Happy Christmas

This week was pretty rad! We have been doing a lot of service for the Salvation Army lately, and this week we were able to help give out everything that has been donated, it was really cool!  Being able to be on the other side of that bell was really awesome!  The people there are so great and there is so much love! Every time we went to help out, I got so attached, I dodn't even know the people that I was gathering stuff for but I loved them so much and wanted what was best for them.  It was actually pretty hard not being able to do more for them.... I am honestly so fortunate to have the things that I have and I don't ever give the thanks that I should, I need to do better at recognizing the things the Lord has blessed me with and give thanks for them.

We were also able to visit with a few investigators, there is so much potential, it's awesome!  This one guy, named Jesse, is so solid!  He had a bcd at one point, but didn't stop smoking, so we are working with him now.  He had a dream about the 3 levels of heaven, and knows that "as man now is, God once was, and as God now is man may become."  This guy is so profound as well.  H has been through a lot in his life and always says "something learned through pain will remain" because he learned a lot of things the hard way, but now he has never forgotten them.  Anyways, I am super excited to teach him and help him to receive the blessings of the gospel in his life.

We had a half mission Christmas Conference on Friday, it was so good!!  I really love seeing all of my missionary friends.  Plus there was some great insight that was given and there was an amazing Christmas program as well.  In the program, there were so many amazing musical numbers and I have realized that I absolutely love music!  Like so much!  I honestly feel the Spirit with good uplifting music.  President Smith sang and played the guitar for the song "Little Drummer Boy" and it was incredible, it is now my new favorite song because I now understand the meaning of it and I love it!!  One cool insight I gained from the conference was something that President Smith said, "It doesn't matter how bad life is, or how hard it rains, The Book of Mormon is still true, and Joseph Smith still saw God the Father and Jesus Christ, and nothing will ever change that!"

I love you guys so much and I am so thankful for all of the support that you have given me and all of the wonderful letters and packages.  I am so thankful for my Heavenly Father who loved me enough to sacrifice his only begotten Son, so that I can become clean, become stronger, and return to live with Him again.

Keep on keepin on and enjoy your week!

 

-Elder Skippy

 

 

Out With The Old, In WIth The New

Wow, this week has been so crazy! We spent most of the beginning of the week saying goodbye to all the people that Elder Abrams has come to love so much. He was here for 2 weeks shy of a year, so he got very close with a lot of people and they loved him so much too. Hopefully by the time I leave here, I will have made some great friendships, because this place is great! The ward is honestly amazing!! It is the most missionary minded ward that I have ever seen and everyone loves the missionaries. We are very fortunate and get fed just about every day, we have lots of members that are always telling us about their friends that they are trying to share the gospel with; I really hope to be a great member missionary when I get home and share this amazing gospel and it's blessings with my friends. 

The rest of the week was just craziness! I got my new companion, Elder Burch, he is such a stud! He and I are getting along so well, it's awesome! He is very mature and has so much wisdom, so I am really excited to learn from him; I feel like I already have learned a lot! Since we moved into a new apartment, we had to clean it up #eldersaremessy, and then unpack everything, it was nuts! But now our apartment feels like home, it's great! Honestly, I hate clutter and messiness so much, it stresses me out and makes it so I can't work.

Since Elder Burch and I moved apartments, we also switched our proselyting area from the west side of Lynn Haven to the east, so we basically know nothing about the less actives and investigators in our area... it's really cool though because Elder Burch and I are really having to work together and rely on the Spirit with everything and we feel that the two of us together are going to be able to do great things, so a fresh start is perfect.

One thing that our mission is focusing on is service, and so we have been able to do a lot of cool service projects lately. My favorite one thus far has been going to the Salvation Army to sort our food and gather gifts for children and families that will be going without if it weren't for these amazing donations. While there, I honestly feel so attached to the people that we are getting the things ready for, it makes me love them so much, and I haven't even met them before. It's amazing how service helps invite the Spirit into your life and helps you love people. One thing that I want to do when I get home is to have a monthly service project with my family! Before the mission, I didn't really like service, but now I love it and always want to get out and help people!!

Church this Sunday was absolutely amazing!! The primary got up and sang two Christmas songs, anytime the primary sings, it kills me, they are so cute and so pure, I love it!! Then we had the Richardson family do a musical number, the mom was on the piano, Audrey (16) was singing, and Arlee (return missionary of 2 weeks) was doing sign language, it was AMAZING!! Audrey's voice was incredible, and Arlee put so much passion into the sign language, the spirit was most definitely there! I do know that my Redeemer lives.That brief, sweet sentence does bring such comfort to me, and I wish everyone could have the same knowledge. Who wouldn't want this kind of peace and love in their life?

Now, for the best part of the week, Panama City Beach Sisters had a baptism this Saturday for an absolutely wonderful 72 year old lady named Pamela Hale, it was the MOST powerful baptism that I have ever attended! This sweet lady, is 4ft nothing, is on oxygen, and can hardly walk, but has a Spirit of a giant! We sang two songs at the baptism and she was singing her little heart away, even sang a solo of a song that she created, it was absolutely amazing! This baptism made me think of the parable of the laborers in the vineyard and how the people that came to work in the last hour got paid the same as those who worked all the day long. This experience made me realize that it is never too late to change, it is never too late to accept the Savior's love into your life, you have never gone too far to come back to the fold, our Heavenly Father loves everyone equally and wants them all to come and accept the blessings of the gospel, all it takes is one act of faith, and if you take it, your life will be changed for the better for ever!

I love this gospel, and am so happy that I am out here in Florida serving the Lord, learning and growing, and helping others find what they are searching for. With Christmas being this week, I am especially thankful to my loving Heavenly Father who sent and sacrificed his only begotten Sn, so that we can find true joy and happiness in this life, and eternal life in the world to come. I would encourage y'all to take 10 minutes to just sit and ponder the wonderful gift that our Heavenly Father gave to us, remember the reason for the season.

I love y'all and hope that y'all have a happy Christmas!!

Elder Schipaanboord

3502 N Jenks Ave 

APT 6106 

Panama City, FL 32405

 

 

Transferred

So this week we just had a lot of exchanges, it was a crazy one!  I learned so much though!  Elder Sturdevant is such a stud, he is such a loving, kind, full of joy, and has such a love for the work.  Being with him made me want to be that much better.  No matter what he goes through or what happens to him he always has a smile on his face, it's absolutely amazing!  I also went on one with Elder Gogg and not much happened.  We found out that this lady had been taught before but she was confused on a lot of stuff.  She told us that she thought that God gave Joseph Smith golden dinner plates with writing that was invisible to everyone except Joseph Smith.  We taught her all about The Book of Mormon and what it really is, it was pretty cool, so we are going to start teaching her all the lessons again to make sure she understands it all. Then I got to go with Elder Smith on an exchange, man I love this guy so much!!  He is one of my favorite missionaries ever!  The funny thing is that every where we go people think that we are twins, we basically are, just separated at birth!

We got the call this week about transfers and Elder Abrams is being transferred to Tallahassee, while I am staying here and my new companion is Elder Burch!!  I served with Elder Burch over in Crestview, so I am super excited!!  He is 26 years old and a very very consecrated missionary, so there is going to be a lot of growth and learning, as well as miracles, I am so excited!  Sadly, Elder Smith is leaving, I love him so much,  hopefully we will be able to see each other again, and maybe be companions!  But he is going to train in Crestview, so after the mission, we will be able to come back together and visit 2 of the same places!!!  Even though that I'm not getting transferred, I am moving apartments because there are sisters that are coming to Lynn Haven and are taking our apartment, so my new address is  

 

3502 N Jenks Ave APT 6106 

Panama City, FL 32405

The cool thing of the week was that all of the elders were stuck at the church because of tornado warnings, not one touched down but we just hung out the whole time.  While hanging out we came up with a way to be more obedient with our language and music, so we made a contract.  Our contract said that anyone who doesn't call people by their correct title (elder, sister, brother, president, bishop) or if you use a swear word, or a replacement word, we have to do 10 push ups, let's just say that we are getting pretty big chest muscles.... its crazy how these things have just become part of our nature, so I am really glad that we are stopping this, and it has helped out so much!!  I love it!

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

Elder Schipaanboord

 

 

 

Light The World!

WOW, its December already!?  Here in the 850 it is just now starting to look like the beginning of fall, it's so weird!  We still use the air conditioner sometimes hahaha, sorry(; but I actually really do miss the snow so much!  The Christmas season isn't complete unless you have snow.  This year for Christmas, the church has put out another amazing video to help us become better individuals, it's called "Light the World."  The big push this year is for service and because the Savior served and was an amazing person, we can too!  I know that every time that I turn outwards, take a few minutes of my day and serve those around me, I am filled with so much love and joy and that is all that our Heavenly Father wants for each of us.  I encourage all of you to go to mormon.org and check out the video and Light the World with the Savior's light and be filled with his light in return!

We had a second MLC this transfer, which is crazy because it was all the way in Crestview again, so we used so many miles (miles are the most annoying thing as a missionary, and especially a zone leader, cause everyone is always wanting more, but we only get so many as a zone)!  But it was a great meeting and well worth the time and miles, plus I was back in the view, aka Zion!  This MLC was focused a ton on the white hand book.  As missionaries we are to read 3 pages from the white handbook every day, but hardly anyone really understands what they read because it's just a habit now, so they shared a scripture that put things into perspective for us.

 

 "And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture,  

shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord,  

shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation." 

 

So the white hand book is basically scripture that we should be reading and studying so we can become better and more obedient missionaries.  Every time that I go to a zone meeting, or a MLC ,or whatever, I always get a little glimpse of this amazing missionary that I can and want to become, it's awesome how much the spirit can teach you if you are willing to learn.

Sisters, can i just say something? y'all are amazing!  Elder Abrams and I had the opportunity to teach in Relief Society on Sunday, which was pretty strange being the only guys in a room full of 30 women, but it was AMAZING! we were able to teach about #LIGHTtheWORLD and were fortunate enough to feel of their sweet and tender spirits!  Everyone always talked about how amazing the sisters in the church are but I never fully grasped that until I was able to stand in front of them and hear all of their incredible comments and testimonies.  Thank you sisters for all that you do and the spirit and light and love that you emulate, it doesn't go unnoticed!  I am convinced that the number one thing that my wife must have is a firm testimony in the restored gospel and an understanding of how it can bless our lives, beauty will fade, and personalities will change over time, but one thing that will stay constant is a testimony of the savior.

So funny story from church yesterday.  We had this guy in our ward get up to bare his testimony, and all he talked about was how the scriptures say not to celebrate pagan holidays (because they don't focus enough on the Savior) and to keep the feasts of the old testament, so he testified of how not celebrating Easter and Christmas has blessed his life.  He then proceeded to say " Don't get offended if you say 'Happy Christmas' and I respond with 'Happy Hanukkah.'"  It was so awkward, but funny at the same time; I am just thankful that no investigators where there, that could've been bad.  Now, for the ironic part, later in the evening the church had their world wide CHRISTMAS devotional and talked about how we need to celebrate CHRISTMAS and how it is a time to remember the Savior and feel of His light and love in our lives.

I love the Christmas season and am so happy to be serving my God, especially at this time of the year.  Even though the work is really slow right now, I am so happy!  Mosiah 2:40-41 is such a true principle!  I love y'all and hope y'all have a great week!!

Elder Schipaanboord