January 20, 2014

January 20, 2014

Hello, to everyone back home. It was great to hear from all of you! It has been a pretty good week overall. Thanks for your prayers. We finally got someone to church. However, he texted us later on Sunday and told us that being a Mormon is not for him. Oh well, we will get the other people there next week. We are getting better at locking people in on their commitments. We had an exchange with our zone leaders where they came to our area and that was one of the things they worked on with us. We have found several good new investigators this week and some good potentials. It will be good to see how they progress. We had a few good lessons. One investigator named B. said that he would live the Word of Wisdom without much objection. He said he won't buy anymore coffee, is already going to quit smoking, and shouldn't have a problem quitting alcohol and tea. He is one of the people that will really take off once we get him to church. Same with J. We just need to get them there. That is going to be super weird to come back and see the changes in the ward, but I'm glad things are going well, especially with the S. family and missionary work. It was also fun to see Arthur the kitty. :) To answer your question, Mom, the doctrine/principle I have most been concentrating on has been finding joy or peace in the journey. It is something I will try to keep working on.  Already, my mission  is going by so fast and I don't want to miss out on the good opportunities I have here. I know I have learned a lot and am becoming a stronger person. I will keep looking up.

Have a blessed week,

I love you all,

Elder Ethan Schow

January 13, 2014

January 13th 2014

 

Hey, everybody.

It hasn't been too long since my last email and we haven't had a whole lot of exciting stuff happen, but things have continued to move forward. A couple of investigators dropped us, but we found some new ones, including a nice guy named J. and his friend E. who was working with elders down in Cincinnati a while ago. We had a pretty good lesson with J. and with a member who lives nearby. Elder Cole and I went to the transfer meeting on Thursday to help set things up, since the meeting is held in the church building in our area. It was interesting to see the changes in the mission and to hear the testimonies of the missionaries who were going home. We had a lot of rain one night this week, which led to a lot of mud on my pants, but it didn't rain too much while we were outside, so that was okay. None of our investigators showed up at church again. If you guys could pray for them to have a desire to do so, that would be great. We have done a lot of knocking in different parts of our area, which has led to some small successes. We have tried nicer middle class neighborhoods, poorer neighborhoods, and apartment complexes. We hand out a LOT of cards. Hopefully the people who receive them will at least look up Mormon.org  due to some cancellations, we didn't have very many lessons last week, but we've had some good help from our members. I love all of you back home so much! I hope everything goes well for you guys!

Have a blessed week,

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow

January 8, 2014

 

January 8, 2014

 

Well, it's been another week. And another year. Our New Years Eve was pretty quiet. In fact it was pretty much like any other day here. We debated waking up for about ten minutes around midnight to bring in the new year, but didn't end up doing it. We were too tired. The first day of the year was a good one. We had our interviews with President and Sister Nilsen. It was good to get a chance to talk to them. We also got to have several hours of fun and productive training workshops after. Following the training, we went out and got to work and found a couple of good new investigators that we set up return appointments with. One of them called later and cancelled his, but that's actually a good sign because it means he actually remembered when it was and was conscientious enough to call us about it. Hopefully we can reschedule with him. We have had some good "practice lessons" with members lately, where we all try to pretend that they are investigators. It's a little weird at first and they have to say things like "Uh, we're... Catholic... yeah... so we believe in that. (Is it okay for us to say that?)" but, it gets them thinking about missionary work and actually does give us a chance to practice our teaching skills. We got a media referral from church headquarters this week that led us to a lady named B. who was working with missionaries in Indianapolis and wants to be baptized. She is really sincere and her two sons and mother in law are interested too. If all goes well, we will have several baptisms in the next little while. Things are going well with J., too. He and his wife are interested in getting into the church, which for him means baptism. We have had a super cold couple of days here, so we've mostly been inside, but we hear the weather should be warming up soon so we can go back to work. We always live in hope that we will eventually have a car. Elder Cole and I are both staying in Marble Cliff 1 for this transfer, and most of the other people in our zone are staying as well, including the other four missionaries in our ward. We had a "fun day" with our zone at the OSU institute this morning. We spray painted t-shirts, had a white elephant gift exchange ( I ended up with a copy of Mormon Doctrine.) , and had a marshmallow gun/dodge ball war. It was pretty fun. It is always good to be around other missionaries. I hope all is going well back home. It is always good to hear from you guys.

Have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow