New Transfer

well this week was a long one, but boy was it a good one!! elder Johnson and I drove down to Tallahassee to pick up my new companion, his name is elder sabin from lehi Utah, and is a flippin giant!! he is like a foot taller than me, its so crazy!! but he is such a funny guy, we are getting along really well. he is brand new, straight from the mtc, but he is teaching me so much!! he has such a love for the work and is always wanting to go out and help people, and is wanting to become better, so he is trying to do everything, its amazing! this week we did a lot of tracting, which normally isn't really effective, but we saw so many miracles!!! we went tracting in the hood and the government housing (predominantly black) and people were pulling off the road and telling us to be careful, but the people were actually really humble and wanted to learn more, so we have a bunch of lessons set up this week with a ton of potentials!

on Wednesday, we had something that I thought only happened to missionaries in Utah! so this family gave us some money for dinner, and then we went over to a less active members home, and they were going out to buy groceries, and told us to come with and they would buy us some food at the store, then as we were pulling away, a member came up to us and gave us money for "dessert" it was honestly the craziest thing ever!!! but I learned something very valuable out of this. when the less active wanted to buy us food we said it was alright, because we had money and we also knew they are in a really tough situation financially right now, but she looked me in the eyes and said "no, we insist, we have a son on a mission and want to help yall, plus we need the blessings" it killed me!! its so amazing the faith that people have and how much they want to help us out, and how we need to allow people to serve us, so that they can receive the blessings. I am growing to love this place more and more, and I will never forget that experience!

later in the week we went to see this active member named mark, and elder sabin was so confused on why we were going over there, so he wanted to get in and get out. we talked with him for a little and then asked if we could share a message and he said "are y'all going to leave right after you share your message, you haven't been here that long..." it was super sad, cause we are the only people that visit him and he just wants someone to talk to. it made me realize that there is more to missionary work than just non members and less actives, we should be helping everyone and making everyone feel and know that we love them.

on Saturday we went and volunteered at the watermelon festival and officiated the 5k "hot trot" and boy was it hot!! we were just standing there, not moving at all, and were still sweating buckets, it was so crazy!! the heat and humidity is getting so crazy, I don't know how people live down here hahahaha! but we are having so much fun and know that there are going to be some amazing things happening!!

I love y'all so much! hope y'all have a great week!

elder skippy!

Typical Florida

Well not much happened this week... a lot of things fell through but its okay, it made us get out and do some tracting.  Boy oh boy is it hot!!!  Like dang!!  Everyone said that Florida was going to be hot and humid but I thought that it wouldn't be that bad, I couldn't have been more wrong!  We will be standing outside in the shade, not doing anything, except for sweating buckets!!  When we go walk around, we get sweat tacos through our white shirts, and that is pretty hard to do!  So a lot of times, we will end up changing clothes and sometimes showering twice a day.  And the bugs, my goodness!  There are so many dang bugs here it is ridiculous!  Everywhere we go we have to wear bug spray and they are immune to it!!  We get bites all over the place!!  But i love it!!  It is so much fun!
 

So transfer calls came yesterday, and Elder Johnson is leaving...  I find out who my new comp is on Wednesday, I am super excited, hopefully he's going to be a good one!!  We also found out that they are taking the other missionaries in the Chipley ward, so now the new comp and I have a giant area, it's so sick!! A bunch of crazy dirt roads and lots of trailers!!  I really am so happy to be here, I love it and know that there is so much potential here!!

Sorry for the short letter, but nothing much happened this week!

I hope that y'all have an amazing week!!

Love Elder Skippy!!

Welcome to my crib.

Rain.

Rain.

Carl's Baptism

This week was so awesome!!! We had coordination meeting at the park (like always) and this guy rode up on his bike, waved at us, and then sat down on the other end of the park and kept looking at us, so I thought "man we need to go talk with him", so right after coordination, I said to Johnson "come on, we are going to get a new gator" and proceeded to go and talk with him.  He was a really nice guy and we had a great conversation with him and then testified about the restoration of the gospel. he thought it was interesting and said that we could come by his house sometime, he gave us his number and his address, it was so sick!! its amazing what can happen when you actually follow those promptings that you get from the spirit, its hard and scary, but if you don't make that first step of faith, how is the lord supposed to help you see miracles?

we then headed down to panama city beach for our farewell zone conference with president and sister smith. it was really fun! there was a slide show of their whole mission, we did some skits and had some awesome food! presidents biggest pet peeve is when missionaries say "pres, this is hard", he said "good, i'm glad its hard, in fact i hope its hard, cause how are you supposed to grow if you don't have trials?" it was pretty cool to hear that, cause its so true! just like the refiners fire, how are you supposed to get better if you don't get put through the heat?

so for like half of the week, we couldn't get in contact with carl, like at all... he wasn't home and he wasn't answering his phone, so we were stressing out, cause he was scheduled to be baptized on saturday.... but on friday night we got a call from him telling us that his car broke down, and he went to stay at his niece's house, cause she was going to help him stay strong and not let him smoke!! when we heard that, we seriously started going crazy in the car, we were so happy (it must have been really funny to see)! so on saturday, we went over to the church, filled up the font and proceeded to have a baptismal service for carl, it was amazing!!! he loves the gospel so much! he keeps every commitment we leave with him, studies out of Preach My Gospel and the addiction recovery packet, and quite drinking and smoking, it truly is amazing! all of his crazy past is now wiped away, and he knows that! i am so glad that i was able to be a part of his 2 year long conversion!

i am so thankful for this gospel and how much it has blessed my life. it truly is the most amazing thing ever and brings me so much peace and happiness, i am thankful to be out serving the lord and having the opportunity to gain a stronger testimony of his restored gospel, i KNOW for a fact that it has been restored, and you can too if you truly search, ponder and pray.

i love you all, thank you for everything!!

love elder schipaanboord

 

Carl's house.

Saying goodbye to Elder Peck

 

Goodbye to Pres. and Sister Smith.

Hammer and screwdriver to break the frozen beef.

This train comes through Chipley every night, stopping traffic for like 15 minutes.

 

WE FOUND HER!!!

This week was pretty dang stellar!  First and foremost, as you can tell by the title, we found Sarah again!!!  We were driving down this road and saw her walking, so we turned around and pulled over the car to talk with her, I totally felt like a stalker but I wasn't going to let her slip through my fingers again!  So we talked with her and told her to give us a call sometime and then she walked away and came back and said "What was your number again?" and we realized we didn't get her number, so we said that we would text it to her and she gave us her number and went on her way.  Right when she left, Johnson and I started flipping out and screaming hahahahah it was so funny!!  We then saw her and her sister a few more times while walking around and talked with them some more.  While talking, they said "Man, we like you guys, you guys are cool, I hope y'all don't get moved any time soon."  It was sick!  We tried to set up an appointment with them, but they were still flakey, so Johnson and I decided that we are just going to teach them on the street the next time we see them, the Lord keeps putting them in our path, so we need to take advantage of it. 

Last week on P Day, we went over to Bro. Aukema's farm and climbed up on top of his silo, it was so sick!!  But super sketchy too!!  We climbed up this crazy ladder, which wasn't too bad, but going down was so scary, although it was all worth it!!  We saw so much of his farm land, and we could even see the horizon, something we haven't seen in quite a while!!

We also saw Carl a few times this week, and taught him about baptism.  We showed him the object lesson with the pepper in the water and the soap being the priesthood.  When you dunk your finger, nothing happens, but when dunked with the "priesthood" all of the pepper disperses.  He has had a pretty crazy past, and we told him that because of the savior EVERYTHING can be washed away.  Carl got super excited and said "So when are y'all gonna baptize me?"  Johnson and I looked at each other and just smiled!  We set a date for the 11th and got him interviewed on Saturday, and he passed!!!!  We just have to make sure that he doesn't smoke a cigarette, or we will have to push it back a week, but we have been praying and fasting for him, so we have faith that he can push through!

It truly is amazing how the Gospel can take anyone, no matter their past and turn them into something amazing!  In Malichai 3 it talks about how the Lord is going to be our refiner.  The cool thing about a refiner, is that he sits there carefully watching the metal while all of the imperfections are burned out.  If he pulls the metal out too soon, there are still imperfections, and if he waits too long, the metal will burn, so how does he know when to take the metal out?  When he sees his own reflection.  The Savior is our refiner and is patiently waiting for all of our imperfections to be taken out, and the second that he sees his own reflection in us is when he takes us out.

 "We see ourselves as yesterday and today, but the Lord sees us for who we can become tomorrow"

I love y'all so much and hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Schipaanboord

Cookies from the Hansen's

Cookies from the Hansen's

On top of the silo.

 

Silo

Trying to feed cows.

$3 suit

"Back to Back World War Champions"

Bennett DR.  For my nephew, Bennett.

Chipley

This week was super sick!!  Johnson and I went down to Panama City to go on trade offs with the Zone Leader's, guess who I got to go with?  That's right, Elder Peck!!!  It was so fun to spend a day with him again, he is so dang funny!!!  At night we did some funny role plays of him talking to cute girls when he gets home, and giving his mom a hug (he goes home in 3 weeks) I think he has got this in the bag!  While there, we talked to this lady who was working in her yard and she was trying to tell us that there is one God and that we shouldn't worship a man.  We simply told her that we don't worship Joseph Smith and that it was Christ who restored His church through Joseph Smith by revelation.  She was just awestruck, and said "Wow, I didn't know that."  It's crazy what people hear and believe about us and then when we tell them the truth they know it makes sense and it is true.

Our house is right off of Martin Luther King DR, and if any of you know anything about any city is that MLK is the hood, so what we do from 8-9 is we walk around and talk to as many people that will let us, but most people just go and hide.  This week we went out walking and talked with this girl named Sarah for like 20 minutes. We tried to get her info, so we could stop by, but she was kinda sketched out and made up some excuse.  Johnson and I both felt like we would see her again and that she will accept the Gospel.  Well, two days later, we were walking around at 8 on a "Sarah hunt." hahaha.  We were joking around and yelling her name, cause we didn't think we would actually find her.  Well guess what, WE DID!!! (thankfully we weren't yelling her name at the time haha).  We talked with her and her sister for 30 minutes about a lot of different things about the church and what we do as missionaries.  They were super impressed and really like the whole idea.  Well needless to say, we forgot to get their info................. we messed up big time!  The lord put her in our path again and we messed up!!  But I have a firm belief that we will find her again, and this time, we wont mess up!

Every week, we go do service at this thrift store, by sorting out things, cleaning up the place, or whatever they want us to do, well this week, we were looking around the store and found their suit section, and we each found the SICKEST suit ever, and it fit perfectly!!!!! (Johnson has to get his tailored a little bit).  Guess who much it cost, 3 bucks a pop!!  Gosh, such a good deal!  I wish I would've gone to thrift stores sooner!

Then on Sunday, my second Sunday here, I had to give a talk... haha.  Just like back in the View!  There were three speakers, me and the two sister missionaries, and I was the concluding speaker.  I am so thankful that I actually took time to prepare and gather my thoughts together, because each of them only spoke for 5 min each.  I had 30 minutes to speak!  Thankfully I have gotten pretty good at talking about the gospel and knowing where scriptures are, so I had a bunch of stuff that just kept coming to me.  But I still only took up 25 min.  Thankfully the Bishop shared his testimony.  I am so glad to see how far I have come at speaking, because my first one in the View was terrible and I was so nervous, this one I was actually confident and i didn't read it word for word.  It's so sick how the Lord has made/helped me grow!

I'm so thankful for this Gospel, it truly is amazing!!!  It has blessed my life so much and I know for a fact that it will improve anyone's life.  The Lord promises that he will pour out blessing more than you can hold if you just do what he asks, it is so worth it!!

I love you guys and hope y'all have a great week!!

Elder Schipaanboord

 

Letters and home baked goods would be greatly appreciated!!! 

1245 Spivey LN
Chipley,  FL 32428