James letter 2-19-13

This week was a great finish to the transfer. I left my planner at the apartment, so you won't get as many details, but a few of the highlights that I do remember are these.

Wednesday, we had a lesson with W Manula, who dropped us. She said that she felt that this wasn't right for her. We taught her about recognizing the Spirit, and about the importance of the Book of Mormon, and Moroni's promise. We bore testimony, and committed her to read the entire Book of Mormon, and pray about it everytime she read, paying attention to the Spirit. She said that she would, and that she would call us if she wanted to learn more. It was sad to be dropped by her when she hasn't put forth very much effort into finding out, but I felt good about the way the lesson went.

We tried to set up another appoinment with Tom Handy, and he said "no thank you". Dropped as well, also disappointing, because he also hasn't put forth much effort.

In our lesson with D Rubenstein he again brought up mormonsandgays.org, and said that that was why he didn't feel comfortable in coming to church. We told him that he would not lose his friends, if he joined, but he seemed unsure. Our stake is having a same gender attraction fireside this weekend, and we are planning to invite him to that. He is still reading, but he hasn't really prayed about the Book of Mormon, and he doesn't want to come to church. We stressed the importance of the Book of Mormon in our lesson. He promised us that he would pray about it.

Saturday we were doing some tracting, and a man named Kimi let us into his house to talk with him. He is Jewish, and he had studied lots of religions, but hasn't read all of the Book of Mormon, and said that he would be willing to do so, we have a return appointment set up for Wednesday to go back and teach him.

Sunday after church we also did some tracting, and one house we knocked on when the man opened his door, Elder Lott complimented him on his motorcycle. We were able to talk with him a little about it, and then we tied it in to the Gospel, and how the way to know if this is true is through the Spirit, which, though hard to describe, is easy to recognize once you've felt it. We compared that feeling to the feeling of adrenaline you get when riding a motorcycle. He said that he had prayed about this before, but had never read the Book of Mormon. he was willing to read, and to let us come back and teach, we have a lesson set up for this Thursday. It was a neat experience.

I was a little surpised, but definetly glad to hear that Elder Lott and I are staying together as companions for one more transfer. I love serving with him, he is constantly helping me to do a little better. My desire to serve has been increasing, and our work is going well. We have a goal to get a baptism this transfer, and we know that we can do it, and are willing to get out and work to make it happen. I know that as we do so that our Heavenly Father will reward us for our efforts.

We had a lot of people in the district get transferrred, and we had a new area open up, and I am excited to get to know all of the new faces in the district, and there is a lot of them. All together in our district we have 18, including the zone leaders. There are two sets of sisters, two senior sisters, a senior couple, and 5 sets of elders. It is a crowded district meeting, but it will be great to have so much talent, and perspective to draw from.

 

As I didn't have my planner I find myself with more time to email this week, and so I will be able to answer some of your questions, and add of few needs. First, yes I do get the Ensign, the mission gives them to us every month. I don't know if I remember who Brandon on plain city rd is. I remember B Welch( did he ever go on a mission, or is he still living at home?), and I remember B Cluster(in Ogden). You will have to remind me who he is.

 

Whatever happened to T Reeder? I haven't heard anything about him. I wrote him a letter a while ago, and never heard back. Is he still living at home? If so, I may write him again.

 

Here is a funny/sad story. A couple of weeks ago I broke my shoes. I tripped, and the front part of my shoe opened up, and is now a mouth. Is there any way you could replace those for me? They are the Johnson and Murphy shoes, the nice square toed ones. If I sent them back would Mr Mac exchange them? If not I will just use the Ecco's until the end of my mission.

 

Also we met another couple up here who lived in Farr West. What a small world, I swear that place isn't that big, how many people could live there? And how many of them could be in our ward up here? Ridiculous, but it was cool to talk about it.

 

This transfer is only five weeks long, and this is the transfer that I will "finish my sister mission", and hit 18 months. Time has flown by, and seems to be going even faster, I knew almost every one of the 17 elders that went home yesterday. Its weird to see so many of your friends leave. My 2nd complanion left yesterday, and he was the last one of my companions that went home before me, I will go home before all of the rest of my companions. Sad.

 

Did you send me another tie rack, the four I have are full. I had 108 ties. Its crazy. I haven't worn the same tie twice since I've been here. There are several of them, ones I didn't buy, that I will leave out here, but I am definetly bringing home all of the good ones, and ones given to me as gifts.

 

Hope you guys have a great week.

 

Love Elder Schultz

James letter 2/11/13

 This week was pretty good, I feel that we could have done better, at least I know that I could have done better. One of the things I am working on to assist in that goal to improve is to work on my prayers. I had a great study on prayer and revelation this morning, and then I knelt down to pray and implement the things that I had learned. I hope to do this for the rest of this week, and into the future until this becomes a habit, and I can turn to something else. A few of the things which I learned to make prayers more meaningful is to give thought to what you say, don't just pray to pray, but think about what you are saying to the Almighty. Also praying for guidance, strength, the Spirit, and others around you. As I did this this morning I felt that my prayer then was a lot better that my prayers in recent history. I felt a power and a peace in my prayer that I think has been missing a little. Prayer does have a power, and I am working on accessing all of it, or at least as much as I can. After all I need all the help I can get.

As for the work this last week:

Monday after dinner we spent our evening working more off of the unordained list we had put together, and trying to find new less active members to teach, as well as partmember families that we could unite in the Gospel. We were unsuccessful in our teaching, but we were able to find some people that had moved.

Tuesday we had our zone meeting, and they talked to us about how to record our stats. The recording of other lessons is different than what I had been told throughout my mission, but it is from PMG, and I must have just overlooked that detail. I am glad that we were corrected. After that we were ablt to do a little bit of tracting before our lesson with T Iwanchuk , she is from Switzerland, and she has been curious about what is different about our church. She is really interested in learning, and she knows a member family in the ward already. We talked to that family, and asked the wife is she would invite her to church, and she said no, we also asked her if she would invite her to a RS activity this week and she said no again. I'm not sure why, but she is really hesitant about being involved with her friend in the missionary work. She is afraid that she could lose her friend os something, I'm not sure. It seems like it would be easier to invite now that she is already meeting with us, and in interested in learning more. After our lesson on the Restoration, which went great, we went back to the street we were tracting, and finished the other side of the street. As we did so we found an inactive member, who accepted our invitation of service. We helped her rake up her leaves, and were able to talk with her for a while. She was really nice, and was open to us coming back for service again. We got her number too, so that we can call and set up another time, that way we can change into proper clothes, and not get our slacks dirty again. Later that night we also met with C Gifford, we taught him about the Word of Wisdom, and prophets, and he told us of his goal to make it back to the temple by the end of April. We look forward to being able to help him reach that goal.

Wednesday we did some more tracting, but not much potential. Later that day we had another lesson with W Manula. She asked a bunch of questions, and didn't accept any of our answers. She asked about the Trinity. She believes that they are seperate, but thinks that the Book of Mormon teaches that they are one. We explained the meaning of "are one", but she still didn't understand. She also believes that as lond as you ask for forgiveness you will be forgiven because of how loving God is, and therefore we don't need baptism. She wants to have all of her questions answered right now, and won't allow us to teach. She does read everything we leave her, but she is not progressing to this point. After our lesson with Wendy we were able to see David and Mellissa. We had a really great lesson with them about prophets. We were able to really help him understand what prophets are and why we have them, as well as what the priesthood is. We set a baptismal date with him for the week after the two of them are getting married which is June 22. He recognized that he feels the Spirit when he goes to church, and he came on Sunday, and said that it feels good to be back.

Thursday we met with Tom M, we had a powerful lesson with him about the Atonement, and repentance, where we invited him to repent at the end of the lesson. He came to church yesterday, and it was great to see him there. After dinner we met with Howard M, and talked with him about scripture study, and how it is important to actually study, rather that just read. You can read a book a hundred times, but until you actually study it you miss a lot of the meaning, and lose some of the power. This is especially true I think with the Book of Mormon. We also had a lesson with Dirk R. And he started off by bringing up the church's new website mormonsandgays.org. He said that it disturbed him because he has friends who are gay, and he supports them. We talked about that for a little bit, and then talked about prophets, and their role in helping us come to Christ, and how they teach us to keep the Sabbath holy,and attend church. He was going to come this week, but had a family thing come up, and called us on Saturday and told us he couldn't make it. The feeling I got from that lesson is that I think Dirk might be gay. I'm not sure, but thats the feeling I got.

Friday I had an exchange with Elder Richardson, he came to my area, and Elder Lott went there with Elder Lasley. we had a pretty good exchange, though it didn't start the best. Elder Richardson slept in till 7:30, and caused studies to run late. We had a great day when we got out though, we were able to do some tracting, and we gave a Book of Mormon away, and she said that we could come back, a possible family to teach. Also we were able to meet with the Rivers family, and talk about the sacrament. We taught Shawn G, who is a marine, and usually works on Sundays, he seems to be kind of indifferent to this, but is willing to meet with us, and thats the first step.

 

Saturday we met with Bishop S and went over the ward misison process with him. He is planning on doing a training on that in ward council next week. We are going to help him train. That night we stopped by Jon R, who we found from the unordained list. He and his son, who is also a lessactive member had just gotten home from the bar. They weren't drunk, but had been drinking. We listened as John told us why he doesn't come to church. He has had a sad life, with lots of run ins with hypocrisy, and he is tired of it. we both shared our testimony, and I promised him that Moroni's promise works, and invited him to try it out again. It was a powerful visit.

Sunday was a great day. During testimonies the Bishop got up and talked about missionary work, he also said how great missionaries we are, a definite sign of trust. From there the whole meeting flowed with a missionary theme. It was powerful. Most of the ward members came out of there fired up to do missionary work, and we hope as we go and teach them during dinner that we can capitalize on that and help them to be "doers of the word, not hearers only". That night we were able to go out and do visits with our EQP, and we were able to find out that several of the people had moved. Not full of teaching, but a productive night nonetheless.

That was about it for our week. I think that since it is the end of the transfer that I should give you a review of Elder Lott. He has made so much progress, and is constantly trying to do better. He is humble and sincere, and loves the people. He is commited to being obedient, even if is companion is not. He has taught me so much, and I feel it a priveledge to have been able to serve with him. He is a fantastic missionary with a powerful testimony. I will be sad if we get transferred, though I expect that it is going to happen. I am looking forward to the future, knowing that it is going to be good.

Love, Elder Schultz

 

PS. I don't have time to include scriptures in this email, but I will try to add them next week.

Wow, I am glad today is P-day, because it gives me a chance to catch my breath a little. This last week has been incredible with regards to teaching, and total of 32 lessons, but we are struggling to get people to church. A couple of them were out of town this Sunday, but there were several who just didn't come.

So lets start off with Monday. In the morning we went with our WML to see Wendy Manula. We taught her the Restoration, and she fed us breakfast. She is full of questions, and has an incredible desire to learn. She is really concerned with where she is in the picture. She asked us a few times what would happen to her if she died before getting her answer on what to do. She said that she has been praying, but hasn't gotten an answer. We have been focusing on helping our investigators to regocnize the Spirit, so hopefully that will help her to be able to understand what God is telling her. That night we tried to see a few of the names from our unordained list, but we were unsuccesful.

Tuesday I fell we had a really successful District Meeting. We trained on tracting. Specifically Teach when you find, find when you teach. That is something that has really helped Elder Lott and I. As we begin to teach and testify as we meet people on the doorstep we have seen an incredible increase in the effectiveness in tracting. The Spirit touches peoples hearts and they want to learn more. Of the five new investigators we have gotten in the last two weeks all of them have been from tracting. After our District Meeting we went right out and started tracting. In the first 30 minutes we were able to find a potential investigator, and give a Book of Mormon away. We were also able to stop by Theres(Trace). She is someone Elder Lott tracted into while I was at the leadership training. We were able to teach her the first lesson, and set up a return appointment for this Tuesday. She is from Switzerland, and she has a really strong accent. That night we were able  to meet with the R's family again, which was great. We read with them from Alma 7 talking about the Atonement. Her husband is still not interested, but she wants to come back, and he listens in on the lessons. We also saw Clancy G that night. He is still doing well, and even signed up to feed us dinner in a couple weeks.

Wednesday we did some tracting in the morning, and were almost late to our temple trip. I love the time we had to spend in the temple and ponder what I can do better to help my district, and improve myself. We were able to stop by a few of our potentials after the temple, and we were able to get in and teach one of them. His name is Devin, he doesn't believe in God, but is open to learning more of what we have to say. We shared with him part of Alma 22 how King Lamoni's father came to know God, and bore our testimony that He is there, and that he could know for himself. We set up a return appointment for this Tuesday.That night we had a lesson with Howard M, who has in his words, "just been slacking a little". It has been a few weeks since he has come to Church.

Thursday was crazy. After our weekly planning we went to see Tom M, he was home, but he didn't have time for us to teach a lesson, so we rescheduled for this week. Tom H called and cancelled our appointment. We went and did some tracting, and found a couple families that may be interested in hearing our message, we will stop by them this week. The Myers called and cancelled. Bob F called and cancelled, which created a problem, because we had two appointments scheduled at 7 and we needed him to do splits. We tried finding a replacement with no luck, but then the Lyons called and cancelled, and we ended up not needing a split after all. We went to see Jason W at 7, and he stood us up, but we were able to teach his wife Pamela, who was a recent convert. After that we went and saw Dirk R. He is doing so good. He has been reading every week. We asked him again about Church, and he said not this week, but he will come next time. Coming to Church is going to be a big step for him, but it will help him so much.

Friday I had my first exchange as District Leader. It was with Elders Palmer and Hehl. I went with Palmer in Summerlake. We were able to teach a member present in the morning with Erica R, we had a potential commit to coming to Church this week, and we had an other lesson with John. It was an ok day, but it could have been much better. I talked with Palmer about how he and Hehl were doing, and he said that they have been pretty lazy, which is apparent by their stats. He said it was seasonal depression. He has been taking his vitamin d pills, so we will see if that makes a difference. When I called for stats yesterday they had 5 total lessons, and I taught three of them while I was there. I am trying to think of something that I can do to help motivate them more. One thing I noticed that isn't related to the work directly is that Elder Palmer didn't eat his dinner. Apparently he is a picky eater too. It reminded me of my time with Elder Awtry, I talked to him about it a little, because I don't want to see it turn out the same. Elder Lott and Elder Hehl had a great day in Raleigh Hills, and were able to teach three lessons as well.

Saturday we did more tracting. We were also able to stop by Tom H, and teach him the rest of  the Restoration. We didn't have a member with us, and we weren't able to set a return appointment this time, but it seems like Saturdays are best, so we may just stop by again this week if we can't get ahold of him. That night the Lyons cancelled on us again, and so we finished the night working over more of the unordained list. We also took the Bishop the progress record, and he mentioned how he thinks we are doing a great job. We definetly have his trust. We offered our services in training the WC on PMG ch11, and he said that would be great. I am looking forward to seeing the ward misson process get moving.

Sunday we had a great Stake Conference. I have had one in every area. This one had such a strong Spirit. I learned a lot about how to stretch myself, and how to make the missionary purpose to invite others to come unto Christ by having faith in Him and His Atonement, repenting, being baptized, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end, my purpose. I need to have a greater vision of what I am to do, and help others to do the same. Elder Lott is right there with me and we are going to work on doing better, and having a vision to baptize. Right after the conference was over we went tracting. There were a lot of people home. One lady we talked to, her name was Mary, and she said she was Catholic, and was going to say she wasn't interested, but Elder Lott was persistent, and kept going with the Restoration. We shared the whole thing with her, and after the 1st Vision she said "Wow". She felt the Spirit, and wanted to learn more. We kept talking with her, and found out that due to hard times in her life she has gained a strong testimony of prayer. We left her with a Book of Mormon, and commited her to read and pray. We are planning on following up with her this week. After dinner we did some more tracting before it got dark. By then the superbowl was on, and people weren't very receptive. They were to attached to the world, and didn't want to take time for God. That night we were able to see a less active sister, that the RS president asked us to see, and she was open to have us come back. We are planning on doing so this Sunday.

I read this morning in my studies the parable to the Good Samaritan, and I thought of another application as it applies to missionaries, and talking with everyone. There are people everyday who are spiritually sick and dying on the side of the road. If we don't open our mouths and talk with them, then it is like just walking by them as the priest and the Levite did. We need to be like the good Samaritan, and have compassion on them, and help them to be healed.

Elder Lott is doing great. He has really been working on improving, and has helped me to do the same. He gets letters from his family a lot, and I can see how much he loves them, and misses them, but wouldn't trade his time here for anything. He has a strong testimony, and a commitment to be obedient, and to serve with all his heart. He is a great example to me. I love him so much.

 

I'm glad to hear that Alese's funeral was so good. It is always a sad thing to see someone pass, but I do know that this Gospel, and the Plan and everything that goes with them are true, and so I know that they are happy, and that we will see them again.

 

Love Elder Schultz

 

I'm sorry to hear about Alese. Tell the Cunninghams I said hi. There has been a lot of death around recently it seems, but I agree, it is a little easier with the knowledge of the Gospel. Well I hope that I have enough time today to adequately report on this last week. It was a jam-packed week, full of teaching and finding. We had great success. Including MRL's we were able to teach a total of 27 lessons, and we had 14.5 hours of tracting. We were busy.

Monday started off with member lessons. We taught one at dinner, and we were invited to teach a family home evening to one of our ward missionaries as well. We spent the rest of the evening trying to hunt down some of the unordained members from the ward list.

Tuesday during our District Meeting we learned about teaching MRL's. This is a subject that I have really seen work. It is a great way to build member trust, and increase the work. As you teach the members they see you as master teachers and trust you with their friends, and as you do you best to teach members you find others along the way. I had Elder Davidson do the training, he was the one who taught me what I know about it after all. It went well, and the district has already improved in this category. After that we were able to do some service with the Lyons. We helped her to clean up her yard a litte. We stacked wood, took out the trash, and even helped her put up a giant cardboard movie cutout. Due to time we weren't able to teach her after service, but we were able to talk with her a little as we helped. We did some more tracting that afternoon, with decent results. We have a few more potential investigators that we can follow up on this week, and hopefully be able to start teaching them frequently. After dinner, we had a lesson fall through, and so we went to see Wendy M, who we had found a week before. We were able to get in and teach her because we had our WML with us. She has been studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses, and had cancelled her meeting with them that night, but let us in when we came. We saw her again this morning, and she told us that they are getting really nervous about us meeting with her. We were able to answer some more of her questions, and teach her a little of the Plan of Salvation. She is so anxious to know the truth. She kept asking what would happen to her if she died, and how she fit in to all of the things that we believe. She will be baptized soon.

Wednesday we did some more tracting. We were also able to meet with Tom M, he is less active. He knows the answers, but has no desire to change. It is tough to work with him, because he doesn't want to do anything. He reminds be a little of myselfe before I decided to serve a mission. I knew the answers, but didn't want to do anything about it. We were also able to stop by David and Melissa, and share a message with them about enduring to the end. They haven't been to church in a while, due to sickness, but they also said that they haven't really been making it a high priority. That night we were able to meet with Kris S. She has two nonmember children, one of whom sat in on the lesson. She is less active, and due to scheduling conflicts will be attending the Maplewood ward. We called the sisters, and passed her off to them so they could teach her.

Thursday we were able to see Kelly. She is also someone we found a week or so ago. We had a lesson cancel, and so we took the member over to her house, and were able to teach her the restoration more in depth. Bro K bore a great testimony about prayer, and she was excited to "try it out" for herself. That night we were able to do splits with some of the members in our ward. Elder Lott went and taught Dirk, who has continued to read and pray. He said that he had felt the Spirit, and wanted it more in his life. They invited him to be baptized, and he said that he would when he recieved an answer on the Book of Mormon. We asked him to pray about date.

Friday was more tracting, with several potential investigators. Just before dinner we stopped by another one of the unordained members, and were able to find out a couple things. One, he doesn't live there. Two, his nonmember parents do, and they had had contact with the Church before, and enjoyed it. They invited us back to teach. Our lessons for that evening cancelled, and so we went out and did some more visits with one of our ward missionaries. We were able to see one unordained person. We didn't actually see them, but their wife, who is a nonmember said that we could stop by this week and see him. Hopefully that is another teaching opportunity.

Saturday we had our coordination meeting, and were able to give the Bishop the progress record right after. We were able to see Tom H as well. We got a text message from him about 5 minutes before the lesson asking if we could do a different time, and I felt that we should go anyway. We did, and we were able to get in and teach. I think that he was starting to get cold feet a little, and that we were able to help him see that this is nothing to be afraid of. We had a great lesson with him, we talked a lot about prophets, he had a hard time understanding, but we were able to answer his questions. We had dinner that night with Jason Whitten, and one of our ward missionaries. We were able to talk with him about his reading, and answer a few more of his questions. After we left he talked with our ward missionary, and asked him a bunch of questions. I have seen a lot of progress with him. We were also able to see the Williams, and teach the Gospel. We did a good job helping them to understand the importance, and how it relats to them. We finished the night with Clancy G. We taught him about the resurrection, and read with him from the Book of Mormon. He came to church again, and has signed up to feed us dinner.

Sunday we had PEC, we were invited, and the first thing they talked about was missionary work. We went over some of the names on the progress record, and what we could do to help them. We had another lesson cancel, but were able to make some visits. We found a less active member who is from Farr West. What a small world, because no one knows where that is, let alone being from there. We had a great meeting with him. He is not interested in coming back at this time, but I think we were able to help him feel the Spirit. We had dinner that night with the Watsons, they are a part member family, and they were really fun. They pray and study the scriptures as a family everyday. I get the feeling that someday he will get baptized, and his son, who is incredibly spiritual, will baptize him. 

Thats about all for our work. Elder Lott and I are doing great. One thing I learned on Sunday was: If you want to love someone, do things for them to show that you love them, and then you will come to love them. What a true statement, it is hard not to love someone you are serving.

 

Love, Elder Schultz