Hello Montgomery Village!

Hello!!!

Well I hate to say, but my time in Bowie has come to an end (for now)! It was really hard to say goodbye to the people there, I think that is why people don't usually stay in an area that long, because you get too attached to the people there. Anyways, I am excited to meet new people, and to work with a new companion! I am now in the Montgomery Village ward, and my new companion is Elder Pound, he has been out just one transfer less than I have, and it seems like there is a lot of good things happening in this ward. I am going to be on a bike, and apparently this is the biggest bike area in our mission... so I will be able to get rid of some of the weight that I got in Bowie haha this first week will probably be a little difficult, it will be good though.

We had a cool experience last night, the last few days were crazy because I wanted to say goodbye to a bunch of families in the ward, and people that I had worked with, and we didn't know how we were going to see all these people with the amount of time that we had. Anyways we got a call from a member telling us that she had been talking with her neighbor who had been having a lot of health problems recently, and wanted us to give her a blessing. We were able to go over there, and it was a very cool experience, and even though I won't be able to continue working with her, we were able to set up another visit with her on Friday. She definitely felt something, and she told us that her faith had been struggling lately. Hopefully she will be able to remember how she felt as she received her blessing.

Unfortunately that is about all I have to report this week, hopefully we will have some people at general conference this weekend! And I will have some sweet stories to tell you!! Love you guys! Thanks so much for all that you do for me!!! Have a good week!


- Elder Schaap

P.S. Tell Uncle Rick, Happy Birthday for me!!!
and tell Austin hi as well! I can't believe he is coming home already!!! And tell him that I got his letter and will write back soon!
Love you guys!

Almost Moving Time....

Hi!

Man this week was crazy! Friday was our President's interviews, and although President didn't come right out and say that I was leaving, he told me to "finish strong" haha so I am pretty sure that I will be going to a new area next week. I am ok with it though, I love it here in Bowie, but it is time for a change. I don't know what happened when President said that though, because all of the sudden we have a packed full week! So it should be good!

Well, I spoke in church this last week, it went ok, I thought it could have been better, I wish I would have had more time to prepare, but things were crazy, and I only had a few days' notice. Not too bad overall, except for the fact that we told all of our investigators that I was speaking, and not a single one came to hear me... One came late to church, but he wasn't there when I spoke.

We had a great experience at the Visitor's Center with an investigator couple on Sunday, she loved it, but he was kind of indifferent, but it was a good experience overall. Elder Kennedy and I have been noticing a trend with our investigators, we work with them for a little while, a relationship develops, they may come to church a few times, but they don't read the Book of Mormon, so we have tried to put more emphasis on the Book of Mormon with our investigators, and explain to them, that to get an answer whether it is true or not, they cannot just passively read it, but it has to be something they really want, to the point where they would do just about anything to get their answer.

Anyways, sorry, but I have to be short today. It was good to hear from you guys though, Hope you have a great week! Love you!

- Elder Schaap

Fall Sports Day

Man, it sounds like you guys had an awesome week! Glad to hear that everything went well with LOTOJA! That is awesome!

This week was pretty good for us too! Our ward is trying to implement what is called the "Perry Plan" which I could go into a bunch of detail about, but basically it is a way for the full-time missionaries to be more involved in the reactivation process of less-active members, and it is just getting started, but we are already seeing good things come from it, I will let you know how that goes over the next few weeks.

As for our investigators, they are all doing very well, we had a few meetings with one sister, and she is very excited to go to the "Why I Believe" fireside with us this Sunday! And hopefully she will be coming to church too, because I just found out yesterday that I will be speaking in Sacrament meeting this Sunday as well! I will be talking about how to prepare to receive the Priesthood, and to serve a mission. So should be good! And hopefully I will be able to convince our investigators to come to church by telling them that I will be speaking! Haha!

Yesterday we met with another sister, and she actually read her Book of Mormon!!! And not only that, she actually comprehended everything, and had questions for us! Still not sure why it has taken over 3 months to get to that point, but I am just happy that she has actually started to not only read, but she has had at least a little taste of some of the blessings that the gospel has to offer, hopefully she continues to do so!

Today was Fall Sports Day... weird to think it has been a whole year since the last one! It was fun though, to be able to see some of the friends that I have made out here, although, I think I am going to be pretty sore tomorrow haha oh well, it was worth it.

Well, it was good to hear from you guys, sorry I missed the "Juanito Bandito" haha sounds like I would probably enjoy it a lot though! And yes I did get the letter from the primary, today actually!! Always good to get stuff like that!

Love you guys! Hope you have a good week!

- Elder Schaap

Making some progress

Hello!

So good to hear from you guys, sounds like you guys are having a good time getting ready for LOTOJA! That will be sweet, you will have to tell me all about it!

Things have been going really good for us here! This week was a lot better than a lot of our previous weeks, Elder Kennedy and I are both feeling much better, and we were able to have good visits with all of our investigators!

We met with one of our investigators last night, and watched a short video with her and discussed kind of where she was at, also found out that she still is not reading... she keeps promising us that she is going to do it, but everytime we go over there it seems like something comes up, and she wasn't able to do it, so we are going to follow up with her constantly until she is doing it on her own. It was a good visit though, we had two different members there to help teach, and they were able to connect with her. Hopefully, she will start to progress more than she has been.

We met with another investigator yesterday, not so much her husband, he had to be somewhere, but it was a really good visit with her, and she told us that she wants to start learning more, and having us over for more formal teaching visits!

And we were able to talk with another young man for a little bit, and find out where he is at, like I said before, it is going to be a little slower with him, but he actually came to church this week on his own! His wife was sick, so she couldn't make it. He came and sat next to me, and we were able to have a good chat.

Another cool thing that happened this week, a family in our ward has been working with one of their friends, and so this week they asked him if he would like to meet with us and learn more about the church, and he said that he would! So that is going to start next week! Apparently he has already been reading the Book of Mormon as well! So we are really excited about that!

But that's about all I have for you this week! I love you guys! And I hope you have a great week! Let me know how everything goes with the bike race!!! Love you!


- Elder Schaap

Natural Disasters...

Pic 1 - Me being sick haha


Pic 2 - All of the "destruction" that Irene caused haha



Pic 3 - Backflip pic from last week

Well, this last week really was crazy! We had two natural disasters!! Haha, unfortunately neither of them were really the full thing, they were just tastes of the real thing. We really didn't have any damage to our car, our apartment, or anything really... Pres. M was right, I think most of the missionaries were a little disappointed, I know that Elder Kennedy and I were! We didn't even lose power!!

It was kind of weird actually, because both of us were sick this past week, I came down with a cold on Thursday, and then the next day, Elder Kennedy got a stomach bug, so we were both out of commission for a few days, including most of the storm. So church was cancelled this last week, and leading up to the storm, all we were doing was going around trying to help people for the storm in any way we could. It was pretty funny actually, I guess people here aren't used to all these natural disasters, and so when they hear that something is going to happen, they kind of go crazy haha Elder Kennedy and I went to the store on Friday to pick up a few things just to make sure we were ready, and one of the things that I wanted to get was some bread, you wouldn't believe that there was not a single loaf of bread in the entire store, the shelves were clean! It was really funny!

Anyways though, things are still going well for us here, I am finding out that being in an area for 4 transfers is not easy... I can't put my finger on exactly what it is, however, it is not impossible. Our finding efforts were kind of put on hold for a bit this last week, because of the sickness and natural disasters and all, but our investigators are doing well! We are meeting with one of our investigator couples tonight, still trying to get them to the VC with us and their neighbors who referred them to us, so I will let you know how that goes. One of our other investigators is still moving a little slow, we found out this week that he does not like to be pushed, and even though we have tried to be sensitive to that, his wife told us that we should try to slow it down a little more. The good news is, we should be starting to meet with them on a more regular basis. I think they are getting settled in to the married life now. As for another lady we're teaching, we had a good meeting with her last week, and the member that went with us told her that he and his wife would go over to her house and do FHE with her! Which will be really good for her, because she doesn't feel like she understands the scriptures when she reads them by herself.

That's about it for this week, like I said, it was pretty crazy, but not much worse than some of the rainstorms we have gotten here lately! Love you guys!!! Have a good week!!


- Elder Schaap

Hurricane Irene

We received this very reassuring email from President and Sister Matsumori yesterday. Much appreciated. Thanks President!

Dear Missionary Families and Loved Ones:

The missionaries in the Washington DC North Mission have reported to me that they are all safe and no one was injured in any way. None of their apartments sustained damaged although a few of their parked vehicles were hit by falling limbs (at least, that’s their claim). Our entire mission lost power last night and by this morning, those serving in the northern half of our mission have power restored. The electrical companies are forecasting that it may take a few days to restore power in the southern-most areas of our mission (Lexington Park, Patuxent, White Plains and Calvert). We will be in continual contact with the missionaries without power to insure they have adequate food and water.

While all of the missionaries stand ready and willing to assist with service projects, I have instructed them to stay in their apartments for a few hours this morning – until the downed power lines have been repaired and trees removed from the roads.

Our missionaries continue to be richly blessed and protected. Frankly, many of them were disappointed that Hurricane Irene didn’t provide as much “adventure” as they had anticipated J.

Thank you so much for your concern and especially for your prayers.

Love and blessings,
President Jim and Sister Vicki Matsumori

Earthquake!

P.S. I didn't really do a backflip off the wall, but it looks like it huh!



P.P.S. The standing backflip is for real though! (I still got it! Haha!!)

Hello Again!!!

First off, there was an earthquake yesterday! Ha! It was pretty crazy, we were in a building at the time, but nothing too big happened. It seemed like some machine was digging underneath us, and I really didn't know what it was, but we looked out the window, and saw that people out there felt something as well, so I figured it had to be an earthquake! So now I can say that I have felt an earthquake.... even though it was only 5.9 over 100 miles away haha! I did feel it though!

Anyways, this week was actually pretty slow for us, just a lot of things going much differently than we thought they would, or how we planned they would, I won't get in to too much detail, we just had a bunch of stuff fall through that we weren't expecting, but such is life I guess, so we aren't going to let it get us down. We were able to meet with one of our investigator couples again though, and they are doing good, they weren't able to go with us to the VC Sunday night, but we are hoping to get them there with in the next week or so. We also met with another lady we're teaching, and she is still held up on a few of her concerns, so we are trying to work through that.

Unfortunately that is about all of the progress with our investigators I have to report this week, we weren't able to meet with Robert but we will this coming week. And we are going to be focusing our efforts on finding more people to teach this week.

Well, I have to tell you guys about what we did today, we went and took sunrise pictures at the Lincoln Monument (again!) today, and it was sweet, there were probably about 12-15 missionaries there when the sun came up! And later in the day, a bunch of other missionaries showed up, and we were playing frisbee and football on the national mall! So that was sweet, and I have some cool pics for you guys too!

Love you guys! And hope everything is going well!

- Elder Schaap


P.S. We received this email from the Mission Office on 8/23/11:

Dear Missionary Families,

In light of the 5.9 earthquake which occurred this afternoon in the Washington DC area, but nearer Richmond, Virginia, we wish to let each of you know that all missionaries have been accounted for and there has been no injuries, no property damage or anything of any concern to the missionaries or the mission field. Thank you for your concern. All are doing well and can faithfully continue in the work of the Lord in the Washington DC North Mission.

Washington DC North Mission Office