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
Showing posts with label Rob. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rob. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
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
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Transfer #2 - Staying in Patuxent!
Hello Family!!
Good to hear from you all, and that you are doing well! That's crazy that you guys had snow this week, we haven't seen anything like that here, but I am sure we will soon enough. Well this week was really good for us! Donna came to church - for all 3 hours - and had a really good experience. We went over to her house the following day and asked her what she thought of the whole experience, and her response was really funny, it went something like "It was weird, I didn't think anyone was really that nice" haha so it went really well, and the Relief Society did a great job of introducing themselves to her and making her feel comfortable. The best part about that visit was that we gave her a Baptismal Date for Nov. 13th! We are really excited about it and so is she!!
Good to hear from you all, and that you are doing well! That's crazy that you guys had snow this week, we haven't seen anything like that here, but I am sure we will soon enough. Well this week was really good for us! Donna came to church - for all 3 hours - and had a really good experience. We went over to her house the following day and asked her what she thought of the whole experience, and her response was really funny, it went something like "It was weird, I didn't think anyone was really that nice" haha so it went really well, and the Relief Society did a great job of introducing themselves to her and making her feel comfortable. The best part about that visit was that we gave her a Baptismal Date for Nov. 13th! We are really excited about it and so is she!!
As for Rob and his family, we weren't able to meet with them unfortunately, Rob and his son went on a camp out for scouts Friday - Sunday :( So consequently that means that he can no longer be baptized on the 6th because he has to come to church atleast twice before that can happen, I am not too worried about it though, because we are going to be meeting with him and hopefully his whole family this week and after that the plan is that they will all come to church and have a new baptismal date!
And for transfers...... I will be staying in Patuxent, but I have a new companion, Elder Johnson, it should be a pretty good transfer, it is definitely going to be different for me though, because I am now the one who has to know everything about the area since I have been here the longest. Elder Walker was sent to the Anacostia Central area which I hear is a pretty rough area, but I don't know a whole lot about it. I don't have a picture of me and Elder Johnson yet... maybe next week I will. It has been a pretty interesting day though, because Elder Walker and Elder Nowlin had to go up by themselves to Transfers because there was no way all 4 of us could have fit in the car with all their stuff, so my new companion and my other new roommate had to drive down here by themselves with only the GPS to tell them what to do haha it was a long trip, but they eventually made it. Other than that I really don't have a whole lot for you guys other than
Thanks for the package!! Just what I needed.... more candy haha seriously though I loved it, and the cookies are amazing! Funny story though, the camera you guys sent me is actually older than the one that I have haha the one that I have is 5.0 megapixels and the one you sent is only 4.0. Ha I guess I will just keep it as a back up unless you guys want me to send it back. It is good to hear that Brad got the whole 2 minutes - 2 minutes - 2 minutes - 2 minutes (with the hand motions.... of course) talk, you can't cook a steak any other way (unless of course they are really thick steaks, then it is 3 minutes - 3 minutes - 3 minutes - 3 minutes hahaha) But I love you guys!!! Glad to hear that you are all doing well! That's sweet that you got to go to a jazz game! And I am super bummed that I don't get to go to the USU basketball games this year :( haha I love you guys so much!!! And hope you have a wonderful week! And tell Grandpa to start feeling better!!
- Elder Schaap
Pic #1 - My District
Pic #2 - My Appartment
And for transfers...... I will be staying in Patuxent, but I have a new companion, Elder Johnson, it should be a pretty good transfer, it is definitely going to be different for me though, because I am now the one who has to know everything about the area since I have been here the longest. Elder Walker was sent to the Anacostia Central area which I hear is a pretty rough area, but I don't know a whole lot about it. I don't have a picture of me and Elder Johnson yet... maybe next week I will. It has been a pretty interesting day though, because Elder Walker and Elder Nowlin had to go up by themselves to Transfers because there was no way all 4 of us could have fit in the car with all their stuff, so my new companion and my other new roommate had to drive down here by themselves with only the GPS to tell them what to do haha it was a long trip, but they eventually made it. Other than that I really don't have a whole lot for you guys other than
Thanks for the package!! Just what I needed.... more candy haha seriously though I loved it, and the cookies are amazing! Funny story though, the camera you guys sent me is actually older than the one that I have haha the one that I have is 5.0 megapixels and the one you sent is only 4.0. Ha I guess I will just keep it as a back up unless you guys want me to send it back. It is good to hear that Brad got the whole 2 minutes - 2 minutes - 2 minutes - 2 minutes (with the hand motions.... of course) talk, you can't cook a steak any other way (unless of course they are really thick steaks, then it is 3 minutes - 3 minutes - 3 minutes - 3 minutes hahaha) But I love you guys!!! Glad to hear that you are all doing well! That's sweet that you got to go to a jazz game! And I am super bummed that I don't get to go to the USU basketball games this year :( haha I love you guys so much!!! And hope you have a wonderful week! And tell Grandpa to start feeling better!!
- Elder Schaap
Pic #1 - My District
Pic #2 - My Appartment
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
"Why I Believe" Firesides
Hey everyone!!
So good to hear from you guys! I feel like I am not going to be able to recognize anything by the time I come home, so much has changed already, and it has only been 3 months!!! Well this last week was pretty sweet! We had 2 investigators come to church, I don't think I have ever told you about Donna before, but she has a pretty cool story. So Elder Walker and his last companion found Donna and her two neighbors, Leon and Cook, when they first ran into these guys Leon was the most interested in learning more about our church, well a few weeks passed and Cook became more interested, well until just recently, Donna did not seem interested at all, in fact they didn't even give her a Book of Mormon when they first met her, but she has had some struggles lately and is looking for answers that no one was able to answer before she found us! It has been pretty cool to see! It seems like everytime we go over there she is always stressed out about something, but by the time we leave she has settled down and relaxed. The coolest thing was that on Monday, while we were over there, she decided all on her own that she needed to stop smoking! Me and Elder Walker were in disbelief!!! She said that after she finished the one pack she had (which had like 3 cigarettes in it) that she was going to quit, well we went over there yesterday to give her a book, and there was a big old sign on her fridge that said "I QUIT" it was so amazing to see, she isn't kidding about it! She won't even let anyone smoke in her house anymore, and we are going back over there tomorrow to give her a packet on how to stop smoking! Pretty sweet stuff!
We also had the chance to see Rob on Monday, and we were actually late to his house because Donna had so many questions. But our visit with Rob went really well, and we are going back to his house this Friday to have dinner with him and he is going to introduce us to his whole family! He also said that he wants to go to one of our members homes for dinner and meet them the following day, and then come to church - with his whole family - on Sunday! We are very excited for him his family!! Hopefully they will all be ready to be baptized by Nov. 6th!! Definitely keep them in your prayers!
So this last Sunday was pretty cool, other than the fact that we had 2 investigators at church, Elder Walker and I went to the Visitor's Center for what is called a "Why I Believe" Fireside. We went with a recent convert in the Ward, his name is Bob, and he gave the opening prayer at the meeting! But the Fireside is very cool, they have a couple of recent converts speak about how they met the missionaries, what made them convert and things like that, they are held every month hopefully we will be taking Rob and his family to the next one! The last speaker's name was Barrett Christensen, and he works in the LDS Philanthropy office, he gave us some cool stats from 2009 about what the church's humanitarian aid had done in the previous year.
I got the packages, Thank You!!!! Dad, the raincoat is sweet!!! I like it a lot, there is no need to get another one, it will just be more weight to carry around. That's cool that you guys had dinner with the missionaries and the Robbs'!! Freakin Billy is huge!! I haven't been gone that long have I? And tell Kendall she better write me back! Crazy! Mom, what's with the new car?!?! haha and I see that you still didn't sell Dani's car yet! And that story about Jordan is too funny haha Dani, glad to hear that you had a good fall break! But it's back to work now!! Keep it up! Well I love you guys so much!! Give Grandpa my Best! I hope that everything works out there!!! And I hope you guys have a great week!!! Love you!!
- Elder Schaap
P.S. The pictures are from the Visitor's Center display that they have going on right now, and the Temple!
So good to hear from you guys! I feel like I am not going to be able to recognize anything by the time I come home, so much has changed already, and it has only been 3 months!!! Well this last week was pretty sweet! We had 2 investigators come to church, I don't think I have ever told you about Donna before, but she has a pretty cool story. So Elder Walker and his last companion found Donna and her two neighbors, Leon and Cook, when they first ran into these guys Leon was the most interested in learning more about our church, well a few weeks passed and Cook became more interested, well until just recently, Donna did not seem interested at all, in fact they didn't even give her a Book of Mormon when they first met her, but she has had some struggles lately and is looking for answers that no one was able to answer before she found us! It has been pretty cool to see! It seems like everytime we go over there she is always stressed out about something, but by the time we leave she has settled down and relaxed. The coolest thing was that on Monday, while we were over there, she decided all on her own that she needed to stop smoking! Me and Elder Walker were in disbelief!!! She said that after she finished the one pack she had (which had like 3 cigarettes in it) that she was going to quit, well we went over there yesterday to give her a book, and there was a big old sign on her fridge that said "I QUIT" it was so amazing to see, she isn't kidding about it! She won't even let anyone smoke in her house anymore, and we are going back over there tomorrow to give her a packet on how to stop smoking! Pretty sweet stuff!
We also had the chance to see Rob on Monday, and we were actually late to his house because Donna had so many questions. But our visit with Rob went really well, and we are going back to his house this Friday to have dinner with him and he is going to introduce us to his whole family! He also said that he wants to go to one of our members homes for dinner and meet them the following day, and then come to church - with his whole family - on Sunday! We are very excited for him his family!! Hopefully they will all be ready to be baptized by Nov. 6th!! Definitely keep them in your prayers!
So this last Sunday was pretty cool, other than the fact that we had 2 investigators at church, Elder Walker and I went to the Visitor's Center for what is called a "Why I Believe" Fireside. We went with a recent convert in the Ward, his name is Bob, and he gave the opening prayer at the meeting! But the Fireside is very cool, they have a couple of recent converts speak about how they met the missionaries, what made them convert and things like that, they are held every month hopefully we will be taking Rob and his family to the next one! The last speaker's name was Barrett Christensen, and he works in the LDS Philanthropy office, he gave us some cool stats from 2009 about what the church's humanitarian aid had done in the previous year.
I got the packages, Thank You!!!! Dad, the raincoat is sweet!!! I like it a lot, there is no need to get another one, it will just be more weight to carry around. That's cool that you guys had dinner with the missionaries and the Robbs'!! Freakin Billy is huge!! I haven't been gone that long have I? And tell Kendall she better write me back! Crazy! Mom, what's with the new car?!?! haha and I see that you still didn't sell Dani's car yet! And that story about Jordan is too funny haha Dani, glad to hear that you had a good fall break! But it's back to work now!! Keep it up! Well I love you guys so much!! Give Grandpa my Best! I hope that everything works out there!!! And I hope you guys have a great week!!! Love you!!
- Elder Schaap
P.S. The pictures are from the Visitor's Center display that they have going on right now, and the Temple!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Baptism on Nov. 6!
Hey Hey Hey!!
So good to hear from you guys! Things are going really well here! We have a new baptismal date!! Our investigators name is Rob, and he is scheduled to be baptized on Nov. 6th! I am pretty excited about it, especially because he has a sweet story, here it is: So his mom is catholic and his dad is southern baptist, and he remembers one time as a little kid when the missionaries came to his door and told he and his dad that if they read from the Book of Mormon and prayed to ask to know if it was true, that God would answer their prayers. Well since his dad is Baptist, he wouldn't let Rob read from it and hid it from him, but this always sparked his interest and apparently has been wanting to meet with missionaries again so that he could get his hands on one of these books. Fast Forward to about 1 month before we met him, Rob and his wife were recently talking about what church they and their two kids were going to start attending, and then what happens, we show up on his door step! Such a cool story! And we are way excited for it, so hopefully I am still here when it all goes down! Transfers are on the 26th this month (Yes I know that is a tuesday, but pres matsumori has meetings that he has to be at on Wed, Thurs, and Fri, that means P-day will be that day as well) I really think that I will stay though, so I am pumped!! The best part about the whole thing is that if he gets baptized, it is almost guaranteed that his whole family will as well!! We are very excited for that!
Other than that, we had a mission conference this last friday, and Elder Gibbons from I believe the 2nd quorum of the seventy came and spoke to us. It was a very good meeting, the main focus of it was how we can more effectively work with members, and he gave us a few interesting stats, 65% of all recent converts are referalls from members, and 80% of all recent converts knew members before they were baptized, so it goes to show us that if we are working with our members, our chance of success is much better!! Pretty sweet stuff! So we are going to try and do just that!
Well that is about all I have for you guys this week!! Keep the updates coming, that is sweet that you met a missionaries that lived in Austin's area! 3 baptisms in 3 weeks?!?! There is a member in the ward here that served in the Salt Lake City South Mission, and he said that there is roughly 180 baptisms a month in that mission! Dinner with the Robbs' sounds fun too! I haven't gotten the packages yet, everything goes to the mission office before it actually makes it to me, so things generally take around 7-8 days to make it here, but I am excited!! And don't worry about another coat, its not a huge deal. Glad everything is going well! Everything here is still good! I love you guys a ton, and thanks for everything!!!
- Elder Schaap
So good to hear from you guys! Things are going really well here! We have a new baptismal date!! Our investigators name is Rob, and he is scheduled to be baptized on Nov. 6th! I am pretty excited about it, especially because he has a sweet story, here it is: So his mom is catholic and his dad is southern baptist, and he remembers one time as a little kid when the missionaries came to his door and told he and his dad that if they read from the Book of Mormon and prayed to ask to know if it was true, that God would answer their prayers. Well since his dad is Baptist, he wouldn't let Rob read from it and hid it from him, but this always sparked his interest and apparently has been wanting to meet with missionaries again so that he could get his hands on one of these books. Fast Forward to about 1 month before we met him, Rob and his wife were recently talking about what church they and their two kids were going to start attending, and then what happens, we show up on his door step! Such a cool story! And we are way excited for it, so hopefully I am still here when it all goes down! Transfers are on the 26th this month (Yes I know that is a tuesday, but pres matsumori has meetings that he has to be at on Wed, Thurs, and Fri, that means P-day will be that day as well) I really think that I will stay though, so I am pumped!! The best part about the whole thing is that if he gets baptized, it is almost guaranteed that his whole family will as well!! We are very excited for that!
Other than that, we had a mission conference this last friday, and Elder Gibbons from I believe the 2nd quorum of the seventy came and spoke to us. It was a very good meeting, the main focus of it was how we can more effectively work with members, and he gave us a few interesting stats, 65% of all recent converts are referalls from members, and 80% of all recent converts knew members before they were baptized, so it goes to show us that if we are working with our members, our chance of success is much better!! Pretty sweet stuff! So we are going to try and do just that!
Well that is about all I have for you guys this week!! Keep the updates coming, that is sweet that you met a missionaries that lived in Austin's area! 3 baptisms in 3 weeks?!?! There is a member in the ward here that served in the Salt Lake City South Mission, and he said that there is roughly 180 baptisms a month in that mission! Dinner with the Robbs' sounds fun too! I haven't gotten the packages yet, everything goes to the mission office before it actually makes it to me, so things generally take around 7-8 days to make it here, but I am excited!! And don't worry about another coat, its not a huge deal. Glad everything is going well! Everything here is still good! I love you guys a ton, and thanks for everything!!!
- Elder Schaap
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