August 25, 2014

August 25th 2014

We had family home evening with M at a members' home last Monday. It went well and I think he had a positive experience. He is doing very well with reading and understanding and he is very close with smoking. Thank you for your prayers. Most of the other people we have been working with have fallen off lately, so I will keep you posted if anything changes. We had several good appointments this week. We had our last meeting with a guy I've been working with for the last six months. He has read a chapter or two of 1st Nephi each week and we have visited and discussed each one with him as well as teaching a few PMG lessons. His interest was always more academic, but we would encourage him to pray and ask if this was something he should act on. He eventually decided that his answer was that we are good people and messengers of God, but that he should stick with the faith that he already has. He didn't get baptized. He never even came to church, but at least he now has some understanding of what our faith is and why it is so important to us. We also met with an archbishop and a priest from the Syriac Orthodox faith and taught them about our view of the Plan of Salvation. They shared insights from their views with us and there were a lot of neat similarities. It was a very pleasant meeting. Thursday we had zone conference with the 21ish people from our zone and the 25ish from the other zone in our stake. (there are two zones in each of the 5 stakes of the mission). It was a good meeting. We talked about trials and goals and some of the upcoming developments in our proselyting. We watched the trailer for the "Meet the Mormons" movie and talked about how proselyting will change once we get iPads. We find out the details about that in September. I asked about musical instruments, and President Daines decided that since the missionary call packet says not to bring instruments to the MTC or the field that they aren't allowed. Oh, well. It was weird to think that Thursday was my year mark. Thank you for the package! I liked the note about the symbolism of the camel. It was pretty neat. We had a zone fun day and played dodge ball. I hope things go well for you all this week. Good luck with the 5k, Mom and Maddie! It is crazy that Ella is coming so soon, too!

Have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder Schow