Hello Family!!!
So I am not going to be terribly long today, but thanks for all the updates!! That is crazy to hear about all the weather you guys are receiving there! Haha it got up to 72 here yesterday! I am sure though that you guys won't be doing much outside atleast today and tomorrow because you will be in the kitchen! As for me and Elder Johnson, we are going to be visiting a few people for dinner, and we will get fed, don't you worry, it may not be Uncle Rick's stuffing, but there will be food in our stomachs! It is pretty weird to be away from home for my first Thanksgiving to be honest, but no worries, just one more after this one!
That is way sweet that you guys are going to Logan for the game!! You will definitely have to let me know how it goes! Bummer that they lost to BYU though. And all this apple pie throwdown talk sounds delicious!!
Not a whole lot happened here this last week, unfortunately one of our investigators dropped us though, apparently she was on the internet looking for information about our church and came across this site that I didn't even know existed. The site talks very highly of the members of our church, but it bashes our beliefs, and she decided that she felt the same way, that the people were nice, but that she didn't believe the same things that we do. That was a huge bummer... but I guess that's how it goes, she was so golden at first, and then just like that, she is no longer interested.
Our other investigator is doing ok as far as I know, we were supposed to help him set up some of his Christmas decorations yesterday, we went there, and no one was home.... and we haven't been able to contact him since, we know that he wasn't feeling very good on Sunday, but that is as far as we know. Not really the best news, I know, but things will get better!
Well that is about all I have for you guys this week, I love you guys so much, and I miss you!! I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and try to not go into too many turkey/stuffing/sweet potato/apple pie coma's haha Love you guys!!!
- Elder Schaap
P.S. Mom, the kind of CD player that I want is just a discman, we should have a few old ones I think, but yeah I don't want the huge bulky one, Thanks!!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Another Week of Teaching and Great Service Projects
Hello Family!!
Glad to hear everyone is doing well! And that you got my letter, by the way.... My handwriting has always been that good, I don't know what you guys are talking about! You are crazy! Haha
Anyway, this week was a lot of the same unfortunately, we are still in the process of finding people, one pretty cool thing did happen this week though, a couple of weeks ago, our Bishop - he is the man! He used to be a rescue swimmer in the Navy, so he is huge! But that's a story for another day, anyways, he gave us a referral, it is one of his former co-workers that he used to talk religion with all the time, and seemed interested in at least learning more about our church. We got the chance to meet him and he is an awesome guy! He said that he would keep an open mind about everything that we said and the reading assignment that we gave him! We will be following up sometime soon to see how it went, so hopefully we will be teaching him more often!
This week was another service week too, which was pretty sweet! We helped a guy take out some bamboo that was overgrowing in his yard, and then yesterday, we helped a less-active member in the ward completely take out his garden for the winter. We were there for 4 hours, but we could have stayed there all day and still not be finished! Unfortunately I didn't take my camera with me, so I can't show you the before and after pictures though. Oh, and it was one of our investigator's birthday last friday, so we made cookies for him and took them over, we were hoping to be able to meet his wife too, but she wasn't there, he was happy to see us though, and he ate like 4 cookies while we were there haha. He wasn't able to make it to the FHE at our stake pres's house though, which kind of bummed us out, but there is another "Why I Believe" Fireside coming up next sunday at the Temple, so hopefully he will be able to go to that!!
Our other investigator is doing a little bit better, she hasn't had the chance to ask her sister about her concerns with our church, but we are meeting with her Saturday to hopefully resolve some of them.
Well sorry for being so short this week, but that's about all I have to report on haha, I am glad you got the picture though from Bro. D, he is awesome! And to answer some of your questions Dad - I know, it's crazy that Thanksgiving is only a week away!!! I am kind of depressed that I am not going to get any of the AMAZING stuffing this year! Or next! No we don't have a mission conference, but members of our ward have offered to feed us! Oh yeah, and there is probably more Less-Active/Inactive members in this ward than there is Active. Mom - Conference CD's would be sweet! And that is awesome that Jake is doing well, and that he is a DL! Dani - You have to tell me how USU does against BYU!!! LOVE YOU!!! ;)
- Elder Schaap
P.S. You guys probably are mad, but I still don't have any pictures for you, I am counting that one that Bro D sent haha.
Glad to hear everyone is doing well! And that you got my letter, by the way.... My handwriting has always been that good, I don't know what you guys are talking about! You are crazy! Haha
Anyway, this week was a lot of the same unfortunately, we are still in the process of finding people, one pretty cool thing did happen this week though, a couple of weeks ago, our Bishop - he is the man! He used to be a rescue swimmer in the Navy, so he is huge! But that's a story for another day, anyways, he gave us a referral, it is one of his former co-workers that he used to talk religion with all the time, and seemed interested in at least learning more about our church. We got the chance to meet him and he is an awesome guy! He said that he would keep an open mind about everything that we said and the reading assignment that we gave him! We will be following up sometime soon to see how it went, so hopefully we will be teaching him more often!
This week was another service week too, which was pretty sweet! We helped a guy take out some bamboo that was overgrowing in his yard, and then yesterday, we helped a less-active member in the ward completely take out his garden for the winter. We were there for 4 hours, but we could have stayed there all day and still not be finished! Unfortunately I didn't take my camera with me, so I can't show you the before and after pictures though. Oh, and it was one of our investigator's birthday last friday, so we made cookies for him and took them over, we were hoping to be able to meet his wife too, but she wasn't there, he was happy to see us though, and he ate like 4 cookies while we were there haha. He wasn't able to make it to the FHE at our stake pres's house though, which kind of bummed us out, but there is another "Why I Believe" Fireside coming up next sunday at the Temple, so hopefully he will be able to go to that!!
Our other investigator is doing a little bit better, she hasn't had the chance to ask her sister about her concerns with our church, but we are meeting with her Saturday to hopefully resolve some of them.
Well sorry for being so short this week, but that's about all I have to report on haha, I am glad you got the picture though from Bro. D, he is awesome! And to answer some of your questions Dad - I know, it's crazy that Thanksgiving is only a week away!!! I am kind of depressed that I am not going to get any of the AMAZING stuffing this year! Or next! No we don't have a mission conference, but members of our ward have offered to feed us! Oh yeah, and there is probably more Less-Active/Inactive members in this ward than there is Active. Mom - Conference CD's would be sweet! And that is awesome that Jake is doing well, and that he is a DL! Dani - You have to tell me how USU does against BYU!!! LOVE YOU!!! ;)
- Elder Schaap
P.S. You guys probably are mad, but I still don't have any pictures for you, I am counting that one that Bro D sent haha.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Tracting in Patuxent
Hey!!!
So good to hear from you guys!! Sounds like things at home are busy as usual! Everything here is going pretty well here, me and Elder Johnson are starting to learn how to work with each other, so that is good!
It has been a pretty uneventful week though to be honest. We have been doing a lot of tracting to hopefully get more people in our teaching pool, it is kind of tedious, but if you want to have people to teach, you have to do it. We have seen some good come out of it though, hopefully as we continue to work hard we will see more success.
Our investigators are doing really well, we met with Rob again on Monday, he is trying hard to find answers to his questions in the Book of Mormon, it is just taking a little longer than we had hoped, but that is ok, he still has a good attitude and is diligent. I know that eventually he will find them, even if it takes longer than it does for most people. One thing that we are going to do with him in the upcoming week that should be pretty sweet, we are taking him to a FHE that the stake does every month for Recent Converts and Investigators at the Stake President's house, I was able to go last month with our recent convert in the ward, Bob, and now hopefully everything will work out so that Rob can go!
We were also finally able to get into contact with Donna again, she is still doing good, but she is not going to be able to be baptized this Saturday like we had originally planned unfortunately. She started smoking again, and she can't meet with us this week at all, but she did defend our religion to her sister who has some misconceptions about our church, and we told her to ask her sister what her questions were and write them down so that we can do our best to answer them next time we meet with her. It was very cool to hear that she defended us though, and her reasoning for it was even cooler, apparently her sister was talking badly about our church, and Donna knew that a lot of the things her sister was saying weren't true because of how nice we had been to her. So we still have very high hopes for her!!
Well that is about all I have for you guys this week, hopefully I will have more for you in the next email though!! Oh, and I wrote you guys a letter today, so be expecting something in the mail soon!!! Love you tons!! And sorry for no pictures again haha I will take some soon!
- Elder Schaap
So good to hear from you guys!! Sounds like things at home are busy as usual! Everything here is going pretty well here, me and Elder Johnson are starting to learn how to work with each other, so that is good!
It has been a pretty uneventful week though to be honest. We have been doing a lot of tracting to hopefully get more people in our teaching pool, it is kind of tedious, but if you want to have people to teach, you have to do it. We have seen some good come out of it though, hopefully as we continue to work hard we will see more success.
Our investigators are doing really well, we met with Rob again on Monday, he is trying hard to find answers to his questions in the Book of Mormon, it is just taking a little longer than we had hoped, but that is ok, he still has a good attitude and is diligent. I know that eventually he will find them, even if it takes longer than it does for most people. One thing that we are going to do with him in the upcoming week that should be pretty sweet, we are taking him to a FHE that the stake does every month for Recent Converts and Investigators at the Stake President's house, I was able to go last month with our recent convert in the ward, Bob, and now hopefully everything will work out so that Rob can go!
We were also finally able to get into contact with Donna again, she is still doing good, but she is not going to be able to be baptized this Saturday like we had originally planned unfortunately. She started smoking again, and she can't meet with us this week at all, but she did defend our religion to her sister who has some misconceptions about our church, and we told her to ask her sister what her questions were and write them down so that we can do our best to answer them next time we meet with her. It was very cool to hear that she defended us though, and her reasoning for it was even cooler, apparently her sister was talking badly about our church, and Donna knew that a lot of the things her sister was saying weren't true because of how nice we had been to her. So we still have very high hopes for her!!
Well that is about all I have for you guys this week, hopefully I will have more for you in the next email though!! Oh, and I wrote you guys a letter today, so be expecting something in the mail soon!!! Love you tons!! And sorry for no pictures again haha I will take some soon!
- Elder Schaap
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Starting the New Transfer
Hey everyone!
It is always so good to hear from you all! Sounds like everyones week was pretty eventful to say the least! The same goes for me, actually this last week was pretty crazy and stressful for me because I am now the one that has to know the area, everyone in it, and pretty much everything about it! Things are going pretty well though, I wasn't feeling the greatest these past few days (I think a little bit of it was from the stress) but no worries, I am feeling better now! It is definitely a new challenge though to get used to a new companion, and taking over an area, because I was with Elder Walker for nearly 3 months, and over that time, we got used to how each other worked. Now everything has completely changed, don't get me wrong, Elder Johnson and I are working really well together, it just takes a little bit of time getting used to everything that is new. We have been working hard though, and it is going to take just that to keep up things going the way they were.
As for our investigators, Rob is doing really well, we were able to meet with him yesterday, and we talked about two of the more scary things that we have to teach people, the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Tithing, all of my worries were for nothing though because he was completely receptive and willing to follow both of them!!! Sweet! He is so awesome, unfortunately though, we weren't able to meet with his whole family because he hasn't been feeling the greatest and has had a ton of doctors appointments for his back and allergies. So we are hoping that we will be able to set up something so that us and Rob's family go to dinner at a member of our ward's house for dinner so that they can meet someone from the church before they actually attend.
And Donna is still doing well, but we actually haven't been able to meet with her for over a week, and she wasn't at church this week :( we don't know why, we haven't been able to contact her since then, so I hope she is still doing well!
Well I had a pretty funny experience this week with Elder Johnson, so on Halloween day, we were already over our miles for the month, and we had to do be in for the night right after dinner, so we had about 3 hours between church and dinner that we had to fill, but with out using any miles. So we decided to ride our bikes haha, at first I thought I was going to hate it, but it was actually way fun!! And my bike is sweet! We didn't go too far, maybe about 6 miles or so total, but it was still a lot of fun, and gave me at least a little bit of an idea of what it is like to do missionary work on a bike.
I hope everything is going well at home, that is insane that you guys have already had that much snow! We haven't even gotten rain here for quite a while, but it is starting to get a lot colder, yesterday it only got to the mid 50's. And that is crazy that Jake is already leaving, it feels like just yesterday that he told me he got his call, but I am glad I was able to help him! Dani - that is sweet that you went to the HOWL haha honestly I wouldn't have even remembered that if you hadn't have reminded me, but did you see any of my friends?! Mike was one of the DJ's!! Mom - haha sorry about your flight experience, it sounded pretty bad, how do you always get stuck next to those guys?! Dad - HOLY MACKRELL, what is it with our family and car batteries??? We pretty much have the worst luck with them! Well that is all I have for you this week, sorry no pictures :( I will try and send some next week though! Love you guys tons!!!
- Elder Schaap
It is always so good to hear from you all! Sounds like everyones week was pretty eventful to say the least! The same goes for me, actually this last week was pretty crazy and stressful for me because I am now the one that has to know the area, everyone in it, and pretty much everything about it! Things are going pretty well though, I wasn't feeling the greatest these past few days (I think a little bit of it was from the stress) but no worries, I am feeling better now! It is definitely a new challenge though to get used to a new companion, and taking over an area, because I was with Elder Walker for nearly 3 months, and over that time, we got used to how each other worked. Now everything has completely changed, don't get me wrong, Elder Johnson and I are working really well together, it just takes a little bit of time getting used to everything that is new. We have been working hard though, and it is going to take just that to keep up things going the way they were.
As for our investigators, Rob is doing really well, we were able to meet with him yesterday, and we talked about two of the more scary things that we have to teach people, the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Tithing, all of my worries were for nothing though because he was completely receptive and willing to follow both of them!!! Sweet! He is so awesome, unfortunately though, we weren't able to meet with his whole family because he hasn't been feeling the greatest and has had a ton of doctors appointments for his back and allergies. So we are hoping that we will be able to set up something so that us and Rob's family go to dinner at a member of our ward's house for dinner so that they can meet someone from the church before they actually attend.
And Donna is still doing well, but we actually haven't been able to meet with her for over a week, and she wasn't at church this week :( we don't know why, we haven't been able to contact her since then, so I hope she is still doing well!
Well I had a pretty funny experience this week with Elder Johnson, so on Halloween day, we were already over our miles for the month, and we had to do be in for the night right after dinner, so we had about 3 hours between church and dinner that we had to fill, but with out using any miles. So we decided to ride our bikes haha, at first I thought I was going to hate it, but it was actually way fun!! And my bike is sweet! We didn't go too far, maybe about 6 miles or so total, but it was still a lot of fun, and gave me at least a little bit of an idea of what it is like to do missionary work on a bike.
I hope everything is going well at home, that is insane that you guys have already had that much snow! We haven't even gotten rain here for quite a while, but it is starting to get a lot colder, yesterday it only got to the mid 50's. And that is crazy that Jake is already leaving, it feels like just yesterday that he told me he got his call, but I am glad I was able to help him! Dani - that is sweet that you went to the HOWL haha honestly I wouldn't have even remembered that if you hadn't have reminded me, but did you see any of my friends?! Mike was one of the DJ's!! Mom - haha sorry about your flight experience, it sounded pretty bad, how do you always get stuck next to those guys?! Dad - HOLY MACKRELL, what is it with our family and car batteries??? We pretty much have the worst luck with them! Well that is all I have for you this week, sorry no pictures :( I will try and send some next week though! Love you guys tons!!!
- Elder Schaap
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