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

August 18, 2014

August 18, 2014

Well, it was a pretty good week here in Big Walnut Creek. Nothing super exciting happened, but that's okay. We have spent a lot of time knocking doors and trying to track down old investigators. It is amazing how slippery some people can be! We have tried knocking in a few different parts of our area and figured out what times are most effective to knock there. We spent the evening on Saturday knocking in a nice suburb called Berwick in the southern tip of our ward and found several potential investigators. One of them was a really nice old lady named I. At first she wanted to just send us away because she is already a Christian. But I asked if there was anything we could do for her (like yard work) she thought we were joking at first, but then she said we could come back in a few days and help her clean her garage. She talked to us for almost 20 minutes on her porch about the Bible and different religions. Then she gave us water and we left. It was pretty cool. I hope we get to go back and help her. We had our zone meeting on Wednesday. It was nice to meet some of the new people in the zone. Being around other missionaries can be a lot of fun. We got to meet with several part member families this week, which was really good. They are making some progress. The boss of one of our members is really interested in the church and has come to church 6 or times now even though he doesn't live in our ward boundaries. He took us and the member's family and the other Elders from our ward to dinner at a nice restaurant downtown. It was pretty neat. Hopefully we can help him get his answer about his church and get him into the ward where he lives. M. is doing pretty well. He was sick for a couple of days, so please keep him in your prayers. We got him a couple of bags of dum dum suckers to help him quit smoking and he says they have helped a lot. It is so weird that I hit my year mark in a couple of days. It has been a quick year, but a long year too. Time is a strange thing, especially on a mission.

Have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder Schow

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