January 6th 2014

January 6th 2014

Hola familia y otros personas que posible van a leer esto!

We get to write today because I guess transfers are in Tuesdays. Butttt...I´m not transferring!!! I'm staying in Cafetales with Elder Patey for at least one more transfer. I'm excited to continue to work here with him.   I think that we have a lot to learn from each other, and we have a ton of work to do. Incidentally we had a killer week this week; we led the zone in lessons, new investigators, baptismal dates, etc! We had kind of been struggling for a while, but we really tried to change our prayers this week and poof, we received success out of nowhere. This really taught us a lesson. If our prayers are not as sincere as they should be we will not receive help in our work. It was kind of a bummer though, we had 21 people that committed to come to sacrament meeting and not a one came :( We even called everyone to confirm that they were coming. We were pretty sad because the Gonzales family didn't come and their baptismal dates fell. We will get them all to come this week though. Our district leader gave us a lot of tips and we are in good spirits. :) I think we have a baptism in 2 weeks for Brother Gonzales.. We also still have several other people with baptismal dates too, and we are going to work really hard to help them to meet their goal. I am really starting to see how the gospel can change lives. I have seen it start to change the lives of many people. I am glad to be a part of it. I made several New Years resolutions. One of them is to exercise every morning. It is sooo hard to get up haha, but I just need to force myself to do it. We get beds soon too which is a great blessing. We are going to move into an apartment on top of the mansion of one of the members of our ward. There is an amazing view up there. It's pretty sweet. This family is awesome, they wanted to let us use their apartment for free, but because the church has to pay them they are going to give the money to the church missionary fund. They are so giving. We just need to find a member that has a vehicle large enough to bring beds, etc. from the mission office. Hopefully this week. That was nice of Elder Johnson's mom. He´s a great missionary and his Spanish is amazing for how little time he has here. He'll be a trainer or something for sure. Thank you for your prayers. You're all in my prayers too. It's so good to hear from you all. You are a huge strength to me. If you want to you can pray for the Gonzales family, the Carmona Family, and the Rodriguez family. Talk to you soon. Oh, and good luck with your goal to do missionary work. My advice is work with the missionaries in your ward or stake. They can really help you and you can really help them, even if all you can do is go to a lesson with them or something. The missionaries need the help of members. This is a huge problem in many places, especially here. The members don't realize we need their help and can't do this alone. Good luck. Let me know how it goes.

Elder Schow.

Almost a new year!

  December 30th    2013

Hola family and others,

I'm really happy I got to Skype you too!!! It really was weird at first. Sometimes it really feels like you guys don't exist hahaha. Sorry it didn't function in the end, I'm glad I got to hear your voices though! I'm glad that you all had a great Christmas and that you got to spend time with family! Hopefully you told everyone "hi" for me haha. I hope you had fun Skyping with Ethan too. I wish I could've Skped him a little bit. I need to be better about writing him. We spend a couple of hours with the Guttierez family for Christmas Eve. They were so nice we had a Christmas message and then a dinner. They gave us sweaters, ties, socks, and little blankets for Christmas. We were really surprised because we weren't expecting anything. It was super nice of them and it was perfect because on of my sweaters ripped on a bush when we were running to cross the street that exact same day. They invited us over for New Years Eve also! We get to stay out until 10:15 if they give us a ride home. Christmas was definitely different without you guys. We had 8 elders at our apartment. We all cooked a bunch of things for breakfast like waffles (one of the elders has a sesame street waffle maker which is definitely a rarity), French toast, etc. My package came and a letter from Lauren!!! Consequently the address is right. Thanks so much for the gifts! It was fun and delicious. My companion said to tell you thanks so much also. One of the elders in our apartment didn't get anything from his family. We all pitched in and gave him a little something. It was awesome because it made his day. We think that we found an apartment but we are going to wait to move until after transfers because we don't know if we are staying here or not. Hopefully, but we'll see. At least we'll have beds either way :) Maddie driving....sounds dangerous. I kid, I kid. I know she'll do great. We got to go tour the new visitors center this week and we receive a training so that we can bring investigators. We also got to do a temple session which is really rare. It was especially cool because the temple closes this week for a year and half. I'm not really sure why because it is really nice. Anyway though it was cool. I am having more fun. My companion and I changed a lot of things this week and I am having more fun and feel more confident. We have an investigator that is progressing really well. He has come to church 4 time, viewed a baptism, and he went to the visitors center of the temple yesterday with his family! His name is Brother G. Please pray for him. He has a smoking problem that he needs to give up before he can be baptized. He is a great man and is so humble. He wants to be baptized to set an example for his family. It's super awesome to see the changes that come into a persons life when they are living the gospel. Thanks for your love and counsel. I love you all. Talk to you soon. I think on Monday.

Adios, Elder Schow

 

Britton was going to send pictures but, his card would not work in the computer.  He said he would try again next week!  :)

December 16th 2013

December 16th 2013

Hola everyone. Thanks for the advice support and prayers. I know that it´s normal for basically every missionary to struggle for a while so no worries. I actually had a better week this week in a lot of ways. I've been sick a lot of this week but I have medicine and I'm feeling better. I think I ate some bad street food. Stupid tacos haha. No worries though I am very upbeat for the most part. I have also been sleeping in my coat and have been warmer. My incision has been bugging me a lot so I'm going to watch it for another week or two and if it doesn´t improve I might go to the doctor. We'll see though. I might just have to grit my teeth and deal with it. I had companionship exchanges this week with our district leader. I went to his area for a day and a night. It's a lot rougher of an area than my area and I was a little bit nervous at first, but he really helped to reassure me that we are protected on our missions and that if we are obedient and follow the Spirit that we have nothing to worry about. He took time out of his personal study to study with me and to strengthen me. I really appreciated it. I think he is a good example of a leader. We're still looking for an apartment but with no success so please pray that we can find one. We really need one in our area because it wastes a lot of time to travel from where our apartment is now to our area. I know we'll find one eventually. The members are a big help and we always check with them to see if they have heard of any that are available.    Thanks for your advice dad. At times it's hard to remember that you have been through this exact same thing. I wish I would have asked you more about your mission before I left. We will have plenty of time to talk about it when I get home though. I look forward to it. We taught several great families this week. My spanish is getting a little better. I am learning that I need to just open my mouth and talk even if it is incorrect. All I can do is my best. We had a really good lesson with a member yesterday. He is very sick. I think that he might have Parkinsons disease. He shakes a ton and he can't talk. He really wants to go to church but he can't. We are trying to locate a wheelchair so that we can surprise him and bring him to sacrament meeting for Christmas. We are going to spend Christmas eve with a member family in our ward. They invited us to lunch and dinner. I think it will be a lot of fun. We have P-day on Christmas instead of Monday. Also, we cannot Skype in the homes of members so we will have to do it on the 23rd or 24th. I don´t know when yet for sure because it depends on when the internet cafes are open. I will let you know ASAP. I hope that that works for everyone because I really want to Skype with you all. I'm am grateful for the opportunity to be out here. It is hard but usually I love it and I know I will love it more with time. Love you all!

Elder Schow

 

(All of Britton's posts are edited and there are some experiences that are not included due to their personal or sacred nature)

December 9th 2013

December 9th 2013

  Well my area is one of the nicest in the mission. It´s several miles by several miles and it´s very easy to get lost or to not be able to find appointments because many of the appartments aren´t numbered. We missed like 10 appointments this week because of this. We finally got a cell phone so that helps. We still don´t have beds. It´s really warm during the day here but it gets really cold at night. I wear a coat in the appartment all morning to warm back up haha. I ate cactus covered with cheese this week. It was weird but good. Most all of the food here is good. Especially the tacos from street vendors. I´m sorry to say it but they put our tacos to shame. Dad would be in heaven. There are a lot of people on drugs here. The use household products to get high and it really messes with their minds. That´s why I say there are crazy people. I feel sorry for them. We encountered a group of teenagers doing this a few days ago and we tried to concince them to stop. All they did was offer us cigarettes and laugh at us. There are a lot of people like this. I really is sad. I guess it´s a lot worse in the poorer areas of our mission. We have to be in our apartment by 9 every night instead of 9:30. Rarely if ever does anything happen to missionaries but the president of the mission says that it is safer this way. I´m glad that Curtis is in the MTC. I hope he enjoys it and I´m glad that John and Jackie sold their house. I got an email from Aunt Becky this week, but I don´t know if I´ll have time to write back today. I will next week though. I´m sorry about Brother Wellard. That´s really sad. I don´t know how people can live without a knowledge of the afterlife either dad. I know for a fact I couldn´t handle it. My Spanish is not really progressing. I feel like it was better back at the mtc to be honest. I hardly ever get to say anything in lessons and that doesn´t give me much opportunity to practice. My companion and I are going to work on that though so that I can participate more. I love the members here. They are so kind. They would do anything for us. A lady that isn´t even in our ward wanted to do our laundry for us at here shop for free. People always give us food too. I feel bad because some of them have so little, but they do it because they believe that they will be blessed. We watched the Christmas Devo. last night....in Spanish. Sooo...the only thing I understood was the songs. I´m glad I was able to understand them though because I love songs so much. I miss you all. I wish I could be home for Christmas with all of you. In two years I will be. Which I guess isn´t really all that long when you think about it. Thank you for praying for our investigators. They are hitting a lot of opposition so all the prayers in their behalf will help a lot. Sorry I kinda all scrambled. I tried to answer all of your questions but I may have missed some. BTW P-day is different a couple times in the next month or so. I´ll try to let you know more details next week. I love you all. Elder Schow

First letter from Mexico

December 2nd 2013     First letter from Mexico

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Sorry for my bad typing. This keyboard is Spanish and it is a lot different. I´m glad that you all are doing well and that you had a fun time for Thanksgiving. It was basically just a normal day for us. We had a training and some interviews at the chapel so we all ate there. It wasn't a traditional Thanksgiving, but it was still pretty good. Uncle Paul needs to send the package to the mission home if he hasn't sent it already. Everything needs to be sent to the mission home. Thanks for the pillowcases mom. My companion was thrilled to get a package. His name is Elder Patey. He's from Portugal, but his family lives in the United States right now. He speaks English, Portuguese, and Spanish. He´s been out for 4 months. He's lived in Portugal, Africa, the US, and Costa Rica. His dad was a negotiator. He's a good guy and a hard worker. He´s taught me a lot already. He's helped me feel a lot more at ease about being here. There are a lot of really really nice people that are very generous and then there are a lot of crazy people. Overall though I really like the food that I've had so far and the people that I have met. It is a little bit scary here at times though. I think that I´ll get used to it though. We have been tasked to reopen an area that has been closed for a while. It´s a big job and it's a big area so navigate on foot. We've been lost several times. There are a lot of great members that have been helpful though. They are so giving. Sometimes we ride around in these little crappy busses that are totally crammed with people. It´s kinda fun. They always blast American music. We currently don't have an apartment. We are sharing with another set of elders in the Culhuacan area. We work in Cafetales. We also don't have beds so we have been sleeping on the floor for the last week. It's a good thing that I'm so tired every night or I probably wouldn't sleep much.

The first day I got here we did exchanges because our district leader needed to go with my companion to show him our area. I don't remember where I was.    My companion for the day had been out for like a month and then we had a ward misisonary. I got to ask a woman to be baptized and she said yes. It felt really, really good but it was still kind of a hard day due to all of the adjustments.

I guess our area is pretty nice compared to a lot of the other areas, and much of our area is very rundown. We have so much to be grateful for! It´s amazing how giving some of the people are considering how little they have. I'm also really glad that I didn't start my mission in one of the more sketchy areas of the city.

We met a really awesome family a couple of nights ago while we were walking around looking for someone to teach. They fed us and let us teach them. The wife is an inactive member and her husband is not a member they have 2 kids. I don't remember their names right now but please pray for them, the Gonzales family, and the Patiño family. We need to have 5 baptisms this month and they are all great people.

My Spanish is terrible. I understand basically nothing and I speak terribly but it will come with time. I just need to open my mouth. It´s already been a week. Before we all know it I´ll be back home. I really need to take advantage of my time out here.

Oh and the airplane was pretty cool. I liked looking at the window. I got to sit by Sister Robison, the temple girl, (This is s sister missionary that happened to go through the temple the same day as Britton in Idaho Falls) and another Elder both times. I´m glad it wasn't some random person. It so much faster than a car. Well, I need to go. Thanks for everything. I love you all so much.

Adios, Elder Schow

5th P-day

November 19th 2013
Hey,

I leave Monday. Holy crap!! I'm kinda nervous. The language is really hard so it's kind of daunting to go to a country that speaks only Spanish and get thrown right in.    I know it's normal to be pretty nervous though so we'll see. I'm going to try to not have to take anything if I can.) I'm glad that everyone is doing well and that Ethan is doing alright. I've tried to ask him how he's doing every week but he isn't very forthcoming with information. It sounds like you're really busy dad. Sorry to hear about brother Call and Wellard. I hope that their families are doing well. Sorry you're so busy with tithing settlement. At least there are only a few weeks of it though. Congrats on the early exercise too. I bet it will get easier with time to get up for it. Hopefully you can start to get to bed earlier or something. That's exciting about the tree mom. Hopefully they don't see this if they aren't aware you're making it. Wow that's crazy that Curtis has his farewell already. It does seem like time flew after he got his call. Wonder why mine didn't haha ;) That should be fun for you all to go to Idaho Falls for Cam's birthday. You should just make Maddie go anyway. Does she have her drivers license yet?   Thanks for the advice that Nathan Nelson gave. It is good advice to remember because I forgot to do that every night for a couple of nights and my Spanish started to decline. I got a package of cookies from Jane and Val which was really nice of them. I need to send them a quick letter today to say thank you and see how they are doing. I also need to write Aunt Becky and your Gr & Gr Redd back today. I have so many letters to write. We fly out at 8 ish on Monday. I'm not sure when exactly we can call but sometime before then. Their info is terrible. All I really know is that we leave for the airport at 4:30 am and that we fly to Atlanta and then down. I would image that we can call something between like 6 and 7:30. I really need someone to talk to ICCU about me leaving the country. I didn't let them know before I left because I didn't bring my card with me. Could you talk to them for me please? I can't call or I would. Also, do I have at least like $500 on one of my cards just in case for fees and stuff like that? I shouldn't need nearly that much, but it would be good just in case. I think it would be alright if you send the Christmas stuff. I'll make it work somehow. We can carry a lot of weigh in our carry on so I'll put all of my heavy stuff in there. Also, do you think it's possible for me to get another pair of slacks in Mexico pretty easily? 2 of the JC Penney ones are getting ruined really fast and I'm worried that all my other pants might do the same thing. If you don't think it would be easy to find them there do you suppose that you could maybe overnight an extra pair here before I leave or something? I know it's short notice so if not I will figure something out when I get there. Do whatever you think would be best and just let me know in a dear elder or something. You probably won't hear from me for a couple of weeks because we probably miss p day because I'm assuming it's on Monday like everywhere else. Thanks for all of your love and support! I wish I had more time to answer you all. Stay safe.

Love, Elder Schow

Week 4 at the MTC

November 12th  2013

Hola everyone! Como estas?

If you can't tell I'm getting pretty good at Spanish. Okay I kid I kid. I am getting a little bit better though. I just need to get the hang of all the verb tenses and learn about a billion more words and I'll be set! Well not to much is different this week. The routine is usually basically the same. Get up, exercise, eat, go to class, eat, teach, class, eat, teach, study, study, study, bed. There have been some good devotionals and talks that we have gotten to listen to so that has been good. Elder L. Tom Perry is coming to give a devotional tonight and we get to go up to main campus for it so that should be pretty sweet! We also get to go to the temple today. (If you could dear elder me Jane and Val's address that might be good because I don't need my temple clothes and I might need to send them to their house.) I got called to be district leader on Sunday for the last couple of weeks here. There isn't really that much extra responsibility associated with it. I just have to be the example and correct the other missionaries if they are having a hard time being obedient. The only bad thing about this is I end up being the bad guy if I have to stop something that shouldn't be happening. Oh well though I'm glad for the opportunity to serve. That's about all that's new here. I'm really ready to get out of here. Everyone in our district is getting a little bit stir crazy to get down to Mexico. I'm glad that you all are doing well. Sorry about the letters mom. I ended up sending them a day late because I forgot them at our apartment and then they hold them for like a day or something so I think they should get there really soon. I promise they're coming and that they have more detail then my emails because I have more time to write them. That's good that the roof is coming along well. We've had a couple of really nice days here and have been able to study a little bit outside which has been nice. I'm glad you had fun at the dance thing.   You can forward me Preston's emails if you want to. I might not have time to read all of them but that would be fun to hear how he's doing. So I heard about the typhoon in the Philipines. I'm glad to hear that they found all of the missionaries because I know that Stu and Kase are both over there. That's terrible how many lives that it took though.  Thanks. I love you all.

Elder Schow