November 17, 2014 - Surgery, Book of Mormon and Zumba.

What's up family. 

This week, ah this week, haha, man what can I say. I have been out on my mission for a while and this week wasn't the funnest. Haha due to the surgery I had on Tuesday. But still there was a lot of things learned, Miracles seen, and progress with some awesome investigators. 

     

Ok, so let's just start this out! Tuesday morning rolls up and we head out to the hospital at 8am to check in by 8:30. We get in there by 10:30am in the little bed thingy and got my first IV ever...I almost passed out. Haha, then they wheeled me into the surgical room and said. "OK, we are going to give you your cocktail now." I had no idea what that meant. So I asked, what it meant. They asked if I have ever been "tipsy" or drunk on alcohol, I responded and said..."claro que NO!" They seemed set back and they took the syringe and injected some gnarly clear serum into my vain and asked how I felt...it did nothing. They were surprised and then loaded me up with another full syringe. Then...about 10 seconds later all the lights went spinning and I felt great. I couldn't control my eyes and I started to say something...and boom I fell under...knocked out asleep. Cool. 

    

2 hours later I wake up and my butt was stinging with pain. Haha, only for a minute though. The first thing my body registered was the pain, but it went right away by itself. I chilled in the recovery room for a bit, and got out of there at about 3pm, went and got some Chipotle and then bed rest began...just for that night :) hahaha

   

The members of the ward are way too nice. Seriously, they did so much and they gave us so much food. haha, I got to read in the Book of Mormon a lot. I'm reading it in Spanish in 60 days again. So that's cool! I'm getting so much out of it. I was reading through Enos and Jarom and Omni and I always wonder about the art when Jarom says, "What more could I write then my fathers have written? He talks about how he had HIS revelations and stuff, what where they? I wish he would have at least written his testimony! The Book of Mormon is sooo true! 

Wednesday we had specialized training and and we had to give a training to 4 zones. It was good and I was feeling fly haha. Like after the surgery I was feeling great! The only pain was to sit. So sitting in the pews of church for 4 hours was not the most comfortable thing. haha. We made it though. And then the next day we had District Meeting! It was super good and we learned about how to be bold with our companions. Whahhh?? Dang! 

    

Later on in the week, we had a great time with our investigators again at the Zumba studio. They teach a MMA class at the studio on Saturday mornings and then we teach them the gospel after! We got some of our youth to go and start going to the MMA classes, it was funny to watch! haha Didn't fight...not allowed for us! Then we had an awesome lesson of the Word of Wisdom and the 10 Commandments, they all came to church the next day. 

   

My companion only has 4 weeks left, haha it's crazy! But we are working super hard and I'm ready to go! La Familia that we are teaching is la familia Quintero! Pray for them if you would desire. I want them to get baptized so bad, the ward is doing so well to help! They go to those MMA classes, the son is in Boy Scouts, they have a Family Home Evening on Saturday with a family in the ward this week. Cool! 

Have a great week!

Elder Schooff 

November 10, 2014 - El Dia do Los Muertos, Exchanges y Church Services and GUNS.

Hello, hello. 

Que Dice familia, Que milanesas que no visteses? Bien. 

Well, this week was pretty much one of the most busy times I could get. I remember looking at the clock every morning right at 11am when we head out and saying, "How are we going to fit all that we have to do today in by 9pm?" It was una locura. 

   

Tuesday we we able to help the family that we teach with some service, instead of eating dinner went to go help her decorate her Zumba Studio with decorations for a huge zumba party that they would have that night. For the Day of the Dead, peeps were all dressed up in crazy outfits and doing Zumba, funny thing to see! I love the Hispanic Culture. It was good to help and build a strong relationship with the family, they came to church again this week making it the 4th time. How cool! They are in line to get baptized soon. 

   

Later in the week I had my doctor's appointment to do some lab work before I have surgery. I got my blood drawn for the first time ever. I was so proud of myself ;) haha. I have Surgery tomorrow and I'll let you know how it all went next week! I'm nervous but excited! haha. Trasero Trasero...

   

Later in the week we had one of the busiest exchanges of my mission. It was insane. Recently I have been praying that I can be better an dealing with problems that needed to be attended to without getting stressed out about it. This exchange was the Lord trying me on my desire haha. I was with a brand new elder and I wanted the exchange to impact him for the rest of his mission.  Everything that could have gone wrong in the Zone went wrong. haha And I had to deal with it all. We were running around all over LB to deal with other elders with matters (I wish I could explain all to you but I can't) and still get to set lessons and then get to baptisms and man it was sooo much! But it was such a blessing, I can't explain to you the whole time I just had this sense of happiness behind it all, I LOVE to help others that I love. At about 5:30 at night we had to run the the church building to fill the font and then book it back up to Paramount to have a lesson at 6. Then back down to the church at 7 for the baptism. Then back up to a lesson in the nighttime and then back down to exchange back. Time was a tool we had to use, not a crutch. in the confusion of all things we got to sit down for a quick lesson at 6 with our investigator Tony and we watched some Mormon Messages on his request. We watched "What Matters Most" and I was about in tears by the end. I love that message, to just rejoice in life and not get overwhelmed but realize the small things. As Pres Uchtdorf said, "We would do well to slow down a little, focus of the significant, lift up our eyes and truly see the things that matter most!" Watching that I was so happy, I felt like I handled the whole day super well and I was proud of myself for being in that uplifting mood the whole day. I truly saw what mattered most, cool! 

   

We got to do service as a whole zone this week, it was actually 2 zones the LBS and the LBN zone all together. so a total of 32 missionaries. We all got to help clear out and clean up an old Methodist church here in LB. The church was beautiful and I loved the service. Here in LB religion is not the most important thing on peoples' minds. But, with people who really are; they are all so united in faith. It was so humbling to see two faiths come together to help one another. The day consisted of clearing out old furniture, paining. smashing old furniture, mopping and sweeping and eating! It was a Samoan Methodist church, so of course there was food :) haha. 

   

Later in the week after finally all was done my companion and I finally had some time to work, he and I. We went out and hit the pavement hard. Talking to everyone we saw. We went to our favorite trailer park and saw a pretty sketchy person just chilling with his hood up looking for trouble, standing on post behind his fence. So naturally we go and talk to him (talk to everyone right?). We get to talking and he starts tripping out. Just so stressed out, freaking about telling us how people are looking for him and he is looking for some crazy people. We get to talking and we asked where he thinks he is going after this life, he told us... straight to hell. It was sad to hear. So we asked if we could share with him a way to change that. With tears in his eyes, he says and yes, but he said he wanted to be appropriately behaved while talking about God. So he pulls out a gun out of his pocket and says "Let me just put this away right quick so I can listen." He put it on the side of the fence. We taught a lesson and committed him to get baptized. Wow. We will see what happens. Cool miracle.  

   

In all I'm sooo happy, these days are truly some of the most rewarding days of my mission. I'm grateful for every moment where it's just jam packed.  i love y'all and I'll see you soon. 

Elder Schooff 

November 3, 2014 - Modismos, Halloween and Emergency Meetings that Matter

Hello Family! 

This week was a very very unique time for us, everything is changing here so I'll do my best to explain. 

This week, was Halloween and there was tons and tons of meetings for us. With District Meeting, Zone Conferences, Interviews and MLC it was a battle to work! But all these meetings lead to an understanding that we need a change. 

    

Halloween in The Long Beach CA mission means from 6 to 9 you stay in and deep, deep clean your apartment. Kind of of a joy-kill but always a need. The whole day of Halloween we had MLC, which is where all the Zone Leaders and the STLs and the APs and President and his wife all get together and discuss what the mission needs. It's a meeting that lasts from 10am to 5pm. A long time of pure spiritual awesomeness. Usually when we go to those meetings its a lot of trainings that are given or we give to others. Stuff that we think we need to have worked on in the mission. 

This time was totally different. 

It started out normal with the usual training. Right after the first training, it was time to make and set goals for the mission. We usually push up the number of certain key indicators that we focus on, but this time...none of us were feeling it. There was no spirit behind it...we all knew that there was some things that really really needed to change in the mission. None of us were having it with the goals that we have set and we wanted a new start. A blank page you could say. So President being the amazing man that he is, took the whole agenda of the MLC and threw it away and for the whole day we discussed and came up with the fact that the mission is lacking faith, and we need to bring it back up. But how? That's what we talked about. After all was said and discussed, with so many true firm testimonies shared and tears cried and ideas on the table. We knew we could change the mission, together. We came up with 3 main things that the whole mission will together. 

1. We will all read the Book of Mormon all together by Dec 31st. The whole mission, how cool is that??? 

2. We are going to pray every single missionary at 6:30am and 10:00pm for a specific purpose to have out eyes opened to the miracles around us. 

3. We are going to write down EVERY NIGHT the miracles that we saw in a journal. 

How cool is all this? The whole mission will grow so much faith. Along with that, there are things that we are needed to do as the Zone Leaders. President wants all us of to talk to all the Elders in our Zone one on one. To get to know them and help them establish visions they have individually to help the whole mission grow. It's an ingenious way of approach. We individually work together to grow the Work of the Lord. We are now focusing completely on new goals, usually we were focusing on finding and member present lessons, now that's not a focus, we know now that importance of it. We are now shooting high for investigators with a baptism date, investigators at church and progressing investigators. These 3 key indicators are what really shows if someone is truly ready and wanting to be baptized. We also set an AWESOME new goal for how many baptisms we need to have for the end of the year. 60 days. 

President did not want this new revelation for the mission to wait to be heard. So he did emergency Zone Meetings, from 6-8pm we would clean the apartments but from 8-9pm we would get the zone together and announce the new Culture of the Mission. Before we got the whole zone together we went and bought little journals for all the missionaries in our zone so they could have an official miracle journal. We called them up and told them to meet at the church at 8. Everyone was freaking out and wondering what was going on. Everyone thought it was iPads. HA! Yeah right. So at 8pm we started the meeting. The same feeling that was there in the MLC was there in that emergency meeting on Halloween night at 8pm. The Elders in the zone are just awesome. I love them all so much and I loved to see their faith just increase so fast. They are all pumped! We got to sit down with them and really help them out! 

I wish y'all could have seen all the elders at church this week ready the Book of Mormon so much. It was great. 

Overall this mission is going to change so much. Elder Calle and I really wanted to be an example since Friday the Lord blessed and we got to find 5 new investigators and set baptismal dates with 6 people! How cool! We had a bunch of people come to church too!

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

Elder Schooff 

October 27, 2014 - Zumba, Birthdays and Contacting

Hello! 

Ok, I'm going to crank this out! Here we go! 

This week was great, so so much stuff was done it was ridiculous. With exchanges and all the craziness that is going on. It's hard to all put in words. 

Well this week we had two exchanges, the first one I went to Samoan land again, and fortunately we didnt have a dinner! Haha, it was a great exchange. That area was suffering hardcore, they work off pure member referrals and they haven't found in a good 4 months...We started out the exchange with a prayer asking for help! And boom 1 hour later we found 2 new Samoan investigators! They are awesome. Sometimes I wonder how the Lord blesses so much. Crazy. While I was on exchanges in that area, my companion Elder Calle, he found 10 new investigators in one exchange. It was insane! That kid is an animal. haha, I love him! 

On the other exchange I was with a younger who is a superstar! He is a boss, and we stayed in my area. We switched right before dinner and we wanted to have a killer time. So we said a prayer and asked God to bless us with "unique' success. That is could be more that just something that is a cool pump up for us, but more so for a real soul to save. We told ourselves that we were going to contact every person we saw. EVERYONE! We went ham, and finally got the the house we were trying to get to (a member referral). We knock on the door and a man shouts out of the the unlit, dark house, "si...diga, DIGA!" which means, Say it, SAY IT! I think we woke him up, so we asked him where the member referral lives and left. As we were walking away we had a little scolding in our head, we just said that we would talk to everyone and we didn't present ourselves to that man in the dark doorway. So we went back and knocked on his door to tell him who we were! He stood up and came to the door we asked if he had about 20 min where we could introduce ourselves and the next thing we knew..we taught a whole lesson and set a baptism date with him. But that's just part of the miracle. We then proceed to leave and ask him if he knew where the woman lived that we were looking for (the member referral) and he pointed to the house next door. So we passed by and knocked on the door. It was not the member referral but it was another golden person ready for the gospel! Turns out, it was a whole other family ready for the gospel. We got to sit down with the whole family and teach them. Right now at this time we are teaching two whole families the lessons. And one of them came to church! It was the 2nd week they came too! I love talking to people! I feel like the Lord is making sure I think of nothing else but missionary work and that's why we have to much success right now! haha

The other family we are teaching is La Familia Quintero.  They are awesome, (I think I wrote about them last week, not sure though). They own a Zumba studio and it's sick! The husband is a pro MMA fighter and she is a Zumba Teacher and they have 4 kids. The husband is already a member and he gave us the referral to teach the family. We do the lessons in the Zumba Studio and it's sick! They are all so prepared. Of course there are obstacles for all of us, but they are doing their best to overcome them! They are so so ready for this gospel.  We taught the Plan of Salvation on Saturday and they all got to come to church on Sunday for the 2nd time. It's pretty gnarly and we didn't know, but right after the lesson they went to Kohls and bought all white shirts and ties for all kids and a dress for the little daughter. So cool! That just shows you that they want to be there and it was perfect because yesterday was the primary program and her kids got to sit up on the stage and sing! The ward is doing great helping out! 

Well, today is Mom's bday! If I am right she would have been 52 I believe. I love my mom and it was a cool experience being able to bear my testimony that the Plan of Salvation is true. I was able to tell the Quinteros that my mom had passed away but I know she is in a good place in the spirit world! i love that, I love to know that she is ok! I have learned that it's ok not to know everything in the gospel. But to just trust for more knowledge to come. So happy Bday mom! 

I love you all and one day I'll see you soon! 

Elder Schooff 

October 20, 2014 - Court, Gang Members, Fires and 93 year olds.

Hello family. 

    This week was an unusual one that's for sure. Haha, there was a lot of just crazy things that happened. So, I'll do my best to describe the madness! haha

    This week started out great and we got to help out some elders in our zone with an emergency exchange for the night. It was a great time to really trust in the Lord and the calling that he has given to us as leaders.

    Our recent convert Bianca from Honduras had to go to court this week to see if she would get sent back to her country. (I don't know if i have told the story of her so I'll just summarize right quick.) She fled from the Honduras because of the wars and some gang was try to hunt her and her family, she basically hitch-hiked, walked and swam to America....crazy story and I respect her a lot. The ward has been helping her out like crazy and 2 members went with her to court to help her out. Many members prayed and fasted for her and in the end all is well! She has permission to stay here and try to get her life in order! We are super happy for her and her progression is the gospel! Everything is picking up for her! 

     Also...we found a whole family that we are teaching! It's awesome, I love to see families all come together and listen to the gospel. They all came to church this last week and LOVED it. We have some really good plans to keep them coming and soon to get baptized! I love my mission. 

     One night this week, we were out with a member. We just got done with some good lessons and then we were walking back to his house where our car was parked. Out of nowhere he asks, "Elders can you guys teach my neighbor?" ....We looked at him dumbfounded and said YES! So we went by right then and there! We get into the house and it was explained to us that Tony, his neighbor talked to missionaries a long time ago and has wanted to start talking to us again. As we started the lesson we ask if there is anyone else in the house that he would like to invite in and hear our message (Preach My Gospel! love it). Right then, this straight hood gangsta walks out of the bathroom. He looked like he was ready to bust my head off. haha, Tony looked at him and told him to come listen and hear us out. He comes and sits down, and man, this guy was the nicest guy you could ever meet. Just a pure heart that was taken to wrong places. He just got out of jail 2 weeks ago and was in there for...well...some good time. And he is doing everything he can to try to stay off the streets and change his lifestyle around. As we explained to him baptism, he loved the idea. He uttered to us that he has so much guilt but feels like he can never be forgiven, We told him he could be. and set a baptism date! He is Samoan so we passed him over to the Samoan elders. And he totally will progress. He said the closing prayer and I learned a lot from his prayer. Opening the prayer he cried and said "Father I ask that you forgive me of my sins I know of and the ones I don't know of, help me be better," soooo powerful! That night was awing. 

     Later on that night we were driving home and we saw some chamacos (punk teen kids) start a fire behind a liquor store...so naturally we stopped and....took pictures! haha, no jk..we and some others called the cops to stop it. But yeah...we totally took pics too. haha 

    This week as well, I went on exchanges with a DL down in Downtown LB...sickest area ever! so cool and populated. We were just biking right next to the ocean. Too cool!  We have some great elders here in LBN. 

     At the end of the week we went to the trailer park to contact some of our INVs and invite them to church. As we were leaving, Elder Calle did one of the funniest but inspired contacts ever. We told ourselves that we would talk to everyone in that park and not let one person pass us. We started to leave near the end and started to talk..and I didn't even notice but we passed this old lady. We get about 10 feet away from her, Elder Calle just drops everything we were saying and RUNs back to her to contact her, yelling, "Hey I'm Mormon, I wanna talk to you!" haha it was so funny. But it was so awesome to see his love for the work. We start talking to her and it truly was inspired. She spoke to missionaries a long time ago and she had been to church multiple times. She used to feed the missionaries almost every week. But she is not a member....so we are going to figure out why! She was just a sweetheart and I loved talking with her. She is 93 years and still kickin' it good!  

     That night as we were driving home Elder Calle and I had an "antitrunky" moment we called it. Where we just saw how much we love our missions and how opportunities like the ones we have here will never happen again! It was such a bittersweet moment to have because we both go home soon...it's hard to accept it sometimes and it doesn't feel real. But we also realize that we have soooo much more time to work for the Lord. We have an extra push in our step now. And you can see the Lord has blessed. Like with that new family that came to church, or so many members coming out with us, or just every moment helping other elders! I love it too much! 

I hope y'all have a great week! 

Elder Schooff   

October 13, 2014 - Blitz, Being Taught and Allergies

Hellooooooo Family! 

How are y'all today? So good to hear. Cool. 

Well, this week is packed and I almost have no time to email due to the holiday. But here we go! 

One, I am staying in LB with Elder Calle! We are sooo pumped and it's going to be fun, we have a stacked zone this upcoming 7 week transfer with some really really good elders coming in. What's crazy is that Elder Calle and I came out in the mission together. We are the same age. But now he has to go home a bit early to get up to college, so this is his last transfer. I'm killing someone that is the same age as me in the mission. Uhhhh! Crazy. We are going to work hard! We have some great zone goals and visions coming up! 

This week we had a really good lesson with our Recent Convert, again, she is the most solid member ever. She does not give up or give in to anything. We have taught her everything and now...she is teaching us! haha, We told her to prepare a lesson to teach us about the importance of reading the scriptures. It was a very good lesson! It actually got pretty deep too! haha, But she really had a great lesson plan for her and we are on it to try to get her a Preach My Gospel so she can start to come out with us and teach other people too! I love recent converts! 

We had a really cool miracle this week, (what week do we not see miracles??). There was a companionship that is struggling in their area and haven't found in quite a long time. They were feeling pretty discouraged.  As we counseled with their DL on what to do to help, we decided that  a good ol' Blitz was need in their area. This blitz was a little different than normal, we told everyone we were not aloud to stop until we found! We broke it up into areas within the area,  wrote down some formers in the individual areas and we went ham. The elders gave on one street to work on, it was pretty Hispanic and we knew we could find!....So we started out. We parked the car and started walking down the street. But we felt, "incomplete" and we knew we need to be guided by the Spirit and the way to get the Spirit is through prayer. So we prayed to be guided by the Spirit.

We started walking down the street and were contacting everyone we saw. All people were rejecting us. So we went to the first former and they were not there. Now, I'm not the one to knock. But in  a struggling area, sometimes it's the best to do. We looked around and we saw a door asked God if it was right and knocked on it. A young man walks out and has about 0% interest in what we were saying so we ask him who he would now that would. haha, He gave us a half hearted answer saying, "I'll go get my mom." Let me tell you, the mother, or Beatriz, was the most prepared person we could have taught in that blitz. We sat down with her and had one of thee most powerful 1st lessons ever, by the end of it she was crying asking to get baptized. I KNOW the Lord answers prayers. If there is one thing I have learned on my mission, it is that. He will lead every time in the right direction if it is aligned with His will. I have learned that faith is number one in the gospel of Jesus Christ for a reason. "In the gospel of Jesus Christ fear is the opposite of faith. If you have fear, faith diminishes. But if you have faith, fear diminishes." I know that is true.

Speaking of faith, I'm allergic to Green Tomatoes. haha, And when I eat them my lips swell and I get a massive headache and if it's a lot....throw up! Cooool. Well this week we ate with someone and gave us posole (some awesome soup). It was chalk full of Green Tomatoes. My comp told the family and they looked at me and said "Elder, tenga fe, coma la comida." So we said a prayer and put special blessings on me and I swallowed up my fear and ate. Yeah, I thought it was crazy...but hey! Nothing happened. I think it was the faith of the family more than mine :) haha.     

    

Well family! Have a great week! 

Elder Schooff 

October 7, 2014 - Weaknesses, Illegal Plants and Prophets Inbox x

In Long Beach we see so many things that only would be here in the good ol' CALB mission. People fighting, getting high, dancing and driving crazy. It makes me love the gospel so much more haha. 

    

This week, for an example, we were meeting with one of our INV's who is pretty solid and we have gotten pretty well along with her. She is pretty solid just with a "few rough edges" that could hold her back. We went to her house this week and had a great lessons and even picked up her children as INVs too. In the middle of the lesson, we kept getting a big nasty whiff of the smell of Marijuana. I mean, you smell it from left to right here, but this time it was a little stronger smell. We look out her window and we see her husband chilling there picking some weed off his like 5 foot tall marijuana plant. We were dumbfounded to say the least. We walked by that bush a good 10 times before even thinking about what it could be. Asking why they had it reminded me of home in Colorado..."Medical purposes" they said, haha get it? haha...ha..ha. After we saw that the spirit kinda died out and left, so we did too. If the spirit isn't there, we should never teach. It was a unique experience and it really showed me how crazy Babylonian this place can be sometimes. I wasn't called to South America to Baptize hundreds of people, I wasn't called to Japan to help build the church in a new culture, I wasn't called to Russia to endure cold and test my patience. But I was called to California, but not just that. Southern California, AKA where people live "of the world". Where I was called to find the few who search to live in this world...but not of it. It's crazy to see how people can be so addicted to something and not even know it. I heard once, "that any addiction that takes our right to choose for ourselves is against the Word of Wisdom." I agree with that. I am grateful for the those few people that are earnestly searching for the truth of how to be free. It's so funny to me to see that people think that commandments such as the Word of Wisdom which prohibits us from smoking, drinking, and using illegal substances and coffee and tea are things that "tie us down". But as it says in Helaman, 

 

7 Oh, that I could have had my days in the days when my father Nephi first came out of the land of Jerusalem, that I could have joyed with him in the promised land; then were his people easy to be entreated, firm to keep the commandments of God, and slow to be led to do iniquity; and they were quick to hearken unto the words of the Lord—

The commandments of God bring us joy, but we have to experiment upon it, in other words...try it out! I have a firm testimony that God won't give a full answer if we don't put our full hearts into it. I believe that God loves and he protects us not restricts us at all. Naturally, I took a picture with me and the nasty plant....haha. 

      

On another note about the Word of Wisdom; I have run over 100 miles now of my cool little watch that I got. I LOVE to run, I love the feeling you get after of just a good old healthy feeling! I will be doing it for the rest of my life now. Cool! 

      

This week, we also had a wonderful lesson with out recent convert Bianca from Honduras. She got baptized last week and she is so solid! sShe will not let anyone take away her faith. I feel like she is going to go far in the gospel. You can tell because she really loves reading the Book of Mormon. It says in Preach my Gospel, "The Book of Mormon, combined with the Spirit, is your most powerful resource in conversion."  She is a clear example to that. We found her a little over 4 weeks ago and she is in Ether 15, basically the end of the Book or Mormon. It's hard to see sometimes because she has no one here in LB, family wise. She has 2 solid friends in the ward and that's about all who can help. And even then, they can't always be with her. One night she had something happen to her and we texted her to read Ether 12:27 so see what can come of her trials and "weak things." We went over there in the night for the lesson and man, she LOVES that verse. She just bore her testimony to us that even though she had no one, she has God and that these trials (weak things). She knows that she will learn from them and (she said) is looking forward to get more trials from God. Talk about mountains to climb! haha. I love the gospel and what is does to us. 

       

Conference was this week, and my last one as a missionary. Seeing that I go home in January I needed this to help me in the last bit of my mission. It's sad to always say "my last this" or "my last that." There are 31 elders and 2 sisters that are going with us...some are leaving in Dec and some in Jan. But in total, about 50 missionaries will be leaving in between the beginning of Dec to the end of Jan. And not even close to that amount coming in. MADNESS. President refers to us as the "goat in the python" one way or another we are all going to leave eventually.  President is dreading it, more than 20 other elders that are going home in my group are or have been APs or Zone Leaders. 

BUT anyways, Conference was great! I LOVED Elder Hales' talk, "Do not fall into Satan's lie that you do not have time to study the scriptures together." BOOM. True! I have a testimony and I know that having FHE and not just personal but family prayer change a kid's life. It changed mine. I know the feelings in the house and in myself were so drastically different when we did it and we did not. If you are not doing it, I advise you to change and do it.  There is no right date or right way or time to start, just do it now. 

       

I love this place, LBN is the most unique places I have served, going to the temple was so great today and I needed it! Every time I go I realize more and more how real God is. Gives me chills. 

I love you all and have a great week! 

Elder Schooff