Exchanges and Service Projects

Hello Family!!!

Man this week has been pretty crazy, with a couple of service projects, and being on exchanges a few times, I feel like I haven't even been able to work in my area hardly at all! It has been good though! On this last Thursday and Friday, I was on exchanges with Elder Rodriguez who is in the French program here in our mission, because his companion and my companion both had to go to leadership training, and things were crazy because we had things to do in both areas, but only the two of us to cover it. We spent most of our time though with a lady(who just got baptized this past Sunday!) and we were helping her get ready for her baptism. It was really cool too, because she asked me to stand in on her confirmation on Sunday as well!! So everything worked out in the end!

I don't have much time today, because we are going to go to the Holocaust Museum later today, and we want to have enough time to see everything there. But I will tell you a short story about this guy we ran into the other day. Elder Krugman and I met him just walking down the street we saw him, and Elder Krugman asks "How's your day going man?" almost immediately after that we could tell that he was in a very rough situation. It turns out that he lost his job, his wife of 21 years, and his house, all within the last six months, and he was just trying to hang on. We both could tell that he was very sincere, and all he wanted was just something to eat to keep him going. So Elder Krugman gave him his ear warmers because he could tell that he was cold, and I gave him what little change I had, and we said to him, "We wish we could help you more!" and he said back to us "You have done more than you think, just stopping and talking to me helped." We felt so bad for him because he was so sincere, so we asked him if he was still going to be there in about 20 minutes and he said he would. We decided that we were going to go to a grocery store near by and buy him just something so that he could have food for a couple of days. Anyways, when we came back, he was nowhere to be found, and we were stuck with these snacks that we bought him. I hope we see him again though, because we still have the snacks to give him!!!

Well I gotta go, but I love you guys a ton!!! And Hope you have a great week!

- Elder Schaap

P.S. Sometimes it is easiest for me to email in the mornings, so if you guys would start to send your emails on Tuesday night that would be great! Thanks!!!!