Love Those Why I Believe Firesides!

Our zone activity today -- Laser Tagging!


Trying out my Lumberjack skills


The Postmas and Me!

Hello Family!

Things have been pretty crazy this week! I don't even know where to start! So Wednesday night, we met with that investigator that I was telling you about, and it went really well! Unfortunately, he wasn't able to make it to church on Sunday, but we are going to be meeting with him tomorrow night again, and hopefully we will get to meet his wife as well!

And then, a few weeks ago, I called the Postmas and told them that I needed to see them one last time before they left, so they came and took Elder Pound and I to lunch! It was really good to be able to spend time with them before they leave, apparently they are leaving on the day of Halloween. That morning though, we walked out of our room, and it turns out that one of the hoses in our hot water heater had sprung a leak during the middle of the night... so we had a little bit of flooding in our apartment! No worries though, none of our stuff was ruined, luckily all the flooding was close to the kitchen, so that was really the only part that was affected. So we have been trying to take care of that a lot of this week, hopefully we will be moving apartments soon...

Anyways, our investigators from California came to church and "Why I Believe" with us this Sunday, it was awesome, they had a really good time. I also got to see the Postmas at the fireside! Then on Monday night, we were able to go over there with our Bishop, and answer a few of their questions that they had. We actually had dinner with our Bishop on Monday night, and he was running a little late, so we were just sitting outside on a bench that we had, and his neighbor came up to us and introduced himself, and asked if he could ask us a few questions, it was really cool, and eventually when Bishop returned home, he joined in on the conversation as well. I don't know if we will ever teach him again, but it was a great opportunity for us and the bishop especially to bear his testimony to his neighbor!

Thanks for all the emails and updates! It is so great to hear from you guys every week! I love the shoes, they are sweet! Sorry to hear that it is getting cold there already, it hasn't been too bad here... but I think it probably will start getting a lot colder very soon, that is ok though, I would much prefer it be really cold than really hot!

Glad to hear that Austin's homecoming went well! Tell him he should send me an outline of what he said! Thank you guys for everything! I Love you and hope you have a great week!

- Elder Schaap

P.S. Oh yeah - there's a Cafe Rio in Olney, MD - Wahoo! and rumors of 5 more coming soon to the DC area. Awesome!

Teaching in Mo-Ville

Hi Everyone!

It seems like time keeps going faster and faster, and I feel like I don't even remember what has happened in the last week! Anyways, we were able to meet with the less-active member from California and her daughter again yesterday, and they came to church on Sunday as well! And we invited them to come to "Why I Believe" with us this Sunday, so it should be great! They are pretty much our main focus right now, and hopefully we will be meeting with them a more frequently.

Other than them, we haven't been able to have a whole lot of teaching opportunities, and not too many people are interested in what we have to share with them. We did have a cool experience though at one of our members' homes, they invited us over for lunch on Monday, but they didn't tell us that they were planning on having a non-member there for an FHE lesson afterward, it was really cool too because it was about half in Spanish, and half in English, there was another member there who served his mission in Mexico, and he taught the lesson on missionary work of all things! It was great!

We have an appointment with an investigator tonight, who I have only met once, and apparently they had been teaching him for a few weeks before I got here, but it should be good, and we have a member coming with us as well!

I love you guys, and I hope that everything is going well, thanks for all that you guys do! You are the best! Have a good week! Love you!


- Elder Schaap

Mo-Ville and Conference

...So we have a ping-pong table in our appartment, and we decided to take some action pics, and I tried to make some good faces! Haha enjoy!


Hello Everyone!

Well things have been going like crazy here in the Montgomery Village (we call it Mo-Ville for short) ward, it is A LOT different than Bowie, there are spanish and french missionaries that cover the same area that we do, and I have roommates, so we are around a lot of missionaries all the time where as in Bowie, it was pretty much just me and my companion for the most part. And I am really sore from riding my bike so much... guess I need to get back into shape! Things are really good though, we had a sweet experience happen this last week, we found a less-active member that has recently moved from California, and her records aren't even in the ward yet, but we were able to have dinner with her and her daughter on Monday, and it turns out that they are having sort of a tough time in life right now, but they want to get back to church, and the daughter has not been baptized yet, so hopefully we will be able to reactivate the mom as well as have the daughter be baptized.

I was able to meet quite a bit of the members, even though this week was general conference, but I can already tell that this ward is awesome, and they want to do missionary work. Speaking of conference, I thought it was amazing! As usual! Some of my favorite talks were both of Uchtdorf's (naturally...) he always seems to have a way of putting things so that it makes sense to me, Elder Christoffersen's talk about repentance, and all of the missionary talks as well. Unfortunately we weren't able to have any investigators at conference though. And sorry, I don't have my notes on me right now, or else I would go into more depth, but I took a bunch of notes!

Elder Pound and I are doing good, even though he sometimes has no mercy on the bikes for me haha, so things are going great, and we work really well together. It is kind of nice... ok, it is really nice to not have to worry about teaching my companion how to do missionary work, not that I have ever really had to do that, but it is cool, because we can just hit the ground running rather than having to get everything in order beforehand. But all is well here in Mo-Ville, and it should be a fun transfer! I hope you guys are doing good! It is so weird to see you guys and Austin in the same picture.... yikes! Hope everything is going good though! And thanks for the shoes, they came yesterday! Love you!


- Elder Schaap

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