Park Rock? What a week!

Man what a week... Last Thursday, during the early morning, me, Elder Walker, and the Lexington Park Elders all went to do some service by helping set up some big canopy tents for an event called "Park Rock," it is a concert like Warped tour except not as big of bands. Anyways, we did this and in return we wanted to be able to have a booth at the concert so that we could talk to people about the gospel, well we eventually figured out that about 90% of the audience would be teenagers that came for the music, and the rest would be security guards, not very good odds of finding new investigators... But it was still fun, and they bought us Breakfast and Lunch, so we didn't make it out of there too bad haha. Also, that night we had a lesson with Sara, I don't know if I have told you about her or not before, but she is in her late 40's/ early 50's, and she retired so that she could take care of her mom full time. She was raised Catholic, but is open to the idea that there could be prophets in the America's, she has been meeting with missionaries for about 4 months, but she can't ever come to church because she is always taking care of her mom. Me and Elder Walker took about an hour that day to prepare a lesson for Sara about prayer, because in the Catholic church, most of their prayers are just recited and not very meaningful. One of the biggest things we try and get people to do is read the Book of Mormon and pray about it to know if it is true. Sara had been doing the reading part, but not the prayer part, so we did a pretty neat scripture chase with her and made her understand the importance of prayer. It was awesome to see how she started to understand what we were saying, we pretty much laid it all down for her and told her that if the Book of Mormon was true, then that means that Joseph Smith was a true Prophet, which means that our church is true. She took it very well and told us that she would put it too the test! So that was very cool, unfortunately she can't meet with us this week, so we are going to have to wait until next week to see how it all goes, hopefully I am still in this area!!

Lexington Park had a baptism this last Saturday, and it was a very neat experience! It all went really really well, Elder Deklerk performed the baptism, and it was so cool to see how happy Marsha was after it was all said and done. I don't remember if I told you guys, but she quit drinking and smoking all within about 3 weeks, she is such an awesome lady! Unfortunately the Brennan's were not there... in fact we couldn't even get a hold of them, but I know he is busy, he is an attorney and has about 5 active cases right now I think, plus he was going out of town this weekend too. I am not too worried about them, we have another appointment with them next week, and I am excited to see how they are doing! A really good thing happened this week though, we had a Less-Active, Part-Member Family at church on Sunday! They had a decent time I think, I guess we will find out when we go and see them later this week though.

I had my first exchange this Monday with Elder Deklerk, it was way sweet, he is the DL, and a very good missionary. It was good for me to see how someone else does things. Well transfers are next week, I can't even believe I have been here 5 weeks already, it doesn't even feel like it has been half that yet, but they have a saying here, Hours feel like Weeks and Weeks feel like Hours, I probably wouldn't even have a clue what that means unless I was out here, but it really is true, the last 5 weeks have absolutely flown by. The good news is that it is more than likely that I will be staying here for next transfer, so hopefully I won't have to get used to another area all over again. Well I love you guys!!! It's always good to hear from you!! And as always, I miss you!!

- Elder Schaap

Another week...zone conf...district conf...a missionary story

Well this week was pretty crazy, I think I told you before that we have been having a ridiculous amount of appointments cancel, and it didn't stop this week unfortunately, so we have been doing a lot of tracting. Good news is it hasn't been as hot, in fact yesterday it was really pleasant, about 70 degrees and not very humid. We gave one of our investigators a baptismal date this week, which was pretty exciting, but he didn't seem too thrilled about it and was kind of skeptical, we are still hoping and praying that he will continue to work with us and work towards the goal we gave him. I had my first district meeting this week, it was pretty cool, except we have to drive about an hour just to get to the chapel, we are so far away from everything down here, we have zone conference tomorrow and we are going to have to drive about an hour and a half... It was a little depressing though, at lunch after district meeting all of us were talking and most of the guys in my district have been gone over a year haha I am the youngest by far! Time really has flown pretty quickly, it is hard for me to remember what all happened during the week, I can remember church and the rest just seems like a blur, I have already been in this area for 3 sundays! I am half way done with my first transfer... weird!

So I know I haven't really given you guys too many "missionary" stories, but that's because I haven't really had too many. I do have one though, we have been working with a man who was actually excommunicated from the church in 2001. It is a pretty interesting story, I won't tell you what he did to get exed but I will say that after that time, his life got pretty much ruined. He lost his family, his job, and his health, pretty much everything he had. He was very involved with the church, he was in a stake presidency at one point, a ward mission leader as well, he was also employed by the church. Well I probably don't have to tell you this, but he was humbled, the hard way, and he came to the realization that it was not the church's fault for what he had done. Anyways, he is an awesome guy, and he can't wait to be baptized... again. Unfortunately for him and for me, it is a very long process for an excommunicated member to be baptized again and it is going to probably take around 2 months until he can get baptized, so it is doubtful that I will get to see it happen, but we will continue to work every week with him and we know that he will be ready for it when that day comes.

I think that is about all I have for you guys, Dani school sound crazy!! I know how you feel though, this is the most busy I have ever been in my life too!! Mom, the other missionaries in my appartment are Elders Deklerk and Nowlin. And dad, quit freaking me out with these headaches of yours! NO YOKE! Grandpa, thanks for the letter, it is always good to hear how things are going with you guys!

Well I love you guys so much, you really are the best family ever! Hope everything continues to go well! Until next week...

- Elder Schaap