October 28th  2013

 

We usually email between 12 and 1:30 here, Mom, which I guess would be 10 to 11:30 there. If you get on during that time, I think I am allowed to email back and forth. I forgot today, but in the future, I can send a message when I first get on the computer to let you know I'm on.

It has been a good week in many ways. We didn't find many people, but we had some really good lessons with the investigators that we have. We had two lessons with D. this week. For one of them, she had us and a couple of members over to her house for dinner. She even came to the Halloween party and brought her niece. She is progressing really well and will be baptized soon. We also had a good lesson with M., whose husband P. is a less-active member. He has an amazing handlebar mustache. They made us breakfast on Sunday and came to Sacrament meeting. We were going to make them breakfast first, but they said no :) We are working with a few other good people, but it is tough to get appointments very often. We had the opportunity to go downtown to the Nationwide Children's Hospital on Friday to give a blessing to a little boy with a lot of health problems. I was able to anoint him and Elder Loosli gave the blessing. It was a good experience. We saw a black squirrel this week, which was exciting, I suppose. It was nice to get letters from you guys, and from a couple of other people as well.

I am glad things are going well there, especially with the trees. I didn't expect those to be taken out so soon, but I guess it is a good thing if they were dangerous. I guess the lack of leaves is a plus. We have done plenty of leaf raking and leaf blowing here for a lady who needed service. We also mowed her lawn. I guess David is right about this being an "adventure," but it's probably not in the way he thinks. It was good to hear from Britton and I am glad he is doing well. I'm also glad that your trunk or treat and primary program went well. Our trunk or treat was an overall success, though they did the trunk or treating inside because it was cold outside. Elder Loosli and I gave out pass along cards instead of candy in hopes that the kids will share them with their friends.

I hope all things are going well there,

I love you all

Love, Elder Schow

Due to Privacy issues I am posting Ethan's emails but leaving out the whole names of investigators.  I am just using first initials.  Thanks

October 21st   2013

 

It is strange that I have been out for 2 months. It hasn't seemed too long in some ways, but in other ways it has been a huge expanse of time. I did get the package. Thank you so much for that. Mail is always very welcome and I also needed that new belt. I activated the new debit card this morning. The candy was good too :) Thank you for the news about Highland. I have wondered how they are doing. I'm glad everything went well getting Britton to the MTC. I sent him a letter last Monday, so hopefully he got it on Thursday or Friday. That's too bad you haven't heard from him yet, but I imagine you will soon. I did send Aunt Susan a thank you. I am really glad things are going well for the family and all of you. Our trunk or treat is this Saturday too and we are trying to get investigators to come to it. Several of them who haven't come to church yet have shown interest in the activity, so that might turn out pretty well. It has been pretty cold this week, but there have been some warm days as well. Our ward mission leader thought we needed to know two important bits of news, so he told us that (1) the government shutdown is over and (2) there is a new Harry Potter movie in the works based on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them. You guys probably know all about it, but it was news to me :) Things are going fine with our investigators. D. is still working toward baptism. She came and watched a baptism with us in one of the other wards on Saturday. We see her later today to teach her another lesson. Hopefully we can keep her on track for November 9th. We are working with a couple of part member families. One of them we found on the ward list and tried to contact. They told us they would be busy for a month because they were getting married, but after that month we got in contact with them and they have been pretty solid. One of the other families we found by accident. Their records weren't even in the ward. He was baptized when he was younger, but he doesn't really remember much about the church. Our goal is to help her get baptized and reactivate them. They have a baby boy who is only about 7 weeks old.

We got to go to a special leadership training last night with Elder Lynn G. Robbins of the Seventy. All the Zone Leaders, Sister Training Leaders, and District Leaders got to go. I got to tag along since Elder Loosli is the District Leader. It was really good. Elder Robbins taught us a lot about the relationship between Responsibility and Agency and how there is no room for excuses of any kind in any situation. He said that when we shift responsibility, even if a problem wasn't our fault, we give up any control over possible positive outcomes in the situation. It was really profound and I am going to have to try to apply it to my life. Things are still sometimes hard, but they are sometimes really good. I hope things go well there at home. I love you all. Thanks for everything.

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow

Hello, everyone.                                                              Oct. 14th 2013

We got our transfer call and Elder Loosli and I are both staying here, which I think is a good thing. Our library was closed today, but the zone leaders let us mosey into their area to use theirs. They are here too. I forgot to mention before, but we went on exchanges witht them a few weeks ago and I found out that Elder Doerman was in American Fork's marching band the year before my freshman year, which I thought was cool. The house looks great! You guys did an amazing job. I hope its still there when I get back so I can see it in person. I bought a used disc golf disc to use on preparation day if I ever get the chance, but I haven't got to use it yet. The guys in the ward had a tournament on Conference Saturday, but we couldn't get an investigator to come so we didn't go :) I can't think of much specifically for Christmas yet, but I'll keep it in mind I suppose. I knew Jesse had arrived, but I haven't heard anything from Brigham yet. That is really exciting that there will soon be at least 3 Elder Schows in the field. Tell Britton good luck for me if he doesn't read this and I will try to send him a paper letter to the MTC today. I loved the pictures of the cats from Dad. They are super funny.

As far as investigators go, Elena, the one that was close to baptism dropped us last Monday right after I emailed you. It was kind of a surprise, but I guess it happens. We are not too upset about it, though is was disappointing. We had been planning the baptism for this last Saturday. We will probaly try to visit her in a couple of weeks. We have another investigator named D. who is working for baptism in early November. She is really nice and really enjoys learning about the gospel. She has a few things to work through, but she is willing to try. We are working with a few other people, but none that are progressing very quickly. We went out to dinner with an inactive member and his new wife the other day. Their names are P. and M.. We had knocked on his door a few weeks ago since he was on the list, but he said it wasn't a good time and to call him in a month after he got married. We called him and they took us to dinner. He asked us to teach a lesson to his wife and we have an appointment with them on Monday. It was really cool because he was the one who suggested the lesson, not us. There are a couple other similar part member families that we are trying to work with. They seem like some of our best prospects right now. It is tough to get people to church, but we are working on it. One thing we do here in the mission to help people get there is to bring them breakfast on Sunday morning. We took some Pillsbury cinnamon rolls to D. yesterday, but she was still 40 minutes late to church :{ Oh well. Things are still sometimes pretty hard, but they are getting better and I am getting better. Things keep working out so far.  Mia has sent me a couple of postcards and Chelsea sent me a letter. Grandma Redd sent me a letter too. I hope everything is going well back home and with Paul and everybody. Grandma told me about the blessing. I love you all so much. It is really good to hear from you. The leaves are starting to fall here, but no snow and not too much wind.

Happy October to everybody,

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow

October 7th 2013

Hi everyone, It is good to talk to you again. I did get the last vaccination done at Walgreens, Mom, so that's out of the way. Just so you know, there's something wrong with my debit card. At least it wont work. Maybe its not supposed to? Anyway, conference was really great. We watched all of the sessions at our church building except the priesthood session, which we watched at the home of the member that fed us dinner that night. There were some really excellent talks and it was nice to sit down for a while. I don't think I had a particular favorite talk, but there were a few that I really liked. We had three of our investigators come to a session of conference each, which was pretty good. Other than conference, our week hasn't been too exciting. We've just been tracking down former and potential investigators and knocking a few doors.

I'm glad that everything is going well there from the sound of things. It must be pretty busy getting Britton ready to go. I wish him luck and I think he will do great in the MTC. That's exciting that the house is almost done. I'm sure it looks great. Transfers are on the 15th, which is unusual since it's a Tuesday. We'll see what happens with that. I hope Paul is okay. It's good that he was able to have the blessing and everything. Thank you for that scripture, Dad. I will remember it.

This lady we were talking to showed us what a buckeye tree looks like and let us take some of the buckeye nuts. They are kind of cool and I'll have to send a couple home at some point. They are poisonous though so don't let anybody or any animal eat them.

I wish you all all the best. When you get Britton's MTC address, could you send it to me, please? I am going to see if I can send the rest of my pictures.

I love you all!

Elder Ethan Schow

The night before Elder Schow left for Ohio

This smacks of Elder Ethan's sense of humor!

More old MTC pictures

Looking good Elder Schow!