Great investigators, Birthday and Peach Cobbler

A great member and Elder Kennedy and I at the Visitor's Center!

Texas Roadhouse for my Birthday!!!!

Baseball game!!!

More great members and the Birthday cake that they made me (with a few typos hahaha but its the thought that counted!)

I made Peach Cobbler a couple weeks ago!!!


Thanks everyone for the Birthday wishes!! I am not going to say it was the best birthday ever, because I wasn't with you guys! But it was still pretty good! One of the members here took us out to Texas Roadhouse! It was amazing! And there was another member that made a cake for me! So it was really good!

But things here are continuing to go well for us, we are still mainly working with the young man and young lady we've been teaching. She came to church again this past week! And she enjoyed it, she also offered to feed us in a few days! We were able to introduce her to a few of the members of the ward as well, so things are moving right along with her, and we are getting ready for July the 24th! Hopefully I am still in the area, transfers are this next week, so we will see! And then with the young man, we were able to meet with him last night, he is awesome! I keep getting worried that he doesn't understand what we are teaching him, but when we go back and ask him about it he remembers pretty much everything, still no date set with him though... trying to figure out the whole situation with his mom, but no worries, it will all work out!

Well sorry I don't have a whole lot to say this week, but it sounds like you guys had a really good week! And I hope that everything works out for you guys with the appartment, and sorting out all your wedding stuff haha! Love you guys!!! And thanks again for all the Birthday wishes!

- Elder Schaap

Pics from Sister Postma at Nationals Game

We love Elder and Sister Postma! What great pics!

Marcie

Baseball and Baptism Dates! June 23, 2011

Wow, what a week!! I think the Lord wanted to keep me busy this last week so that I wasn't thinking about how I was missing the wedding!

It has been really good though! We actually have two investigators that are scheduled to be baptized!!! One of them is 9 years old, and his father is a recently returning member that was baptized in 1995 and just barely started coming back about 5 or 6 months ago and is on fire!! There is just a minor hold-up, his mother is not a member and even though she won't say it, I think she doesn't like the idea of us coming over there too often, and the fact that her husband is spending more time doing things involved with the church may not be helping either. He is awesome though, and we are going to be trying to meet with him at least a few times a week!

The other lady that is scheduled to be baptized is a surper cool lady that apparently worked with the missionaries about 14 years ago she said. Her recent interest was sparked when she asked her pastor if he believed that there could be a prophet today and he told her no, so she hasn't been back since! We met her on Thursday, and we had a really good lesson with her, and then she came to church on Sunday! Which was Stake Conference by the way, so it wasn't a usual service, but she said she liked it! Elder Allan Packer (son of President Boyd K. Packer) came out here for stake conference, and it was really sweet! He and his wife spoke on Saturday Night, Sunday at stake conference, and then Sunday night at the Visitor's Center for the "Why I Believe," it was awesome!

We also had a pretty cool opportunity this last week, I have told you about the push that our ward has had lately on missionary work, and so the Relief Society decided that it would be the subject of their activity this month, and they invited us to it just so they could have kind of a Q&A with us. It was interesting some of the questions that they asked us, such as, "So if we have you over to our home with some friends, are you going to commit them to be baptized on the first visit?" Just some concerns like that, I guess I just never thought about things like that, but it was good to be able to tell them that we are not going to push their friends into anything that they don't want us to, haha we didn't say that we wouldn't invite them to be baptized on the first visit, but we told them that we wouldn't push it if it wasn't there.

Well, I am really sorry, but I don't have my card reader to send you pictures this week! Which is a bummer, because I actually took quite a few pictures this last week, but that just means that you guys will get double the pics next week! I am glad to hear that everything went well with the wedding!!! Sorry I couldn't be there! But I love you guys!! And I promise to send more pics next week! LOVE YOU!


- Elder Schaap

P.S. The [Nationals v Mariners] baseball game was good, actually it was a little boring haha but it was more fun just to see everyone! [Nationals won 1-0 in the bottom of the 9th.]

P.P.S. Happy Birthday Mom!!!!!!!!! Hope you have a good one!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

Teaching Investigators and Bowling(?)

Hello Everyone!

Man, I can't believe that it is so close to Dani's wedding!!! That is crazy! and it doesn't even feel like it to me... weird! Anyways, this week was an interesting one for us haha we had a few good visits with our investigators. We met with one brother on Thursday, and had a really good talk with him, I don't remember how much I told you before about him, but he was pretty interested in our message, but he wanted to read the Bible cover to cover before he did anything else. Well this last time we went over there we talked a lot about the Restoration, Prophets, and the Book of Mormon, he was asking really good questions, and we were able to spark his interest in reading the Book of Mormon!

We were also able to meet with another couple on Saturday, and yesterday as well. While we were there on Saturday, we were focusing on trying to get them to church, sometime during the middle of the lesson he said, "Man, I just thought of this, the only way to know if this is the church we are supposed to go to, is if we go to it!" Haha that made me realize that no matter how many times you tell someone something, it really doesn't matter until they understand it for themselves, because I think I told that to him several times before, but it didn't click with him until just then. So he told us that he knew he had promised us before that he would come to church, but he hadn't, and that this time he was coming for sure! Church here starts at 10:00 because we are the only ward that meets in our building, so 9:53 rolls around, and I am starting to wonder what is going on, so I call her cell phone, she answers and tells me that he woke up early in the morning and took his lawn mower out to go and cut some of his neighbor's lawns to try and make a few extra bucks (we haven't taught him about keeping the Sabbath yet haha), and that she hadn't seen him since... Haha that taught me another valuable lesson, all I could do was just laugh because Elder Kennedy and I had done everything we could to get them to church, we met with them the day before, we knew that they understood the importance of coming to church, and they had committed to come. We did everything short of going to their house and dragging them out to come! So by that time it was out of our power, and it was up to them to decide, unfortunately they didn't make it to church. However, they invited us over last night for dinner, and we had a good visit with them, and she is for sure committed to making it to church on Sunday, hopefully he is as well.

Well, I am glad that all is well at home, good to hear the Temple went good for Dani! I wish I could have been there! I got the invitation Yesterday! It looks good!!! I am not sure if it was the first or the second one that you guys sent though... But good luck with everything this week!!!! I hope the weather holds up for you, and that everything else goes smoothly!!!! Love you guys!! Wish I could be there!!!!


- Elder Schaap

P.S. We went Bowling today!!! haha I am rusty since I took my class... as you can tell, I did decent the second game though! (I am SCOOP by the way haha)

P.P.S. All these wedding plans are making ME tired!!! I don't know how you guys are doing it!!! Crazy!!!

New Teaching Opportunities

Hello Family!

Man things sound like they are going about a million miles an hour at home with all the wedding plans and such! Unfortunately I still haven't gotten the wedding invite yet... the mail system is kind of weird around here though, especially because it goes through our mission office first, so I am sure I will get it soon! But things are going really well for us here still! The ward is great, and we are going to have a lot of teaching opportunities coming up here soon! There are a few Part-Member families that have been showing interest in coming back to church lately! So I will definitely keep you up to date on that!

But our investigators are doing pretty well, we were able to meet with one young man on Sunday, and just talk to him for a while and we were able to clear up some of his other concerns that he had, he wasn't at church, but hopefully this next week he will be! As for the couple we've been teaching, they are struggling a little bit, it is kind of a long story, but the only way for us to get in contact with them is to go over and visit them, so I will let you know what happens with them.

Well it sounds like things are going well there! I totally love the cut-out haha that is awesome! Hope everything goes well with the wedding plans! Love you guys!! Have a good week!!!


- Elder Schaap

Members Helping Missionaries

Hello!!!

How is everyone doing?? I hope that all is well back there! Things are going really good here! I don't remember if I told you or not, but our ward is doing this big push on missionary work! And it is sweet! 2 Sundays ago, the 3rd hour of church was combined to introduce the new ward mission plan! And then this last Sunday, the sacrament meeting talks were all focused on missionary work. And this next Sunday, the ward will be fasting for more missionary opportunities! And both this last week and the one before, our bishop got up and said to everyone something to the effect of, "I don't ever want to hear another prayer that the missionaries will be led to people who are ready to hear the gospel, their job is to teach not to find. We should be praying that the Lord will present opportunities for us to share the gospel with others, because the members of the church have the responsibility to find people for the missionaries to teach!" So this ward is ready to go!!

We have been focusing a lot on working with the members this past week, and I have a feeling that pretty soon we will have a lot of people to teach that the members find for us! It makes complete sense to me too, when we go around looking for people to teach, we automatically have a huge disadvantage, as soon as people see us in our shirts and ties, they think they know exactly what we are all about and write us off as crazy (of course not everyone does this, but most of the time this is what happens!) That doesn't happen to regular members, I don't know why this has taken me almost a year to figure out haha but I am pretty excited to see what happens in our ward in the next few weeks!

As for our investigators, the young man we've been teaching is doing really well! He wasn't at church this last week, but I am pretty sure he got a little intimidated because he thought that he was going to have to make some huge commitment right away, but we were able to talk to him and clear that up. He came to the ward's Memorial day picnic on Monday, and we were able to talk to him there. The family we've been teaching are doing ok, they are having a some struggles in their lives, and they are kind of focusing more on that more than anything else, but we are planning on going over there tonight with one of the members of our ward, so that should be good!

Well that's about it for this week! Love you guys!!! And hope that everything is going well... I still didn't get the wedding invite, but hopefully I do soon! Dani, your memory card will be in the mail by the end of the day! Love you!


- Elder Schaap

p.s. sorry no pictures :(