November 10, 2014
It has been a pretty good week here. Nothing too exciting went on, but we were able to visit with a lot of people and see where they stand. Now we know how we can best focus our efforts. It looks like we need to spend more time finding people to teach. We have some great people to work with now, but none of them are making rapid progress at this point. D. and W. are very close to baptism, but they have been very close for a couple of months :) They just need to kick a couple of bad habits and they'll make it. L. and her girls definitely appreciate the difference that meeting with missionaries has made in their lives, but they're not quite willing to act on it yet. We'll see what happens. A couple times this week, we ended up in the exact right place at the right time, so that was neat. We were walking around in a seemingly random neighborhood at just the right time to see a kid on a bike who we'd met in passing the day before. We were able to talk to him and teach him a little bit. It was cool. We also planned to visit one Sister in the ward and just as we started to drive over there, she called and asked us to stop by. The ward members here are really great overall and we have had some good visits when we have been in their home for meals. One family has a challenge where they have all the Elders see how many marshmallows they can fit in their mouth. The record is 31 and I got 24. It was silly, but it was kind of fun. Oh, well. On Saturday, it seemed like everyone needed our help. We dug up flower bulbs, moved wood, moved hay, and leveled the ground in a pig pen. Doing work like that is nice because it shakes things up a little. It sounds like you all had a good week back home. It's always good to hear that. I hope this week is good, too!
Love, Elder Schow
I can't really think of anything specific that I need in the Christmas package. :S
November 3, 2014
Well, it has been an interesting week. Like I said in the letter, I got word
on Wednesday that I was getting transferred. Once again I had to pack up all my stuff. I don't know where it all came from, but I have way more than I started with. I'll have to weed out some things. At the transfer meeting, I got assigned to the Huber Heights 3 area, which is way over on the Western edge of the mission. The Huber Heights ward is pretty good sized geographically, so we cover a few smaller communities. Thankfully they are significantly bigger than the towns in Madison Lake. There are two other sets of missionaries here in the ward- two sisters and the zone leaders. They all seem like good missionaries. The ward here is very strong compared to the ones I've been in in the past. We have some neat people to work with. My new companion, Elder Orton is from South Jordan, Utah and has been out on his mission for three months. I have been very impressed so far with how great a missionary he is. We get along well. He and one of the families in the ward played a pretty good trick on me the second night I was here. They pretended to be less active and the dad acted really hostile and was whispering to the wife in the other room that he'd told the last missionaries not to come back. Then he come in the room where we were and acted mad and then said we were always welcome in their home and started laughing. You had to be there, but it was pretty funny. They did a good job acting. We are teaching a few different people including an older Lady named W. and her son, D. Their husband/father is a member and they just have some word of wisdom concerns getting in the way of their baptism. We are also teaching a mother, L, and her daughters, C. and P. I really like it in this area so far and am excited to be here. Thanks for all you emails and for the package. I really appreciate it. The picture of Ella in her costume was really cute. I hope you all have a good one!
Love,
Elder Schow
