Baptism and White Squirrell

                                                      Baptism November 23rd 2013

                                                                    Zone Fun Day

November 23rd 2013

So, we had a baptism this week! D.got baptized on Saturday and was confirmed Sunday. I was able to perform the baptism and succeeded on my first try. I think she was really happy with the whole thing, which is really good. Her baptismal service was kind of small, but I don't think she minded. Our ward mission leader confirmed her Sunday morning and Elder Loosli, Bishop Lybbert and I stood in the circle. I'm glad you received and enjoyed the text message picture after the baptism. It was really nice of that lady to send it for us.

We saw a white squirrel this week, which was pretty exciting. It is in the picture. There is also a picture of a church that is in our area. The name is pretty impressive. We also found out that we are losing our car for this transfer, which means we were on bikes yesterday and from here on out. It is super cold, but I guess we will have to deal with it and also try to get a lot of rides from members. It also might help us get into more doors. ("Can we please come in? it is sooo cold out here!"). I found out today that Elder Loosli is getting transferred somewhere else and I will be training a new missionary starting tomorrow. That is going to be really weird. I still feel so new in some ways. Our area is also going to be smaller because we are getting a third set of missionaries in the ward.

It sounds like things are going pretty well in Idaho. That is neat about Curtis's farewell and all that stuff. That's cool about Lauren and Cam's Christmas tree, too. We have a tiny Christmas tree in our closet that we will have to set up after Thanksgiving. I hope things go well for Britton as he goes to Mexico. He will do great.

I love you all there, and I love hearing from you guys.

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow

 

 

 

 

 

 

Letter and Pictures

 

November 18th 2013

 

Things have gone pretty well here in Ohio for the last week. It is cold sometimes and not so cold sometimes. It is crazy that it is already almost Thanksgiving. We don't know what is going to happen at transfers, but we'd certainly like to find out! They are moving another set of Elders into this ward so there will be a third set of Marble Cliff missionaries. It's possible that I'll stay in Marble Cliff and still be in a different area. It's also possible that I'll get moved somewhere entirely different. Probably the strangest possibility is that I might have to train a new missionary. Weird. We still plan on D. being baptized this Saturday. It should work out and be great. We had our primary program yesterday. It was really nice. We are teaching a variety of other people. The trick is going to be helping them turn into progressing investigators. We are still working with several part-member families, but haven't been able to get appointments that work out with them lately. On Tuesday I had the opportunity to be with the zone leaders all day while Elder Loosli worked with their companion. It was great to be around them. They are awesome missionaries. I had to go with them to a meeting with the new stake president and President Nilsen. They had me tell them about D.. It was a neat experience to see what zone leaders do.

That is really sad about Brother Call and Brother Wellard. I hope their families are okay. I also hope the roof works out. I haven't talked a whole lot to Jesse and I haven't heard from Brigham at all, but I hope things work out for them. The popular brand of GPS around the mission seems to be Garmin, but I don't think I need one yet. Hopefully things are going well for everyone there as you get ready for thanksgiving. Tell Maddie thank you for the letter and good luck with finals and cabaret. I will write a response to her letter a little later today.

I love you all. Good luck with everything and as they say here in Ohio, "Have a blessed day."

Love, Elder Ethan Schow

 

 

 

Veteran's Day

 

Nov 11th, 2013

 

Aloha! (or some such greeting; whatever you like)

 

Hello and happy Veteran's day. It seems like everyone is doing pretty well, which is good. It is getting colder here in Ohio, though we have had no snow in earnest yet. We just had our stake conference yesterday. Elders Cardon and Olsen of the seventy came to reorganize the Columbus stake presidency. They gave some good talks, especially about hastening the work of salvation. The outing to Idaho Falls sounds pretty neat; I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. As far as Christmas goes, Mom, it would be nice to have a jump rope to use in the morning for exercise. Currently our exercise mostly consists of lying on the ground and lifting hand weights. Some cardio is definitely in order. Besides that, it might be wise for me to get a GPS at some point later in my mission. I don't need one for now; Elder Loosli has one and that's all we need for our companionship. Just a heads up. We have a conference issue of the Ensign; I just need to read it. Christmas packages should be sent directly to missionary apartments if possible, right after transfers. I'll let you know if my address changes. We got some exciting news this week: we are getting a third set of missionaries in the Marble Cliff ward next transfer. It will be interesting to see what happens with that. Of course, I could get moved somewhere entirely different. We'll see. Things are going pretty well with our investigators. We moved D.'s baptism to the 23rd in order to give her (and us) more time to prepare. We are meeting with several other people including a guy named E. who has three kids and an older man we just met named A. Also, we are starting to teach M., the nonmember wife of a less active man named J. It is neat to be able to teach these people. I do enjoy teaching people most of the time, especially when I can tell they want to hear what I have to say. I wasn't there for the first official appointment with M. because I was in Scioto area on an exchange. I got to spend the day tracting with Elder Young, who arrived in the mission the same day as me. It was nice to talk to him and to get some experience in another area. We had to walk around in a rainstorm though because Scioto's car was in the shop. Not too much else exciting has happened around here. things are going well though and I hope things continue to go well there. I love you all!

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow

Salutations!

November 4th 2013


The week has been fast in some ways, but very slow in others. I don't think I need anything winter specifically. It is not too cold here yet, at least this week hasn't been. D's baptism has been moved to the 16th because she wants a couple of family members to be able to be there, but she is still moving along well. We had a good lesson with her on Friday. We weren't able to meet with M this week because of some problems with P's phone, but I think she is still fine. P has been in the 2 lessons we have had so far. They are kind of taking the journey together since he hasn't bee active for quite a while. C is a really great guy, but his progress is pretty slow. He has been meeting with the missionaries for a while, but he has a few big things to work through. We only saw the one black squirrel and when I asked Brother Henricks about it, he said they are pretty rare. If I see another one, I will be sure to take a picture. I will try to get some good acorns.  I'm glad you guys enjoyed your getaway. That's really cool about all the shops and the pins and the temples. We haven't had another chance yet to go to the temple here. The calamari thing wasn't anything too impressive. A family took us to Olive garden and it was on an appetizer plate they got. Like I told Maddie, it just tasted like fish sticks :) Transfers is a couple days before Thanksgiving so departing missionaries can be home for it. Zone conferences include several zones. Ours was on Tuesday and included our zone (which is about 20 people) and 3 other zones. I'm not sure how many zones are in the mission but I think probably around 8. Zone conference was fun and I learned a lot. President Nilsen dropped a book on my head (long story) but it was all good. :) We went on an exchange with the zone leaders and their companion Elder Park. It was good to work in their area and it was pretty fun too. They are good guys and there is a lot I can learn from them. I don't know if you guys have heard anything about Stewart Silver, who is a missionary from here in Columbus who went to Idaho and was injured recently? He is from Upper Arlington (Which is partially included in our area) and his family said in the newspaper that the best way that people can help the Silver family is by talking to the missionaries. So far not a whole lot has resulted from it, but maybe things will start happening. Those are probably the highlights of the week. We are having a "zone fun day" a little bit later today as a reward for getting investigators to church and that should be fun.

I love you all. Thanks for everything!

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow

 

 

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