June 8, 2015

Hey there everyone,

Well it sounds like a pretty eventful week even though everyone told me that nothing happened haha.  I´m really sorry about your eye mom.  I hope that you recover soon.  It´s good that it didn´t do more damage to your actual eye.  Yeah dad, the Lord of the Rings movies are always worth a watching.  I will definitely watch them with you guys when I get home.

Well to be honest sometimes I feel like I run out of new things to say.  We had a decent week this week.  We were able to find a few new people to teach and put some goals with some of the people that we have been teaching.  Unfortunately nobody came to church for the second week in a row so we have some work to do in that department this week.  We have been able to stay fairly dry this week which has been nice.  It has been raining a lot, but more in the morning and at night.  I did break down and buy a larger umbrella though that isn´t riddled with holes haha.  I was a bit tired of getting wet.  We have actually had quite a bit of heat lately.  The area here is flat and it is probably one of the smallest wards in geographical area that I have had.  It is nice because we don´t use like any money for busses etc. so we can buy a bit more food.  We had interchanges with the zone leaders this week.  It was interesting.  For being good missionaries they are not very clean missionaries.  I was however able to learn some good lessons about how to contact in the street more effectively which was great because it is something that we need to do a lot. 

I read a talk this week that really had an impact on me.  It is called the fourth missionary.  It talks about how there are four types of missionaries, but that only the fourth type really grows on his mission and changes.  The others just kind of go through the motions and don´t really take advantage of the whole experience.  It motivated me to be better and to really just give these last few months my all.  Maybe I haven´t been the perfect missionary, but it is a process and I know that I need to be the best that I can be especially as I am finishing up. 

Thanks for all of your support and love.  It means a lot to me.  I know that you guys are always praying for me and I really appreciate it. 

Love,

Elder Schow

January 23 and 30, 2015

January 30, 2015

Hi everyone.

I´m glad to hear that you all are doing well.  It is crazy that it´s almost February isn't it?  Like you guys, I can´t believe it either.  I think that the older you get the faster time goes.  It sounds like you all have been staying busy with Maddie having the ACT, painting the house, Lauren with Ella, Cam with work, etc.  It sounds pretty good to me.  I´m sorry to hear about Andrew and Naomi.  I´ll be sure to keep them in my prayers.  Hopefully everything turns out okay. 

Well this week was pretty cool.  We had a lot of success finding new people to teach.  We were guided to a lot of prepared people.  We are teaching various members of three new families.  They want us to meet the rest of their families too so that should be pretty cool.  I wish that we had more time to teach.  It is difficult to have time to visit everyone that we need to see.  There is always something complicated that comes up too that takes away more of our time.  It will be good preparation for going back to school though.  I feel like I will be a lot more organized and that I will really take advantage of my time. 

We had a zone conference yesterday.  The church that it was held in is in my first area.  It was cool to get to go back there again even if I was just passing through.  Our president spoke.  I´m sad that he is leaving pretty soon.  It is strange that we will have a new president in like five months.  He is from Utah and his name is president Meacham.  If I am still here I will have to help him out a lot which would be cool. 

Well that´s about all that is new here.  I hope you all have a great week.  Keep doing what you know you should be doing and you will be happy.

Elder Schow  

Jan 23, 2015

Hey there everyone!  How are you all?  Well this week has been pretty good.  I´m glad to hear that you had a great week.  I´m also glad that grandpa and grandma´s anniversary went well!  It sounds like there were a ton of people there.  60 years is a ton of time.  That´s awesome! 

We found a super great family this week- the G. L. family.  We contacted the father In his taxi.  He felt impressed to pass for where we were waiting.  We were also going to use another taxi that we had flagged down, but there was a bit of confusion between us and another woman that was waiting on the side of the road and that taxi driver ended up leaving.  The next taxi that came up to us was the taxi of Brother G.  He has a wife and two kids.  He even came to church last week before we visited them.  Not too much has changed in the area other than finding them.  We've had very scarce time this week.  We have had to go to the airport several times, transfers, new missionaries, etc.  It has been crazy.  It has been fun though.  I am also glad that we get the opportunity to teach still too even if it isn't a ton.  I am also starting to feel a bit more comfortable in the offices which has been a relief.

Well that´s about all that is new.  I hope that you all are doing well.  I love you all.

Elder Schow 

January 16, 2015

January 16, 2015

Howdy everyone,

Well my new p-day is Friday, not Tuesday.  Sorry for the confusion.  I guess I get a double p-day this week because my companion hasn't had one yet.  From what they have told me I won't really have p-day anyway because we are always busy and whatnot, but it's alright- it should be pretty chill.  

So, from what I have seen so far we are in the offices from 10 to about 2:30 every day except Saturday and Sunday.  However, there are some crazy days when new missionaries arrive and the old ones leave.  I guess we are in the airport like all day because we have to pay for luggage, taxi's etc.  It should be a pretty fun assignment though.  My temporary companion is super awesome- Elder James.  I should be with him for about 3 to 4 weeks so that I can learn everything that I need to know.  He is a ton like Taylor so we get along really really well.  I'll be sad when we have to change.  When I finish my training I think that my new companion will be Elder Flores, the president's secretary that is in charge of vistas, passports, etc.  He lives with us right now and he seems like a pretty nice guy.  The mission home is super nice.  There are 7 of us living there right now.  It's huge.  I'll have to try to send some pics soon of the house, area, etc.    

Our area seems like it will be pretty good.  We are only able to be there like 4-5 hours on a normal day, but that still gives us a decent amount of time to teach 5 lessons or so.  Our ward is really big, but the large part of it is in a super-rich area so we are hardly ever there.  We ate in an enormous house on Wednesday.  I guess we eat there every Wednesday and they call it rich lady Wednesday haha.  We are usually in a colony called Santo Domingo that is a lot like my other areas.  Supposedly it is very dangerous, but it seems super tranquil.  I think that the bad stuff must happen later at night when we have left the area.  We should be able to teach some great people there.  Well that´s about all that´s new here.  I hope you all have a great week.  Talk to you next Friday. 

Love, Elder Schow  

January 12, 2015

Hey everyone!  I hope that you all are doing well.  It has been a good week this week.  We changed the way that we have been planning, and we were able to have a lot more lessons this week.  We also were able to find several new people to teach.  It is interesting to see that as we teach more lessons that we find more new people.  It shows that there really is a strong need in the mission for hard work.  It really was an awesome week. 

Sadly, I have special transfers tomorrow though so I will not be able to see them progress.  I hope that I get to say goodbye to some of the people here.  I am going to be the mission financial secretary so I will be changing to a new area tomorrow.  I am very excited for the new experience though.  I think that it will be very interesting to be able to help in the work in a different way.  I know that I will learn many new things.  I will also still be able to teach which will be really nice. 

I am grateful for this work and for the way that it is changing my life in so many ways.  I am grateful for Jesus Christ and for his atonement.  I know that he lives and that he loves us.  I love you all.  Thanks so much for your support.  

Elder Schow   

December 29th, 2014

December 29, 2014

Hey all you fans out there.  It was great to talk to you guys too.  It went so incredibly fast that I wish they gave us like two hours to talk.  That´s really funny about the accent because I don´t feel like I have one at all.  I guess that I am used to how I talk though so maybe it just changed little by little and I didn't even realize it.  I guess that must mean that I´m doing something right haha.  I am glad to hear that you all had a good Christmas.  I am sorry that Madeline felt a bit lonely on Christmas Eve.  So that she knows, I miss her too.  Our Christmas Eve was a bit interesting.  We ended up going to eat with one of our investigators.  It was a bit uncomfortable to be honest.  None of her family members or her friends that were there are members so they were all wanting to listen to music, drink, etc., but they didn't because we were there.  We felt awkward so we didn't stay that long haha.  Our renters brought a flan cake for Christmas and a member bought us pizza.  We had a pretty good Christmas, although it wasn't the same without the family.   It´s fun that you guys got to see a lot of the family.  That´s a bit of a bummer that Diana had to leave early.  I guess the positive thing is that it will only be for two more months and then she is back for good! 

We didn't have a ton of work this week because a lot of people haven´t been home, but we did baptize J., E's daughter, this Saturday and she was confirmed yesterday.  Gabriela and the O. family are preparing for January.  We really need to find a couple of new families soon.  I´m not really sure why, but we have been having a really hard time finding lately.  If you guys that fast could include that in your fast this weekend it would be much appreciated.  Well that´s about all that is new on this end.  I hope you have a great week!  I love you all!

Elder Schow 

December 15, 2014

December 15, 2014

Hey there everyone. Well it has been a good week once again. We had transfers on Tuesday. My new companion is named Elder Hood. He is from South Carolina. We are having a pretty good time together so far. He's got about 7 months in the mission and was trained by the same trainer as me. It has been a bit of a weird week. It was "Day of the Virgin" this week so everyone was celebrating "the birth of Jesus´s mother" by getting drunk and lighting of fireworks combined with the sound of loud music all night. Because of all the drunks we had to be home at 7:00 for two nights straight. It was kind of cool though because we got to know each other pretty well. My companion also has a guitar and is really good at playing so we just kind of chilled and waited out the noise.

The O. family are leaving town for Christmas so they will not be able to be baptized right now. They are so strong though it is amazing. She did not used to want to come to church at all and now they come every week without fail and stay all three hours. We are also teaching the 18 year old niece of a family in the ward that is going to get baptized in January. She told us last night that she knows that the church is true. If Sister H. keeps going strong without drinking coffee she will get baptized on Saturday. We found a really good new guy to teach yesterday- Brother H. He was a contact that we did with "He is the Gift" that we never found at home. We were passing his house yesterday and felt the strong impression to go and knock. He was finally home and he accepted us really well. He also gave us 12 pairs of new socks each. He makes socks so that's why he gave them to us. It was really nice of him.

I'm glad that you all are doing well. That's cool that Roger and Diana are back. That is a ton of pictures. I can't believe that. I need to follow that example because I hardly have like any. Thanks for all of your love and advice. I'm glad that you are getting better quickly mom.   I love you all.

Elder Schow

December 8, 2014

December 8, 2014

Hey everyone,  Well it has been a pretty good week.  Sadly, it's going to be my last day with Elder McEwan though.  They are changing him to who knows where.  I'll be staying in Espartaco with my new comp.  It'll be weird having a new comp for Christmas.  I'll miss Elder McEwan a lot.  We've had a lot of fun together.  I kind of hope that I get to train again, but I guess we will see what happens.  The O. family should be getting baptized on Saturday if all goes well.  (Well just 2 of them, the other 2 don't really want to listen to us yet, but it's a start).  We also found a new part member family to teach this week- the B. family.  They are interesting people haha.  It's pretty fun to be able to teach them though, they joke around a lot.  They get mad if we don't accept their food too.  They changed the church that we go to now. and it is like 5 minutes from where we live so it will make it a lot easier for the investigators to come which will be nice.  Sister H. should be getting baptized on the 21^st if she can give up coffee.  (It is giving her a lot of problems), and E's daughter on the 27^th.  It will be a really awesome month.  We taught M. A. again and he told us that he knows that the Catholic Church isn't true, and that he believes the Book of Mormon is true.  We're not really sure what changed, but it was cool.  "He is the Gift" has not been that effective here either yet.  Our district talked to 122 people about it last week and only 4 of them have become new investigators (not even 4%).  Hopefully we can find a more effective way to put it to use and that we can talk to even more people.  It is surprising sometimes how many people don't want to hear anything about Christ  or that don't know why we celebrate Christmas.  If they don´t listen here they´ll have to hear it in the next life.  Well that's about all on my end.  I hope you guys can get some snow for Christmas.  I'm glad that you all are well.  Love you all. 

Elder Schow