positive and are trying to look at it as a test of patience. We are also preparing to do everything possible to finish this last week of the transfer strong. I'm guessing that Elder Schofield and I will both end up staying here, but I have been wrong before so we'll see what happens.

Thanks for your advice about getting people to come to church. Basically that's what we are doing, but it hasn't worked too well. We need to get the members more excited about missionary work It's like you said dad, it all starts with the ward council. We've only havd ward council once in the five weeks that I've been here, and I'm not sure if they have a ward mission plan either. We'll have to look into it a little bit more. Thanks for sharing that talk with me mom. I think that it really applies to this week. I especially like the part about the kite. It really is true. We'll that´s about all from my end. Have a good week and try not to do too much yard work dad hahaha.

Con amor,

Elder Schow

April 28, 2014

April 28, 2014

Hello, hello, well sounds like it's been a full week for everyone, it has been for us as well. I'm glad that you had a good time for Madeline's birthday. Sometimes it´s really nice to keep is simple and just chill. That's crazy about Lauren and Cam's house too!!! I can't believe it sold that fast. Hopefully it went for a good price. It sounds like a lot of people are getting married. I forgot that some of those people even existed to be honest haha. I'm glad that you got to see some of my friends and that they are doing well. Hopefully I hear from them soon...the bums haha. What are they all up to? That's really funny what George Stephens did. That's what you call a real April Fools joke. I'm glad that some of your students passed mom. Hopefully the other ones keep progressing too. I also like your advice from President Mckee. It really is true. Attitude is everything. It is something that I still have to work on every day. Some days more that others. Random side note, the package still hasn't got here. When did you send it again? Hopefully it wasn't stolen....

Well, so as I said this week was a bit crazy. We ended up in the doctors offices like 3 or 4 times. My comp. does have a hernia, but they are going to see if they can bring the pain down a little and wait to operate until after the mission. We will know in a month or so if they are going to operate in the mission or not. I also talked to the doctor this week. He said that he thinks my surgery was well done, and that the problem is intestinal. He said that my appendix is inflamed and it could get worse fast so I am taking medicine to try to bring it back to normal. It doesn't seem to be changing too much though so we'll see. I have to talk to Sister Valadez tonight to see what she wants me to do next though. As a consequence of all of this we didn't get to work much this week. However, we are starting to find a few more people to teach and we finally got a map of our area so we can start looking for less active members. We're going forward and upward slowly but surely. My last area is killing it. They are baptizing like every week. Hopefully we can start to do that here with a little bit of time. Our biggest challenge here is to get investigators to go to church because it is super far for them. Any ideas?  I also think that I am going to introduce the 40 day fast idea to the ward council to see if we can spark more interest for the work in this ward. It seems like it has worked well there. Also, we are moving this week and we will be living in our area so we should have more time to teach. Another plus is that we won't have to cross the stairs at night which is a relief because it should be called sketch town instead of Rio Guadalupe down at the bottom....just a lot of drunks and drug addicts that don't like us. It's alright though. We have the protection of missionaries.

So I'm surprised but I found out that we can Skype on actual Mother's Day. My companion is going to skype at 6 our time on Sunday the 11. I'm not sure what time that is there and I can't go to a website to check. Can you find out what time that would be for you and if that time would work for you all? We have 40 minutes. I´m not sure if it's possible but if we could coordinate it so that Ethan is on for like 10 minutes too that would be awesome. I haven´t seen him forever. If you could send me some pictures of him even if it´s just on email I would really appreciate it. I haven´t seen any pictures of him on his mission yet. That's about it for this week. I love you all a ton, and I think about you often. I'm excited for the time that we will all be reunited once again. It's a long ways off, but it will come before I know it.

Until next week,

Love Elder Schow