11/8/2010

Hey!

Well today I officially hit 1 year and 4 months on the mission! WOW! Its going by really fast... Like really really fast!

This week something really really funny happened... So we started a new program to get references from members. We asked the bishop to pray and choose a family of the ward for us to work with. So he did that and last week we went to the family's house and we left a message with them. Now the purpose of this lesson is to have to spirit really strong and then have them start writing a list of all the people that they want to bring into the gospel. So we did this and it was awesome! So spiritual and they started writing names. They took and hour. And when they finished we counted, they listed 254 names. We were freaking out! Usually when other missionaries had done this in the past they only get like 20-50 names. So we went home with the list, and we were soooo happy! And we started looking at the list and about half the names are members of our ward!!! haha we were just like freak! You got the be kidding me, so obviously they didn't understand. But we thought well that leaves about 150, so that's still alot. So 2 days ago we went there with he list to choose the first people that we would start working with and the dad of the family was like " Elders I just want to thank you for the spiritual experience that we had together, it really helped our family realize the importance of doing work for our ancestors that have already passed away." And me and my companion looked at each other and then at the family and we were like, "wait, what? How?" And then he went on to explain the most of the names on the list were people that already passed away! Once again, we were like FREAK! You got to be kidding me! So we asked him to put a check mark next to the people on the list that are living, and not members of the church, and live in our area... He only marked 5!!! haha I was so frustrated! But then me and my companion were thinking when we got home and realized that this activity that we did wasn't exactly to help out the missionary work, but to help this family realize the importance of doing family history work and going to the temple. Its amazing how God works! haha I'm just happy that I could be a tool in the hands of the lord to help out that family.

Love you all!
Elder Schoen