August 25, 2014

August 25, 2014
Hey everyone,

Well from the sound of it it has been a pretty eventful week. So you finally broke down and bought a new fridge, eh? Hopefully dad didn't blow up the old one so that you can still get a bit of use out if it haha, assuming that it still works of course. Ah...and the blue couch is gone. That´s too bad. That´s crazy about Jimmy´s house. I had no idea that he had alarms etc. Crazy. Good luck with the 5K. I´m so proud of you guys for going for it. I hope that it goes well. Where is it going to be held? Sounds like you've had a lot of rain. We have too. I´ll be honest. I´m a bit tired of getting wet...and staying wet, but it´s alright. Just part of the job description I guess. Yea dad from the sound of it the city has changed quite a bit since I left. It´s crazy how much can change so quickly.

Hmmm... what to say about this week? Well all in all it was a pretty good week. Like every week in the mission it has it´s ups and downs but over all it turned out well. We had a good turn out at church yesterday. Many of the investigators that came were coming for the first time. We started teaching a family this week named the G family. They had gone to church with one of their family members that lives a couple of hours away a few times, and several of them are very well prepared. Three of them accepted baptismal dates yesterday for the 28th of September. We also started teaching a woman named R. She is 18 and has 2 children. She had her first child when she was 14. Super sad... She came to church with us though and we think that she really liked it a lot so I will keep you posted on what happens with them.

I am grateful for the mission and all that I have been able to learn so far. I can definitely see personal growth in a lot of areas as well as a lot of room for growth in others. Right now I am learning the importance of setting goals. Without meaningful goals it is hard to progress. I an also learning the importance of patience. It is probably something that I have struggled with the most on my mission. I know however, that when we are obedient and work as hard as we can that good things come. Thanks for all that you do. Love you guys a ton. Talk to you all in a week!

Elder Schow  

August 11, 2014

August 11, 2014

 

Hello there everyone!  Well, there is some groovy techno going on in this internet cafe so I feel motivated to type faster haha.  Hopefully I will have more time to write to some of you today because of it.  Sorry that the last few weeks I have been a bit short on time.  Thanks for all of the birthday wishes!  To be honest I doubt that we will do anything that exciting haha.  I haven't really told anyone that it is my birthday so it will probably just be a quiet, normal day.  Thanks for putting money in my account, though I really don't need it.  How much were you wanting me to take out?  Also, the package got here.  I will open it on Wednesday :) !  I`m glad that you had a good time at the wedding and that it was a nice time.  That`s also nice that you got to visit with so many members of the family.  What?  Kim Barker got married?!  That`s crazy haha.  I thought that she was a lot younger.....Now I feel like an old fart haha.  Like dad said, time is a really strange thing.  It goes super slow until we stop and look backwards and realize how fast it has gone.  So I think that the beg bugs are gone.  Last Monday we stood my matress up and punched it a bunch and I prayed that night that we would not have more problems with them.  We haven`t received any new bites like all week, but we will see what happens.  I'll keep you posted.

So we had transfers this week.  I said goodbye Elder Mendoza who is now in his house (CRAZY!!!) and I recieved Elder Martinez.  He was Elder Patey`s trainer....so in mission terms my grandpa is now my companion.  He's a really really hard worker.  He goes home in 3 months so I'm guessing that I will leave the area the next time that we have transfers so that I don`t end up staying here for 9 months.  That would be a ton of time in one area.  He`s a really good missionary.  He's a bit bossy haha....it`s sort of a I know everything about the mission and we are going to do things my way sort of attitude, but I have a lot to learn from him.  We made a huge map of our area this week.  It`s like 6 feet by 3 feet.  We marked all of the members, everyone that we are teaching, and all of our future investigators with different colored stickers.  Hopefully it helps us to plan a bit better.  

We found a few new people to teach this last week that are really great.  I'll don't know them super well yet so I`ll tell you more about them later.  We had an entire family come to church on Sunday.  The C. family.  I think that I told you a little bit about on of them.  The ex-Jehovah's Witness.  We were super surprised that they all came.  I'll keep you posted on thier progress.  We are still working with R. and M. and the T. family.  We have several that have a lot of interest and we are receiving a lot of names of new people to teach.  Things are going well!  Love you all!

Elder Schow

August 4, 2014

August 4, 2014
Hey everyone,

I'm glad to hear that you all are doing well and that things are exciting as ever! Well yep I am going to be receiving a new companion....but I have no idea who. I am staying in Independencia though. Our president decided to change how he does transfers. The only thing that we are told is if we need to bring our suitcases or not. No one is told if they are training, DL, ZL, etc. I guess it will be kind of a surprise. I think that there must have been a problem with people complaining to other missionaries about their new companions. It should be good to see who it is though.

Well to be honest I don't really remember much that has happened this week. It has all kind of been a blur. We have been really busy teaching etc., and trying to get everything ready Elder Mendoza to go home. He has been pretty sad this week, but I think that he has finally come to terms with everything. It will be the start of a new adventure for him.

We did find several new investigators this week to take the places of several that has fallen of the face of the earth. We are finding a lot of new people to teach, but they have not been progressing very well. R. is still progressing really well, but we are feeling very rushed to teach everything that we need to before his baptism. I want to stop teaching him in his house though. I have bed bugs now, and I'm pretty sure that I brought them from his house on my clothes. I have to figure out how to get rid of them. My companion hasn't been bit, but we found a big one in his bed. Maybe we can start teaching him in the house of a member so that we don't keep bringing more. We also have another investigator named M. that has come to church 5 times. The problem is that his visa expired so he has been living here illegally and he needs to get married to his girlfriend but he can't without a visa. We are trying to see what we can do to fix that situation. Things have been pretty normal for the most part. I did however find out this week that eating pineapple on a hamburger is really good! Who knew haha?

I've had some good study sessions this week that have really helped strengthen my testimony and help me to have a clearer vision about why I am out here. It really is going quickly. I almost have 10 months already. I really want to make the most of the time that I have left.

Thanks for sending the package mom. I´ll let you know when I receive it. Thanks for all of your love and advice everyone! I love you all. Have a rip roarin' week!

Elder Schow

July 28, 2014

July 28, 2014
Hello ya'll,

I'm glad to hear that you are all doing well. From the sound of it it was a good week even though nothing too terribly exciting happened. It's normal though. That's what makes the exciting weeks more exciting. There must be an opposition in all things. Yeah in a lot of ways I can't believe that it's almost August already. It's crazy how fast that this year is going. It'll be Christmas again before we know it.

Well this week was a good week. We were blessed to be able to find a lot of new people to to teach this week. We have been following the counsel of Elder Johnston- the area seventy and have been seeing great results....more on the end of the investigators than the members, but hey we aren't going to complain haha. We have been blessed to find several families. There is one family that has a 17 year old son named Oscar. He is progressing really fast. He prayed at the end of our lesson a few days ago and said, "thank you for answering my prayers and helping me to find the truth through these young men that you have sent to me." He was super prepared. The story of how we found them is pretty cool. We contacted a woman on the bus and she gave us a name and an address. It is really difficult to write on a bus and we were not able to understand what my companion wrote very well. Nevertheless, we went to the address that we thought that he wrote and it just so happened that there was a woman with the same name, even though it wasn't the same woman on the bus. She told us that even though she wasn't who we were looking for that she thought we must be there for a reason and so we started teaching them. It was a cool experience to see that the Lord puts prepared people in our path in mysterious ways. R. is still progressing really well and his mom is still coming to church even though she isn't convinced about baptism,  she told us that she doesn't think that she has ever made a mistake. We'll see what happens with her. We are also working with a 21 year old named E. and his mom B. They both came to church on Sunday and he changed his work schedule so that he doesn't work on Sundays. It was pretty cool when he told us that. The B. family canceled our latest visit, and we think that we are going to have to drop them. They really aren't that interested. We'll see if we can visit them this week though. We also started teaching an ex Jehovah's Witness this week. We taught him that Jehovah is Jesus with several different scriptures in the Bible and he was like,  "I've been lied to my whole life."   It was crazy that he actually accepted what we taught him. We feel that he will be baptized. My companion goes home next Tuesday. It's really wierd. I'll know who my new companion is on Sunday night. It should be a good change though. Well love you all. I hope you have a good week. Talk to you soon.

Elder Schow

July 21st 2014

July 21st 2014

 

It was good to hear from all of you as always!  Thanks for your constant letters and support.  Well, this week was pretty good.  We are slowly but surely building up a decent group of people to teach.  A couple of them are progressing very well and they are helping us to find other people to teach as well.  It's kind of awesome  We aren't teaching Angel right now because he began working a lot and we lost contact with him, but we are teaching about 9-10 of his extended family members and we are going to start teaching more this week.  It would be so sweet if basically this whole family got baptized.  Three of them came to church this week: I., T., and G.  They really liked it, but the problem is that they are really attached to the Christian church that they are attending right now.  In fact, the day before they came to church with us T. invited us to come to their church with them.  We weren't really sure what to say, but I think that we will try to go.  She also asked us what we would do if we got an answer that their church is true.  They could be a bit difficult, but they are really great people.  We actually had a great turnout at church this week.  We had 6 people that we are teaching show up and two others people that live in our area that showed up with members.  R. came again and is progressing really, really well.  We taught him again last night and boy is he convinced.  We are trying to prepare him for August 17th, but it is a bit complicated because like Ethan said, we have to teach the fifth lesson now before baptism.  It is a worldwide change.  Well that's about all that is new here.  Not much, huh?

I'm glad to hear that you all are doing well.  That's funny that Caitlin was the brave one mom.  How old are they again?  That's nuts about the rain too.  Hopefully the damage isn't too bad, but I can imagine that it is significant.  That's super cool about the new temple movie.  I'm excited to see the difference between the three of them.  I really miss going to the temple.  I am very excited to go again when I get home.  It is a very special place.  From the sound of it mom you and Maddie are like the exercise queens.  Keep it up.  I need to follow your example.  I understand exactly how you feel dad, that early morning exercise is tough.  Way to go!  2 weeks straight is great.  That's great that you were able to choose a counselor.  I have no clue who he is haha, but I hope that everything works out really well.  Well, love you all.  Talk to you in a week.

Elder Schow  

July 14, 2014

July 14, 2014

Hello everyone!

Well this week was pretty good. We saw a lot of successes in many areas of the work. We had a zone conference on Tuesday for about 5 hours.   (way too long) But at the same time it was nice for a change of pace. Sometimes it is easy to get a bit bogged down in the everyday routine of things so it is nice to change it up every once in a while. Otherwise one could feel like they are living out the plot of the movie grounhog day haha.

Well we had several good things happen this week. We were able to find 11 new people to teach this week! Several of these 11 are part of families. It is sooo much better to teach families because they can support one another and help each other to remember to read, go to church etc. We feel that many of these people will progress really well. If you want to pray for them thier names are S, N, A, B, E, R, T, G, I, I (yes, like Nacho Libre), and S. It was a miracle that we were able to find so many.

We saw a lot of progress with R. this week. He came to church again with his mom E. They both really, really loved it. When we taught him last night we invited him to pray to know if what we had taught is true, and he told us that he didn`t need to pray because he already knew that was true because he had felt it. He is going to leave his work early a few times a week so that we can teach him and prepare him for baptism. He has been through a lot of hard things. His wife left him a while ago, and when that happened he let his house go to pot. We are going to organize a service project with the ward missionaries and the young men to help him to get everything back in order. We feel that it will be a nice surprise for him. He is a great guy. We are hoping that a few of our other investigators will start to progress like he is. A lot of them have kind of fallen off the face of the earth. Hopefully we don't lose them.

I'm glad that you guys had a good week. It doesn't sound like anything too exciting happened, but that's just the way it is sometimes haha. Have fun with your croquet set, and don't get too sunburned in all that heat. I'll try to send some rain your way because we have plenty haha. Love you all. Talk to you soon!

Elder Schow

July 7, 2014

July 7, 2014

Hello everyone!

Mom, tommorow it is your birthday. SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAHA. I hope that you do something really fun!!!! I know that you will have many many more to look forward to.

Thanks for all of your letter and emails and such everyone! It is always great to read them! I laughed quite a bit about that movie dad. I am intrigued to find out how Santa Clause defeated the martians when I get home haha. I`m almost 99% sure that it will go right up to the top spot in my top 10 list. Sorry for the confusion about my companion mom. Maybe I wrote it wrong, but he is from Baja California of i.e. Mexico. Thanks for the picture mom. You guys should send me more if you have time. I bet that you all are getting excited about the baby. I know that I am even though I won't see her for like a year! I'm glad that you had a decent fourth of July even if the fireworks were a bit lame. It sounds like you guys did some fun stuff. Pizza Pie Cafe...YUM! I like that place a lot. I have also heard that Captain America 2 is good from several people so we will have to watch it when I get home. Thank you for your testimonies, advice, and concern. I always appreciate it.

Well nothing overly noteworthy happened this week. We've reached the rainy season here in Mexico City and it rains every day...and hard haha. On saturday we were in the middle of a huge flight of steps when it started pouring. Walking down to the bottom was like walking down a mini waterfall. Needless to say we got soaked haha, but it didn't dampen our spirits too much, just all of our clothes. We're still struggling a bit to find a sufficient number of people to teach. We find some good people but they are tending to go cold quickly. We only have 4 people with baptismal dates now because basically no one is coming to church. Rafael and his mom Estella came though and another investigator named Manuel brought his wife- (they both came to church fasting even though we haven't taught them that yet. He also wants to pay tithing haha). The four of them are pretty great. The tricky thing is that they work a ton so it makes it difficult to teach them more than once a week. We will keep working with them though even if the progress is slow.

We have definitely found a lot of people this last week that need help. It is amazing to me how many downtrodden, sad, and bitter people there are in the world. It is easy to see that there is defintely the need for a Savior. I know that I need to do even more to lift up the heads that hang down and to strengthen the feeble knees. I am starting to see many of the people with more compassion. I just wish that there were more of them that would let us help them. I guess that the important thing to remember is that everyone has their agency to choose and all that we can do is our part and leave the rest up to them. My companion and I are excited to see what we can do this week to help bring about miracles. We are ready to keep working hard and giving it our all. Well I love you all! I hope that all is well!

Love, Elder Schow