January 20, 2014

January 20, 2014

Hello, to everyone back home. It was great to hear from all of you! It has been a pretty good week overall. Thanks for your prayers. We finally got someone to church. However, he texted us later on Sunday and told us that being a Mormon is not for him. Oh well, we will get the other people there next week. We are getting better at locking people in on their commitments. We had an exchange with our zone leaders where they came to our area and that was one of the things they worked on with us. We have found several good new investigators this week and some good potentials. It will be good to see how they progress. We had a few good lessons. One investigator named B. said that he would live the Word of Wisdom without much objection. He said he won't buy anymore coffee, is already going to quit smoking, and shouldn't have a problem quitting alcohol and tea. He is one of the people that will really take off once we get him to church. Same with J. We just need to get them there. That is going to be super weird to come back and see the changes in the ward, but I'm glad things are going well, especially with the S. family and missionary work. It was also fun to see Arthur the kitty. :) To answer your question, Mom, the doctrine/principle I have most been concentrating on has been finding joy or peace in the journey. It is something I will try to keep working on.  Already, my mission  is going by so fast and I don't want to miss out on the good opportunities I have here. I know I have learned a lot and am becoming a stronger person. I will keep looking up.

Have a blessed week,

I love you all,

Elder Ethan Schow

January 13, 2014

January 13th 2014

 

Hey, everybody.

It hasn't been too long since my last email and we haven't had a whole lot of exciting stuff happen, but things have continued to move forward. A couple of investigators dropped us, but we found some new ones, including a nice guy named J. and his friend E. who was working with elders down in Cincinnati a while ago. We had a pretty good lesson with J. and with a member who lives nearby. Elder Cole and I went to the transfer meeting on Thursday to help set things up, since the meeting is held in the church building in our area. It was interesting to see the changes in the mission and to hear the testimonies of the missionaries who were going home. We had a lot of rain one night this week, which led to a lot of mud on my pants, but it didn't rain too much while we were outside, so that was okay. None of our investigators showed up at church again. If you guys could pray for them to have a desire to do so, that would be great. We have done a lot of knocking in different parts of our area, which has led to some small successes. We have tried nicer middle class neighborhoods, poorer neighborhoods, and apartment complexes. We hand out a LOT of cards. Hopefully the people who receive them will at least look up Mormon.org  due to some cancellations, we didn't have very many lessons last week, but we've had some good help from our members. I love all of you back home so much! I hope everything goes well for you guys!

Have a blessed week,

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow

January 8, 2014

 

January 8, 2014

 

Well, it's been another week. And another year. Our New Years Eve was pretty quiet. In fact it was pretty much like any other day here. We debated waking up for about ten minutes around midnight to bring in the new year, but didn't end up doing it. We were too tired. The first day of the year was a good one. We had our interviews with President and Sister Nilsen. It was good to get a chance to talk to them. We also got to have several hours of fun and productive training workshops after. Following the training, we went out and got to work and found a couple of good new investigators that we set up return appointments with. One of them called later and cancelled his, but that's actually a good sign because it means he actually remembered when it was and was conscientious enough to call us about it. Hopefully we can reschedule with him. We have had some good "practice lessons" with members lately, where we all try to pretend that they are investigators. It's a little weird at first and they have to say things like "Uh, we're... Catholic... yeah... so we believe in that. (Is it okay for us to say that?)" but, it gets them thinking about missionary work and actually does give us a chance to practice our teaching skills. We got a media referral from church headquarters this week that led us to a lady named B. who was working with missionaries in Indianapolis and wants to be baptized. She is really sincere and her two sons and mother in law are interested too. If all goes well, we will have several baptisms in the next little while. Things are going well with J., too. He and his wife are interested in getting into the church, which for him means baptism. We have had a super cold couple of days here, so we've mostly been inside, but we hear the weather should be warming up soon so we can go back to work. We always live in hope that we will eventually have a car. Elder Cole and I are both staying in Marble Cliff 1 for this transfer, and most of the other people in our zone are staying as well, including the other four missionaries in our ward. We had a "fun day" with our zone at the OSU institute this morning. We spray painted t-shirts, had a white elephant gift exchange ( I ended up with a copy of Mormon Doctrine.) , and had a marshmallow gun/dodge ball war. It was pretty fun. It is always good to be around other missionaries. I hope all is going well back home. It is always good to hear from you guys.

Have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow

 

 

Almost a Gnu Year!

 

 

December 30,  2013

 

Hello Everybody; I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! Mine here in Ohio wasn't bad. It was actually quite good. The very best part was the 45 minutes that I got to Skype with my family on Christmas day. It was so good to talk to them/you and have the opportunity to see them/you face to face. Our Christmas Eve was nice. We spent it with the Davis family from our ward. There was good food, and Brother Davis took a couple of pictures of us that he texted home to our families. After we went back to our apartment, we watched Mr. Kreuger's Christmas on the little portable DVD player that we use for proselyting and training purposes. On Christmas morning we woke up and opened our packages. Thank you so much for the stockings you made for Elder Cole and me, Mom. They were great and the stuff in them was great too. I really liked the tie. After Skyping, we spent Christmas by visiting people and having dinner with a family in the ward. We finished the evening by drinking lemonade with a recent convert in our ward who is always good to talk to. The day after Christmas, I think I had the flu or something similar. We didn't get a whole lot done proselyting-wise on that day and Friday. I felt much better on Saturday and we were able to have a good day of working. The weather has been fairly warm the past couple of days, which has been nice for the bikes. We were able to have some good lessons and make some progress this week with some of our investigators. We are working on getting people to church so they can start to progress faster. We will get them there. Elder Cole and I went this morning and worked at the bishop's storehouse for a few hours putting bags of food into big plastics totes and stacking them on pallets. It was pretty good. The couple that took us to the storehouse also took us to Wendy's at the 4th Wendy's that ever opened. It was pretty much just like any other Wendy's, but hey.

I hope everyone there had a great Christmas and has a Happy New Year!

Have a blessed day,

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow

 

 

December 16th 2013

 

         This is a photo that Brother Henricks took of Elder Ethan Schow's District on the temple grounds in Columbus, Ohio

December 16th 2013

It has been pretty cold this week and we have had some fairly heavy snowfall on a few of the days, which has made biking difficult or impractical at times. We just have to do the best we can. We spent some time shoveling walks in our neighborhood, which at least gave us something to do. We've found a few neat people this last week. Last Monday, we were in Walmart and met a guy named Jeremy who stopped us and asked where the nearest LDS church is. It turned out that his wife is a member and they live in our ward! We visited him later in the week and he is interested in learning about the church and being baptized. It was pretty cool. We also found a couple of other neat people that we are excited to start working with.

We had a good exchange with our zone leaders on Wednesday and they gave us some good advice about missionary work and working with people. It was fun to work with them and their companion in their area. Being around other missionaries is usually pretty fun.

Yesterday we went tracting in an apartment complex near ours. We found a guy who told us to come back this morning. When we came, expecting him to not be there, we found him and his wife at home and were able to teach them a brief lesson. They want to know more, too. They are very close to our apartment, which is good. Hopefully our weather will level off again soon and we will have an easier time biking. Biking in general has gotten a little easier as we've gained more practice, but the snow still puts a damper on things. We went a couple of miles yesterday, to contact a referral from church headquarters, but they didn't live there! We were able to visit a less--active guy though, so the pedaling wasn't wasted. Anyway, I don't have too much else to report. I hope everyone back home has a wonderful Chrismas season and I will make sure to figure out the details for calling home by next week so we can work that out. Have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow

 

December 9th 2013

 

We have gotten some snow here, perhaps 3 or 4 inches. It made it so we couldn't really go out on our bikes on Friday. It is pretty cold too! We have to be careful not to get frostbite as we ride around. Some days are better than others, but we live in hope that we will eventually be granted a car. We had the opportunity to do a lot of finding this week, as our teaching pool has become a little stagnant. We have found a few promising people. One lady, D, seemed really interested and planned to come to church. She didn't end up coming though. We are working bit with a great part-member family. The father, whose name, funnily enough, is John, came with us to the Christmas devotional last night. I think he enjoyed it. I enjoyed it too, even though it was pretty different from past ones. (Did you notice the wide-eyed man in the choir again, Dad? I only saw him once.) I'm glad you heard from Brother Henricks. He is one of the most helpful people I have ever met. This week was a little interesting. I got a flat tire on Thursday when we were several miles from our apartment. We had to walk back. Initial examination of the inner tube led to the discovery of several small tears, which I patched. After pumping it up again, it went flat again, so I tried a can of spray sealant, which ended up bursting the tube and leaking sticky stuff everywhere. We called upon Brother Yearsley, a stalwart member of the ward to drive us to get a new tube. Finally I got it fixed. We had our ward Christmas party on Saturday morning. It was Polar Express themed and there were pancakes. It was pretty fun. There was much mourning with the Ohio State loss, though we haven't talked to too many people about it. Elder Cole is a good guy.  It sounds like things are going reasonably well back home, and I am glad you guys are doing well. Thank you for your letters.

I love you all and hope you have a good Christmas season

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow

Happy Holidays

 

December 2nd 2013

 

 

Well, it has been a pretty crazy week. We went to transfers on Tuesday and I found out that the missionary that I'll be training is named Elder Cole. He is from Mesa, Arizona. He is a really nice guy and we well be able to do some great work together. Being on bikes is a lot different from being in a car, especially when there's snow, but it hasn't been too bad most of the time. It has helped us focus our planning and finding on specific areas and has allowed us to find several new investigators. We were able to enjoy a nice Thanksgiving lunch at a restaurant with a couple from our ward. It was quite tasty. We also had a smaller Thanksgiving dinner later in the evening. The second meal was Elder Loosli's fault :) He is still in the ward, by the way, just in the southern end of it. He and his new companion Elder Cook are now the third set of missionaries in our ward. We set up our little Christmas tree in our apartment last night. It is pretty festive, as you can see in the pictures. I don't know on the GPS. Elder Loosli could plug his into the wall if need be. In the mean time I think we are ok. I'm so glad that you guys enjoyed your Thanksgiving. Grandpa Wayne told me about it. Sorry this letter is a little shorter than usual. Things got pretty busy with email today. I'm glad that Britton is doing well.

I hope you all have a great week and I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Ethan Schow