11/25/09

Happy Thanksgiving!

I would just like to start out by wishing everyone reading this a happy thanksgiving! I love you all!

So this past week was pretty sweet! It absolutely flew by! Honestly... I really cant remember anything before this past sunday! haha so anyways...

Sunday:
Was great! We had a bunch of investigators at church! Score! Also, the bishop was super happy because we had 101 people in the sacrament meeting. Its pretty much the first time that there has been more than 100 people there! So the ward is growing, and everyone is loving it! Then after church we went to a members house for lunch, and he lives in a Chácara (SHACK-a-duh) It is a house thats super rich out in the middle of nowhere in the countryside. It was so sweet! He had a little pond in his back yard and the food was amazing!

Monday and Tuesday:
So our family that is getting baptized this weekend needed to get there interviews by the zone leaders. So we did a 2 day division and I went to Sorocabba and one of the zone leaders came to São Roque. It was super fun! I spent the two days with Elder D. Gonçalves, he is a Brazilian and he is sooo funny! We had a blast together! There was this one lady that was one of their investigators that was begging me to bring her to the US because she hates brazil and she thinks her life would be so much better in America. She was so nuts. She knew how to talk! Ive never seen anything like it before in my life! Seriously she just talked and talk and talked and talked. and then we got about 2 minutes of our message in and then she started talking and talking and talking again! It was amazingly frustrating! haha

Today:
We woke up at 4:30 so that we could catch the bus to São Paulo. We went to the temple, which was awesome! Its always a treat to get to go to the temple and relax from all the cares of the world.

Afterwards we went to a mall that is across the street and got some lunch and milkshakes! Then at 230 we started our journey back to Sâo Roque which included an hour and a half non airconditioned bus to Sorocabba, once we got there we waited over an hour to catch our bus to Sao Roque, which is another hour bus ride. Then we got to our house and dropped off our stuff and sat on the floor to try and cool off for a minute, and we took the beautiful picture that I sent to my mom, and she will graciously put on my blog.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are super excited, because we are going to a families house to eat thanksgiving dinner. They dont celebrate thanksgiving here, but this family is going to make us a feast! Im so excited! Its the same house that we went to that one day to learn how to make Brazilian Stroganoffe. So dont worry, my belly will be fat tommorrow!!!

Thank you for all the love and support! I love you all!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Elder Schoen

11/18/09

JD is sitting next to Elder Richard G. Scott

Hey Everyone,

So this week was... slow. Not really anything happened. So sorry this email is going to be so short.

Umm so we have a mission rule that at all times we have to have a book of mormon in our hands. So we all have little plastic folders that we keep the book of mormons in to protect it from the rain. And also in it I kept a picture of the family and that map of the US that you sent so I could show people my family and where I lived. Brazilians love that kinda stuff. Also it has some other important papers and some reciepts and things of that nature. We call it our wife because it is always with us... Unfortunatly I lost my wife this week. We were in Sorocaba and I left it on the bus. Which is terribly unfortunate. But oh well.

Thats not all. Also each compaionship has a cell phone, which is pretty much our life, because we have to use it to call the other missionaries to report the numbers, and we need it to call the members and our investiagators to comfirm appointments and what not. .. so anyways, last week we got of the bus and Elder Briggs was like OH CRAP! ...The cell phone fell out of his pocket on the bus. We waited for the bus to come back after doing its round and the phone wasn't on the bus. So we ran to a members house and called it, but it was already off... someone took it.

Then last night Elder Briggs lost his wife with had the remaineder of all the important papers that we own.

So as of right now me and elder briggs are without wives and without a cell phone.

São Roque is a really lonely place right now. It feels like were on an island in the middle of nowhere.

But other than that everything is going great!

Thanks for all you love and support!

Love
Elder Schoen

The mail is suddenly incredibly slow to Sao Paulo.  I mailed a box on October 13th and it still has not gone through customs.  Before it took 3 weeks.  I am worried he will not get the Christmas boxes in time - so please pray for the mail to Brazil!!

11/11/09

Sorry this is late ( mom error)

Hello!

So this week was super fun, and went by soooo fast!

To start off we had some baptisms this saturday which was way way awesome and a ton of members from the ward showed up to watch. And on sunday we had a ton of investigators come to church! It was awesome, but super hectic!

Today was an awesome change of pace! Last night after we got done with all our lessons we went to Sorocaba, and spent the night at the zone leaders house, because there was a huge activity today for all the missionaries in Sorocaba and the surrounding cities. We played soccer, which I found out, that im not very good at... and Brazillians are AMAZING! Its pretty much the only sport that any of them play so they are super super good! All the chappels here are super nice and have quadras. Which are finced in, concrete soccer fields. Apperently its a super big missionary tool, because they always get nonmembers to come and play! But anyways, im going to need to practice so that I dont feel like such an idiot! But it was still super fun! We got sunburned, which is unfortunant becasue my collar is rubbing against my sunburned neck right now! But after playing soccer for 3 hours we had a BBQ, brazilian stlye. It was sooo good! It was just a super nice break to get to hang out with a buch of missionaries for our P-Day.

Yesterday we painted a members house for a service project. We brought our cameras and were going to take pictures but we got alittle too into painting and forgot that we had brought our cameras, so I dont have any pictures of that. Sorry.

It is soooo Hot here! Im getting pretty tan, and Im develoiping an incredible watch tan! Im pretty proud of it!

Other than that things are going great here! Friday is zone conference which im so excited for, because I will have letters and that package waiting for me! YES!

Thank you for all your love and support!
Elder Schoen

So I asked JD if I should send him some shin guards.  He said no one wears them.  I suggested that he could be the first. Not so much :)

11/4/09

Of course JD found a drum set!!

Happy Halloween!!

Hello!

I hope everyone had a great Halloween! Me and Elder Briggs celebrated by dressing up as each other for the day. We just switched name tags. Then when we got back to the house that night we ate a bunch of the candy that you sent in the package I got 2 weeks ago ( thanks mom ).

This past week was HOT.

Really cool spiritual experience....
So like 2 weeks ago, we did a division because the person we were baptizing needed to be interviewed by our Zone Leader. So, I stayed in Sao Roque and one of the Zone Leaders came here. After the interview we went to a new investigators house, it was a reference of a member. She is 28 and when we got there she was laying in bed and couldn't even move...she is very sick. So, we offered to give her a priesthood blessing and it was way spiritual. She was crying. Then we taught the 1st lesson about the restoration and we focused on the fact that she is a daughter of God and her Heavenly Father loves her, we explained that because of the atonement, Jesus Christ knew exactly what she was going through and what she was feeling. We were all crying and it was just way spiritual.
So we came back to teach the 2nd lesson this past week. She told us that the day after we gave the blessing she was way worse and was in so much pain, but the following day she started to feel better. Each day she got better and better. She then told us that during that week she went to the doctors for the check up and the doctor couldn't find the thing that had been causing her to be so sick. It was GONE!!
I just want to let you know , that I know, for a fact, with all my heart that the power of the Priesthood is real. That we really do have the power and authority to act in Gods name and do miracles. Through the Priesthood this young mom was healed!!

So that pretty much was the highlight of the week, but we are also way excited becuase we are going to have another baptism this weekend. Its 2 boys that are 12 and 13, they are the sons of a less active member.

I also want to thank you for sending all that gum in the package. We are teaching this lady who is 26 and divorced and has 2 boys, 6 and 3 years old. Before we started teaching her she was smoking 2 packs a day, she has practically stopped now. I gave her all that gum you sent me and it helped a lot!! So I was wondering if you could send just a ton of gum?? It helps a lot, because it is something else to be addicted to and its all fancy and imported. Thanks:)

Random... We were walking down the street and this like 12 year old boy ran up to me with a piece of paper and a pen and asked for my autograph, so I signed it. It was so random! haha

but things here are going great. Just super super busy, but we are loving it!!

Thanks for all the love and support!
Love,
Elder Schoen

wish list for elder schoen

To all Elder Schoen's fans:

I have asked him for a wish list for Christmas and his response was a few small items we have taken care of but I need your help with his biggest request:

PICTURES!!

That is really his only request. We are working on a new camera for our family since ours went to Brazil. So if you have pictures from recent events and would not mind printing and sending them that would be great!! Just regular 4x6 prints are great.

Thank you so much for your love and support!!
Kaelene Schoen