Aug. 11 2014

August 11, 2014

Well, I hope everyone has had a good week since the last time I talked to you. Ours hasn't been terribly eventful, but some good things happened. We got a couple of new missionaries transferred  into our ward/district, which is always interesting. Elder Dubach's new companion is named Elder Rodriguez. He came into the mission field during the same transfer as Elder Dubach and me. One of the sisters in our ward also came out that transfer, so there are 4 of us here. Weird. We've been knocking doors in a lot of different areas. It is sometimes tricky to find places that I haven't already knocked in the time I've been here, but there are a few areas that have been relatively untouched. We keep trying to get in touch with people. We'll be meeting with K. tonight, so hopefully he'll be there. J. reads the Book of Mormon and really wants to come to church, but here health is very frail, so most weeks she just doesn't feel up to it. She keeps telling us she'll surprise us one of these weeks though. We have been teaching C. her new member lessons and she is going to the temple to do baptisms this week. She is so excited and it makes me happy to see her grow in the gospel. On Friday night, a couple of members took us and the other Elders out to a Mexican restaurant, which was fun. M. is still doing well. He has read the whole Gospel Principles book now and I think he enjoyed church again yesterday. We are just getting some logistical things worked out and hopefully he will be able to be baptized at the end of the month. Please continue to keep him in your prayers. It sounds like there is a lot going on at home with babies and weddings and stuff. That is always interesting news. If you guys want some more moisture, we can always lend you some from out here. I've been told this has actually been a very mild summer for Ohio, though. Hopefully that doesn't lead to a winter as bad as last one. I hope you enjoy the pictures. I know it's been a while since I've sent any. I need to remember to take more from now on. Anyhoo, I hope you all have a blessed week!

Love, Elder Schow

August 6, 2014

August 6, 2014

Well, these nine day weeks are always strange. I found out today that I will be in Big Walnut Creek for another transfer. I have outlasted everyone else who was in my zone when I got here. We have had a pretty successful week. M. continues to be solid. He has really enjoyed church both times he has come and is on date to be baptized on August 30th. He has read almost the entire Gospel Principals book during the last week. We continue to find new people and try to stay in touch with the others that they are working with. If I have mentioned names in the past, we are still probably working with them, but it is a slow process. Please keep praying for them. I will try to give more details and also send pictures soon, but I am almost out of time for today. Thank you so much for the birthday packages! I loved all the gifts and the ties are spectacular. I was wearing the orange one in the birthday party picture with the Lees (Q. is Sister Lees son, and he does indeed know what a raccoon is, the weirdo) The raccoon is still very much alive as far as we know :) he was just relocated, so don't worry about him. I hope you all have a good week. I suppose I'll talk to you again on Monday! If you get the chance, watch the new Mormon Message "the  Hope of God's Light." It is amazing. I hope you all have a blessed week!

Love,
Elder Schow

July 28, 2014

July 28, 2014

It was a pretty good week here in Ohio. It sounds like everyone had a pretty good one back home. We had some good lessons work out this week, which was nice. We also met a man named M. who was referred to us by a member of another ward. M. has been in a lot of different churches, but really wants to feel the Spirit in his life. He has read the Book of Mormon before from a research standpoint, so when we first taught him, we challenged him to read it again from a spiritual standpoint. He has started to and he says he has felt the Spirit while reading it. He came to a ward activity this week and to church as well and seemed to like them. He has a couple of hurdles to cross, but I think he has some great potential to make progress. We had an interesting occurrence happen that made us late to one lesson. It involved Q. the priest, our car, and a raccoon. I'm not going to go into detail, but suffice it to say that we were only 5 minutes late and the raccoon has been relocated to a new home. The ward party that M. came to was Pioneer Day themed and it was pretty fun. It seems like most of the people we have been working with are making slow progress. I guess they will get to where they need to be in the Lord's time. We have met a couple times this week with A., so there is some potential there.

To answer Dad's questions as best I can:

1. We still find most of our investigators through knocking doors. sometimes we use the DVD player, but not as much lately. We have had some success with following up with people who we contacted before who weren't opposed to us stopping back by

2. I've been studying a few conference and devotional talks that have been helpful to my testimony lately. One I especially liked and that I felt applied to my life was one by Neal A. Maxwell on Patience

3. The food here isn't too different from home. When the members feed us it is usually pretty good.

4. The thing that surprises me most about people is probably how impolite they can be to us when we are perfectly civil to them. I know that sounds negative, but it is true. I have been pleasantly surprised by some people's reactions, though, so I suppose it balances out.

5. My biggest surprise about myself has been the ability to keep going even when I have to do hard things.

I hope you all have a blessed week!

Love,
Elder Schow

July 21, 2014

July 21, 2014 (out 11 months today)

Well, I hope everybody had a good week. Ours was pretty decent here. We were able to find several new people to teach as well as teaching some of those we've found in past weeks. We taught J. again. She is an older lady and has a lot of health challenges, but she loves our visits and reading in the Book of Mormon. She says she feels like the Church is "her thing." We really hope to get things figured out so she can come to church soon. We also visited again with K. K. is a great guy with a rough past. He is very devoted to his family. He finds all the stuff that we teach him a bit overwhelming, but he is determined to get it all figured out. He almost came to church this week. I think he got scared at the last minute, though. Our district meeting on Wednesday went well. Afterwards, we went on exchanges with the other Elders. I spent the day with Elder Clark in their area on bikes. It was actually a really good day for biking. Very cool temperatures, which is unusual for Ohio in July. We had our first interviews with President Daines on Thursday. I really like him. I feel like he did a good job getting to know me. I was able to talk to him about some of the stresses of being a trainer. Later that evening, we had dinner with a member and his boss who is investigating the Church right now. He doesn't live in our area, but he's a very sincere guy and is really cool. He reminds me of Steve Pearce. We went to a new-missionary training meeting at the OSU institute on Friday. It was a good training and it emphasized the importance of following the manuals and programs that the Prophet and Apostles have given us for training. On Saturday we got four separate members out teaching with us. Unfortunately, only one member-present lesson worked out. It was a good lesson though. We were able to teach a nice old lady named A. that Elder Blalock and I found months ago. It was a really good week overall. It sounds like everyone is doing pretty well back home. I hope you are all enjoying yourselves and accomplishing a lot. Have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder Schow

July 14, 2014

July 14th 2014
Well, I hope everybody had a great week! Ours here was not bad. We've still been doing a lot of finding in hopes of contacting people who will make and keep commitments. We visited a couple times with a neat guy named K. who we met last week. He's a really humble guy and has some good potential. We just need to help him come to church. We had the opportunity to talk to a Catholic lady named G. this week who lives with her daughter and her family who are members. She had some questions about what Mormons think about Catholics and about some of the basics of our church. We challenged her to read the Book of Mormon and she agreed. She told us not to think of her as a "prospective Mormon" but I hope that reading the Book of Mormon will help soften her heart. Please pray for her and K. and also for a lady named J. We had our zone meeting on Wednesday and found out about a few changes that the First Presidency has authorized in Preach my Gospel, including that we teach people lesson 5 before baptism now as well as after. That will be interesting, but it should be good. We went on our exchange with the zone leaders, which was fun. They have been doing a lot of contacting on bikes in their area. They just ride around and hand people cards and talk to them. We tried it out on the exchange and have tried it a few times in our area since. It hasn't worked out too well for us yet, but we're working on finding out which parts of our area it would be best in. We spent a couple of hours in the other elders' area again with them to find new people. That was pretty fun. Elder Dubach is from Utah and came into the mission with me. He is a funny guy. Elder Clark is from Wyoming and goes home soon. He is a really good missionary. It is crazy how fast the time goes.

Have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder Schow

July 7, 2014

July 7, 2014

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!!

Well, it has been an interesting week. We were able to have a few lesson appointments work out, which was nice, but we have spent most of our efforts trying to find new people who will meet with us and keep appointments. We were rewarded with a few neat people.

On Wednesday, we had a specialized training with our new mission president, President Daines. We each got to meet him and shake his hand and also meet Sister Daines and their two youngest children. President talked to us all about his goals for his mission and the vision he has for his service here. I think he will be a great President. Since the new set of Elders in the ward are on bikes, we did some rearranging with the areas and our space is now slightly bigger than it originally was when I first got here, which has been nice. It gives us a little bit of unexplored territory to work with.

On Thursday we got to go work with the new elders in their area to help kick-start the work again there. That was pretty fun. They are good guys. The Fourth of July wasn't too exciting for us. We were able to talk to a fair amount of people, and had a nice dinner with some members, but all the fireworks were past our curfew and weren't visible from our windows. Oh, well. :)

I hope you all had a good week. It sounds like you were able to do some fun things. Thank you, Mom, Dad and Maddie for the letters. They were very helpful.  I'm working on thinking of birthday stuff. I love you all!

Have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder Schow

June 30, 2014

June 30, 2014

Hello, everybody. I hope you had a good week. It sounds like the Manti Pageant was a really good experience and I'm glad those who went enjoyed it. On Thursday morning, I went to the transfer meeting. It was a little sad, because President and Sister Nilsen gave their departing testimonies. I got my new companion and trainee. His name is Elder Taylor and he is from Orem. He's a good guy and it seems so far like we will get along pretty well. We also found out at the transfer meeting that a third set of missionaries was put back into our ward, so we have 2 sets of Elders again. That means that our proselyting area is a lot smaller, so we are going to have to do some adapting. We are trying to find new people, but it has been a slow week. We have managed to find some potential investigators, though. We have done a lot of knocking doors and have tried some contacting in a large park in our area. We are looking for new ways to find, though. There's not much else to report, but if you could continue to pray for C. and also for N., and S., I would appreciate it. Thank you all for your support and love. It is always good to hear from you via email, and a paper letter now and then can be a boost. I hope you all have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder Schow