September 30, 2013

Thank you all for the emails! Thank you for that talk, Mom and for the letter. I'm glad that Britton's farewell went well and that's great that he actually used the LOTR reference. I wondered if he really would. I will make sure to pray for Paul. I hope his blessing goes well. That's neat that Matt got married and that you guys are almost done fixing up the house. The weather here hasn't changed too drastically, but the leaves are starting to turn a little bit. It has been nice having a car this week though because we can go places faster and go to more places too. We've done some more tracting and some following up with former investigators and less active people. We've only gotten a few return appointments, but we're working on it. I had a cool opportunity this week to do some street contacting on OSU's campus. There are six missionaries who basically spend all their time doing just that, but on Wednesday (I think) we had a special new missionary training at the Institute building and we got about 20 minutes to go out with one of the experienced OSU missionaries and talk to random people about the gospel and try to get their contact information. I didn't get any phone numbers, but I did talk to a half-dozen people and gave most of them pass along cards with Mormon.org on them. I still have trouble talking to people, but I'm getting a little better at it and that experience really helped. On Friday we met a lady named R. while tracting and made an appointment to talk to her on Monday. On Sunday morning, we went to take some French toast to a part member family that was planning to come to church. They didn't answer their door, which was dumb, but as we were walking back to the car with the uneaten French toast, we got a call from R. asking if we had a church service and whether she could come. Fifteen minutes later, she and her son were at the church for Sacrament meeting. It was really neat that the Lord provided someone else to come to church when our first option evaporated. We have done a little bit of cooking, but no culinary masterpieces. Mostly just chicken and then rice and noodles out of a package. Usually we have dinner with members, but we've had a few empty spaces in our calendar this week, so we have had to eat what we had in the apartment. Yesterday I made some soup out of what we had in the cupboard. It wasn't bad. I've had some letters and emails from some friends, which has been nice. Still haven't heard from a few people though. I hope everyone is doing well there. Most everything is okay here. I love you all! Thanks so much for your support and prayers.

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow