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

Earthquake

April 21, 2014
Hey everyone, well good news, I survived the earthquake haha! I didn't think that you guys would hear about it but I guess it was a bigger deal than I thought. Elder Schofield and I were with all of our district in the subway when it happened. We were all going to the temple in Aragon because we all had to go to talk to the doctors that work there. We were standing on the platform waiting for the train, and all of a sudden I thought wow I feel dizzy. Then I realized that everyone was thinking the same thing. Some people told us to come and stand under a support and that we were in an earthquake. It was pretty crazy. We could actually see the platform moving back and forth and It was a bit hard to keep our balance for a bit. It lasted for about 45 seconds to a minute. Thank goodness that there wasn't really any damage. It was a 7.5 on the Richter scale but I don't know if that was only in the area of origin or in Mexico City. All that aside though, it was still pretty strong. One good thing though, is that the Metro is one of the safest places to be in an earthquake. All in all it was definitely a new experience.

So you probably want to know why we all went to the doctor at the same time. The mission president's wife wanted to know the same thing. It's actually kind of a funny story. We all are having problems with our bodies and we all happened to call the mission president's wife on the same day (All 6 of us on the same day). We all went on Friday but the doctor didn't come because of the earthquake so we had to go back on Saturday. My companion has 2 ingrown toenails and a hernia so he might have to go home for surgery. :( We will find out on Wednesday. It would be a huge bummer if he has to go because we get along really really well. Also, Elder Brown our district leader had surgery for a hernia before the mission and he is still having pain sometimes too. We both talked to the doctor and she said that it is not normal that we are still having pain, especially in my case where I have it almost every day. She said the mesh could be tearing from the skin. I sure hope not. He and I have to go back on Friday to talk to a male doctor. He also is going to check my knee because it is giving me some problems too. Another missionary has varicose veins and has to wear tights for the rest of his mission and another might have a hernia too....I swear this area is brutal. I think we're all falling apart hahaha. Hopefully everything turns out alright though. I'll keep you posted on what I find out. I would imagine it's nothing major though. :)

So because of all of this crazy stuff we didn't get to teach too much this week. We are trying to find new people but haven't been able to encounter anyone. I think that part of our focus for this change will be to reactivate inactives. This is just as important of a work. It is just very difficult sometimes. When we get a map of our area we will start digging through the ward directory to find people that we don't know. Also, we found a new place to live and we will be moving there in about a week and a half. It's really nice. It's also like right in the middle of our area so we should have more time to teach when we live there. That's about it for this week. One more crazy story. So we all went to eat with a member as usual yesterday after church. We had all put salsa on our food and were about to start eating. Elder Lund in our district spread salsa on his tortilla and then was like guys don't eat the food. We looked at his tortilla and there was a baby scorpion on it. We think that it died on the spoon and I guess that the venom couldn't have gotten into the salsa but it was pretty crazy all the same. Anyway that's all folks. Love you all. I'm glad that you had a great Easter and that you all got to spend time together. Good luck with all of your activities and such. You are all in my prayers.

Love, Elder Schow

April 14, 2014

April 14, 2014

Hello Ya'll,

How is everyone? Great I hope. I'm always so excited to hear from you all. It always makes my day. I especially love your jokes/ humor. Keep it up. Well this week was pretty normal, but we did have some pretty great experiences. On Tuesday we were really late to a visit and we weren't going to take a taxi because they're kind of expensive on our budget but we decided to take on anyway. We ended up contacting the driver. It just to happened that he lives in our area and that his daughter passed away about a year ago. He told us that he has been trying to understand why and that he would be interested to listen to us. We had a lesson with him and his wife yesterday and it went really well. His wife has heard a little about the church before and has read part of the Book of Mormon. She kept asking us when we have church because she is very excited to come. He's a little less willing to commit himself, but he said that he really is looking for the truth and so if he finds it he will be baptized. It's like our mission leaders always tell us. God will put prepared people in our paths if we are willing to just open our mouths. We witnessed a miracle. We also had a member with us that had had a similar experience before her conversion so it was perfect!!! We have another visit with them on Saturday. However, the bishopric changed the way that we had decided to divide the area and now they don't live in our area... It's alright though, they are in good hands with Elder Brown and Elder Aguilar. My comp and I now have to find a new place to live and move. The nice thing is that our area will be a lot smaller so we'll probably only have to take busses to go to eat with the members.

Our ward is pretty good. There are several really strong families. We did a service project for one of them on Saturday. It was good. It just took forever and so the six of us all ended up missing appointments. It was great to serve though. I always feel great after service. We had a lesson after with an investigator that told us that she has violent ghosts in her house. We had the opportunity to dedicate her home. We could definitely feel a difference in the feeling of the house afterward. I hope that things start to go better for them. We are going to do a lot of finding this week to find new investigators to replace those that we are losing to the other missionaries. I'll keep you posted. We feel happy and positive about the change. This really is a great area. We just have to help it to reach it's potential. Well love you all. Talk to you in one week. BTW I hope it's okay that I wrote a combined letter to you all this week.

Love Elder Schow

April 7, 2014

April 7 2014
Well this week was good. This area really is huge though haha, I guess they weren't kidding. It's like the biggest in the mission. We use busses a ton to get around. In fact that's where most of our money goes for the month so say hello to hunger haha. Nah, just kidding just kidding it's really not that bad and the members feed us well ;) We also do a lot of walking too so consequently I will probably lose the 5 pounds I gained in my last area pretty quickly. It's really funny because everyone keeps telling me that I filled out a little bit and it's only 5 pounds. So our area is kind of in the mountains...but not really. Most of our ward is though, and sometimes all 6 of us eat together so we get to visit other parts of the ward. Some of the views are amazing. We're pretty high up, I think like 7500 feet elevation. We escape a little bit of the smog in the city so that's nice. The area actually has some really cool parts too. There's one part of our area that it built into both sides of a valley. To cross this area we have to go down 200 stairs and 300 some odd to get to the top of the other side. It's a good test of endurance. I'm going to have legs of steel but the end of this transfer if we keep climbing them like twice a day so there are advantages haha. The ward is a little bit dead. We don't have many investigators. We are trying to find more. The difficult thing here is to get them to come to church due to the fact that the church is far away.

My new companion's pretty awesome. He's from Brigham City, Utah. Fun fact. He's in the movie the R.M. He's the kid sitting by the swimming pool when Kirby falls in that's says mom the missionaries are here etc. I got a good laugh out of it when one of the members showed us. He still looks really similar today. We get along really well. He's really chill but also really obedient. He's about to turn 19 the day before Maddie's birthday. I think that this transfer will be really good.

General conference was really amazing. It's really hard to pick a favorite talk. I have to agree with dad though that the priesthood session was amazing. I also really like the first session too, but we had to listen to that one in Spanish and it didn't have quite the same effect as it would have in English. I understood most all of it but it wasn't quite the same. I'm glad that we got to watch the rest in English. I also really liked all of the talks that you mentioned mom. The talk by President Uchdorf was amazing. I really want to improve in this area no matter how tired I am in the morning or at night. It really is super important. It was a great experience. It's just easy to feel inadequate in all of the areas that we can improve. I'm trying to avoid these feelings and stay super positive. Thanks for sending the package mom. I'm sure it will get here just fine if it has the stickers on it. Well that's about it. Love you all.

Elder Schow

March 31, 2014

March 31, 2014

Wow snow, eh? I thought it was supposed to be spring haha. We had a ton of rain and hail yesterday...I did not expect to see hail on my mission. We just happened to be walking to lunch when it started. Needless to say we got very wet. It was pretty fun though. Maybe it was just a weird day for weather all around. I'm glad to hear that you all are doing well and that you got to have a little bit of fun over spring break. I'm extremely surprised to hear that the Lego Movie was good hahaha. I'm really kind of intrigued now. I will definitely have to watch it when I get home. I'm also glad that you had fun when Philip and Cherry Ann came. I hope that they're all doing well. I've played a game like that before. It really is pretty funny sometimes. Sorry about your car dad. That´s a bummer. I wonder how he hit it...At least they came to tell you though. That's great that the Women's General Broadcast was good. We had a few investigators that went. We got to talk to them a little bit because we were teaching an English class in the church during the broadcast.

Celia Reyes was baptized on Saturday. It was a very nice service. It wasn't very well attended, but the spirit was there. There were also like 8 investigators and most of them are very anxious to be baptized too. It was a good farewell for this ward. Yep, you guessed it. I'm leaving for another area today at 4. I will be serving in an area called Independencia 2. It's really close to the mountains, but I don't know if there are any in my area. It supposed to be one of the biggest areas in the mission so I will be walking a TON. It should be good though. I´m going to be with an Elder named Elder Schofield. He's an American too. I've heard from several Elders that he is a really good worker. I'm excited to have a new experience. I don't know much about the area. I know an Elder that served in Independencia 1 and he said that my area isn't in the mountains as much and that it´s a nicer area. I guess that I will find out in a few hours though. It's kind of bitter sweet to leave this area. There are definitely some people that I will miss. Elder Patey is staying here so he will let me know what happens with our investigators. I'm excited for a new opportunity though. I've been a little stir crazy to go to a new area for a while now so it'll be great.

Well love you all. Talk to you soon.

 

P.S.  Oh I'm also very excited for general conference this weekend. I love general conference! It is a great place to receive answers and inspiration. I really hope that we get to watch it in English though. I hope you all enjoy it!

Love you too! and a package, what for haha?

March 24, 2014

March 24, 2014

Hello everyone,

I'm glad to hear that your week was good and that you get to have spring break this week. Lucky ducks. :) (Sorry that doesn't include you dad). I'm glad to hear that your performance review went well at work and that Roger and Diana are going to be able to visit you guys in December. We must have been on the same brainwave this week because I was actually going to ask you about both of those things haha. WEIRD. I'm also really glad to hear that your talk went well mom. I can understand the nerves thing. I'm always nervous to give talks. It sounds like it went well though and that it was an interesting topic. I wish that I could have been there to hear it. I'm glad that you guys are going to go to IF to hang out. It sounds like it should be fun. My only question is...with all the respect I have...why are you guys going to the LEGO move hahaha?? I saw a poster for it and I was like it looks so lame. I would never have expected you guys to go. I hope that you guys like it though. Maybe it will be really great. I guess I can't judge a movie by it's poster.

Well this week was really good, especially yesterday. We had 100 people in our sacrament meeting!!! Granted, this is still really low considering that there are really like 500 people in the ward....butttt our first few weeks here there were only like 50-60 so we felt pretty great. Now that we have 4 missionaries in our ward we have been able to help reactivate several families of less actives. We also have like 5 investigators that are progressing really well towards baptism. They all were at church yesterday. Some of them are like the weirdest people that I have ever met, but their hearts are sincere. C. wasn't baptized this week because she didn't pass her interview, but she has another interview on Wednesday with the mission president. She should be baptized this Saturday. I'm pretty sure I'm getting transfered next Tuesday so it should be a good way to end my time in Cafetales. I'm not sure if what's going to happen this next transfer but it should be good. I will miss a lot of people though. Elder Patey and I also started to teach with a lot more unity this week so it will be a little bit sad to change. It should be a good experience though. If you want to you can pray for C., E., F., E., and A.. I would really appreciate it. Well that's about it. Take care. I love you all.

Elder Schow