James letter 6-24-13

As for the work of this past week, it was a lot different that usual, which I guess is a good thing. Monday at the transfer meeting I was able to say goodbye to all of my former companions still serving, to catch up and say goodbye to old friends, and to take a picture with the elders from my MTC group. It was a tremendously spiritual meeting. It was neat to be a part of history in the making as we go forth into new missions.

Tuesday I gave a training and practice on a topic that has easily changed my mission. That topic is MRLs, how to work with members. I have seen that the best way to accomplish this work is to work with members. If you spend time with them in their home, and help them to do missionary work themselves, then the work will continue to pick up. You find more and more people to teach as you work with members. You love the ward more, and they love you. This was a fact that was mentioned in last nights broadcast. Working with members is the better way. It was neat to be able to teach that to my district because they are just starting, so they don't have to wait to let this change their missions, but they can do it now. We focused on teaching the doctrine of Christ as the message, and to tie all of the missionary work to that. After district meeting we went on a blitz witht he zone leaders. I was with Elder Lee, and we only knocked on a few houses, because we were able to talk in depth with several of the people. We also found an inactive member that may allow us to come and teach her. Elder Mohler, and Morgan found a family. They talked to a very pregnant mother, but couldn't go in to teach because she was alone. They set up a return appointment for that evening, but we weren't able to teach her then either, because she went to the hospital to have her baby. Very pregnant indeed! We met with Amy W, and were able to cover a couple chapters in the Book of Mormon with her, her understanding is very basic, and she is absorbing some, but a lot of the message is going over her head. We are trying to simplify it as much as we can. We were also able to set up a time to teach a family home evening to our bishop and his family.

Wednesday we met with Iris S, and we gave her a large print Book of Mormon. She was really excited about it. We spent the rest of the time playing a kind of game with her. We would read a scripture, and she would tell us if it was from the Book of Mormon, or the Bible. It was a cool way to show her how they teach the same message. We talked with brother Cole, a member in the ward, who is also her son in law, and he said that she has been bragging about the book we gave her, and telling how excited she is about it. A very good sign.

Thursday was a busy day. We did our weekly planning, went to the library to fill out our progress record, and spend some time on mormon.org. We saw the Coopers, and talked about the Gospel. We drew out the diagram that Elder Whiting showed us, with all of the ordinances included on it, and were able to show the importance of doing these things, we also talked about covenants, and what it is that we promise to do as we go through the path back to Him. We had a lesson with Sam again, he dropped us. He says that the priesthood ended when Christ came, that neither Christ nor John the baptist had the priesthood, and that the priesthood is not needed. We tried to answer his questions, but he wouldn't accept any answers. He also doesn't believe that the Bible has ever been changed. Those are just a few of his objections. We talked about what our purpose was in helping him find the truth, and asked him if he felt he had done all to know the truth. He said yes. What else can you do than pray that someday he will find it. He hasn't done anything other than read and pray, and he refuses to accept anything other than what he already knows. I pray that one day he will be humble enough to accept this.

Friday we spent the morning in Salem doing service for the dance festival. It was a tristake youth conference, and I actually saw several kids from my first area. They recognized me and it was cool to talk to them agian. We had a really good lesson with the Martins talking about our identity as children of God, and how Satan tries to make us doubt who we are so we will be miserable.

Saturday we were able to see Brian and Asia again. They invited us to stay for another BBQ, but we had to help out with the dance festival again. We gave her a Book of Mormon, and a restoration pamphlet, and are going to be able to teach through lesson one next time we see them. The dance festival was fun, I got the see some of the parent of the kids from my first area this time, and they were happy to see me as well. There are so many people that I have come to love, and I can't wait for when I can talk to them more often. We even got to dance in the last part of the show, it was awful. I had no idea what was going on, they taught us the moves for 5 minutes, and that was it. We looked bad, but we had fun.

Sunday was a busy day. We had Elder Hansen sit in on our ward council meeting. Sister Dodge spoke about gaining peace by sorting out your priorities; being humble, prayerful, and repentant always. Brother Dodge talked about how the scripture teach us what to do. The broadcast was incredible. A reemphasis on the importance of members working WITH missionaries. There are several things I liked, and I took lots of notes. It will be cool to see the use of technology in missionary work. I am excited to see things start to move forward. As we teach members at dinners we are going to follow up on this broadcast, and encourage them to help out.  

Love Elder Schultz

This past week has been a good one, with a lot of up and down for me personally. Tuesday was a great day, we stopped by and had a great lesson with Lao Y, we taught him the Gospel, and we reemphasized the points a lot to make sure that he understood, and remembered what we were talking about. We asked him at the end if he would like to be baptized, and he said yes. We asked him when, he said three or four months. We then set a date for September 7. He works late nights, and long days on the weekends, so 8am church is hard for him, but he committed to coming for sacrament meeting. He didn't make it this week, but we will keep committing him to it, and he will come. This week we are planning to teach him in a members home. That will cut down on distractions, help him to have friends in the church, and feel more of the Spirit. He is going to progress well, and we may even be able to move his date forward.

Wednesday we had a lesson with Sister H, and we found out that she has some interesting beliefs, and is a very depressed person. We went over the Plan of Salvation, and she believes that you will be reincarnated, so if you don't make it to the Celestial Kingdom in this life you will just come back and try again. We addressed that with the resurrection, your soul and your body will be reunited, never to be divided again. She also asked us two questions, which at the time I was unable to fully answer. What is joy?, and Why should I want to go to the Celestial Kingdom. We have been studying that, and also asking other members and missionaries to try and get a good answer, and this is what we came up with. Joy is a fulfilment of your potential as a child of God. The things that bring joy in life are expressions of your divine nature: Childbirth, Missionary work, Temple work, etc.., those are expressions of your creative powers, and the work of salvation, which is His work, a divine work. So the reason you would want to go to the Celestial Kingdom is because that is the only place that you can reach your full potential as a child of God in becoming as He is. In no other place can you do that. It was cool for me to gain added insight on those topics, and I hope that when we go back to see her that we can help her to understand why.

Thursday we had a bunch of lessons cancel, but we were able to meet with Sam again, and we had a really good lesson with him. We talked more about the Gospel, which in his eye is just faith. We talked about repentance, which by itself he agrees is something you should do, but he doesn't think that it is neccesary for salvation. He also doesn't think that baptism is more than a show of faith. We talked a lot about how faith is proved by works, and that if you don't have works, then you have no faith. You can have works without faith, but then it will be nothing more than checking the boxes, and will do you no good, because you have not real intent. We are judged by our works and our desires; to see if we did what we were commanded, and to see if our heart was in it or not. We shared several scriptures back and forth, and in the end I beleive we each came to the same conclusion, and agreed on it. The why of the works is more important than the work itself. "If a man offereth a gift, and not with real intent, it profiteth him nothing" We have to do the work yes, but the Lord also requires a glad heart and a willing mind.

Friday we had our mission tour, and I was really impacted by it. One of the first things that Elder Whiting said was write what you feel. I wrote down a couple of questions, and payed attention to how I felt about them, and I received answers. One of the questions that I had was how to consecrate myself to the Lord. I am tired of being half into it, and want to just give all of myself to him, but where to begin I'm not sure. He said to resolve to act, so I pormised myself that I would apply whatever he said. He talked also about changing now, and repenting, and using our agency righteously everytime, so that whenever a choice is before you you will choose correctly, narrowing your choices, but securing your freedom. In the leadership meeting he also talked about becoming more like Christ by following His character; by loving and serving others, not thinking about yourself, and being an example. I committed to myself, and later Elder Mohler and I committed to each other that we would be 100% obedient, and set an example for the rest of the district. One other thing that Elder Whiting asked us to do was to pray and ask if Heavenly Father loved us. I did, and I felt nothing.

Saturday we started the morning with service. Elder Mohler was a little nervous about transfer calls because we both thought that he would be leaving, and I would be training, because it was my last chance to do so. When the call came in that we were both staying together, he was relieved, and I was sad, and disappointed, not because we would be together, but because that meant I would never train, and that was the one thing that I have wanted to do my whole mission. I had prayed for it, I had become more obedient, and it didn't happen. That night in my prayers I discussed it with the Lord, I was confused and hurt, and wanted to know why. I told Him that I didn't feel loved, and the most incredible feeling of warmth came over me and enveloped me completely. I knew that He loved me. I asked him to help me to accept his will, and to fulfil my current assignment without any murmurings. Every missionary in my district will have been out five months or less, I would say that my role as a district leader here will enable me to train them all. I don't know why I'm not a trainer, but I know it wasn't His will, and I will accept that. I am sure that there is more that I can learn from Elder Mohler, and I look forward to continuing to work with him.

Sunday the messages in sacrament meeting were great. One of the priests gave a talk on the Plan of Salvation, and he did a great job in teaching it. He focused a lot on the questions why are we here?, where are we going?, and where did we come from? Our sunday school lesson we talked about the kingdoms of glory, and I was able to increase my understanding of that. During my personal study I read through the "how to improve your personal prayers" talk in the Ensign, and was really impressed by it. The experience that he shared at the end of that talk was quite similar to my experience right now. Sometimes the Lords will is one way, and our will is the other way. We have to humble ourselves, and allign our will to His, because His will won't change. He sees things in perspective, and He knows what each of us needs to be able to grow the most. We can only see the here and now, so His will often does not make sense to us, but in the end it is the better way to go. 

 

I got my package Wednesday I think, I loved the tie, it is ridiculous, but way cool. You guys have been so good to me. 

 

Love Elder Schultz

James letter 6-10-13

Its crazy to think that week five is already over. It seems that the more we are doing the faster time goes, which is a good thing I guess, but sometimes I wish that it would slow down just a little bit. Our Monday morning put us off to a good start, we met with Sam B, and read a couple chapters in the Book of Mormon with him, and we also saw the Lalliss family. It is a lot more of the same with them, though there is gradual hints of progress.

Tuesday we had a really good district meeting, where we were trained on teaching the MIT. It really kind of clicked in my head the importance of that, because if you don't have the Atonement, then you don't have the Gospel, the Plan of Salvation doesn't work, and there would be no need of a restoration, and no motivation to keep the commandments. Truly the Atonement is cetral to everything. I have tried hard this week to try and apply the Atonement more fully in my life, and I have seen a big difference. I started going through the Addiction Recovery book during my studies, and it has helped me a lot to understand what I can do to overcome weaknesses, and to use the Atonement. The way it is set up has really helped me realize a few things. One of which is that set backs are ok. When you first do something you are never perfect, you have to keep practicing and practicing, until you improve, and become perfect. Life is nothing more than practicing for eternal life. We are not perfect, but we need to keep practicing until we are. A while ago I was studying virtue in PMG, and to be honest I didn't find most of the scripture very helpful, because they just told you to be virtuous. I knew I needed to do that, but how was my question. This week I found the answer. I must "practice virtue"(D&C 38:24) until I become perfect at it. This changed my perspective my reassuring me that I don't have to be perfect all at once as long as I am still practicing.

Wednesday we were able to break new ground with one of our investigators. She is an elderly woman named Iris S, and she has told us that she doesn't want to be mormon, but she loves us coming by. On Wednesday we committed her to read the Book of Mormon, and she said that she would, and that she was really excited to do it. It was a big step for her. Also we went out with our WML, and visited a couple less active families, one we set up a return, and the second we taught a lesson, and Brother Gleason invited him to be taught the lessons by us. It was really cool to see it flow like that. Thats how the ward mission process should work; the member invites.

Thursday night we did splits; Elder Mohler went out with President Nelson, and I went out with one of our priests. They went and saw Sam Bible, and from all reports it was a really good, Spirit filled lesson. Sam seems like he may be coming around. I went and saw the Sharrows, we were able to watch some of the Bible Videos, and talk about Christ's Ministry. There are some really powerful videos there.

Friday we were able to see the Duffels again, and we set up to come back and do service this week. We also stopped by and saw the Taylors, and were able to give all three of them blessings, I love giving blessings, it is always a testimony to me of the reality of the priesthood. We had our coordination that night, and were able to work out another night to do splits with Brother Gleason for this week.

Saturday I was on exchange with Elder Buhler, and in the morning we had Elder Petersen with us while his companion Elder Thomas took the ACT. We did service with the Sharrows, helping them to clean out their garage. After we reunited Elder Petersen with his companion we went and had lunch with Brian and Asia. We tracted into Brian on Tuesday, and he invited us back. We tried to do service, but he wouldn't let us. Instead we had lunch, and then talked about what we do as missionaries, and answered a few of their questions. They are a really cool couple, and they told us to stop back anytime, so we will. That night we were also able to see the Walkers, and we had a great lesson on Jesus Christ. It is always cool to take time and just talk about the Savior, because He truly is incredible. I can hardly fathom sometimes what He did, but I know He did it.

Sunday I was able to speak in church. I didn't preapare anything, as I usually don't, but I felt inspired to talk about humility. As I was listening to the sacrament hymn "Thy will, O' Lord, be done" the Spirit testified to be that that was indeed true. A sweet reassurance that this is right. I started my talk with that, and then related the scriptures in Alma 32 about being blessed by being compelled to be humble, and being more blessed by humbling yourself. I then shared my own experience with being compelled rather that willfully humbling myself. I got a lot of compliments on my talk. I also saw Rachel L from Fanno Creek ward there, and it was cool to see a familiar face from a past area. We also attended the EQ presidency meeting, and instructed them on how the focus five should work, and we helped them to get it started by talking the three names that they had on their list, and making assignments to invite them to be taught. We are planning on doing this same thing with all of the other quorum and auxillary leaders.

That is a nutshell of the week. It was a good one, and it has gone by fast. I am excited to see what happens with transfers this week, as well as our Mission Tour on Friday. It should be a week full of the Spirit.

 

Love Elder Schultz

it always seems so easy to write these letters, because even though the week may seem slow there is always things happening that help you to progress. I find that there is almost not enough time to write everything that I do, and I don't even write everything that happened. This week was really good. We started off by teaching a FHE lesson to the Lalliss family on obedience. The parents speciffically requested that one, and they even helped to teach it. We gave each of the kids a specific commitment on what they can do to help make their home a happier place by obedience. It was really cool to be able to bring the Spirit into that home, by teaching the Gospel. While the mother reported that they didn't make it through the whole week, they did make it longer than they have in the past.
Tuesday we had the best district meeting ever. The zone leaders asked specifically if they could do the training, and I agreed. They trained us on goals and accountablility. It was just the thing that I needed to hear. The planning, and goal settings are seen in a different light, and the accountablility has really helped. One of the things I started to do was to use my journal to account for all of the days activities, doing this has helped me to be diligent in keeping my journal. And also, every night I have been saying a vocal prayer, and giving an accounting of my day to the Lord. I have seen a difference already. I don't want to write down, or tell about anything that wasn't what it should have been, so I have done a much better job at doing all that I can to help others, and further the work. We were able to have our lesson with Liz, and sister Haws, which went well, we invited both to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Liz wouldn't. She said that she knew Catholicism is true, and she doesn't need to, and to do so would be against her religion.
Wednesday our miracle was our lesson with Don. It was a really good lesson, we asked him what he wants in life, and he replied peace. We had taught the Seminary that morning on how to find peace in a troubled world, so the topic was fresh on our minds, and we knew that the only way to have peace is to live righteously. We invited him to be baptized, and he said he would, if he could quit smoking. He has alreaady done so once, but he doesn't think that he can do it again. We told him about the Atonement, and how Christ knows what he is going through, and how to help him. The Spirit was there, and it was really cool to see. Hopefully we will be able to continue to have experiences like that with him. Also I was studying on the Fall in order to answer some of Sam B's questions, and what I learned is that I don't teach that very well. Heavenly Father set up conditions so that the Fall could occur through the use of Agency. He did not cause it, or he would be an author of sin, and cease to be God, but he knew that it would happen, so he planned for it to happen in his favor. In our lesson that evening I was able to explain that in a way that he understood. We also finished the rest of the Plan of Salvation, and that brought up a whole bunch of other concerns. Including the necessity for baptism, the kingdoms of glory, and missionary work in the spirit world. One step forward three steps back with him.
Thursday we had a good planning session, and we were able to set our baptism goals according to Elder Grow, adapted by Elder Buhler. We also tracted for the first time since I've been in this area. We were able to give out one passalong card, thats it, but we will continue to work. We are going to start small and tract on half hour each day. One other thing that is learned was this: You can't have redemptive work done without work done on both sides of the veil-teaching in spirit world, temple work on earth. The same is true with missionary work. Missionary work doesn't work, unless there is work on both sides-the members, and the missionaries. Also a cool quote "You become what you want to become by consistantly being what you want to be."
Friday we were able to meet Kelly D for the first time. She was really nice, and happy to see us, and she invited us back. She is the mother of a less active family, and she has been brought up a few times for us to go see, and we were finally able to. We were also able to do more tracting, no luck this time.
Saturday we were able to see sister Haws without Liz this time. She said that she would really like lessons of her own, and we agreed. she has a new desire to find out whether or not this is true. We are going to teach her all of the lessons, and then help her deepen her understanding by going more in depth one topic at a time. We were able also to see the Walkers, and she has been flying through the D&C, whether she is getting anything out of it I'm not sure. Everytime we ask her what she thinks about scripture she just says "it just reinforces".

Sunday was weird. It was fast sunday, but I didn't even get to do a full fast, because we still had lunch with the Dodges at noon. I'm going to do another fast on Wednesday, so that I can have a whole one. I also left church right after the sacrament was passed to go with the Elders Holland and Pihno to SPC. Elder Mohler stayed with Ethan G. Spc was good, I enjoyed seeing President Ward again, I will miss him as well when the mission splits. We were able to discuss the strengths and the weaknesses of the wards, and what we could do to help. One thing that I liked was something that the Silverton sisters have been doing. They have been teaching active families through the ward mission process as well, so less active members don't feel singled out, and also it gives the members a way to invite others, by being able to share what their experience was, and even inviting them to their home. I want to see if we can implement that more in this ward. It will help build ward trust, and get the work moving.

 

Elder Mohler and I are getting along great. Its always nice when you are able to have fun with your companion, and to still get work done. We are also working on improving,and there is a lot of work, but we'll get there.

 

I sent a tote home. The Blacks from Hillsboro came and picked it up for me. They are going to be driving down to Utah for a wedding on the 4th, and said that they would probably drop it by on the 5th. I gave them the house phone, and mom's phone, so that they can call, and see when you will be home to receive it. It just a few things that I want to keep, but that I won't have room to fit in my suitcases. Time seems to be going way to fast, I want to stay out longer, would you hate me if I extended?

 

Love Elder Schultz