Great Week!!!

This week was super awesome!!  We had Zone Conference and got the new Easter pass a long cards, they are so awesome, and the video is amazing!!  I would highly suggest watching it (followhim.mormon.org)!  The cards are super easy to give out down here, and the people love the video, so its really useful!  We had an awesome experience with David this last week with it.  He came to mutual and was kinda standing off to the side, so I went over to talk to him and we got talking about rules of the mission and why we have them and what we do as missionaries, so we told him that we share a message about Jesus, and asked him if he knew why we celebrate Easter.  He had no idea.... it really amazed me!  So we showed him the video and he was literally without words.  He was so amazed and said that it would be so awesome to see family again and we told him he could.  He doesn't know much about Christ, so we are going to have to start super basic with him, but it will be good!!

We also had a lesson with Jim Brown, and we talked more about The Book of Mormon,
he read the intro to The Book of Mormon and stopped because it said something along the lines "Come to Christ and follow his commandments and you will be saved" and he stopped because he thought it meant that we are saved by works, but we simple told him that you have to come to Christ first to be saved and he accepted it and said he will continue to read and pray!  The person that goes over to his house with us told us that he is the closest that he has ever been to joining the church, he has been an investigator since 2012!!  He is soooo close!  Hopefully we will be able to see the fruit, but if not us, hopefully someone soon!

On Friday, I had a really neat experience, I decided to start a fast to find someone to teach.  That night, we decided to go over to the Anderson house to teach some new member lessons, and they were doing missionary work!!!  There was an inactive member there talking to them about church, and she wants to come back!!!  We met with her and she knows that she needs to change and come back to church because it will bless her life!  It really is amazing how God answers prayers!  Not only did he answer mine, but he answered hers!! GOSH, I LOVE THE GOSPEL!!

Saturday we had another family history booth set up for a mainstreet "bluewater, bluegrass, BBQ" it was so awesome!  We talked with a ton of people and had a great time!!  There was some AWESOME country music playing, it made me want to learn to play the fiddle so bad!!  Also, right across from our family history booth was a freaking marijuana booth hahahahahahahaha!!!!!  We went and talked to the guy, he was so awesome, he had a weed morph suit and all these weed leaf things hahaha, so dang funny!!

The work here is super fun, Elder Renslow and I get along really well and make the bad experience fun and positive!  I love it here!!

  I hope y'all have a great week and take time to watch that Easter video!

Elder Schipaanboord

Stuck in traffic, coming back from Zone Conference in Ft. Walton.  Chick-fil-la for the win!

The Matthews family moved... they left to N. Carolina... they were super awesome and made sure to take care of us, I sure am going to miss them.

Danny Parker!!  This guy is so awesome!  He signed up to go on splits with us!  Super great guy and loves the gospel!!

FUN WEEK!!

This week was a super fun one!  We did a lot of great things and had fun while doing it!  We went over to a members house to help their kids find names on family search to take to the temple.  We were having a really hard time, and it was getting time for us to leave, so I said a silent prayer that we would find someone, and the next thing we know, we found 3 people that needed to be baptized!  It was such a great experience for me as well as Kaleo. 

On wednesday, we met with Jim Brown and had a great meeting with him.  He had totally forgotten our last lesson with him but we committed him to do the sticky note thing, and he agreed!  We also asked if he would be baptized if he came to know it was true, and he said "OF COURSE!"  He honestly loves Christ so much, its amazing!  He knows his Bible forwards and backwards and says that he doesn't have time to read The Book of Mormon, because he has too much to read in the bible. I know if he actually just reads and prays he will get an answer, so I can't wait to see him this week and talk with him again!

So we also went to mutual on Wednesday, and David (kid we always play basketball and football with) decided to come, because a young women in one of his classes invited him.  We did fear factor, and he loved it!  One of the activities was to eat random gross things, and the leaders got us involved, I had to eat freaking octopus, it was so nasty!!  I most definitely threw it up hahaha!  After the activity was over, Olivia (that young women) invited him to church, and he agreed!!   He said "I'm going to try it out," that is huge!!  He has never wanted to come (sisters you don't realize how much of an influence you have).  So he didn't end up coming, because of stupid daylight savings, but he called us and promised us that he would be there next week!

We went over to see Quinton again, and he told us he was reading from The Book of Mormon and his aunt came over to him and took it from him, told him it was bad, and threw it in her burn pile!  He wasn't really fazed by it, because he knows it isn't bad, so he asked for another one, and he is just going to hide it from her hahahaha!  At the end of our lesson, he prayed for us and he asked that "the mormon men will find people to change and have the people that they see know The Book of Mormon is true."  He is basically a member, but his dad and aunt aren't interested, it's sad!  I know he will join the church one day, hopefully we can soften the hearts of his family and it will be soon.

On friday I went on a trade off with Elder Pranger, he's been out for 1 month, it was pretty fun.  We didn't teach many lessons, but we sure did use our priesthood authority!  We gave 3 blessings, it was so dang cool!  I honestly felt like one of the 12 apostle in the Bible, just going around healing people, it was so cool!  It's so amazing that we have that Priesthood Authority on the earth today and we can do the same things that were done in the Bible!

So the last noteworthy thing that we did was do the gallon challenge on Saturday.  The Miskins invited us over to dinner and asked if we wanted to do the gallon challenge, and we were more than happy to, we had always wanted to do it!  So Bro. Miskin and us all got a gallon of milk and started drinking!  It started out super fun, but then about half way through, we felt so sick!  I only made it 3/4 of the way before I was outside throwing up!  I don't think I had ever felt so good after throwing up hahaha it was awesome!  We had such a good time, they are such a great family!!

Well, sorry for the long email, but it was a good week hahaha.

I hope that y'all have an awesome week.  Love you all!

Elder Schipaanboord

Cool pond we found.

Cool pond we found.

64 oz of Mountain Dew.

After 64 oz of Mountain Dew.

My sister sent out some Poo Dough (exactly what it sounds like) and a can of snow.   I totally used the poo dough (I'll spare you the photos) and it was so dang fun!  We put it in the middle of our floor when the other elders came over and they were so disgusted!  It was so dang funny!  And the snow, it was super cool!  It came in that tiny can and expanded into a huge mixing bowl of snow, it was so awesome!!  Things like that are so fun!

MARCH

This week was super awesome!!  We had a lot of really great experiences!  Elder Renslow and I decided to do something pretty cool for our studies; we each took a sticky note and wrote down a question that we had, prayed about it, and opened up to a random page in The Book of Mormon to find our answers and it worked!!  We both had similar questions, regarding becoming a better missionary, and when we came together for comp study found out that we both opened up to the EXACT SAME PAGE!!  It was honestly so crazy, but a huge testimony builder to know that The Book of Mormon really does answer your questions.  I encourage y'all to do the same activity.  Write down a question on a sticky note, pray about it, and open up to a random page in The Book of Mormon and you WILL get an answer, no matter what the question is, it will get answered!

We have been teaching this lady named Genoa (a less active) who is a heavy smoker, but wants to quit.  She has been stuck in her ways but recently went to an addiction recovery class put on at the church and had a really good time there and is pushing forward!  She is not the same person that I met 5 months ago, it is crazy!  She seems so much more happy and humble!  We asked if we could trade her our favorite verses in the scriptures for her pack of cigarettes and she handed them over like it was nothing, it was sooooo cool!!  But it felt awkward driving around with them in our car hahahaha so we got rid of them as soon as we could!

Elder Renslow and my focus for this transfer has been to contact all the less actives on the roster and we have found tons of people who have moved away like 10 years ago, but it is a really really good way to get to know some new people, and we have actually gotten two new investigators out of it!  The other day, we were getting yelled at and threatened to have the cops called if we came back, so that was fun, but seriously, it was.  I don't know why they get so mad, like if they just ask for us not to come back we will respect that, but they insist on being super rude, so we just get a kick out of it and killed them with kindness.  So we were getting ready to knock on a door to meet a less active, when out of nowhere a Camaro comes flying around the corner, parks two houses down, and a lady pops out and comes over to us and asks if we have an extra Book of Mormon!  Elder Renslow and I were in awe, because that never happens, so we could hardly speak to her.  It turns out, she was baptized when she was 8 years old and then fell away, and now her son (living with his dad) is going on a mission and she wants to get back into the church!  This was another huge testimony builder to know that God has a plan for us and we were meant to be there at that specific time, it was so cool!

One last thing, testimony meeting yesterday was super good.  There were a lot of really great testimonies that were given.  One kid, Isaiah (17) got up and bore his testimony on trials and how he is thankful for them, because of the person that they have made him become.  He has been going through a lot lately, so it was really powerful to hear that from him.  There was another one given where this lady said that the word "covenant" in French is "alliance."  How cool is that?!  When we make a covenant with God, like baptism, we form an alliance with him, and if God is on our side, then we have nothing to fear!

I truly am so thankful for the gospel.  I know that it really does bless our lives more than we can comprehend.  It is so awesome being out here sharing that with people and helping them come closer to Christ and live/have a better life.  I love you guys and hope that you have an awesome week and take time to recognize all the things that the Lord does for you, it will really surprise you!

Love

Elder Schipaanboord